We need goods and services. This causes people to focus on things which produce necessary goods and services. This causes a loss of individual freedom to think about other things. Post hoc justifications are then put in place from social promptings- "work hard, play hard", the novelty of a "new" career move, a slight "raise", "group think", "team meetings", etc. This is the best we can do? — schopenhauer1

The technological revolution we have all witnessed over the last 60 years ought to have freed us all to have more leisure. Sadly the good old Protestant work ethnic has meant the contrary, has happened.

Inequality is up; we are more dependant on work, yet we have less work security; we have more labour saving devices, yet we we seem to work more, longer hours with fewer rights and lower guarantees.

This travesty of the possible has been brought to you by Neoliberal Ideology which has made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and continues to restrict democratic rights and freedoms.

This is not the world predicted in the 1970s.

An easy solution is to guarantee the right to work in the constitution. If you cannot find work, the state will assign you one. You need to look at this perspective from a more analytical one rather than assuming that everyone has their inner individualistic needs which take priority over the monarch (who's right to rule has been given by God). If you cannot understand this and the other policies that made conservatism so successful until the birth of liberal ideas, no wonder you support this false idea of individualism and liberalism. — Count Radetzky von Radetz

So why would working for the monarch be better? Seems arbitrary or just a joke.

It was really, really tedious work, but simple. It was great. The supervisor told us we could all talk, snack, joke, and laugh or whatever, as long as there was a steady stream of boxes moving through the process. So, we did -- talk, laugh, joke, and so on, and we sorted and re boxed thousands of boxes of files. It was good, because we had control over our time and over our style of interacting. 3 months was plenty of that activity, but it demonstrates the point. — Bitter Crank

So hierarchies and the culture that comes with it is your biggest complaint against the current system it seems.

The logic of life is what makes living "make sense" - everything we do "makes sense" because it's "part of life", it's what people do and what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to have projects, we're supposed to have jobs, relationships, progeny, etc. "Edge of life" issues, like suicide, are swept under the carpet because they are outside of the logic of life. Suicide does not make sense, from that perspective. — darthbarracuda

Well, that is an interesting part of our human experience that no other animal seems to share- a perpetual ability to understand itself qua itself. We live but we don't know why. This question entails not just our own personal lives but bringing forth new life. We can be what Sartre might call "authentic" and do things in "good faith", that is in knowing what we are doing in full awareness of the stark futility, or we can simply bury our heads in ongoing projects that we don't know how or why we took on, or perhaps were just kind of "foisted" on the person by circumstances. What is it we are trying to get at as individuals, as a species? This is something only we (or the proverbial self-aware aliens) must contend with. Suicide I see as an ideation coping technique. The thought of it is more relief than the actual action. As Schopenhauer stated,

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. — Schopenhauer- On Suicide

But indeed suicide, like existential angst, extreme boredom, questioning of life, absurdity of life, and the like are on the edges of things. It needs to be pushed out for more projects to be put through. Projects good, questioning bad. Navel-gazing and self-indulgence will be the main accusations.

I don't like to use the brain-computer, mind-software metaphor too much, but it does seem to be as you say - the software ("us") is fundamentally an infinite loop that only breaks when it is interrupted by some priority. When there is no queue, we are simply idly looping, waiting for something to happen. — darthbarracuda

And what is this idly looping? What is the nature behind all the looping? What does this tell us about what it means to be human, about life, about humanity as whole? Are the projects/programs something to quickly queue up in memory so to execute post haste or does the idling have any merit?

Also, I know you don't like the idea of a mind as a computer- but what is your best analogy if there is one? If not neural networks, what would you use? Is there any appropriate analogy or is the brain's mechanism of a category original and ontologically different?

And that alone is significant, because they displace workers who once carried out the tasks which computers now do. Lost jobs for humans or not, there are a lot of jobs I would prefer a computer to do because the job is so gawd-awful boring, detailed, and tedious. — Bitter Crank

But what of the distribution of resources? What would make people, en masse, NOT do the 8 hour work day?

The technological revolution we have all witnessed over the last 60 years ought to have freed us all to have more leisure. Sadly the good old Protestant work ethnic has meant the contrary, has happened.

Inequality is up; we are more dependant on work, yet we have less work security; we have more labour saving devices, yet we we seem to work more, longer hours with fewer rights and lower guarantees.

