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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, October 27, 2005
Million Dollar Ideas: Personal Tax™
A semi-regular series of "Wouldn't it be great if someone made a business out of ..." concepts.
3. Personal Tax™
Modern consumerism is entirely predicated on the notion that we, the people, prefer to spend our disposable cash on enjoying ourselves and having fine things. This is true only half of the time. The other half, we spend our pocket money on improving ourselves. And what we are discovering time and time again is this: no matter how many ab crunching machines, self-help books or yoga classes we pay for, buying stuff does not automatically improve us. We don't use the machine, read the book or go to the class unless we have the willpower to do so. And if we had willpower, we wouldn't need that stuff anyway. We'd do sit-ups and go for long walks and stretch and meditate for hours and think and talk about our lives until we were at complete peace with ourselves.
Willpower is what we need, not things. Sooner or later, we all figure that out. So how can consumerism get in on the willpower assistance business?
Easy. We are already trained to use our money as our personal scoring system. As much as we might try to deny it, our lizard brains have connected money with survival. We generally react with horror at the thought of having less money and are rewarded with pleasure at the thought of having more. In short, money is the most powerful motivating force the world has ever seen. So instead of fighting that ineluctable fact of modern life, why not work with it?
Picture this: a Paypal-like online system that deducts a pre-planned amount from your bank account every time you do something you don't want yourself to do but find it hard to avoid doing—eating fast food, getting drunk, failing to go for that run. The pre-planned amount would be deducted every week unless you and every person you trusted and empowered as a Fair Witness to your life went to the website, entered their personal PIN number, and answered your own predetermined questions on your behavior. Fair Witness Groups in every neighborhood would be encouraged. Just the thought of having to go and prove to your Fair Witness Group that you'd lost five pounds in the last month, or loose $500, would be enough to motivate most people into working out every day.
Depending on how harsh you want to be on yourself, the money would either be lost forever (given to charity) or put in escrow for a decade (your kid's college fund). Personal Tax™, naturally, would take an imperceptably small cut -- 0.05% or so -- of every transaction. As a company, it would also rule the huge secondary market in getting you set up with the system, helping you write the questions, and hooking up Fair Witness Groups. All you would need to improve your life, then, would be the tiniest burst of willpower (and possibly Dutch courage) to sign up for the thing in the first place.
The tagline writes itself: Personal Tax™. Put your money where your mouth is.
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