A friend dropped by for a coffee last night and we spent the time talking about lots of things like normal, but concentrated a fair bit on how we are getting worse as humans, because very little of what we do or use, makes us better. As I see it, we are being devalued as humans and that puts us in a position where the value of resources will be worth more than the value of lives.
My theory has been for a while that the the close the value of physical resources are to the value of the people on the land that holds them, the more likely that place is open to attack. The opposite is also true, as where the value of people is much higher than the resources, attack is less likely. My reasoning is that an attack for natural resources for instance is only viable when the value loss of the people is significantly less than the value of the resources. When the value is in the people however, attacking will lose that value either through death or non-compliance, making the attack a cost with nothing gained.
If you look where there are wars and conflicts, it isn't just that there are resource values to be gained, but the value of the lives in those areas are also considered low. Unfortunately, as far as economics and politics are concerned, two lives are not equal. A thousand people get killed in one country and it is considered a shame but soon forgotten in a news cycle, a thousand in another and there is uproar and it is held onto for decades. And it isn't only war that treats the value of lives differently, because we see it in other areas too, where for instance when a Hollywood star overdoses and dies, large amounts of money will be spent on investigations to catch the dealer and hold them accountable. However, when someone OD's in a ghetto, it is just another drug death with few resources put toward finding and prosecuting anyone.
Rich lives matter.
But "richness" comes in many forms, where we can say things like "health is wealth" even though no matter how healthy one is, it can't be traded for food, rent or electricity. But as I was saying to my friend last night, we are made up of the four pillars of human, body, mind, emotions and social interaction - and if those aren't healthy we are going to suffer to some degree. As important as the body is, it is probably the easiest one to overcome, where we can have major health issues and still be okay, if our emotional, mental and social pillars are standing strong. Break any of the other three though, and no matter how healthy the body, suffering is near guaranteed.
But there is very little we do to improve those areas and the majority of our individual behaviours through what we consume and use, improves those aspects. Yes, we can learn about how the brain works or about emotional stability, but without practice, it is like reading a book on diet and exercise, while only sitting on the couch eating ice cream, and still expecting to get a six-pack stomach.
But what I find interesting is that while we have a general sense that the government and industry don't value us, that we are just numbers to them - it is our behaviour that is doing the majority of devaluing, as what we do makes us worse. We believe we are making the rational decision for what is best for us and those we care about, but when most of what we do is degrading our value as humans, reducing our quality of life, breaking our body, mind, heart and relationships - how rational are we?
For instance, let's look at an extreme where a country has nearly all people replaced by automation of some kind, but is able to provide for itself through the resources held and handout some kind of universal basic income. What value to the people add? Where is the country valuable if attacked? And if attacking, where is the value in keeping the people alive? If we were actually looking to protect ourselves as individuals and as a community or country, we would be looking for as many ways as possible to make ourselves valuable and reduce ourselves as liabilities and costs. Instead, we are moving in the other direction, where we are reducing ourselves and looking to become more dependent on others or some system to provide for us.
Throughout human evolution, we have been able to direct ourselves to develop, continually adding value. For example, we needed sugar to grow our brains, stable food sources to grow populations, and we kept innovating technology so that we could do things faster, better and leave time and energy for new development to take place. Yet now, we eat ourselves sick and we have innovated to the point where the majority of people do not create anything of value for themselves, or for anyone else. Even the work we do is largely busywork designed to increase profits, with no impetus to spend it on human development, but just reinvest for more profit.
The key to our success as a species has been our ability to think through problems and create solutions, and this has directed our physical, mental, emotional and social evolution. but now we are devolving ourselves through that same process, because we are no longer directing it toward what advances us, but instead, what entertains us and makes profit for corporations and control for governments. We are getting worse (on average) and even though it took us tens of thousands of years to get as advanced as we are, the tools we created will mean that the reversal will impact much faster. We can already see degradation between successive generations in significant quantities across all four of those pillars.
We have a problem.
But we aren't working to solve it.
Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]
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