This travesty of the possible has been brought to you by Neoliberal Ideology which has made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and continues to restrict democratic rights and freedoms.

This is not the world predicted in the 1970s. — charleton

So what would radically change our situation, en masse? I am hoping the answer won't be the same old REVOLUTION. Besides which, the slow yawning anguish of a "just feasible" life in middle class mediocrity, doesn't seem to engender people to act much with any haste.

And what is this idly looping? What is the nature behind all the looping? What does this tell us about what it means to be human, about life, about humanity as whole? Are the projects/programs something to quickly queue up in memory so to execute post haste or does the idling have any merit? — schopenhauer1

Julio Cabrera sees this idle behavior as ultimately negative - the authentic decision to commit to projects and whatnot is an onerous reaction of disgust. Every sequences of positive instance that comes from our own initiative is preceded by this gathering-of-oneself:

"In the slaughterhouse that morning, I watched the cattle being led to their death. Almost every animal, at the last moment, refused to move forward. To make them do so, a man hit them on the hind legs. This scene often comes to mind when, ejected from sleep, I lack the strength to confront the daily torture of Time." — Emil Cioran,

Also, I know you don't like the idea of a mind as a computer- but what is your best analogy if there is one? If not neural networks, what would you use? Is there any appropriate analogy or is the brain's mechanism of a category original and ontologically different? — schopenhauer1

A window would be a better analogy, in my opinion. Dasein is the "opening" from which Being is understood, including its value.

But what of the distribution of resources? What would make people, en masse, NOT do the 8 hour work day? — schopenhauer1

During the Nixon Administration (probably before you were born) Milton Friedman and other conservative economists floated the idea of the guaranteed minimum income. The GMI would establish an income floor below which adults would not be allowed to sink. If you did, the GMI would bring you back up to the minimum.

This idea has been reworked and is sometimes called the "universal minimum income" or UBI. In this version, everyone would receive a fixed sum from the government each month. It would be fairly small, and if one had no other income, it would allow one to take minimal care of one's self. Most people would earn an income, and would keep the UBI. They could use it In whatever way they wished.

Some form of this solution has been put forward as the solution to mass job elimination by automation, computers, robotics, and the like. Just give people a basic income as an entitlement. There won't be enough jobs to go around, and there isn't any other solution.

Too expensive? No. For one thing the UBI or GBI would replace other welfare programs. For present day single welfare recipients without children, UBI would represent an increase in their standard of living. The UBI or GBI, like welfare payments, would flow back into the economy almost immediately. Buying food, clothing, and shelter would use up most of the payment. Government spending of this sort stimulates the economy (or helps support the economy) because it buys goods and services.

It isn't necessary now for many people to work an 8 hour day. 8 hours has become, in many cases, a convention. Managers figure that a worker will spend 8 hours per day at their task. Workers figure that if they do their job In 6 hours, they'll just get more work, or they'll be dropped down to part-time. But a lot of jobs can actually be dome in less time than is spent.

Of course some jobs don't work that way. A waiter In a restaurant can't serve customers until they arrive. Actors in a play can't say their limes all at once and leave early. (Hmmm, perhaps an interesting play could be written where characters come on stage one at a time, say all their limes, then depart--leaving the audience to surmise who was telling the truth.) A lot of jobs do space out work on an unpredictable basis. But production workers (whether it's paper production or widget production) can be done at variable speeds.

Julio Cabrera sees this idle behavior as ultimately negative - the authentic decision to commit to projects and whatnot is an onerous reaction of disgust. Every sequences of positive instance that comes from our own initiative is preceded by this gathering-of-oneself: — darthbarracuda

Oh, that is an interesting way to frame the situation. Do you want to elaborate a little about authentic decisions to commit to projects being reactions of disgust? It's as if the projects come out of spite with knowing our baseline futile situation. Nice Cioran quote too.

A window would be a better analogy, in my opinion. Dasein is the "opening" from which Being is understood, including its value. — darthbarracuda

Interesting, can you explain more about your window analogy and Dasein?

Too expensive? No. For one thing the UBI or GBI would replace other welfare programs. For present day single welfare recipients without children, UBI would represent an increase in their standard of living. The UBI or GBI, like welfare payments, would flow back into the economy almost immediately. Buying food, clothing, and shelter would use up most of the payment. Government spending of this sort stimulates the economy (or helps support the economy) because it buys goods and services.

