Restatement: We need to stay alive as a species. In order to do that we need to stop deliberately hurting each other. In order to do that we actually need to stop other people from hurting each other when we see it. But our systems are set up to actively prevent us from doing that. And we celebrate it as survival of the fittest. It’s unnecessary. Unhelpful. And we have the ability to do better. If we don’t, we all die.
Beginning Explanation (every argument is only the beginning of the conversation, the key is listening):
Using power against your own species is common. We see it often in nature. Lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my.
What many of us forget is that this becomes less common in dominant predators as they increase in our definition of consciousness and intelligence (“awakeness”, as used in this post). And usually only occurs in extreme and unfriendly environments. This is out of necessity, not malice.
Humans are only truly beginning to wake up as a species. We are incredibly intelligent, overall as a species when compared to others on Earth. As we’ve progressed, the process has become more rapid and changed direction in increasingly unexpected ways. The marks of this progress are our creations. Which now regularly turn unimaginable into reality. Repeat. We are now able to create friendly environments, and there are plenty of resources for all humans. Right now. Based on the systems we’ve set up to generate and distribute them efficiently.
Key Point: We no longer need to use power against our own species. Which is only ever done by intelligent animals when it’s a survival necessity.
As these creations have made our lives easier, fewer and fewer of us need to be awake in order to survive. Or even thrive. With how easy life can be now, sometimes based on pure chance, we are falling back asleep as a whole. In other words, intelligence and ability are no longer key to getting rewards, nor are they even key for survival.
Key Point: Our current structures, including corporate, legal, and economic, discourage individual thought. By allowing us to avoid it. And even punishing it in some cases, like applying standard results to obviously exceptional cases, positive or negative. Or rewarding chance, by applying exceptional results to standard, or even undesired examples, through application of unearned results based on nothing but favorable circumstances of birth.
People who are born with or gain power, through their lives and either by ability or chance, usually end up using that power to take advantage of people, at least indirectly.
At worst, it is knowing and overt, by manipulating a system designed to create equity into unearned results. We see this in how wealth is often used, especially within the legal system. Money equals status and status equals preferential treatment. Even without overtly using that form of power to change the results. The key piece is whether the rules were made by your parents, and their parents. If so, it means you were probably born with methods to take advantage of the loopholes they built in. While those the rules get applied to others who were born in very different circumstances, loophole closed. The loophole, that is currently built into the legal system, as with most current systems, is money. Even participating effectively sets a financial bar above most people’s ability to pay. Setting a dollar restriction on effectively defending yourself, in an “intelligent” legal system, can’t be anything other than applying unequal results based on chance. Unless anyone would like to argue that birth doesn’t play a primary role in wealth.
At best, we often take advantage of others in ways that unconscious and indirect, by participating in the systems that encourage abuse of power. This is exemplified by the choice to work for companies that pay the (ever increasing) bills, rather than for causes we believe in. I have been indirectly guilty for a while now, by working for companies that are certainly not in line with my personal ethics, and will need to be for a while longer I fear. But I’m going to try to start working for the cause too, because it’s the only way forward.
We need to using power to fix the parts of the structures that are making us worse. Not knowingly participate in bad systems because it’s easier. Based on the structures we were all born with, through no fault of our own, it is the key to our survival as a species. Survival is the reason we started thinking in the first place. And thinking is how we started running shit. On Earth. As a Unit.
People step on others in order to avoid falling down the mountain, usually by using power to gain privilege and get a head start. Unfortunately, because no one’s paying attention anymore and very few can see the top, it’s starting to cause a landslide.
We need to hold our ground and pull each up. There’s actually plenty of space for everyone, because of how smart we are. And that’s how we’ll keep getting better.
Everything else is going to keep changing. We haven’t created the ability to prevent change. Despite everyone’s most desperate fantasies. And now we can actually start to direct how we change. As humans. By not making the same choices over and over while complaining about the results. That’s insane. And I’m not insane. Are you?
Something unexpected might happen tomorrow. And if it’s Earth threatening it’s People threatening. And I’m worried whether enough of us would be awake to handle it.
We need to get better to survive. From everything I can see we are thinking less than ever. This is not better. The reasons are the structures. The structures allow or encourage the manipulation of power. This, in itself and for the reasons I’ve stated, leads to less thinking. We need to change the structures to survive. And in order to change the structures we need to work together. And in order to work together we need to stop hurting each other. At least when there are plenty of resources for us to survive. Which there are. Based on what we’ve built.
Consider me officially WOKE.
Change. My. View.
PS. The best part is, my position implies I’m open to alternatives. If they’re more likely to lead to my stated objective. Survival. Of. People.