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 ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
Man, you just have people dropping by all the time don't you? How does that work? We used to have that, but people get busy with families and lives and we hardly ever see them now. I don't feel like we should have to make all the effort either. I know this wasn't the point of your post, but I also know you talk a lot about human interaction. What do you do when humans simply don't want to interact with you anymore?
I feel we barely have people visit these days. I wish it was more of a near daily or weekly thing, but it is hardly even monthly. One of the conversations we had last night was about how the neighbourhood spirit has been lost. I try to get Smallsteps to get out with her friends often and she is pretty good with it now.
I guess that is the time to check myself out of this life completely.
So you are telling me to KYS? :) I honestly think it would be easier if my wife and I didn't people all day. I really feel like there is such a thing as a social battery and mine gets drained really fast with all the interactions at work. By the time I get home I have nothing left.
KMP :D
Yeah. We all have that battery I think - but some deplete faster than others.
You are right, during 9/11 around three though Americans were killed, which resulted in invasion into Afghanistan and is still talked about 25 years later.
Russia and Ukraine war is probably over two million total casualties and nobody really cares. Lives are definitely valued differently around the world...
Yep, that is the clear example that comes to mind. I wonder if 3000 people were killed in the ghettos of the US, would it get the same treatment?
Do we have ghettos? 😀
IMO its dependent on the level of "care" the media puts into things.. media conglomerates mostly all share the same idealogies since owners all in same club. Majority of people couldn't give two spits if the news didn't tell them to care.
This is sobering to think about. !BBH
At least I think so. Maybe it is also a reason to drink more.
Technology saves us time and effort, but instead of using that extra time to improve ourselves, we often spend it consuming more in a life where time is limited for us.
Consuming useless also.
Makes you wonder if this is how ancient civilizations started to decline too.
I think they tend to have been on the same path. too much power going to too few, and then revolution.
It's no longer a secret that the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. Wherever there are officials, there are businessmen behind them. The poor are used as tools for certain political ends. Life is not valued when, for example, efforts are not Made to end a war.
There is always someone richer.... until there is an absolute monopoly.
Yes, it's like that so the right of the poor have no place..thanks.
Values in different countries and even in the same city are relative for people
That is, if a rich person commits a crime, it is different from a poor person, and this is not good at all
And then, the rich people in one country, are seen as poor people from another country.
Hmmm. Usually, where your money stop is actually where another person's money starts.
Facing things head-on is always the hardest part, but honestly, most people would rather look the other way until things completely blow up.
No one can go against this, everyone wants to earn / have enough money to live his entire life in a good environment with his / her family.
And when the rich are suffering, something gets done- Not so much for the poor.
Poor never get anything in his favor until he has some kind of recommendation.
There is an imbalance.
I miss the good old history focusing primarily on human development.
I think the attention now is liking shifting to having more and more money just for me.
And that is a red flag
One thing that really stands out to me is how we sometimes make things that should help us, but end up making us weaker or more dependent. I think we need to pay more attention to how our everyday choices are affecting us as people, not just what we can gain from them.
Learn one thing useful daily, and apply it daily.
Technology has been playing a major role in the lives of every human. We are supposed to use all those invention wisely but perhaps we get dependent on them, we are become addicted to system that was create to help us make things easy and I think the main danger here is we humans losing our sense of deep thinking.
Making things easier is what we are designed to do, but we have got to the point we are focusing on easy only, rather than solving actual problems we need fixed.
And that also affect our brains, making us slow in almost everything we do, just wish people realize this on time.
In the end, having enough resources is good but, our health is the wealthiest.
There was a point where we stopped innovating to benefit society as a whole and solely focused on profits at the expense of society. Right aroundddddd say 1914 in America.. Though this has been a recurring thing throughout human history.. most humans seem to want to help to shape mankind in a postive way but there always lurks in the shadows that malevolent gang of "Rich" who just desire to control it seems...