Mobile Intelligence

It was with the usual cynicism that I read that Johannesburg taxi drivers and associated hangers-on were threatening to strike over rising fuel prices.
Not only are they thinking about striking, but also to bring all public transport to a halt since embattled consumers are opting to use cheaper buses to get to and from work, how dare they consider using other more cost efficient transport!

"We will definitely go on strike if the petrol price continues to go up and when we do go on strike no other public transport will function"

Why stop there? If you have a gripe about the petrol price why not bring the whole country to a halt?

"We will bring South Africa to a standstill. Everything that moves by road will stop."

Having muttered and fumed over the complete stupidity of their thinking, I came to a startling conclusion. The average South African has no idea of the power the lies in the taxi industry. Just like shape shifting lizards, they walk among us.

This is a massive collective consciousness, a hive-mind, a mobile dispersed neural network capable of effecting global change.

I realised this as a taxi sped past, cut in front of me and then screeched to halt. Up until that moment my mind had been focused on the boring minutiae of daily life and philosophy really was the last thing I was thinking about, or even thinking of thinking about. Unbidden and clearly influenced by this collective cerebral power I instantly shifted my thoughts and in a mildly tourettic way yelled Kant. It was suddenly all clear.

"If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. And if he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view. …Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real."

Application of this Kantian-philosophy to taxi drivers is very simple.
Since I cannot actually prove that the taxi driver is an idiot who is driving faster than his IQ and consequently appears to be unstable as he exceeds about 70 kmph, and nor can I prove that he is not a celestial being with a transcendentally connected brain I have to accept it could be either.

Further, as an eternal optimist, I'm obligated to act on the supposition that the latter is real.

So if in the weeks to come there are scenes of roads blocked by taxi drivers, buses being burnt, commuters being shot at and so on, understand what they are actually doing. Momentous things will flow from their actions;

• The government will drop all fuel taxes and levies
• There will be an outbreak of peace in the middle east and US forces will be withdrawn from Iraq. The Israelis and Hammas will be breaking bread and swapping their mother's favourite recipes.
• China will realise that rapid growth and demand for fuel is completely contrary to their agrarian character and all expansion will cease and people will go back to the land - on bicycles.
• En masse traders around the world will see the evil in their ways, find their spiritual inner beings and stop speculating with oil futures.

So next time a taxi cuts you off, pull over and politely ask "Jung, Freud or Kant?" You may be surprised at the answer.