Zero Sum Game

The Lure of Nothing

Zero emissions. Zero impact. Zero tolerance. Zero sugar. Net Zero.

It all means everything should be fair and objective and sciency and equal and simple.

But the worship of zero is a church of the bureaucrat, a place where outcomes and inputs all mange to even out, where nothing ever changes.

Zero is neither good nor bad, it is neither plus nor minus – it is stasis, it is continuing, it is unchanging but it is powerful.

This, of course, makes it the perfect place for a bureaucrat to hide, a void where despotism can grow, all in the name of zero.

It started with zero tolerance in schools. As regards to weapons, this is probably a good idea…but then it moved beyond.

Zero tolerance for teasing, zero tolerance for acting out, zero tolerance for being a kid, though, for some reason, the exact opposite for those who wish to mutilate themselves.

Aside – maybe that’s because so many “teachers” have not themselves grown up and still see themselves as the unpopular kids in middle school and wish they had a lazy magic bullet like surgery to make themselves popular. But that may be too pessimistic...or too on the nose.

Then came zero tolerance for drugs on campus, leading of course to children being suspended for having an extra aspirin on them while the school nurse was handing out fistfuls of ADD speed to half of the other kids.

Zero impact followed shortly after, though in certain cases it may have preceded the idea.

“Take only pictures, leave only footprints” seems like a good piece of advice for folks tromping around the wilderness. But it went further, implying that humans are not part of the environment, they are only interlopers who can harm it.

Remember Bambi? Don’t be the hunter, or the person who trods in the wrong place or picks up an interesting rock because that is the same thing as killing a deer.

Zero emissions is possibly the saddest and funniest of the tropes. All things emit things, no matter what they may be.

Even rocks? Sure, ever see what pours out of a volcano?

Zero emission is inherently impossible, and a truly psychotic effort in a world based on emissions.

In other words, your uncle’s emissions at you recent holiday party are akin to the emissions of a gas-powered car – they only stop when they die – the uncle – or are made to go away forever – the car.

There really is no middle ground on either.

Much more importantly, the cult of zero emissions (factories claim to recycle everything, small business say they are “green” because they create no “net” waste, whatever impossible metric that may involve) demands believability, acceptance. And as for the magick psychology of electricity, if one cannot see the emissions because now they happen in a very dark skinned very far away place, they do not occur.

It is surprising how often people need to be reminded that moving something does not eliminate pollution – you get zero, they get a million..

Zero sugar (or zero carbs) are merely marketing ploys, but they highlight the emotional power of zero. I can eat a million zero carb things and drink a million zero sugar drinks and that’s healthy, right?

Yeah, right.

Second aside – I drink Coke Zero Sugar by the gallon so I’m not trying to be too mean.

With every other zero failing to meet up to its PR goal, the concept of “NetZero” as to carbon emission is equally silly.

Especially because it is inherently absurd.

There is another zero trend, a penchant in the past to zero out humanity, to intentionally detach people from reality by unhooking them from time.

Robespierre in the French revolution remade the calendar to reflect the zeal of zero – it’s why he was overthrown on “9 Thermidor II (year 2 of the revolution)” instead of on 27 July 1794.

And Pol Pot, when he took power in Cambodia, declared the institution of Khmer Rouge as “Year Zero” in 1975.

Of course, he stole the idea from Robespierre, though he did take it much much much further, killing millions rather than thousands (not to downplay either – here’s a great piece on the French revolution French revolution and another on the evils of Pol Pot )

Zero is the favorite number of the bureaucrat, the dictator, the oppressor – zero means zero opposition, it means zero thought, it means zero deviation.

And then every zero, every powerless individual, is left with zero hope.

Well, maybe not anymore.