““The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
We need to help everyone imagine a better world–one where none of us die from lack of housing, health, or purpose. One where our fundamental needs are always met without anyone asking if we ‘deserve’ it.
There is enough in the U.S. for this imagined world to be real. There is no justifiable reason why we shouldn’t have it.
It’s not enough to simply critique the billionaire-dominated hierarchy currently attacking us. We need to also give people a reason to imagine a better world, and to recognize that right now is precisely the time to make this better world real. At a bare minimum, we should assure that all of our fundamental needs are met without ever asking whether we ‘deserve’ to live.
well, the justifications for why we ‘aren’t there yet’ are ignorance, greed and fear.
Collectively we aren’t there yet, but groups of like minded humans are now capable of much more than before and can yield tremendous results good and bad.
I can imagine lots of little paradises spawned from groups that achieve it.
but species wide, I dunno, maybe we just find each other too delicious to not eat, etc.
I don’t think things like greed are endemic to our species, and particularly not like the greed that is so all-consuming that you take necessary things for life from less powerful people.
I do think, however, that without a massive change in mindset, that this capitalist viewpoint, the viewpoint that says I can take whatever I want from whomever I want, will persist. We might not be hardwired for greed, but we are hardwired for hierarchy.
And, if that hierarchy is one that valorizes this poisonous type of greed, that the lower primates will mimic it to rise in the hierarchy.
But, we have so many other available hierarchies. The capitalist one is dominant now, but we can change that.
it’s not capitalism, it’s social darwinism; conquering and abusing advantage by any means for any living advantage. This means if there is social power to be had, there will be desire to obtain it. (see all of history)
We may be doomed but we may also have enough capacity to give rise to intelligence that can govern us effectively and fix societal problems without monetary gain or advantage.
or, like, you know, doom.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you….” - Steve Jobs
The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.
And have made differently in the past.
While we’re all living in the present it’s extra-important to acknowledge the successes (and sometimes catastrophic failures) of different civilizations of the past. The way we’re living now is not the only way we’ve ever lived as a species, but we seem amazingly incapable of learning from past successes and failures sometimes.
