SilvaRizla wrote:
A great deal of other things happen when these "numbers" move. Describe them to me please.
Well that's extremely open ended..... so I'll start with inequality.
Income can be demonstrated to be directly related to life expectancy. Child wellbeing is higher in more equal countries. Studies in the USA show that more children fail at school in unequal areas; Murder rates are higher in unequal areas; people trust each other less in unequal areas; mental illness is more prevalent in unequal societies. The list of problems that inequality causes with these kind of results is absolutely enormous. Not only that but those at the top are able to dictate how much or how little everybody else can have – a good example of that is being able to manipulate the supply or demand for essential goods simply so that a few of the many can have far greater personal 'welfare'. If a rational and sane society were aware of this surely it would seek to make adjustments, no? It cannot, since that wealth accumulates the power and anybody without it has little chance of making any significant change.
The monetary paradigm forces people to compete with each other instead of unify fostering all sorts of divisive social dysfunction such as judgements made based on wealth or class, or opportunities that become available or unavailable due to social and cultural backgrounds, amongst a myriad of other problems that culminate in social corrosion; a huge trigger factor in violent behaviour (which is more prevalent in poor areas) is people feeling looked down upon and disrespected.
Politicians and justice can be bought or sold, and laws are being passed due to the heavy influence of private lobbying groups, who just happen to be really rich. The accumulation of profit is responsible for creating an endless cycle of disposable goods for consumption because goods are not designed to last or take advantage of using the best resources available. This planned obsolescence is simply wasteful of finite resources. The monetary system is prohibitive to accessing resources which occur in a world we share, not hold some legal title to which is purchased by a game of waving pieces of paper about or just transferring numbers around computers in an assumed authority. And of course, the resources that are utilised for profit come at the expense of so much else, such as poisoning the earth with outdated agricultural techniques or growing genetic mutations which are proven to be harmful - all so that companies such as Monsanto can get more and more money, and in the meantime passing their own laws simply because they have the money and power to do so. Is it really in the best interest of the people? I think not. An economy that relies heavily on a finite resource such as oil demonstrates exactly why this system is totally screwed and is doomed to failure. So where are the plans to move on after oil? The world currently consumes several hundred times more barrels of oil per day than it produces, and it has increased exponentially year after year. Profit motivation doesn't look at these things or take any consideration into anything but immediate profit, yet our environment and nutrition are quintessential to our existence. It may well increase personal welfare but only in the short term and then the cycle must repeat. Obviously on a bigger scale the profit motivation is responsible for a number of further rather distasteful activities such as bombing the crap out of people. All in all, a most unpleasant way to structure a society and completely outdated.
The current structure of society that favours the rich in almost every way is responsible for the poor environments in which other people are born into and are socially conditioned by. Loans are granted to poor countries (and much of the rest of the world) which can never conceivably be repaid. This straddles every human being with a debt that they are not responsible for which will continue through generations, and thus minimises labour productivity for personal welfare placing that productivity into the hands of the greedy. As a result, corporations are able to hoover up resources in lieu of payment, inevitably leaving people in those countries with less resources that they have little of anyway.... and let's not forget, this money that was loaned, was simply created out of nothing at all. (see moving numbers around a screen.) Societies without basic resources such as food, water, clothing, and shelter creates human beings that are less capable of functioning both emotionally and physically and is a complete waste of human life, talent, and productivity. Since much of our lives are shaped whilst we are still in the womb, any of these factors can have devastating consequences during the rest of our lives, creating endless cycles of poverty. In the case of humans in the womb, chemical signals sent from the mother to the unborn baby provide information that indicates what sort of world it will be born into. A society with conflict, competition, and where the need to fend for yourself is prevalent will cause stress, and it is never going to produce humans as well as a society based upon mutual reciprocation and co-operation; - this coupled with inequality is structural abuse. These kind of factors concerning our unborn and stress levels in our environments aren't unique to humans; they exist across the animal and plant world too... it is a simple factor of nature itself; essentially, shit in, shit out.
It is actually by design to make life more or less impossible to exist without money. This is why poor people have such drastic lives. Does this paradigm somehow change that for the better or does it make changing that more prohibitive, or does it simply make things worse? Technology is mismanaged and abused with the sole intention of profit. There are numerous ways in which technology could be employed which would change the face of the world for the better, and relieve our reliance on money so much leaving greater leisure time and enhancing our environments while at the same time using resources efficiently and making the highest quality designs to ensure they last. Examples of this could be geothermal energy, evacuated tube transportation or mag lev networks, a fully automated road network, a fully automated food production centre where food is grown naturally using hydroponics or aeroponics in vertical farms. All this would enable distribution to be as efficient as possible, and sadly it's been available to do for a long time but the profit motivation simply does not cater for anything apart from profit because it is nothing but a soulless corporate entity with one mission.
Now if you're going to argue that somehow moving these numbers around a screen is somehow beneficial because it creates GDP or whatever else then it begs the question - is this more important than life itself?
