Chicken or Egg? Catch 22

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? This is a commonly asked question, and it's closely related to the logical paradox known as the Catch-22. It's essentially a feedback loop, a recursion of sort.

The Case of the RNG

When you take user inputs out of the equation, a computer is a deterministic machine. Given the same initial state and the same inputs or operands, a computer should - at least, when working as intended - always reproduce the exact same results. Given two operands (integers or floating point numbers), an arithmetic operation - e.g. an addition or multiplication - should reproduce the exact same results right down to the bit (we're ignoring endianness for the sake of simplicity) on every computer, assuming identical implementation of the arithmetic instructions. And really, it's a no-brainier: two plus two equals four, no matter who does the counting. That's just how mathematics work, and the CPU is basically a glorified calculator where everything (such as pixels on the screen, or sound samples you hear) is represented by numbers that the CPU does arithmetics on.

But what if you don't want deterministic operation? What if you do want randomness? Randomness is a necessity in video games and cryptography, so there must be a solution for this need for randomness, right? The hardware-based solution would be to have a device measuring ambient noise, or taking pictures of lava lamps and hashing them.

But what if you don't want - or can't have - a hardware dedicated specifically to this task?

Well, then I have bad news for you: true random-number generation simply cannot be implemented in software. The closest we can get is pseudo-random number generation, which, for non-cryptographic purposes, such as video games and image editors, is close enough.

The simplest and crudest way is to simply pre-generate and cache a number of randomly generated numbers - e.g. 256, 512 or 1024 of them - and then keep iterating over them. But, aside from creating a noticeable pattern that players can exploit, it also leads us to a chicken-and-egg problem, a catch-22: we need random numbers to generate random numbers. Surely we can do better, right?

Well, there are several pseudo-random number generation algorithms out there, ranging on a spectrum from fast-but-predictable to slow-but-convincing. The most well-known among them (e.g. linear congruential generator, multiplicative congruential generator, Mersenne Twister, etc.) all have one thing in common: they have an initial "seed" and generate random numbers by modulating said seed according to an algorithm. Not only is this predictable - as you can theoretically predict the "random" numbers if you know the seed and know the algorithm - but also leads us to the exact same chicken-and-egg catch-22: to prevent predictability, the seed has to be an unpredictable random number, thus, once again, we need a random number to generate random numbers.

This catch-22 can be easily solved by simply taking a variable from the computer state - e.g. runtime, current date, etc. Or, in case of random map generators and whatnot, we can even ask the user to input text, hash it, and use said hash as the seed. However, other chicken-and-egg problems, other catch-22s are not so easily solved in life.

The Great Leap Forward

Sometimes, life requires you to tackle two problems at once, solve two problems simultaneously. If you try to solve only one at a time, the other will get worse and simply make it impossible to solve the one you were trying to solve. So, in that case, life requires you to make a Great Leap Forward. No, not that Great Leap Forward.

On the larger scale of things, one of those problem duos is.... you guessed it, automation and UBI. My main audience is already getting really bored of me eternally chewing on the subject of UBI, so I was hoping to put it to rest, and originally intending to make this article the UBI-article to end all UBI-articles, but... we'll see.

You see, UBI and automation are the same catch-22 problem.

• Anti-automation Luddites rightfully point out that automation would cause massive unemployment, which, under the current UBI-less work-or-die system, would translate into massive starvation, even though already more than half of all food is wasted.

• Anti-UBI naysayers point out that if we implemented UBI, "nobody would want to work", everybody would be just lazy, etc. But why would that be a problem though, if robots did all the work anyway?

When confronting these two, I tell the Luddites about UBI, and tell the anti-UBI naysayers about automation. However, both remain unconvinced, and loop back to their original arguments, or even switch roles.

Happy wageslave: "We can't implement UBI, people will just stop working"
Me: "What about automation? We can just automate away the most unpleasant jobs that no one wants to do, and the rest can be done by volunteers. The human desire to be contribute and be a productive member of society is criminally underrated by the likes of you."
Happy wageslave: transforms into a Luddite "No, we can't automate away any jobs, because that would cause massive unemployment!!!"
Me: "That's the whole reason why we want UBI in the first place!"
Happy wageslave: "No, we can't have UBI, because then people will just stop working. Also, muh GDP, muh inflation rates..."
Me: "..."

