Inequality in America

I've seen the above video linked quite a bit on social networks during the recent past, and while I don't usually stop to pick up every pebble in the road, I felt a little compulsion to do so with this bit of misinformation today. I don't have time to debunk the many, many problems in this video, so I'll just hit the big points. The first and most important is the sources, which are not sources of actual data, and he mixes them inappropriately, producing a graphic that is factually inaccurate. He also mixes the terms "money," "wealth," and "income" as if they are interchangeable terms and concepts, which they are most definitely not. He also talks about wealth or income "distribution," but none of these things are distributed; they are earned by producing goods and services. He doesn't really talk about just what "equality" is, or why it is important, or to what degree; nor does he make any significant moral argument for it as preferable condition. He just assumes his audience believes it is a preferable condition and speaks as if the point had already been established, or else is so obvious as to deny the time to argue for it. He doesn't address how any one person becomes "wealthy" (again, a problematic term because he confuses the meaning with other terms like money), but infers that somehow the rich are rich at the expense of the poor, but this is just untrue. The vast, overwhelming majority of the rich are rich because others have voluntarily given them their money in exchange for something they found useful or valuable. 

Although the video prescribes no solution to circumstances of "inequality" that he dislikes, any actual "solutions" would involve violence, and ugly means must be taken into account when considering any circumstance, whether they are part of a moral condition or amoral condition. 

If you are interested in a more thorough video, please take the time to watch at least the first half (the second half is all debate) of 5th part of Rose and Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, "Created Equal." It's telling of our society that the video from the top has 15 million views, and a sound video making actual moral arguments and using real economics has but 15 thousand. 

Prometheus weeps. 

Future Crime: The Moral Difficulties of Indeterminate Consequentialism

http://youtu.be/wEkIJb12GVA

Above is a video I made as a companion to this piece for those who prefer speaking and video to reading. The content covers the same rough areas but is spoken in different words. The essay begins below.

            “Future crime” is not a term of my own making; it’s one I lifted from the Spielberg movie “Minority Report,” which was based on a Phillip Dick story of the same name. In it, there are three mutants who are able to see the future, specifically murders, which are most disturbing to them. The police react to these visions by arresting those responsible before they commit the act, thereby creating a time paradox. The individuals responsible are not murders, as they have failed to commit the acts the mutant “precogs” have envisioned for them, but are kept interred because of the understanding that without intervention they would have committed those acts. The nature of free will is brought into question as the policeman in charge of the program sees himself committing a murder in the future.

            Many people might view the film and find it an interesting hypothetical, but think no further on it. The reality is that many of our laws, regulations, and statutes rely on the concept of future crime for legitimacy of their workings. Everything from seat-belt laws to safety regulations to drunk driving laws require making illegal conditions which have not yet generated any consequences. The last of those, a particularly politically charged law area- one might even say politically suicidal to oppose at this point in time- I will attempt to dismantle at the end of this article.

            Whether such laws are effective can be taken into consideration when passing them, but first I always consider first the moral conditions a law creates or relies upon in order to be legitimate in the eyes of voters or law-makers.

I. Consequentialism

            Consequentialism, as a broad ethical theory category, concerns itself with categorizing action into moral or immoral areas based on the consequences of the act. Many philosophers, including Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill attempted to create systems of rational morality based on consequence, notably the “hedonistic calculus.” I personally do not consider consequentialism a good basis for any rational system of ethics, preferring instead to work within the confines of action-local moral reasoning or deontological systems, but the fact that actions have consequences is important to legal processes beyond the simpler workings of morality.

            Extremely thorough discussion of this might require its own article, but I will attempt to summarize. I dislike consequentialism for two reasons. First, it ascribes moral status to actions that are accidental or otherwise amoral, that is, would not be considered moral in another circumstance that produced different results. This was Immanuel Kant’s general objection to consequential moral reasoning, that it eliminated the concept of will, thereby making all investigations into moral action mostly irrelevant. The second reason is that it either qualifies moral or immoral status of an action after the fact (when consequences occur) or it asks the actor in a situation to predict the future, with the possibility of miscalculating the results and still acting immorally. This makes it difficult or impossible for a moral actor to determine the morality of his actions prior to acting them out, the point of moral systems being to inform decisions about actions prior to their occurrences.

