Newfie wrote:Lucky,
You ask some good questions but I think you need to draw back some to find satisfying answers. In a way it goes back to The Tragedy of the Commons. It is an old and true parable, much wisdom there, what is not obvious about the moral?
But, collectively we act completely opposite to the lesson.
Collectively yes, but individually we have a choice. When I point out about the banks and other modern institutions bleeding the people dry I'm not railing against them, just pointing out the facts for people to make up their own minds about. Those institutions don't effect me personally, in fact I have been enriched by one. We all have a choice, we can run with the common culture, complaining about it's deficiencies and overbearing ways or we can break the rules and make our own system.
Fifty years ago, University of California professor Garrett Hardin penned an influential essay in the journal Science. Hardin saw all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbors’ cattle will graze the best grass. So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the “tragedy of the commons.”
If you want to understand the crazy, mixed-up, 21st century information ecosystem, think about it as what is called a “tragedy of the commons.” That tragedy is enacted any time acting in your own self-interest unwittingly leads to a collective disaster.
https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... ws-crisis/
I only have self interest. I'm not in the least interested in my neighbors lives aside from social interactions and that is because they generally adhere to the mores of current society. We stand apart, on nearly every major topic, though I am careful to hide this fact. What happened 100 years ago or 50,000 years ago does not interest me other than how I can apply their failures to my personal well-being. Sound selfish? It is. It's the tragedy of the commons in it's rawest form.
Mankind is corrupt to the core. We're a murderous destructive species in aggregate and it takes little to push the average person out of the mall and into the battlefield. The weak ones, the meek, they are generally peaceful and will stand against climate change etc but they are so few and we so many their voice is drowned out by our consumption. The world will go it's way, to hell in a handbasket, and we can either go down with it or make plans now to mitigate these changes in our own lives. You and I can, the billions in poor nations have no such choice. We were just lucky to be born into rich societies at the right time in history.