It isn't necessary now for many people to work an 8 hour day. 8 hours has become, in many cases, a convention. Managers figure that a worker will spend 8 hours per day at their task. Workers figure that if they do their job In 6 hours, they'll just get more work, or they'll be dropped down to part-time. But a lot of jobs can actually be dome in less time than is spent.

Of course some jobs don't work that way. A waiter In a restaurant can't serve customers until they arrive. Actors in a play can't say their limes all at once and leave early. (Hmmm, perhaps an interesting play could be written where characters come on stage one at a time, say all their limes, then depart--leaving the audience to surmise who was telling the truth.) A lot of jobs do space out work on an unpredictable basis. But production workers (whether it's paper production or widget production) can be done at variable speeds. — Bitter Crank

I have heard of the UBI. Would that be the only main way to change the current system? Even that would never get off the ground, but it's something.

A universe basic income, or a public works program ala FDR, or some combination or the two, makes supreme sense to seriously consider. It would lift many out of poverty and near-slavelike existence.

Which unfortunately is why it won’t be even considered, one fears. Too much riding on the (united) status quo. Why have an educated, content, clear-thinking people when a nation of PTSD and poverty is so much controllable... and marketable?

I think it's likely to be considered seriously for several reasons:

#1, we spend quite a bit of money now on unemployment, retraining, and welfare benefits. Most people recognize that these benefits are necessary and do not constitute a significant drain on national resources -- because the benefits are recycled back into the economy almost immediately, to the profit of landlords, Target, Walmart, etc.

#2, in the interests of social stability, it is a reasonable cost to support people whose livelihoods have been eliminated and alternatives are In very short supply.

#3, "entitlements" as opposed to "welfare" are more popular ideas because everybody gets them. If only the poor received social security, it would have been dome away with.

#4, don't worry, the UBI won't be that large. It will probably be larger than the welfare payment for single childless adults (currently somewhere around $225 a month) and probably smaller than the minimum current SSI benefit, which is somewhere around $625. Nobody is going to get very far on say, $500 a month. But it will enable those who are partially employed, underemployed, or never-been employed to live. Live on $500? Are you crazy?

#5, UBI can't replace some of the other benefits unless it were set at something like... $1200 a month (currently close to the poverty level for 1 person). A single person would't live very well on $1200 a month, unless they paired up or went together for a group house, where 4 people brought in $4800 a month together. I used to be able to live on modest unemployment benefits, live alone, and enjoy life pretty well, but that meant living In very inexpensive housing (cockroaches, dusty halls, not very good neighborhoods). That housing is still there but has gotten too expensive to pull that off. One has to pair up now.

Public housing charges 33% of one's income, whatever that is. Of course, there are long waiting lists for public housing and able, single, childless adults are at the bottom of the list.

If all other benefit programs were to be eliminated (public housing, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, public housing, food subsidies--everything except Social Security) then the UBI would have to be more than $1200 a month -- probably closer to $1800 to $2000 a month currently, based on costs outside of New York City or San Francisco, and the like, and would probably be reduced for those who were working.

Paying out $2000 a month to millions of people is economically feasible ($24,000 a year is not a large income for one person) because most of it would still be spent on goods and services immediately, but it becomes a steeper political challenge. Legislators would probably feel that $24,000 a year for nothing just would not entail enough suffering on the part of recipients.

But let me remind you again, this proposal came from conservative economists, not closet communists. They understood that money spent by the government on individuals across the board would come back to the government by way of greater income for companies supplying basic needs, and then the taxes on their profits.

An alternative to the UBI would be an economic/education/trade policy to achieve full employment. This would necessitate sharply curtailing imports from Asia, and it's replacement with American made products, produced at a higher cost. This would take more political will, just guessing, than the UBI. We could achieve full employment by limiting automation and computerization, foreign trade, investments, and so forth.

But then you have to ask yourself the question, "Is it really a good idea to convert the workplace to a jobs program where incredibly tedious work that should be done by robots is done again by people? It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, factory jobs (for instance) are always referred to as "good jobs" but people who don't have to do factory work generally don't.

Is heavy factory work good for males? Men? Industrial employers have often found men to be a nuisance because they don't like being bossed around and forced to stay in one place, all day, doing the same fucking task--welding those 4 spots on a car frame, for instance. In the early days of the industrial revolution industries preferred women and children because they were more easily controlled and would be less resentful of being paid less than they were actually worth.