            In minority report, the problems of the second reason above are mostly taken care of, at least in the concept of murder. The future consequence is certain, and so the police can act in accordance with it, saving lives all the way. We, however, are not precogs; any attempt to predict the future is a best guess, and so we may be wrong or right. This does not mean we should never try to predict the outcome of our actions, quite the opposite. We frequently and necessarily use predictive means to infer outcomes, usually quite well. We know that when we put our foot on the gas the car will go. We guess that when we buy stock in a company it will not go out of business. Our lives are based around predictions.

II. Consequences and Responsibility

            Even if we operate according to action-local principles and ignore consequentialism as a system of ethics, consequences are still very important. In our legal system (I live in the USA), and indeed in the common law system in England for the last few centuries, people are able to seek compensation for damages, that is, consequences of the actions of others. When an electrician fails to install wires properly, regardless of the condition that might have caused him to do so, he may be asked to pay for the expense of having it done correctly, or face penalties when his condition causes the house to burn down. A man may be driving the speed limit, but fail to see a pedestrian in a residential area, and hit and injure him. He did not commit crime per se, but may have to pay restitution for negligence, his failure to pay attention.

            Consequences in these cases, and many others, are subject to civil and common law, which may operate using written law or just based on sound principles. We may require the police to enforce the legal decisions of court, but we do not need a universal law to deal with particulars. This is the concept of extra-moral responsibility, the idea that our actions have consequences that we ourselves own, both positive and negative, regardless of any consideration of morality.

            To ascribe morality to such mechanisms, however, is not so easy. The man who invests his own money poorly may be pitiable, but not evil. A man who invests his family’s money poorly we may find less mercy for, once we see his destitute wife and children on the streets. Do we make a law to prevent men from investing their money unwisely, thereby preventing the negative consequence? What about the man who makes risky investments that pay off? The law may then impose a less-good outcome on him and his family. There are definite problems to creating universal prohibitions on situation-dependent outcomes.

III. Future Crime as a Category of Law

            Consequentialism has been used greatly in the history of my country to outlaw a host of objects and behaviors as well as force people into other sets of behaviors, listing possible outcomes as the justification for the use of force in making such things illegal. Just a few of these are: Drug Prohibition (and alcohol prohibition in the 20s), gun control, motorcycle helmet laws, seat-belt laws, many building codes, restrictions on purchasing pseudoephedrine, most laws regarding the sale and use of alcohol and tobacco, lots of anti-piracy laws (such as the DMCA), the Patient Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), Social Security, Medicare, and most licensing laws.

            If were to show how each of these represents future crime it would be a very long article indeed. As a litmus test, you can ask whether the law seeks as justification for its existence to prevent some condition or action that might exist in the future, or is part of prohibiting some condition which is believed to lead to undesired consequences. Laws restricting pseudoephedrine are a great example. The vast, overwhelming majority of people who purchase pseudoephedrine do not do so desiring to produce methamphetamine with it (meth itself represents future crime), and so the law supposes to stop people from making a “bad” substance in the future by restricting all purchasing of it in the present. In this case, the drug itself is not bad at all, its abuse is non-existent as it is, and the negative conditions feared as well as the benefits are entirely hypothetical.

            The last point, the negative conditions and benefits being hypothetical, requires some expansion. As with the case of most future crime laws, the benefits exist only in the negative of some other condition. Supposedly there is less methamphetamine available because of restrictions on pseudoephedrine, but it is unprovable whether this is a positive. If less meth is available, so what? We do not have a parallel universe to compare the two availabilities of meth and determine that the lack thereof produces a better result (except for those that consider meth itself to be an evil- more on that later). Those of us who oppose the concept of this future crime are left trying to do what is logically impossible- disprove a negative. We can’t see the future, which makes future crime laws seem effective; you lock someone up for something, and he is unable to perform evil, but there is no way to know whether he would have done the evil action at all in the absence of intervention. He is punished for something he has not done.

IV. Morality and Trade-offs

            I usually make an argument that moral conditions are part of a universal law that is centered on actions, or means, not their consequences, or ends, with the addendum that people are still responsible for the results of their actions, whether achieved through moral or immoral behavior and yielding good or bad results. However, it is important to acknowledge that not all people share my vision of a rational action-local morality. If they did, the government buildings and police stations would stand empty, a testament to the moral difficulties of initiating force against others. In acknowledging such a view, I must also explain, and perhaps challenge it.

