Plethora

Such a nice word, "plethora". It means "a large or excessive amount", just like "abundance", which is another wonderful word. However, since the dawn of humanity only a privileged few have lived lifes of abundance, in stark contrast to the toiling majority...

The reality is that we have a plethora of almost everything, and that there's no rational reason why we can't all live a life of abundance. I've said it many times before and I'll say it here: we make more food than there are mouths to feed, every major city has more empty houses than there are homeless people, there are more mobile phones than there are people, more cars than families and so on and so forth. Britain has a population of 67 million people, that's including children and the elderly, so how many mobile phones are there in Britain? Well, read this: Brits have 55,000,000 unused mobile phones lying around, research finds. One might say that Britain has a plethora and abundance of mobiles. And trust me when I say that if we count all the millions of mobiles that will never be sold and were never sold, we have enough of them for every man, woman, child and everyone in between on the planet.

In capitalism however there can never be abundance, not really. Capitalism isn't an ideology based on human needs, for if it were all our needs would be satisfied. No, capitalism is an ideology to protect the interests of those privileged few who live lifes beyond abundance. They do their best to keep up the appearance of shortages and scarcity, and actively create shortages if necessary; we produce food for 12 billion people every year, but most of it we destroy, let go to waste, process into food for cattle and numerous other ways to make disappear the plethora of food that really exists. Peter Diamandis is a Greek American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur, and he wrote a book with the title "Abundance". Naturally my interest was peaked when I saw that title, but after reading the summary that interest turned into anger; Mr. Diamandis is yet another one of those capitalists who denies reality. Let me just quote the summary here:

The New York Times bestselling manifesto for the future that is grounded in practical solutions addressing the world's most pressing concerns: overpopulation, food, water, energy, education, health care and freedom (The Wall Street Journal). Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing-fast. In Abundance, space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing synthetic biology, and other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous 200 years. We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every person on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. Breaking down human needs by category-water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom-Diamandis and Kotler introduce us to innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in each area. Not only is Abundance a riveting page-turner...but it's a book that gives us a future worth fighting for. And even more than that, it shows us our place in that fight (The Christian Science Monitor).

Now doesn't that just make your blood boil? The first bold-faced lie is that the gap between the privileged few and the rest is closing fast. The reality is the opposite: that gap is growing at an accelerated rate and the gap between rich and poor has never been greater than it is today. The next lie is that "we will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every person on the planet." No, mr. Diamandis, we already have that ability and we've had that ability for a long time now. It's the capitalist ideology that prevents us from reaching that goal as it's based on the accumulation of private wealth as opposed to collective well being. And then it goes on to say that the writers introduce us to "innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in each area", propagating the myths of the meritocracy and Ayn Rand's "Great Man Theory". Disgusting.

But hey, you should know all that by now... I just felt like writing this because of my love for the word "plethora". You see, English isn't my native language and I was introduced to this word in a film that's linked to some of my favorite memories of my years as a teenager. One night, after too many drinks and way too many joints, my friends and I put on the film Three Amigos, starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short. We laughed so hard that evening... I'll leave you with the scene that introduced us to that word, "plethora".

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, keep safe, keep healthy!