There are "Good Jobs" that many people would rather not do, even if that means living in a box under a bridge.

Paying out $2000 a month to millions of people is economically feasible ($24,000 a year is not a large income for one person) because most of it would still be spent on goods and services immediately, but it becomes a steeper political challenge. Legislators would probably feel that $24,000 a year for nothing just would not entail enough suffering on the part of recipients.

But let me remind you again, this proposal came from conservative economists, not closet communists. They understood that money spent by the government on individuals across the board would come back to the government by way of greater income for companies supplying basic needs, and then the taxes on their profits. — Bitter Crank

How about the relation to work itself? I guess here's my problem. The assumption is that everyone has some instrumental value in "contributing" their work into some sort of organization that needs people's labor and expertise. Well, I am asking to question this assumption. What would humans do with themselves without these relations that are roughly following this model below:

:up: Excellent points all, thank you for detailing a feasible scenario where UBI could come to pass and help many people. Logically and circumstantially, the time seems about right. I’m sold on the idea. It would tend to raise the standard of living, and hopefully ease the despair that fuels violence and drug abuse.

But (to be skeptical, not of the plan, but of other factors) unless the “conservative leadership” really approved and pushed it, a large sector of voters would probably not support it because they heard on talk radio that immigrants will be stealing our tax dollars, or some such mush. Even if they would benefit from a UBI themselves, they still might cut off their nose to spite their face. There might even be a rebellion against any conservative leader who supported it, as being a socialist traitor. But perhaps not.

To burrow even deeper into our underlying belief system... One could perhaps metaphorically say that the underlying “software” on which our western civilization operates, is “A Capital Idea OS 10.7”, so to speak. Governments are apps running within that operating system. Encoded within this OS, are the twin objectives which supercede everything else, even human life, a livable environment, sustainable growth, logic, etc. These twin objectives are, predictably, “winning” and “profits”. They are the two legs are forever running toward the endless goal of dominance/success. It is the basic “drive to survive” present in all living beings, but taken to the Nth degree, to the point of imbalance, and of absurdity.

It is absurd because it is based on faulty logic: if some is good, more must be better, and having it all must be heaven. And it’s also based on the illogical premise that there must be winners and losers in all situations. If you lose, therefore i win, since there is a limited amount of “happiness” to go around. And it is firmly based on the premise that I referred to earlier: that everyone ultimately is an absolute individual, locked in their own isolated reality. Now and forever, on heaven and earth, amen.

The guardians of the status quo may tweak the code a bit to make it more “efficient”, but they didn’t write the software since it is very old. And it is based on an even older software called DAGR (for Delusion, Aversion, and Greed Repetition) which was criticized by many sages of the Axial Age, notably Guatama Buddha, who was a proponent of an ancient software called 4TMW (pronounced “for tomorrow”) which was based on the idea of “the 4 noble truths” and “the middle way”, which in part proposed taking what one needed and leaving the rest alone. This would produce contentment for the present, and ensure optimal conditions for future generations.

Human nature itself (flawed as it may be) is not responsible for this peril, one could say, for humans lived for an almost inconceivable amount of time in the occasionally difficult but mostly quiet routine of living. We are not condemned to live this way by our nature. But the code which controls much of our current lives for better or worse is in fact “open source”. It was written by humans and can be changed by humans. But only when we are collectively ready, willing, and able to do so. It may be time for an update.

Excellent points.

Our highly constructive age (buildings, cities, pyramids) isn't very old in relationship to our species age. If we've been around for tens of thousands of years, the first mud brick town is only about 9,000 years old, and that was a fairly modest affair. In between bursts of bigness (several ancient civilizations) life quieted down again. After the western Roman Empire fizzled out (about 500 A.D.) there were about 900 years of European peasants and very minor lords living quietly. Then things started heating up again, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and here we are.

Cultural code is an important driver, along with our genetic code. When the resources are aligned just right, we are driven to start building again, and after all that ends up in ruin, we give up angel food cake and go back to black bread and turnips for a few centuries.

We learn again and again about taking what we need and leaving the rest, but we keep forgetting it. Unfortunately our cultural codes over-ride humble truths and we decide to take everything if at all possible, or at least as much as we can cart away.