            Those who believe in the capacity of law to create good conditions (as opposed to law addressing bad conditions, such laws against theft or murder) fit into two categories: the constrained and the unconstrained, to lift terms once again from Thomas Sowell. The constrained viewpoint believes laws that seek to restrict future ills are valid and worthwhile, but only as part of a prudent trade-off. If the cost of enforcing a particular law, either in monetary terms or social ones, is higher than what it prevents, the law should be discarded. In this way the focus is on particulars, and reform happens a piece at a time.

            The unconstrained viewpoint views the ends as the center of judgment; process costs are not taken into account, for in order for the end to justify the means, the end must be achieved. Therefore the cost is always worth the result, for the result is the only moral condition and the only way to value any action. What shall I say to those with the unconstrained vision? I can either attack their moral system or not. No amount of cost-benefit analysis will persuade them, and our principles are at deep odds. For those with a constrained vision, the best I (or we, if you too consider yourself a liberty-minded individual) can do is to convince them of the process costs involved in future crime.

V. Application: DUIs and Other Hazardous Conditions

            Applying the points I have made in explaining future crime could be a book in itself (and perhaps it will be, once I have tired of fiction), but I will limit myself to one truly suicidal argument: drunk driving. The villainy of drunk driving has risen to prominence in the public eye over the last few decades, and the trend has continued as states continue to lower the legal blood-alcohol limits, set up unconstitutional drunk driving checkpoints and even detain bar patrons before they even drive (talk about future crime!). Organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) continue to push for tougher laws, creating political consequences for those who do not vote according to their maxims. Before I go further, let me say that I do not approve of driving while intoxicated (with alcohol or any other substance), nor is my aim with criticizing the nature of the law to fill the streets with drunken lunatics; my sole purpose is to show how DUI (driving under the influence) laws constitute future crime, punishing individuals for crimes they have yet to commit. Driving while intoxicated is a bad idea, is still illegal no matter what I say, and I would not expect any jury in the country to nullify the law based on my arguments.

Before we begin, let us examine the nature of crime. Crime (or immoral action) generally consists of an action (as opposed to inaction, though that division has been tackled by greater philosophers than myself, and the debate marches on). It may have conditions that allow it to happen or to exist, but those conditions are not moral or immoral in themselves. A person can wear a ski mask and carry a crowbar, and these things are not crimes, but conditions that might allow him to commit an actual crime, breaking and entering or theft. If he is arrested for carrying a crowbar, it is future crime, as he has yet to break into anyone’s home.

In the same way, driving while intoxicated is a condition, not the locus of moral action itself. Though there are few alternative scenarios we could imagine for a masked man carrying a crowbar (perhaps he has to break a crate in his backyard for firewood, and it is cold outside), there are very few indeed we could think of as allowable for a drunk driver. Perhaps he is on his own land, perhaps an empty field, and therefore a danger to nobody (Drunk driving has also been studied on closed courses, so the condition known as drunk driving cannot be called universally immoral). Regardless of whether the condition can be justified in some way, the fact remains that it is just that: a condition, and not the locus of moral action.

The actual locus of moral action occurs when the driver, regardless of conditions affecting him, causes harm to another through his own negligence. The real crime is destruction of property, or manslaughter (if you hit someone), or reckless driving. The individual is responsible for their actions whether they have been drinking, smoking cannabis, or were talking on the cell phone. The conditions (the cause of the negligence) merely help explain actions, not excuse them. When you arrest someone, or cite them (in the case of cell-phone driving laws), you are punishing them for an immoral action which has not yet occurred.

Even as a practical matter, DUI laws are mostly unnecessary, with the actions that drunk drivers initiate being predominantly illegal themselves. If they crash their car into some else’s they should have to pay damages (and they would, whether intoxicated or not). If they hurt someone, they should be subject to civil and criminal penalties (indeed they are, even if not intoxicated). Adding another layer of punishment on top of such does not change the consequences of the actions, but instead punishes the same actions in two different ways.

DUI laws also have severe process costs. They cost a great deal of money to enforce, and have also allowed erosion of liberty through things like DUI stings and drunk driving checkpoints (which are equivalent to asking someone for their “papers,” and actually catch more people for suspended licenses and registration errors than drunk drivers). It also imposes costs on individuals who may not have committed any actual crime, costing them time, money, reputation, and employment because they happened to be at an arbitrary blood alcohol level.  These are people who become part of the criminal system without having actually impact anyone else as of yet. They are future criminals.

