Just for Fun

Preface: The Meaning of Life I (Sex, War, Linux)

SETTING: This book has its origins in a late-model black Ford Expedition in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, somewhere in California's Central Valley. Linus and Tove Torvalds and their young daughters, Patricia and Daniela, are accompanied by an interloper as they travel 351 miles to Los Angeles, where they will visit the zoo and an IKEA outlet.

DAVID: Now I've got a fundamental question to think about, and it's sort of important. What do you want to get across in this book?

LINUS: Well, I want to explain the meaning of life.

TOVE: Linus, did you remember to fill the gas tank?

L: I have a theory about the meaning of life. We can, in the first chapter, explain to people what the meaning of life is. We get them hooked that way. Once they're hooked and pay for the book, we can just fill up the rest with random crap.

D: Oh yes. That sounds like a plan. Someone told me that since the dawn of man there have been two lingering questions. One: "What is the meaning of life?" and Two: "What can I do with all this pocket change that accumulates at the end of the day?"

L: I have the answer to the first one.

D: What's the answer to the first one?

L: Basically it is short and sweet. It won't give your life any meaning, but it tells you what's going to happen. There are three things that have meaning for life. They are the motivational factors for everything in your life -- for anything that you do or any living thing does: The first is survival, the second is social order, and the third is entertainment. Everything in life progresses in that order. And there is nothing after entertainment. So, in a sense, the implication is that the meaning of life is to reach that third stage. And once you've reached the third stage, you're done. But you have to go through the other stages first.

D: You're going to have to explain this a little more.

PATRICIA: Papa, can we stop for chocolate ice cream? I would like to have some chocolate ice cream now!

T: No, sweetie. You have to wait. When we stop to go potty you can have ice cream.

L: I'll give you a few examples so you can kind of get the idea. And the obvious one is sex. It started out as survival, but it became a social thing. That's why you get married. And then it becomes entertainment.

P: Then I have to go potty.

D: How is it entertaining?

L: Okay, I'm talking to the wrong person. How about this one?

D: No, go back to sex.

L: It's also on another level ...

D: (to self): Oh, entertaining to participate in as opposed to watch. Okay, I get it.

L: ... On another level, if you look at the illusion of sex in a biological sense -- How did sex come about in the first place? It was survival. It wasn't entertaining initially. It was just getting together. Okay, let's drop the sex part.

D: No, no. I think this is a whole chapter.

L: Let's pick war instead. It's obvious it started as survival, because there's a big guy between you and the water hole. Next, you need to fight the guy for a wife. And then war becomes a social-order thing. That's how it was long before the Middle Ages.

D: War as a means of establishing social order.

L: Right. And also a means of establishing yourself as part of the social order. Nobody cares about social order, per se. Everybody cares about his own place in that order. It's the same thing whether you're a hen in a pecking order or you're a human.

D: And now war is for entertainment?

L: That's right.

D: Maybe for people watching it on TV. For them it might be entertaining.

L: Computer games. War games. CNN. Well, the reason for war can often be entertaining. But also the perception of war is entertaining. And the reason for sex is often entertaining. Sure, the survival part is still there, especially if you're Catholic, right? But even if you're Catholic, sometimes you probably think about the entertainment part, too. So it doesn't have to be plain entertainment. In everything, a piece of the motivation might be survival, a piece might be social order, and the rest might be entertainment. Okay, look at technology. Technology came about as survival. And survival is not about just surviving, it's about surviving better. You get a windmill that draws water from the well...

D: Or fire.

L: Right. It's still survival, but it hasn't progressed to social order and entertainment.

D: Now how has technology progressed to social order?

L: Well, actually most of industrialization has been really just survival, or surviving better. In cars, that meant making faster cars and nicer cars. But then you get to technology in a social sense. That brings us the telephone. And TV, to some degree. A lot of the early TV stuff was basically for indoctrination. Radio, too. That's why countries often started investing in radio, for the social-order side of it.

D: Establishing and maintaining social order...

L: Right, but then it just goes past that. Today, TV is obviously used mostly for entertainment. And right now you see all these wireless mobile phones. It's basically social. But it's moving into entertainment, too.

D: So what's the future of technology? We've gone beyond the survival stage and now we're in the social stage, right?

L: Right. All technology used to do was make life easier. It was all about getting places faster, buying things cheaper, having better houses, whatever. So what's so different about information technology? What comes after the fact that everybody is connected? What more is there to do? Sure, you can connect better, but that's not fundamentally different. So where is technology taking us? In my opinion, the next big step is entertainment.

D: Everything eventually evolves into entertainment...

L: But this also explains why Linux is so successful, to some degree. Think of the three motivational factors. First is survival, which people with computers take for granted. Quite frankly, if you have a computer, you've already bought your food and stuff like that. The second is for social order, and the social side is certainly motivational for geeks sitting inside their own cubicles.

D: You said something really smart at Comdex, something about Linux development being a global team sport. So, you basically made that happen, dude.

L: Linux is a great example of why people love team sports, and especially being part of a team.

D: Yeah, sitting in front of a computer all day, you'd probably want to feel like you were part of something. Anything.

L: It's social, like any other team sport. Imagine people on a football team, especially in high school. The social part of Linux is really, really important. But Linux is also entertainment, the kind of entertainment that is very hard to buy with money. Money is a very powerful motivational factor when you're at the level of survival, because it's easy to buy survival. It's very easy to barter for those kinds of things. But suddenly when you're at the level of entertainment, money...

D: Money is useless?

L: No, it's not useless, because obviously you can buy movies, fast cars, vacations. There are a lot of things you can buy that can help make your situation better.

T: Linus, we need to change Daniela. And Patricia has to go potty. I need a cappuccino. Do you think we can find a Starbucks here? Where are we?

D: (looks up): Based on the odor, I think we're near King City.

L: Now all this is on a bigger scale. It's not just about people, it's about life. It's like the Law of Entropy. In this Entropy Law of Life, everything moves from survival to entertainment, but that doesn't mean that on a local scale it can't go backward, and obviously it essentially does. Things just disintegrate sometimes.

D: But as a system, everything is moving in the same direction...

L: Everything is moving in the same direction, but not at the same time. So basically sex has reached entertainment, war is close to it, technology is pretty much there. The new things are things that are just survival. Like, hopefully, space travel will at some point be an issue of survival, then it will be social, then entertainment. Look at civilization as a cult. I mean, that also follows the same pattern. Civilization starts as survival. You get together to survive better and you build up your social structure. Then eventually civilization exists purely for entertainment. Okay, well, not purely. And it doesn't have to be bad entertainment. The ancient Greeks are known for having had a very strong social order, and they also had a lot of entertainment. They're known for having had the best philosophers of their time.

D: Okay, so how does this tie in to the meaning of life?

L: It doesn't really. It just says that ... that's kind of the problem here.

D: This is the little link you're going to have to think about.

P: Mama, look at the cows.

L: So, if you know that life is all about this progression, then obviously your purpose in life is to make this progression. And the progression is not one single progression. Everything you do is part of many progressions. It can also be, "What can I do to make society better?" You know that you're a part of society. You know that society is moving in this direction. You can help society move in this direction.

T: (holding nose): It smells horrible here.

L: So what this builds up to is that in the end we're all here to have fun. We might as well sit down and relax, and enjoy the ride.

D: Just for fun?