It's
well documented (not to mention clearly obvious) that most of us are
the targets of psychological and chemical warfare, aimed at getting
us to constantly want new things and services; and once we get them,
to become dependent on them so the people who provide them can
acquire more power. So we can continue to get more, most of us must
get jobs, which themselves are things that empower others, enabling
us to acquire some power ourselves as soldiers in the use of such
warfare against other people.
Because
new things and activities require matter and energy, we use more
matter and energy, which we take from the rest of the world. Energy
can't be reused, so it is lost after we use it. The matter is either
reused, stored in forms that cannot be used for many years, or is so
toxic that it harms and kills as it circulates through the biosphere.
We are so inefficient in the way we get and process matter and
energy that the vast majority of what we liberate from the world ends
up never being used.
And
so the world dies; because other species require some of what we take
so that they can survive, and many are killed by the toxins we
create. Originally part of Nature's healthy cycle of reuse and
regeneration, we have created and eagerly participate in a process
that creates waste and death, all for a brief feeling of control
which we believe – wrongly – that we deserve, and can exercise
without excessive harm to ourselves and the few people we might still
care about.
Much
of the harm we do comes from great power multiplying the misjudgments
flowing from our natural ignorance, fed by a thirst for more power
and an arrogant belief that our ignorance is less than it is. We all
have "blind spots," gaps in our awareness of both what's
around us and the chains of causality that determine the impacts of
our actions. Those of us who believe that such blind spots don't
exist, or that some omnipotent parent-figure will protect them from
the worst consequences of their ignorance, are prone to do whatever
they can, limited only by the number of direct restraints they can
eliminate.
Common
sense suggests it is better to collaborate with people who don't
share our unique blind spots, communicating so that we can
collectively have a more accurate view of the world, and work
together to explore and share perceptions of the reality we aren't
collectively aware of. Such collaboration doesn't lend itself well
to focused collection of personal power, so the people who desire
that power must sabotage it. To do so, they convince others that
they have a set of critical insights and abilities that no one else
can have or share without depending on them. This fundamental
deception is the essence of manufactured demand. When the
power-seekers inevitably reach the limits of their ability to meet
the demand, they first try to maintain an illusion that the supply
really exists, then look for ways to blame others so their
fundamental deception can remain. Even if the deception is exposed,
the demand is already in place, so someone else will step in to meet
it; this protects the self-images of the people who were originally
deceived, because they can blame the originator without accepting
responsibility for their own weakness.
This
suggests that to break the death spiral we are in, we must promote
collaboration over competition, knowledge over power. This begins
with honestly questioning our most basic assumptions about ourselves
and the world around us, and enlisting others to do the same.
We
must accept that we are all limited in awareness and ability while
trying to increase both; and that this is not intrinsically a bad
thing. What is bad is to cause harm or death, or risk doing so by
increasing our personal power without exposing and offsetting our
limitations to match their potential impact, preferably by working in
partnership with anyone or anything subject to that impact.
Never
accepting that we know everything we need to know is key to our
survival, yet we must temper its acquisition with the costs to other
people and other species. We should proceed with a healthy respect
for the interrelationships between everything and everyone, whether
we are aware of them or not; here is where spirituality can have a
positive effect, minimizing damage until knowledge provides surer
guidance.
People
who hide information, lie, or advocate doing either, should be
considered a threat to the general welfare, and treated accordingly
until they stop. Those who actively manipulate people into doing
things that are unhealthy or potentially unhealthy to them or others
need to be exposed and restricted in their ability to do so.
Finally,
convincing people to acquire something while providing access to the
full set of existing knowledge of its costs and benefits is the only
legitimate way to generate demand; where gaps exist, they should be
identified. If something is too complex for responsible judgment to
be made about whether to acquire it, then it probably shouldn't be
acquired – or made.
