Ahhh... The resources we live to find them, we live to develop them, we live to discover new ones and more than anything we live to use them up faster than we can do any of the other things combined. Half the fun of life is coming up with ways to do things with less resources - or so the greenies keep telling me.
Today I am answering the Plinky question 'If you had unlimited resources what would I create?' and in my usual way I am not going to tackle the question head-on with all the elegance of a mac-truck but rather lure it into a false sense of security and take its hidden treasure when it least expects it and share it with all of you kind people. For those of you unable to see the Robin Hood analogy there... I can't help you I've already wasted far too much of everybody else's time.
Back on topic now. What would I build with endless resources? I'm going to need somebody to define resources for me. By some definitions that would simply be natural resources... and to be perfectly honest apart from the quote unquote 'World Peace' answer favoured at beauty pageants I'm not sure sure what I would want to do with MORE oil. Well LOWER prices perhaps... but I don't think UNcreating a monopoly of the oil industry is really an answer I want to pitch here today. The un makes it far too negative.
Another option for a definition of resources is to go hard core on the elemental side of things. In other words... you can have all the atoms in the world you want... You can even have 100 kgs of unununium (atomic number 111 apparently it has a less cool name but why would I remember it, I'm not a chemist) if your heart so desires. Yep... I don't know what I'd do with any and every element at my disposal... Make some squeaky voices for my shadow puppets with some helium perhaps? Attempt the ol' lead balloon trick? And then to really finish off the party with some sodium in the water jug explosions...
Another alternative for unlimited resources is to have all of the worlds INTELLECTUAL resources. Basically that would make you a super genius. As far as creating things go this is probably the best on to have. Though I reckon with even the worlds vast knowledge you wouldn't be able to solve any of the fun ones - like, sorry to pageant cliche haters for bringing it back up, world piece or energy creation. But it would be pretty cool to see how many scientists could have invented something by now if they knew that this guy over here had the missing piece of information.. I'm sure there is something out there like that... That would be a fun bit of creating though I'm not sure what exactly it would be.
Finally I'm going to go with the obvious answer to the question... yeah I had to get around to it anyway. I'm figuring for this unlimited resources would most reasonably translate into anything money can buy. To be perfectly honest at that point I probably wouldn't be creating much of anything... Except some awesomely long facebook statuses, blog posts, group text messages (and any other medium I could think of) about how BORED I am... Probably a good time to invent stuff you say...
Unfortunately I'm a big believer in the more you have the less you can see. I mean I'm not situating myself as Bill Gates (though I point out he too had his great spark BEFORE he had everything) so I don't have a any natural genius to back me up. So once I had everything I wouldn't be able to think past it all to something new or different. I would be too distracted buying that thing that guy over there has because I don't have one yet... I mean when you can buy jet packs and personal water hover devices (ah the things my roommates look at while procrastinating) you are too busy putting yourself in hospital for any inventing of things...
The reason most things get created is the lack of it and its usefulness (and once you need to USE something for something isn't it therefore a resource which means I get to have it in this alternate universe?). We create more fuel efficient cars and houses etc because we need to save natural resources (woot buzz words). We create remote controls and mobile phones because we have the inbuilt need to be lazy - and lazy people don't build new things... What is left in the laziness avenue? A machine that goes to sleep for you? There are drugs for that.
People are at their most inventive when they have no resources... Probably why this question works now I think about it... Imagination makes for fantastic solutions while reality just makes a very lazy SOB. I can still remember a time on a summer science camp where we (on a desert island) had to build something with a very straws, a sheet of paper - and unlimited sand. The other group did the practical thing... Our group basically dispensed with reality from the get go and made a very very epic surf board... Long story short - I've never been a designed and we lost design phase epically... We did however win advertising... This ability for me to spin shit isn't new... apparently I've had it for years.
And just as a bonus prize for listening to my rant (for this one has been a particularly good rant [I'm avoiding my ironing something chronic]). If I had unlimited resources - as it I was all knowing, all owning, and had whatever I needed at my fingertips - I would create a camera which was basically just a contact lens. Still capture (I wouldn't want continuous video which would make getting my perfect shot impossible). It would record the world I see exactly the way I see it... I hate camera flash.
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