No two snowflakes are the same.
Not are two flames.
Different ends of the spectrum, still just as unique. Enough snowflakes douse the flames, enough flames evaporate The snowflakes. I reckon we could do with a bit more fire in our bellies these days, a little more passion rather than complacency. Not more outrage, not more explosions, not more forest fires. Controlled burn.
There should be anger involved.
The anger we have about current circumstances however, is largely directed at each other, blaming opposing groups for the state of the situation. Yet the targeting system we have is poor, because the groups we should be angry at are the corporations and the governments that enable them. Both have failed us as a species at so many levels, that we should not only be livid, but be passionate about pushing back on all the ways they use their position to control and harm us. It should be clear that the "profit at any cost" model leads to catastrophic failure, yet we keep bearing down the same path, expecting that it will improve.
It isn't going to.
While we are arguing with each other about who is the most special snowflake that needs protection, we are all continually harmed because the rewards of the economic model aren't tied to the wellbeing of humanity. Because while individual wealth can buy a much higher quality of life for a small group, the distribution of wealth means that the average person is left poor. For example in the US, the average wealth of a household is over 1 million dollars. However, the mean wealth per household is about 190 thousand. If there was even wealth distribution across all households, the average wealth would be over 470 thousand. Mean is the middle score, meaning that 50% of the people are below that amount. The wealth at the top heavily skews the average.
But redistribution can't come through artificial means of just taking from some and handing to others, because that just isn't going to happen, nor would it work. What has to happen is that the road to being wealthy has to come through offering goods and services that make society healthy. If this was the underlying rule, by default there would not only be better distribution of wealth through better compensation, but also the health and wellbeing of society would significantly increase alongside it.
It would be fundamentally better.
But to do this, would require dismantling all the many channels of wealth accumulation through harmful and unhelpful mechanisms that have been established to maximise wealth at any cost. We would have to go back to a more direct value estimation, rather than derivative practices that don't add any value to society, but give growing access to resources that are used to manipulate and control, in order to gather and control more and more.
It is a fundamentally broken system, designed to push resources to the few.
And the "few" are not benevolent benefactors for the positive growth of society, they are greedy and manipulative as they are conditioned for a system that is designed to benefit the greedy and manipulative. Even if they are "good people" as individuals, the structure of the economy is designed to be harmful to society, as it is about wealth creation and artificial scarcity, underpinned by the core belief that winning is how many imaginary tokens are collected.
If winning in business was defined by how much wellbeing was generated in society minus how much harm was caused, the vast majority of companies and corporations would not be winning. They would be delivering a net loss. And if their value as an organisation was based on how much wellbeing they delivered to society, no one would be buying their stock. But, it isn't based on wellbeing, so people buy their stock because individuals want to "get rich" in the broken system too, which means supporting companies that do more harm than good for us as people, whether the impact be on the environment, or the health and wellbeing of people.
Yes, I am idealistic. But if we are going to succeed as a species, we have to actively change the way we manage and organise ourselves. The current structure leads to conflict and aggression, and a waste of resources spending the time attacking each other in many multiple ways. Instead, we need to find ways to use the same resources to grow each other and in so doing, ourselves along the way. Protection from aggression doesn't come through the highest walls, it comes from not requiring walls at all. And that comes from building a model where there is no way or reason to build an army and even if someone tried, there would be no way or reason that anyone would choose to fight in that army, and no way to force people to fight.
We are a long way away from being civilised.
Too much snow freezing us in place, and not enough flame to burn away the complacency.
Taraz
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