Or, alternatively...

Luddite: "We can't embrace automation! It'll make everyone unemployed! We'll all starve!"
Me: "What about Universal Basic Income? That sounds like a good solution to the existential challenges posed by automation."
Luddite: transforms into a Happy Wageslave "No, we can't do that, because people will just stop working then! Also, muh GDP, muh inflation rates... If we implement UBI, people will just get lazy! Who will do all the work?!"
Me: "Robots and AI will!"
Luddite: "We can't embrace automation! It'll make everyone unemployed! We'll all starve!"
Me: "..."

As much as I think that their line of thinking is heavily flawed, to say the least, I can understand them. These two problems - UBI and automation - must be tackled all at once, simultaneously, not separately, not one-at-a-time. We have to make a singular Great Leap Forward, otherwise we'll be forever stuck worrying about the unemployment caused by robots and AI, worrying about the loss of workforce and the amount of taxes and debt UBI would cause.

If we focus on automation first without implementing UBI, millions will go not just unemployed, but outright unemployable. They'll end up on the streets, starving and destitute.

If we focus on implementing UBI first without deploying the technology necessary to replace the lost labour, then millions - including me - will leave behind their day jobs. Things will get more expensive. Taxes will rise, the country will accrue foreign debt, companies will leave, etc. However, I make the counterargument, that most jobs are unnecessary jobs that don't create actual value, and that people's willingness to contribute and be productive members of society is being criminally underestimated. I also make the argument that I reckon, that the technology is already there, we're just too chicken to deploy it out of fear of unemployment. Which leads me back to the aforementioned chicken-and-egg catch-22.

Clearly, these two - UBI and automation - will need to go hand-in-hand and come together.

Personal chickens and eggs

But the chicken-and-egg problem exists on the smaller scale too, in personal lives.

Let's start with the elephant in the room: you need experience to gain experience. All workplaces want a 20-year old applicant with 40 years of relevant experience. They also want references, so you basically have to have a job to get a job. What if you're homeless and trying to work your way out of homelessness? Good luck, you gonna need it, because most people don't hire homeless people - gotta have a home to earn a home.

But what if you already have a job, but don't like it? What if you hate your job, and think you're destined for different things? Say, you want to be an artist, a game developer or a business owner. So, you want to free yourself from the shackles of wageslavery and full-time employment? You only need two things: time and money.

And herein lies the chicken-and-egg, the catch-22.

• Time? You need time to hone your skills as an artist or programmer, or to devise your business strategy.

• What about money? Obviously, you need reserve money if you want to be a freelancer in case you don't find clients for a prolonged period of time - and if you want to own a business, you need starting capital.

But you don't have time if you're a wageslave working 40 hours a week. You end each workday exhausted, and the weekend is spent either on household chores, catching up on well-needed and well-deserved sleep, or just simply dreading Monday. All these things sound like excuses, but they are very valid excuses: what's the point of it all, if the sacrifice would be to give up everything that makes life worth living?

If you're a typical wageslave with aspirations for different things, you probably don't have much money either, as you need to spend your earnings on food and paying the bills. You can try to save, but unless you earn a Pharaoh's salary, it won't get you far.

Okay, but what if you've completely given up on the hope of being a free man in modern society, and seek to disconnect entirely, live off the grid and grow your own food?

Well, you can't. In many places, living off the grid is illegal, producing your own power is semi-legal. Unless you already own the land needed to build your own house and grow your own food, you need to buy land, which costs money - homesteading is illegal in most countries. Only in Canada, can you simply occupy an unoccupied piece of land. In just about every other country, the government would punish you harshly for that. And even if you grew all your food and produced your own power on land that you owned, chances are, the statist mafia would still show up to force you to pay some taxes or social insurance. Ergo, even if you wanted to, you couldn't separate from society.

So you're back at being a slave. The whole purpose was to free yourself from corporate wageslavery, yet you have no other options. Your best bet is to grind your teeth, try to save up enough money to live for a coupe months without work, then quit your job and try whatever you wanted to try - e.g. being an artist who does commissions for a living. But if that doesn't work out, then you'll be forced to crawl back into the world of work, begging for a job.

Moral of the story?

Sometimes killing two birds with one stone is not just a nice-to-have thing, but an outright necessity, because you only have one stone, and both birds are carnivorous.