IF, and it's a huge 400 ft high IF, we could take just what we needed and leave the rest, we could all live a simpler life, but we could all live. 21st Century "post-industrial" civilization is doomed (planet wide) and the survivors of the doom will be forced to live a much simpler, harder life. But that's another thread.

The thing about the UBI, or an advanced economy anywhere, is that if one lives simply one wouldn't have to work so much. But living simply is hard -- the cultural code doesn't encourage it. Even simpler living is viewed as something of a pathology. There are barriers put I'm the way.

The thing about the UBI, or an advanced economy anywhere, is that if one lives simply one wouldn't have to work so much. But living simply is hard -- the cultural code doesn't encourage it. Even simpler living is viewed as something of a pathology. There are barriers put I'm the way. — Bitter Crank

You run into problems like in the health care field which requires complex biochemical solutions, technology, and the like. Eat some turnips and the like, but once you need medical help, you're going to want that complex economy which provides the complex technology to keep you alive.

How about the relation to work itself? I guess here's my problem. — schopenhauer1

Work itself is where our tender, warm blooded personhood hits the gravel road of industrialism. Some people have found accommodating jobs where their personal aspirations and styles are well served. Some people thought they had found nice places to work, but over time it was degraded by administrators cutting costs, increasing profits, and maximizing control. A lot of people have worked at jobs which were never accommodating and never served their personal aspirations and styles but they put up with it because it was that or live in poverty.

Extracting a living from the environment has never been easy. Hunter gatherers, for instance, had to work at it all the time, and if things didn't go well, it could be really bad. As life became more complex, some parts of making a living became easier, and some parts became harder--but one has always had to put quite a bit of time and energy into surviving. Except those who are born into great wealth, and those who are able to happily live In a box under a bridge (a rather small number, actually).

It might be the case that if you can't stand working in jobs for other people ("hell is other people, per J. P. Sartre), you might have to take lessons from Agustino and start your own business of some sort. You know, there are people who do that who aren't gung ho capitalists -- they just can't stand working in close quarters for somebody else.

Maybe I should have done that myself, but I was too stupid to think of anything that would work as a bitter crank-sustaining operation. Plus, I don't seem to have an entrepreneurial bone in my body.

Just for example... someone started a business of installing and maintaining large bird cages in nursing homes. The cages are about 8 feet long, 8 feet high, and 2 feet deep. They have maybe a dozen canaries and finches in them, plus branches, and a kind of grass mat wall on the back which the birds seem to like. The residents of the nursing homes like to sit and watch the birds. Alternatively, a large aquarium can be had (smaller than the bird cage).

Maybe you live in an area where bird cages haven't been installed in nursing homes yet? Maybe a snake pit would be an alternative? Lizards and hissing snakes instead of chirping birds or silent fish. A rat colony? All sorts of possibilities. Termite mounds? Ant farms?

Oh, well, Schop, when you are in the black bread and turnip phase, health care is limited to very simple procedures. If you get very sick, you are put in bed to die -- quite simple, effective. That's the downside of very simple living--simple dying.

A bit off the beaten path, but a good read when considering older economic forms: https://libcom.org/files/Sahlins%20-%20Stone%20Age%20Economics.pdf

EDIT: I realize that's a whole book. But chapter 1 suffices.

I realize that's a whole book — Moliere

Whoa--a whole book? What do you think we are, Moliere, intellectuals or something that actually reads whole pages, let alone whole books? We have busy lives, what with hauling in beer, drugs, pizza, and bitches. Just summarize whatever that was in 25 short words or less. Geez.

Hahaha. No insult intended. Sorry :D

tldr: It's reasonable to look at hunter-gatherer societies as affluent, rather than simply eking out a mediocre existence because as noted in this thread there are two sides to the problem of scarcity -- there's production, but there is also desire. There are still limitations, but the characterization of hunter-gatherer economies as purely limited to physical existence is too far a stretch largely rooted in our own theories of economy developed with our own particular social expectations.

Limited to physical existence? No, I wouldn't think so. After all, most people gave up hunter/gatherer lifestyles only recently--in comparison to the species' history. And evidence of aesthetic activities go back at least 40,000 years, thinking of the lion-headed man carved from ivory which was still legal to carve, 40,000 years ago. I would guess that aesthetic activity goes back further, but we haven't found much existing evidence dating before then.



The Löwenmensch figurine or Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel is a prehistoric ivory sculpture that was discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The German name, Löwenmensch meaning "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany.

