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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Here's something to Ponder.

I am not a naysayer. I believe in the power of everyday Americans to change their lives for the better. I am thankful for the many programs that have helped us all live out some semblance of our dreams.

But in truth, it is only a semblance. Society has a rather hollow, inorganic core. Money is not a vehicle. It is a crutch that we can outgrow at any time.

I believe that money is not so much a root of all evil, but rather an idea birthed in a simple time, when mankind was even more petty and small-minded than much of it is now. It was invented by merchants as a way to keep track of their sales, and later became something people used as a proxy for real items.

A proxy should never be the basis of anything. There must be something solid beneath it to give it strength and reality.

So how, you may wonder, can we ever shirk the shackles of monetary confinements? It will be difficult, and it will in fact be something that might never work. It all depends on the far possibility that every person on the planet will learn to earn what they have through action, and will accept that if something is desired or needed by everyone, it should no longer be a priviledge to be earned, but rather a necessity that is integrated into the infrastructure of human living as a given.

Capitalism has convinced us that there must be competition for any real progress to be made. The truth is that this is a complete fallacy. Competition has stifled more creativity than it has subsidized. It would be best for people to understand that if we want something that doesn't exist, someone will create it. The only difference will be that instead of needing to pitch the idea, sell it, and risk their life savings on it, they will instead be fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn all that stands in the way of their ability to make it a reality, and have access to all the tools they need.

There are real world examples of this. And their complexity is hard to explain to those who aren't interested in those specific fields. However, modifications (or mods) to video games for personal computers are a truly immense field of interest if one really explores what is out there. In the time it took for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to be made by Bethesda Studios, thousands upon thousands of users have not only used the built-in creative tools to create their own content for the game, but have also gone so far as to rewrite much of the core code for the game, making even more incredible mods possible, and also making the game only worth playing on the PC for the sole reason of having access to mods.

This is all done for free, and for fun. Imagine what would be possible if people could just study and create possible designs for energy infrastructure, instead of requiring the only designers to be people who have worked through a system of education and working that stifles creativity and encourages exclusivity and arrogance towards outside voices with genuinely new ideas.

I think there should be fewer people trying to be like Thomas Edison, and more trying to be like Nikola Tesla. Study the history of those two, and it will be apparent that Tesla had the potential to go infinitely further, because his mind was not fettered by worries of competitive maneuvering or fiscally-conservative changes to his designs.

This is also true in terms of civil freedoms and rights. People need to let go of their desire to be above others. They are destroying the potential of the human race by that pettiness alone. Bigotry is only one part of it. War must be recognized for what it is: unnecessary. Individuals must recognize that depravity is caused by a lack of access to what a person needs. If a person needs to have sex, then it should be available to them. In other words, we need to get off our high horse and forsake the stupid puristic ideas that have made our society sour and prone to idiotic argument since its inception. People should not be punished for believing differently, and they should be given help learning from their mistakes, not time to let their past wounds fester further and be joined by new hatred for the society that doesn't believe in them. In other words: prisons are useless, and must be replaced with secure schools and places for real rehabilitation. And upon coming into the real world again, people must not be given a stigma that only reinforces their feeling that they are never going to be good again. Forgiveness must become a universally practiced virtue, as well as patience and charity.

So in short short: We need to have an end goal in sight for humanity. We need that goal to be a society that does not reward or punish people, but instead allows everyone to live at a level that is joyous, and allows creative minds to create new things for all humanity to further share, protective souls to take care of the things that have been created, loving hearts to take care of the people in the society, and commanding persons to be the teachers of students in the ways of the world.

No one needs to be paid for their talents. They just need to be given the opportunity to practice that talent and be free of pressure to support the aspects of life that should be free.

Ok, not so short. But oh well, at least now the idea has be expressed in some rough form.

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