Most importantly, we cannot logically ascribe any positive effects to the law. We have no way of knowing whether arresting someone for drunk driving prevented that person from hurting someone else’s body or property.  The benefit is hypothetical and a negative, which means it cannot be disproven. We simply have no idea what the outcomes of the uninterrupted progression of events would have been, positive or negative. Advocates of the law cannot meet the burden of proof of benefit, much less morality.

We can apply the same kind of reasoning to other things which might be part of a hazardous condition, including talking on the phone, driving on bald tires or bad brakes, driving in the snow or rain, being high while driving or riding a bike, driving in high heels, getting on the road as a student driver, etc. Conditions don’t matter, actions do.

VI. Conclusion

            Thank you for reading this short exploration of what I like to call “future crime,” the act of punishing individuals for actions they have yet to commit. I hope you will think deeply about proposed legislation that justifies itself with the prevention of negative conditions or tasks itself with the prevention of a future consequences. If you believe in trade-offs, consider all the process costs involved in prohibiting a condition or substance, including the cost to society and the individuals themselves. If your moral sense is like mine, do your best to oppose the expansion of the state through future crime. After all, if a policeman arrests me for something I will do in the future, how will I them prove him wrong?

Garamesh and the farmer.

Just a little drawing that appeared while I tried to calm my nerves during other business.  From "Three Suitors..." Which I published before thanksgiving (I think).

Tyrant’s Gallow, an Aphorism

            Below is another extraction from my novel, in this case a legend about an anarchistic town and its origins. I’ve preserved all the original markings, dialogue, and description from the narrative. About 1,500 words.

Hunny’s manner had worked its friendly magic on the boy, and he eagerly answered their questions, feeling liberated to speak about the city he called home. They walked mostly uphill, and though the street itself was not terribly steep, the buildings around them rose up higher than in the square. Occasionally they passed a house that looked more like a keep: iron gates and stone walls; parapets rather than shake roofs. As they passed one particularly ominous and ancient complex, Horus spoke up.

“This one belongs to Seamus Delving, in case you ever wanted to have lunch with the terror of the south sea.” He glanced back at them, “He actually loves guests. He’s quite the character.” They passed by an iron gate, flecked with rust.  Behind it a rough-looking man leaned against the wall in the gateway eating an apple. His musket, bayoneted, primed and cocked, sat beside him. He did not look up as they passed. Past him could be seen a green lawn on either side of tile walkway which led up to the house proper, made of much the same dark stone as the encircling wall.

“The city is full of people like that, if you know where to look,” Horus went on. “Lots of sailors settle here because they can buy land and property that would be off-limits to anyone but the gentry or nobility somewhere else.”

“Was the city always lawless?” Hunny asked as they turned up another, slightly narrower avenue.

“We’re not lawless, madam. We are kingless, but not lawless.”

“Who writes the laws?” Hunny said.

“God,” Munin cut in. “Or no one.”

Horus smiled and turned back to Munin. “Which god, eh?”

“Depends on the company,” Munin said.

“Nobody here care’s about heretics, sir,” Horus said. “If you’re worried about that sort of thing. Hell, the prison’s more popular than the chapel.”

“The Dreamer, then,” Munin said.

“Prometheus,” Horus said with a smile, drawing out the word. “The dragon god. It’s a good town for that, sir. A very good town indeed. I believe you will get along with the mistress quite well.”

“Neither of you have yet to answer my question,” Hunny said.

Rone smiled. “You don’t need kings to write laws, love. There are no kings in the mountains either; at least, we recognize no kingship. We have laws. They don’t have to be written in stone by a divine ruler to be real. You don’t need sheriffs and judges to execute them. When people have a need for a law, it will come to exist, and nobody will question when its justice manifests itself. The law of kings is made out of the gentry’s displeasure with the law that is.”

“Well, what law said poor Minneo could be killed because of a debt? Why doesn’t anyone stop it?” Hunny asked irritably.

“He himself wrote that law,” Horus replied, “Begging your pardon, madam. He signed a contract to that effect. He agreed to a law that would bind himself and Madam Porthagan. He chose his law, and the people here respect that. Now as to whether we’ve ever had a king; as far as records can go, there’s never been one, though the city was occupied a few times in the last thousand years or so. There is a legend, if you like to hear it.”

“Of course,” Hunny said.

