Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Why are we what we are?

Does anyone ever stop and think about all of this anymore? Where we live, what we do and why we do it?

Why do we destroy a mountain and the forest to make pipe to send water to homes and then make pipe to take water away from the homes? Why do we work the majority of our lives in hazardous conditions to build elaborate homes and monuments for the wealthy when people can't even house themselves?

Why is our food shipped 2500 miles before we can eat it? Do you know how to feed yourself without a supermarket? What happens when trucking and shipping is no longer profitable? Why do we continue this agricultural system when we know it destroys the soil and will leave us with less and less arable land?

How is making bombs sustainable?

If you believe in equity and equality, how can you vote to concentrate power and create inequality? How can you go to work to make money to support an economic system that creates inequity?

Should we put a price on everything? We bought and sold humans once and I guess we still do. Now its just you're choice if you want to be bought and sold you're whole life.

10 comments:

Barga said...

I added a title and some tags, hope you don't mind

because we can. Why do termites destroy their very home? Why do certain animals kill of their young? Because that is natural, and because they can

Ander said...

So anything we are able or possibly able to do is natural and because we are able and it is natural, we should for the sake of doing it?

Barga said...

not at all, i am merely pointing out that we are in no way unique in this. The only thing unique is the amount of damage we can do in a short time (most other creatures can do nearly as much as us)

Ander said...

I don't see other animals building things, driving cars, having jobs, going to cat school to learn how to be good little cats.

Barga said...

and i dont see humans building rafts out of their own bodies

you are being too specific

Ander said...

That's irrelevant to my point.

Humans made these systems, why? What is the education system and what is it's purpose in society?

every specific belongs to a broader context.

Barga said...

Are you telling me that no other organism learns from 'teachers'?

Andrew Beyea said...

oh man, asking us to make judgements about good and bad.

let's assume, for devil's advocate's sake, that the destruction of the ecosystem is good because mankind is a cancer on this planet, and the sooner we reduce the biosphere to a near-uninhabitable state, the sooner the surplus population will be underground.

in this situation, i feel that we would be best off cutting down all the forests and making more pipes.

for all your ranting about the destructive behavior of humanity, you are making the assumption that people/society is worth saving, and that if we change our ways, we can save it.

is that really what you meant?
in either case, what kind of society do you see developing that would be sustainable and worth sustaining?
what steps would we take from where we are today to make that society a reality?

Ander said...

I just want to know what the purpose of everything we are doing is? It is claimed this is all required to support our lives and everything we enjoy in our lives because it is "natural". Well does all of this lead to happiness and sustained life or is this just a hamster wheel of shit to do to occupy our time that leads to the happiness of a small segment of the population?

What I see our current system of "survival" amounting to is a system that destroys the natural systems required to sustain my being present on this planet and it is therefore a threat to my well being and ultimate happiness. I care about my life. In the broadest sense and when it comes to survival I could give a shit less about anyone else or "society". When I am not backed into a corner where I must simply compete to survive, I have the time and energy to develop voluntary relationships with people in which we can find areas of mutual benefit and can make life easier and more enjoyable beyond just surviving.

Does anyone want to die? Well sure and those people can kill themselves. I simply don't want to die and want to enjoy what it is I have been presented with whatever this shit is because I could die at any second. I also know that I will ultimately die so why not do shit that makes me feel good? I want to find the other people who want to live and find it worth their while to put the effort into living.

The system I see is not one of highly specialized classes performing specific tasks that are largely separate from each other but something that is highly integrated and produces peoples needs to live. Not a bunch of shit that ends up in a landfill in 3 months. Not an organization, but a network. A natural social network of people who have a respect for each others individual dreams and goals and an understanding of what it is each of us need to live to accomplish those dreams. Once those needs have been met together, people can choose what they want to work on and use methods of free association to organize to accomplish those goals. If two people disagree on a future coarse of action, they do not need to fight over what is required for their physical existence which allows them to go their separate ways on future actions peacefully.

People need to stop depending on others for their needs to start working in this direction. Things to do to move in that direction is finding people who feel the same way about this and doing things that directly work towards taking care of themselves. People can get together and start growing food, collecting water, acquiring the means to produce electricity, etc. Identifying the ways in which we are dependent on others and the "system" and finding ways of accomplishing the same things but with the people we know in our lives instead of with massive fictional entities that are run by people who know nothing of our individual personalities and circumstances. Anyone who thinks they can survive off this and that this current way of life will lead to their happiness, more power to them. We'll see who is fed, housed, and happy at the end of the day.

Ander said...

EDIT for my own post "People need to stop depending on others for their needs to start working in this direction. "

People need to stop depending on massive fictional hierarchies for their needs and start depending on those around them and their physical surroundings.

Redirect

You will be redirected shortly to our new website. If you are not redirected within 5 seconds please CLICK HERE!

Copyright Notice

(C) All articles, postings, images, etc. on this site are protected by relevant copyright law, unless otherwise specified. To use any original material in totality please ask for author permission.

(C) 2009, all rights reserved by whalertly.blogspot.com, Robert M. Barga, and all contributing authors.