Let's Be Absurd for Once
I don’t think people gave much thought to the environment when they invented ships.
Sailing boats are one thing. They are carried along by the wind, which is a perfectly respectable arrangement. But anything that propels itself by kicking and pushing against the very thing that supports it is, in my opinion, morally indefensible.
“You see,” I told Jim, pointing at the Lusbris Seaways, a 7500-ton cargo vessel making its way from Skogyn, Norway, to Amsterdam with tons of scrap metal on board. “These ships are fast.”
“Are they?”
“8.6 knots, to be precise. I’m tracking them with my ship-tracking receiver. Every ten to fifteen seconds, each vessel emits a burst of radio waves, announcing its position, speed, and direction to anyone who cares to listen. A remarkable system, really. They cannot move an inch without broadcasting their whereabouts.”
Jim looked unimpressed.
“But that is beside the point, Jim. They are pushing the water!”
He looked at the ship again.
“Well, yes. That’s how propellers work.”
“Exactly! Chop, chop, kick, and shove. It’s like a meat grinder beneath the waterline. These vessels have enormous propellers, ninety centimeters across, made from brass and steel, rotating through the water with complete indifference to whatever happens to be there. The only reason they don’t turn the entire North Sea into fish soup is that they make such a terrible noise that no sensible marine creature would voluntarily approach them. Imagine that, Jim. The fish are spared from being chopped to pieces only because they have already been driven away by the noise.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I get your point about underwater noise. But the other thing you said is ridiculous.”
“What do you mean, ridiculous?”
“The water. You can’t seriously object to a ship pushing water.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s water.”
“And that gives us the right to push it around?”
Jim did not answer.
“Think about it. These ships are disturbing the natural order of things. They simply don’t give a damn. How would you feel if someone kept pushing against you for the sole purpose of propelling themselves away from you? You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I suppose not.”
“Of course not. You would feel rejected. Used, even. Someone approaches you, presses themselves against you with considerable force, and immediately departs in the opposite direction. No introduction, no apology, not even the courtesy of looking back. And the only reason they approached you in the first place was that they needed something to push against. It’s shameless, Jim. Absolutely shameless.”
Jim stared at me for a moment.
“So water has feelings now?”
“Not like you and I, of course. But who are we to decide what constitutes a feeling? The old Indian philosophers took considerably greater care with such matters. The Jains, for example, recognized living beings in earth, water, fire, and air. They understood that existence was not a privilege reserved for creatures capable of complaining about it. A stone might not cry out when kicked, but that is hardly evidence that it approves of being kicked. We have simply decided that anything unable to lodge a formal complaint may be treated as dead matter. A very convenient arrangement, particularly for those doing the kicking.”
Jim shook his head.
“These ideas are not new, Jim. They are merely forgotten. And you cannot seriously argue that the world has become a better place since we abandoned them.”
“Maybe there is a reason why these naturalistic philosophies died out,” Jim replied. “Anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
We found a small restaurant overlooking the harbor. It was one of those establishments where the fish on the menu was described as fresh, although there was no indication of when it had last been alive or whether it had agreed to the arrangement.
Jim ordered fish and chips.
I ordered soup.
“What kind of soup?” the waiter asked.
“That depends,” I said. “Where does the water come from?”
“The kitchen, sir.”
“Yes, obviously. But before that?”
“The tap, I presume.”
“And before the tap?”
The waiter looked at me with the expression of a man who had been employed to carry plates and was now being questioned about the origins of existence.
“I could ask the chef.”
“Please do.”
Jim sighed.
“You see,” I explained after the waiter had gone, “this is precisely the problem. Nobody considers the water. It is taken from somewhere, forced through pipes, heated against the water’s will, and finally served to somebody who will complain if it is too cold.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions about what water wants,” Jim replied.
“Of course I am. Nobody has ever asked it.”
“And how would you ask it?”
“That is a technical problem, Jim, not a philosophical one.”
He considered this for a moment.
“So you’d need some sort of water interpreter?”
“Exactly.”
“And how would you know whether the interpreter was telling the truth?”
I had not considered this, although I was reluctant to admit it.
“Naturally, we would need a regulatory authority.”
Jim put down his fork.
“For water?”
“For its representation, obviously. We cannot allow anyone to speak on behalf of water without establishing whether they have been authorized to do so.”
“And who would authorize them?”
“Water.”
“But water can’t speak.”
“Which is why we need an interpreter, Jim. You’re not listening.”
At that moment the waiter returned, accompanied by the manager.
The manager explained that the chef could not establish the origin of the water, as it had arrived through the municipal supply and the municipality did not provide individual certificates of provenance. He added that, should I wish to make a complaint, there was a form available from the water authority.
“Excellent,” I said.
“Unfortunately,” the manager continued, “the water authority does not accept complaints on behalf of water unless the complainant can demonstrate a legitimate interest.”
“I have a legitimate interest.”
“No, sir. You have an interest in the water. That is quite different.”
Jim began laughing.
I asked the manager whether the water itself could make a complaint.
He thought about this carefully.
“In principle, yes.”
“And in practice?”
“In practice, it would need to appear in person.”
“Well, there you are!” I exclaimed, pointing towards the harbor. “There is an entire sea of witnesses just outside your window!”
The manager shook his head.
“That is not our jurisdiction, sir. We deal exclusively with drinking water.”
I looked at Jim. He was eating his fish.
Outside, the Lusbris Seaways was still making its way towards Amsterdam. According to my receiver, it had accelerated to 9.1 knots.
I found this deeply offensive.
Not only was it pushing the water, it was now doing so with increased urgency, as though attempting to escape responsibility before anyone had thought to establish it.
“Look at that bastard,” I whispered.
Jim didn’t look up.
“Would you please just eat your soup?”
The waiter had finally brought it. It was tomato soup, quite hot, and a little too salty.
I stirred it carefully, watching the liquid turn in small circles around my spoon.
It occurred to me that I was doing precisely what I had accused the ship of doing.
For several minutes I sat perfectly still.
Then I asked the waiter for a fork.
Epilogue
We spend an extraordinary amount of time discussing how AI can make us more productive. Writing code, summarizing documents, automating workflows, and eliminating the last remaining opportunities for human thought. But perhaps we are missing something. What if, instead of asking AI to do something useful, we asked it to help us be completely unreasonable? This story began with a rather absurd thought about the moral injustice of ships pushing water. With a little help from AI, it became an increasingly elaborate argument about the rights of inanimate matter, the philosophical standing of water, and the bureaucratic difficulties of representing its interests. No problem was solved, no productivity was gained, and nothing of practical value was accomplished. Which, I would argue, is a perfectly respectable use of artificial intelligence. Wouldn’t you agree?