“Well the story that gets told around here says that many, many years ago there was a king in Tyrant’s Gallow, only it wasn’t called Tyrant’s Gallow back then, it was called Convection, though not on account of the warm currents that keep the island’s weather pleasant up in this latitude, but because the King’s family name was Convect. Anyway, this king supposedly lived in a gold palace. He was also known to consort with wizards, and the island became a gathering place of sorts for them because of his tolerance and the distance from the mainland.”

“And now it’s a gathering place for pirates,” Hunny cut in with a chuckle.

“Begging your pardon, but we don’t tolerate pirates.  Privateers, freebooters- they’re a different sort.  Madam Porthagan has put out quite a few bounties for those foolish enough to prey on her ships, and it’s called the Gallow for more reasons than the tyrant.”

“Which you were getting to, I assume,” Hunny said.

Horus nodded. “Eventually the Church of the Twelve heard about the lavish King Convect and his cabal of dark wizards, and raised an army to put a stop to it. Some tales also say the whole affair was actually the construct of his older half-brother, who could not take the throne because he was a bastard and was forced to join the clergy and live a life of poverty.”

“Poverty?  Hardly.” Munin laughed.  “When was the last time you stepped into a church?”

“Never have, actually,” Horus replied. They turned another corner and saw the great and famous Gallow Bluffs, mottled white and grey, looming before them.  “The church has no real army, you know, so what really happened was an invasion by a few of the petty kingdoms of the lowlands, all gone by now of course, at the behest of the church, and blamed upon the will of the Twelve.  The force was overwhelming, but they were repelled from the harbor by the power of the wizards and the many inventions they had come to develop over long years of tolerance. For ten days they fought, and many of the invading force’s ships were burned.  The quest was on the verge of abandonment by the parties involved, who each held a distrust of the other.

“One night, the king’s brother took a single boat and rowed up to a beach outside the city.  He was arrested by the king’s guards, but was taken to see his brother once his true identity was learned. Everyone thought he had arrived to give the king strategic information. He feigned to give him the information he sought, but at the same time secretly poisoned his wine. The king was found dead the next day.”

“So, would the brother have become king?” Hunny asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly what happened. The king’s advisor notified him that, as the last surviving member of the Convect family, the crown had fallen to him, bastard or no. The advisor gave him the king’s crown and clothed him in lavish clothes. The new king was prepared to end hostilities with the crippled fleet, but before he could even leave the palace the admirals and a high priest walked in the front doors.  They had found the streets empty and the canons unmanned.  No guards were posted outside the palace gate. The brother, who now resembled the old king in such a way as to fool his former allies, was put in chains and dragged outside the palace. 

“They hanged him there for high apostasy in front of the mixed armies of the petty lords in an otherwise deserted street. The palace was searched, and a writ of succession was found, naming ‘Fontaine’ to be the next legal heir to the king. The high priest declared it legal and stamped it. Soon it was discovered, by virtue of a lone soldier that had traveled here before, that ‘Fontaine’ was merely the high mountain on the island. Needless to say, that man earned a poor fate for his honesty. Frustrated by the will, and unable to come to a consensus on who should rule the island, the petty princes began to argue with one another. Violence broke out and many of the armed men who came ashore were killed. The last prince, victorious and standing in the town square on a hill of dead men, declared himself king.

“At that time, the king’s advisor approached. The petty prince soon found himself surrounded by the city’s wizards, who stood on balconies and atop buildings surrounding the square, armed with strange guns and other heretical devices. They destroyed his remaining force with their forbidden technology, ending the lives of the invading soldiers in seconds. The advisor then declared the prince a criminal, and the wizards hanged him beside the new king. The advisor sent a courier to the Arch Priest in Chalandier with the stamped writ, and the island officially became ruled by the mountain.  In essence, free.”

“What happened to the king’s advisor?” Hunny asked.

“He was a wise wizard and had the golden palace rebuilt into the golden courthouse, of which he became the first chairman. The gold from the bricks and decor of the king was melted down and used as the monetary base for a new bank in the same place. It’s all legend though- even the Golden Courthouse’s records have gaps and limitations. Ah, we’re almost here.” 

Thanks for Reading!

