For some time now, I have been following the career of this
nutty character who calls himself “No Impact Man”. Let me introduce him to you-- in case you have
never heard of him. His name is Colin Beavan. He is the so called “wealth reporter” for
the Wall Street Journal.[1]
Beavan took on the challenge about 5 years
ago of living his life with as little impact as possible…in, of all places, New York City. His wife and young daughter were passengers
on this quixotic voyage, at least for a while, but—big surprise-- Mrs. Bevan jumped
off the train and now calls herself a “Bad No Impacter.” The Beavans no longer live together.
The idea of making no impact on anything is intriguing. You
would have to be nothing and do nothing. You would be like some kind of ephemeral
vapor.How would you distinguish yourself from empty space?
The first thing that strikes me about this is: it is profoundly
un-American.
Most Americans understand that the way to be happy is to
have a big impact on everything and everyone around you. As a nation, we like to have an impact on
foreign countries, preferably with powerful weapons that create shock and awe.
 |
| Result of American Shock and Awe Attack |
As high school and college
students, we Americans know that we should strive to be B.M.O.C.s. In high
school, one needs to bully a few faggots and give them a friendly hair cut now
and then.
After graduation, it
is best to join a big vulture capitalist operation. Get to be the CEO. Make sure you make more money for yourself
than anyone else in the firm or any other firm.
If anyone anywhere makes more money than you do, give yourself a
raise. Make your company too big to fail. Then, when you fail, the poor suckers known as
taxpayers have to bail you out, but you get to keep the money. Now that’s IMPACT.
If anyone gives you any crap about being bailed out, give the government the finger. Tell the government to go
shrink itself (after you get the money, of course.).
Build the biggest
house you can imagine. Drive a big car, the bigger the better. Guzzle gas to
show that you don’t give a flying f- -k about what may be left for the next generation. On second thought, drive several expensive big
cars. Bigger is always better. Take on
big debt. Spend big bucks. Take big systemic risks. Eat big meals. Supersize everything. Get a yacht, the biggest one you can find. Or get several. An airplane or two also.[2]
Making an impact may mean that you impact a lot of people in
a lot of ways. Maybe you can make a big impact on them by firing a bunch of them.
Anyway, you get the idea.
This is the American ideal.
It is how our system works. And it works damn well. No one has to stop
and think about the impact so long as it is BIG. If someone has a bigger [car, house, yacht, etc.]
than you do, you need to get cracking and trade UP! This is how our economy keeps on moving
onwards and upwards. It is what makes us who we are. More consumption. More waste. More GROWTH. [3]
Having no impact would be subversive. It would be profoundly un-American.
Where are the incentives?
That is why this weird Beavan dude is so sick and perverse. His
concept is to put the American Big Impact Idea in reverse and see what happens.
You can check out his ridiculous blog here.
Bevan was trying to fix every so called "problem" created by big
impacters singlehandedly: food system sustainability, climate change, water
scarcity, and materials, energy resource depletion, and blah blah blah. He proclaimed: “I can’t stand my so-called liberal self
sitting around not doing anything about it anymore. The question is: what would
it be like if I took the situation (or at least my tiny part of it) into my own
hands?”
What an ego! Talk about impact!
Beavan ended up polluting the planet with a book, a documentary
film, and a blog with 1.8 million people following it. (This make me a little jealous
because I now have only 1.8 people following my blog.)
Beavan’s personal experiment was to live “producing no trash save for compost,
purchasing no goods except for food grown within a 250-mile radius, using no carbon-based
transportation, and using no paper products, including toilet
paper. “[4] For a close up of how Beavan and his family lived
for a year, check out this article.
This guy is a
menace to the planet. If everyone lived like this, we would be in one Hell of a
mess. Toilet paper companies (and other important Koch Brothers industries) would go bankrupt
overnight, plunging the entire nation into yet another economic catastrophe.
Buy more toilet paper. (Get the
sensitive kind.)
If you are in neighborhood watch and have a concealed weapon, or maybe even an unconcealed weapon, you might
be able to have an even bigger impact.
Warning! This is a certified organic free-range blog.
To comment on this blog, click
on the hyperlink at the bottom that reads “Post a Comment.”
[2] Sadly, this system can go bad rather quickly as indicated in this
article.
[3] In
his book “Richistan,” Robert Frank notes a few kinks in the system. When
one rich person encounters another richer one, it can be very stressful for the
less rich one. Frank explains how depressed one billionaire became after buying
a monster yacht, only to take it to the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show where he had
to park next to an even bigger yacht. It ruined his day. The smaller billionaire, and all the others also, were so worried about who had the bigger yacht that they missed entirely the thousands of newly homeless people only a mile or so away without food
or electricity as a result of the hurricane that wiped out their homes a week
before the show. For a discussion of the book, Richistan, click here.
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