Only the winners get to write the history, so we almost never get to hear the other side of the story.
I was thinking how many times people who were right were reduced to silence by death by some opposing force?
We, as the descendants of the winners, still hold that barbaric seed of the oppressors, so we are probably inclined to repeat such atrocities.
Taking all of these into account, is this one of the main reasons why we still engage war upon each other, although we, as a race, in the present, could live together without any problems?
The world produces now enough goods and food to cater for the entire race, still, we are putting a price tag on everything and using money, the tool that enslaves us all.
Isn't it time to open our eyes and stop believing the lies we're fed with every day?
5 comments:
I've been thinking about similare things lately, more on the work/monney/production side.
We are producing enough for everyone and, with the current and future automations, we may really need only a small part of people to work to produce and make things better. Currently there is already a large part of people that we don't really need to work/be productive, and we could feed anyone, still we prefer let the non-worker/non-winner, to starve, than to feed them, just because they are not competitive.
I think money is mostly getting in the way of further socialization of humans now.
But I did not though that the cause may be our "winner take it all" ascendancy. That open reflexions a bit more :)
I think that heavily depends on the definition of 'everyone'. It would be impossible to produce enough food and stuff to make it possible for all 6+ billion people on the world live as good as the less than 1 billion of the developed world. And in 10 years there will be 7 billion, 10 billion by 2050 ...
We might have enough stuff for everyone to survive, but that is nowhere near the conditions that we are used to. Think 10 people in a 3 bedroom house, rice and stuff for food, meat twice a week (a bit), no computers, no Internet, no cell phones, maybe one TV per house, no car, no gym, very poor medical care, ... That would be the weighted average situation.
As many of us do not want to live in such conditions, we use money to differentiate living conditions, but do note that all the effort and energy used to produce a single steak could have a whole family for weeks in the third world.
The only chance we really have of improving the average is to get even more technology and automation, just like we have done over the last centuries.
I really enjoyed reading your post,I think along similar lines and I am sure you will feel a lot more comfortable with yourself when you accept this point of view than when trying in vain to justify or rationalize certain decisions, or try to find ways of answering philisophical problems like the famous "diverting a train" and "killing someone for organs" type.
The fact is that as humans we are predators, we are hard-wired to protect those close to us by killing others if necessary, and each one of us has it inside of us to act in such a way at a moment's notice if the conditions are right. Having the capacity to act without rationalizing and thought is a critical faculty for survival, and is greatly hindered by second-guessing brought on by the inability to face up to what it means to be human.
We need *some* way to ensure that all the jobs which need doing get done. Suppose, hypothetically, that we do away with any form of currency. Most people work for one (or both) of two reasons: they enjoy it or they need/want the money. With the second motivation entirely removed, people will only work the jobs they enjoy. Now, given that, what happens to all the jobs that need doing to support a society but that not enough people enjoy enough to do? Unless you want to have an authoritarian government force people to work particular jobs (unacceptable), or you manage to automate away all of those jobs (unlikely), you end up with a society that simply doesn't function. In a society with some form of currency-based labor, jobs which few people want to do, or jobs which few people can do, end up having to pay people more money.
I won't argue that this model works perfectly; far from it. However, until someone manages to come up with something better, we'll have to live with it.
To paraphrase the common quote about democracy: free-market capitalism is the second worst form of society ever invented; everything else is tied for first.
@gernot: What it mean to be a biological human, doesn't mean that we can't change it, and socialize more our behavior, the one think that makes humans humans is adaptability I think, can(t we adapt to be peaceful?
@Anonymous: Well, know there are jobs that nobody wants thanks, I did not say that we should stop motivate people to work, I think most people like to feel useful, but it may not be enough, if working allow a better standard of living there still will be an incitation, but people could stop before the burnout and hard work diseases arise. This is true that we need a lot more automation before going there, but to be able to push more automation we weed to change our view about work and money before, because automation will push a lot of people out of their jobs.
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