-DVS

Infrequent Updates

Due to my schedule, and all the things in my personal life restricting my creative goals, it is unlikely I will be able to continue putting out content for this particular site on a regular basis, at least for the next 2-3 weeks. Thanks to everyone who has read my stuff and talked to me, commented, etc. so far. Of course, depending on the amount of downtime I have in the immediate future, I could be putting out loads of content, I'm just not expecting to have any. If I can find a way, I'll be putting up stuff from my back catalog.  Until then, enjoy a few videos that I think are inspirational, and worth watching:

Steve Vai talking about the keys to success:

Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about success:

Thanks

-DVS

Who should control the content of school curriculum?

I've been having to narrow my focus a bit lately due to a severely impacted schedule. Working full time, writing full time, and going to school full time is not as easy as it sounds. I also have a big trial coming up, and I'm not expecting that to loosen up my schedule either. I've been working on a very large narrative, some 230,000 words and growing, and I decided I would really like to finish it this year. That has meant putting other things, including this blog, on the back burner. Nevertheless, I will attempt to keep updates coming, though they will likely be taken from my other foci. The Microscope will be finished, but I won't be able to pick it back up until I have a real abundance of time again (perhaps Christmas break?). For today, I thought I'd post an adaptation of a short little ditty I did for a class discussion board, for a great political topic:

Who should control the content of school curriculum?

            The question of who should control the content of school curriculum is, according to my understanding of education, very deep and not answerable in a direct fashion. Education, like any other service in the economy, is a product (a joint product to be sure, but a product nonetheless). If we replace “content of school curriculum” with another product, say an “the features of an automobile,” the depth of the question becomes a bit more exposed. Additionally, we have the qualification of “who should,” begging a case for justification beyond “who does.”

            Let’s look at the automobile example. Who does control the features of the automobile? The engineers who design it? The executives who give those engineers a mandate for design based on their marker research? Or is it the consumer who votes with their dollar on what features they want and at what price? The answer, is all of these, but in the relationship between the three it is the consumer who has the most power, because without his money neither the company manager nor the engineer can get paid.

Imagine that the same arrangement were like schools. The money would be taken forcefully from the consumer, the executive would compose a list of demands for what he thinks the consumer ought to want, and the engineer would attempt to meet these demands within the confines of a set amount of excised money. At the end of it, the consumer would be handed the automobile everyone else thinks he ought to have, and if he dislikes it, his only option would be to purchase a different one at additional expense, keeping in mind he has already paid for the first car, and also lose access to the one into which he has paid. If he lacks funds to do so, he cannot buy another car. Moreover, he is required by law to not only pay for the car, but to drive it for 13 years.

Democracy is little help in this situation. If you are truly dissatisfied, the consumer can rally support from others like him, and after four years hire a new executive with new promises to change the automobile. He may get more of what he wants, but what about the minority who loses the election and gets even less of what they want? Ultimately, this is why products in a free market serve everyone without the need for political intervention. Everyone gets what car they want, or what education they want for their children.

So, who should control the school curriculum? Ultimately, families should, who are in both the best position to determine the needs of their children and the best position to communicate those needs to administrators (the executives in the above example) and the teachers (the engineers). They may do this the way consumers control all other products: choice. Now, this is an opinion; if you do not believe in freedom, and think either the executives or the engineers should design the product the consumer ought to want, then the consumers should remain disinvested of power, but I believe in freedom. Freedom in choice produces a diversity of products, and I think diversity in education is precisely what is needed, for indeed we have a very diverse country.

This opinion was influenced by the great Milton Friedman, a nobel-prize winning economist (and also a teacher), who proposed a model of school choice back in the 1962 work Capitalism and Freedom. I’d like to post a link to his 1980 PBS series, based on a book he wrote with his wife Rose called Free to Choose. This episode deals with education choice. It’s worth a watch even if you don’t believe in school choice, as it offers up debate in the second half of the program.

http://youtu.be/yx6-PHKzHvM

Stu's Bro has an Amazing Idea

INT. STU’S HOME OFFICE - DAY

STU (30), an attractive man with short hair and a beard, sits at his computer, looking from monitor to monitor. He looks tired and drinks a diet Rockstar in between spurts of frantic typing. Empty cans litter the floor and free spaces on the desk. His phone rings. He smiles as he sees who it is.

                     STU
         Sup bro?! Haven’t heard from you in 
         forever!

INT./SPLITSCREEN MESSY DISCGUSTING APARTMENT - DAY?

STU’S BRO (27), a slightly overweight young man wearing a sports jersey and a backwards hat, sits at a filthy computer playing World of Warcraft. Empty pizza boxes and cigarette butts litter every surface of the dark and dingy bedroom. 

