Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
In the 250 or so thousand year history of Homo Sapiens, the way we live has changed dramatically. From stone-tipped spears flung with an atlatl to solid-fuel rockets capable of taking homo sapiens to the moon, or capable of vaporizing thousands of homo sapiens on the other side of the planet with a thermonuclear warhead; humans are constantly adapting and improving. We started off pressing pointed sticks into natural tablets of soft clay; right now I’m pressing keys made of processed dinosaurs and those inputs are being broadcast to a receiver plugged into my PC which then turns them into 0s and 1s and sends them bouncing all over the interwebs and onto this digital media platform you’re reading it on now – and that’s just been the last 5,000 years of communication progress, give or take.
In fact, other than making more humans, how humans do things today bears very little resemblance to the way humans did things thousands of years ago. That is, with one noteworthy exception. The earliest democracy in recorded history was that of the city-state of Athens in the fifth century BCE. Some 2500 years later, and the practice is still lauded as the best form of government; or, as Churchill put it better, the worst form of government apart from every other one that’s been tried.
Twenty-five centuries. During that time, homo sapiens invented concrete and indoor plumbing, forgot concrete and indoor plumbing and then rediscovered concrete and indoor plumbing. In fact, almost every event you’ve ever likely heard of with some historical veracity that involved humans has probably happened within the last 2500 years; and yet, the process of how we decide to be governed and by whom remains largely unchanged.
And look where it’s gotten us. It doesn’t take a jaded prick like me to see this election cycle has been an embarrassment all the way around to all involved and all concerned. Or, as this jaded prick sees it, the endless machinations of our corporatist oligarchy masquerading as a democracy have resulted in two corporate shills directly competing for the presidency. Let’s pretend I’m wrong and stick with the former model – that our votes matter and Americans still decide who rules them – for the purpose of this silly-ass thought exercise.
It’s time to do away with democracy and replace it with something better and less silly. And, it is silly. What skill set, or sets, does the campaign and election process actually test? Essentially, the ability to be likable and convincing, that’s it. That’s all any campaign requires to be successful, charisma. Bill Clinton vs. George H.W. Bush; Obama vs. McCain; Obama vs. Romney; the winner each time was the more charismatic candidate regardless of their dumbass ideas. Trump vs. Clinton? Whatever an iota of charisma is, Clinton has one more of them than does Trump. So, like, three total maybe.
Charisma is useful when it comes to convincing 50.1 percent of Americans that you’re not as bad as the other guy, but what actual ability to do the job being sought does it demonstrate? Virtually none.
Imagine if I managed to join the Air Force, pass basic, then get out of MOS school to be a cook; and then decide to turn up at flight school and insist I be taught to fly fighter jets because I loved Top Gun as a kid, and I grew up near an Air National Guard base and loved seeing the planes fly overhead and I’ve always been a total geek when it comes to military aviation; go on, ask me the range of a phoenix missile fired from an F-16? Ha, trick question, F-16s can’t carry phoenix missiles…
Anyway, if they didn’t give me a section 8 discharge on the spot, before they let me anywhere near a multi-million-dollar fighter jet, I’d be put into a multi-tens-of-thousands-of-dollar simulator. The controls would all be the same, but the thing would be stationary and the view outside the canopy glass simulated with computer displays; that way, I could demonstrate some ability to actually do the job I’m seeking before a bunch of time and money and jet fuel is wasted figuring out that this might not be the gig for me.
Yet, we give a person the ability to order around ALL of our multi-million-dollar fighter jets for doing nothing more than talking glowingly about how much they want the job of being the person who can order around all the fighter jets for a year prior. That’s literally it. Seems a bit dumb.
So, what I’m proposing is the same thing the Air Force figured out when it became evident they couldn’t teach people to fly fighter jets using Stearman biplanes anymore – build a presidential simulator.
The technology already exists, obviously, the first Sid Meier Civilization game came out in the 90s. Today, we have the internet and Steam. Make the presidential simulator a free download on the Steam online game streaming service. Steam already keeps track of all manner of player stats, to the point of absurdity (why would I want to know how much of my life has been wasted playing Civ V?), so, keeping an up-to-date leaderboard of the top players would be a piece of cake. Then, we just set a date, January 20 every four years is fine, and whoever has the top spot on the leaderboard at midnight EST gets sworn in later that morning. No campaigns. No TV ads. No speeches. No debates. No multi-year-long headache. No cronyism. No quid pro quo. Automatic term limits – you’re the president, no time to play video games. I dare say it’s brilliant.
Of course, making the simulator will be a bit tough. The world is already full of wonderful game designers who make a variety of amazing games, from the simple and addictive beauty of Notch’s Minecraft to the heady narratives of Ken Lavine’s Bioshock games to Tim Schafer’s unique brilliance. It will be tough to figure out just who should build the simulator and how it should function, turn-based, or real-time-strategy, etc. I can’t imagine it being a shooter. Anyway, with so many possible developers and designers and coders, some process of winnowing them down will be needed.
I suppose we could vote on it.
Oh, god damn it.
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