The lion-headed figurine is the oldest-known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world, and the oldest-known uncontested example of figurative art. It has been determined to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old by carbon dating of material from the layer in which it was found, and thus, is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture.[1] It was carved out of woolly mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife. Seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges are on the left arm. Wikipedia

Animal art from Chauvet Cave in France, c. 25,000 BCE. It isn't just that the art work they did is appealing, it contains readily interpretable information from a person's 25,000 year old expression. We know what he means (we at least know what it was he was representing).

A friend of mine has been reading up on Hunter / Gatherer societies. It would appear that at least those H/Gs situated in good environments did quite well, frequently living reasonably long lives (50-60 years), having enough to eat most of the time, as able to take care of their wounds and illnesses as anyone was for thousands of years after the H/G settled down. They had good technology (arrows, spears, extended bows, glues, stone tool technology which could be produced quickly and, interestingly, trade networks that covered quite a bit of distance. The ideal stones for tools (certain kinds of chert, flint, or obsidian) aren't found everywhere. The weren't trading tons of rocks. Rather they were trading relatively small pieces of rock that were ready to be turned into cutters, scrappers, and piercers.

People in an area with lots of Osage Orange trees might have traded pieces of their wood to make bows for obsidian, for instance. Osage orange wood is fairly hard and extremely springy. (These days the inedible fruit is sold as a spider repellant for basements. I've tried it; I can't tell whether it works.)

I guess like most things I write about, this is more an existential and social questioning exercise. Let's look at two issues.

1) Existential- the seeming human need to get caught up in projects and past times for work and entertainment.

2) Social- with the complexity of a post-industrial economy, we work to make sure the "gears are moving". We work for the maintenance of the technology complex. Have the tools taken over to the extent that we are just the conveyor of current and new technologies? It's like the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.. just maintaining the ship. I think you are getting at this notion of getting away from "complex of technology conveyors" by trimming it down to a mere minimum.

Do you think the modern business dynamic is just a natural outgrowth of what humans really want out of life? — schopenhauer1

Not so straightforward as "what humans really want out of life". There is some structure that humans want. It's in the background. It just happens that the result is what we now have -- jobs, goods, recreation, buildings, material possessions. If you want to change human habits, you need to change that "structure", whatever that may be. (And now we are speaking about humans as if we're not of the same composition!)

Not so straightforward as "what humans really want out of life". There is some structure that humans want. It's in the background. It just happens that the result is what we now have -- jobs, goods, recreation, buildings, material possessions. If you want to change human habits, you need to change that "structure", whatever that may be. (And now we are speaking about humans as if we're not of the same composition!) — Caldwell

Yes, actually that is what I'm getting at. What do we humans have to do en masse to change the structure and thus change the habits?

:up: Ah yes, “the original affluent society”. Good stuff, thanks for sharing! Beginning over two million years ago with homo habilis, humans have done very well, especially when it comes to eating. If they hadn’t, we would not be here! In accounts of North America soon after European settlers arrived, rivers were described as overflowing with fish, and there would be so many that they would just wash up on shore. Food was everywhere with nary an empty calorie for omnivorous humans: the original Paleo diet.

Yes, actually that is what I'm getting at. What do we humans have to do en masse to change the structure and thus change the habits? — schopenhauer1

That is the billion dollar (and billion person) question. Well, whatever the answer might be, it would take some time to implement and take effect. We didn’t get in this predicament over night. But we have the accumulated knowledge of countless generations. We have the technology. Do we have the will to make adjustments? There is a quote somewhere about the earth having the ability to provide for the need of 8 billion people, but not their greed.

The way the system is now, people are encouraged to take everything possible. Anything not used personally can be used for leverage and power. I would not say no to a million dollars, but why do practically all millionaires act like they need more? Why do we all, rich and poor alike, feel so powerless and empty? What are the human needs that our culture is not meeting on a consistent basis? We can reduce, re-use, and recycle to be more efficient. But there needs to be something to fill the social, spiritual, emotional needs in each of us. In that respect, I would say that most of us are starving or sick from that which we tried to fill the emptiness with. Short of a world-wide group hug :victory: :heart:, I don’t have many specific suggestions. What will it take to reach a general consensus? We are like addicts waiting to hit rock bottom. Is it an emergency yet? In an emergency, a good place to start is to stop looking for people to blame, and start looking for solutions and ways to stop the bleeding.