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17 January, 2010

Poverty vs Unreal Expectations

I'm about to turn everyone in this article on their collective ear. Are we really so desperate to justify our improvidence and lavish lifestyle that we have to rephrase every issue?

The problem is NOT too much poverty - it's NOT ENOUGH poverty...  Impoverished people are living to the standard which this Earth allows.  The people who see poverty as the #1 issue are those that by their own definition aren't impoverished.  And rather than give up anything, they're going to drag the "poor" people up to their level of providence.

Can you see what's wrong with this picture?  "The world has one hundred rocks available per 100 people, I have fifty of them, the other 99 of you poor people are sharing fifty rocks between you.  It's high time we got all of you fifty rocks each!"

There are limited resources on this planet.  We're on what a Galactic Federation would call a "poor" planet, where there are only finite resources.  We only have two choices if we're to be egalitarian and end up with everyone the same.  Either we lower the baseline for "normal" wealth, or we lower the number of people sharing the limited resources.  Since those same people above have as much trouble with the concept of being active mass murderers as they do with the idea of giving up any of their comfort in order to equalise wealth, it's up to "natural forces" to do the equalising.

And guess what?  Nature's doing it.  As we alter the balance of what resources are available to other species, we're seeing extinctions on a grand scale.  As we change the properties of our world by polluting and heating, we're seeing more and more extreme weather, warming, and geological events.  The planet is rebalancing itself the only way it can - with natural systems.

To be fair to the greedy percentage - greed and hoarding of resources is a survival trait because it ensures that YOUR genetic material survives.  Lions defend their turf, the land that sustains them, as do the antelope and wild pigs they live on.  The plant life that feeds those vegetarians hoards resources by protecting itself against other plant species by any means possible.

It seems that the world is going to be in a state soon, where only the wealthiest people will be able to afford to insulate themselves enough to remain alive.  Anyone who gives this a moment's thought as I just did, will see that this is true.  If you grab as much wealth (which equates to the Earth's resources) as you can, there's a chance you'll be able to hoard enough water, build an insular and protected habitat, and thus survive the coming climate disaster that's looming.  That's why people are all stridently demanding that someone "does something about poverty" - mostly to assuage their guilt at knowing they're preparing themselves to survive where all those "poor" peoples are going to perish.

<paranoia mode:="on">
Given that we can see that hoarding and greed is a natural trait of everything on the planet, and given that this greed has destabilised the Earth, we should maybe look at the Global Economic Meltdown that has just occurred in a slightly different light...
</paranoia>

Just saying...
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1 comment:

Von said...

More of the same plus the Big Banks conning Governments into thinkig they're poor too and need a handout!

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