                     STU’S BRO
         Yeah life is busy. You know how it is.

                     STU
         Yeah? What have you been up to?

                     STU’S BRO
         Same ‘ol same ‘ol... work and Warcraft. 
         Dude! I’m totally gonna get glad this 
         season.

                     STU
         That’s cool, I haven’t been that into 
         PVP since TBC.

                     STU’S BRO
         Yeah, dude, did you transfer off the 
         server? I totally never see you on 
         anymore.

                     STU
         Um... no, but I haven’t had an active 
         WoW account in like a year and a half.

                     STU’S BRO
         Oh. Totally thought I saw your priest 
         on the other week. What have you been 
         doing?

                     STU
         Working. Working really hard. Me and 
         Aenon wrote some screenplays, I’m 
         working on a bunch of other stuff 
         too. A novel... haven’t had crap for 
         time to play WoW.

                     STU’S BRO
         It’s all good. Pandas are gay as hell 
         anyway.

                     STU
         Are they? How do they reproduce?

                     STU’S BRO
                (laughing)
         That’s a good one, dude. Anyway, so 
         you’ve been writing? Cool. When are 
         the movies coming out?

Stu’s Bro gets up and walks to his kitchen. While talking on the phone he rummages through the fridge for food.

                     STU
         The industry doesn’t really work that 
         way. First you have to--

                     STU’S BRO
         You making good money though, right?

                     STU
         Not really. See, it’s a long process--

                     STU’S BRO
         So why do it? 

Stu looks confused.

Stu’s Bro picks up a jug of milk and opens the top. He smells it, makes a face indicating that the milk is clearly sour, then puts it back in the fridge.

                     STU’S BRO (CONT’D)
         So, I have this great idea for a 
         story.
                     STU
         Um, okay.

                     STU’S BRO
         It’s science fiction. Does that sell?

                     STU
         Yeah, scifi is big.

                     STU’S BRO
         Cool. So, I’ll basically set it up 
         really simple. There’s these aliens, 
         right? And we’re like invading their 
         world, like its humans that are the 
         invading evil aliens, bro.

                     STU
         So Starship Troopers.

Stu’s Bro finds an old pizza box with a single slice left in it. He puts it on the counter, and while talking, approaches the trash can.

                     STU’S BRO
         No! Check it. There’s this one dude 
         that doesn’t buy the official story. 
         He makes contact with the aliens and 
         finds out they’re actually totally 
         cool, like primitive, but totally 
         cool. They’re like, in touch with 
         nature, like humans used to be.

The trash can is full. He places the pizza box in a pile of rubbish next to the bin.

                     STU
         So, they’re like Native Americans?

Stu’s bro picks up the pizza slice and begins eating it.

                     STU’S BRO
                (with his mouth full)
         Yeah, totally.

                     STU
         They already made that movie. It’s 
         called Avatar.

                     STU’S BRO
         No! This is different.

                     STU
         Nobody is going to remake Avatar.

                     STU’S BRO
         Okay, then get rid of the Aliens. 
         Just make it Indians or something.

                     STU
         That movie’s called Dances with 
         Wolves.

                     STU’S BRO
         Never heard of it.

Stu looks shocked.

                     STU
         Well, good luck with that. Let me 
         know how it goes, I’d be happy to 
         read your first draft for you.

                     STU’S BRO
         No, I was thinking I just give you 
         all the details, and you write the 
         screenplay, then we split the 
         profits.

                     STU
         I don’t think so.

                     STU’S BRO
         Why not?

                     STU
         Hmn. Do you have any idea how much 
         work it takes to actually write a 
         screenplay?

                     STU’S BRO
         Dude, I’ve seen screenplays. 90% of 
         the page is blank space. Ea-sy. It’s 
         the idea that’s valuable!

                     STU
         Not really. I already have a queue of 
         like eight story ideas of my own that 
         I still haven’t gotten to, and none 
         of them are remakes of overrated 
         movies featuring Smurfs.

                     STU’S BRO
         Yeah, but none of them are million 
         dollar ideas, either!

                     STU
         Alright, fine. Why don’t you write up 
         the details in a treatment and e-mail 
         it to me?

                     STU’S BRO
         Bro, if I could write, why would I 
         need you? Sorry man, I think my queue 
         just popped. Gotta go!

Stu’s Bro hangs up the phone. Stu facepalms.

END