another day another dollar

another day another dollar

sometimes i feel most of our human "civilization" is not consciously aware that human behaviour throughout history has been shaped almost entirely by economics, not in pedantic sense of the word, but in terms of the need to survive, and rather in more modern times, the need to survive comfortably. no matter what culture, what religion, what race, the instinctual desire to survive binds us all together in nature and tears us all apart in reality. why? because our ever growing numbers of physical selves depend on physical resources that are 'finite' mostly because our acquired knowledge and technology is limited. and of course this is compounded by the insistence of our ancestors on emphazing differences and division along these lines. while on this tangent, let me say the condoning of statements such as "i am proud to be a Trinidadian" or "god bless America" is one of humanity's greatest failures. the only true unity is mathematical "unity", one. when humankind sees this truth and applies it, when each member of society can internalize the utility function of every other, only then will we see peace.


how sad it is then that we, whose frantic clamouring for control of resources has left probably 95% of recorded history marked by war, set the curve on the standards of "civilization". in my mind the, utterly remonstrable*, manifestation of all this in modern society is the aggrandizement of wealth and western capitalism. that the accumulation of wealth is held above the accumulation of knowledge is remarkably pitiful. i used to be fooled by the illusion of modern educational institutions. it would seem however that most such processes meant to advance knowledge are merely a subset of the processes those in control set up to advance wealth, rather than the preferable converse. (and if you doubt me just read the newspapers. progress is only proclaimed when you demonstrate sustainable macroeconomic growth. and what that means is that you buy more, sell more, produce more, and pollute more.) so embedded is this artificial construct across society that even those who cherish knowledge more than wealth is forced into the wealth generating machine. this idea occured to me as i saw my MIT classmates walk off the commencement stage one by one, an opera of worker drones coming off an assembly line, primed for industry, champions of productivity.

i mean. who am i to talk. here i am. a trinidadian in america for purposes of milking this cash cow, using educational attainment as a signalling mechanism to draw potential employers. a nonresident alien with an immigrant agenda. but at least i have my principles to guide me, right?

anyway, now that i have presented one view let me clarify some things. i don't think that the accumulation of wealth is a bad thing in and of itself. there are obvious positive externalities that come hand in hand with it, including accumulation of knowledge. however, what i think is wrong with the world is how things are prioritized. that is, wealth and knowledge is the end and the incidence respectively, whereas it should be the other way around in my opinion. for the sake of humankind's sustainable existence. i hope that the thinking man may choose the following principle as a worthwhile compromise:

education will give you a living,
edification will give you a life.


*remonstrable may only be a word in my own personal dictionary but i LOVE how it sounds. tis my favorite