Musk made a deal with Putin to extort people into using Starlink.
Musk made a deal with Putin to extort people into using Starlink.
First gf. Grew up Jehovah’s Witness, loved a lovely girl in highschool with everything I had. Another later was never mentioned to family. The cult like nonsense of biased prejudice is quite disgusting in that group.
IRL social network is a major factor.
People are a product of their environment and opportunities. Genetics have nothing to do with hierarchy and display. Wealth is the dumbest and most primitive form of display that fundamentally harms and kills millions of people, enabling humans with the least ethics to peacock around. This is the behavior of subsentient unevolved imbeciles, like if publishing a scientific paper involved a gladiator death match fight with and rival publishing author. Wealth as hierarchical display is barbaric stupidity. If any alien civilization were to exist in some childish fantasy universe and somehow find us in time and space, wealth hierarchy would be seen as a primary reason why humans are if no regard as nothing more than primitive farm animals or parasites as they are unable to transcend to full sentient behavior as a species capable of acting in the best interest of all. Humans are nothing more that sentient cosplay that constantly devolve into sadistic murder orgies of war over meaningless distinction and sadistic torment over the fundamental needs of other humans at every level from relationships to neighborhood, community, region, continent, and world.
The answer is applied game theory in the present. Doing right for everyone, and systematically dismantling systems of exploitation.
Wealth hierarchy will end in a violent and tumultuous way within the next century once the first successful resource acquisition of a M-type astroid in near Earth orbit is achieved. Japan is leading that effort in the present. There is more resource wealth in a single M-type astroid than all of the Earth based resources accessed in the Holocene. That will make wealth as it is now totally irrelevant. The future is in space after we make that transition. At that point, the biggest limitation is cyclical elemental balance and heat budget. The primitive concept of wealth becomes nonsensical and totally irrelevant. Deep gravity wells and planetary differentiation due to gravitational separation are the real creators of human scarcity.
Wealth only buys connections and opportunities. It has nothing to do with merit. Multi generation wealth is a massive hindrance to humanity as it removes any connection between merit and achievement and acts as a barrier to humans of real merit. This is why you are fundamentally only a product of your environment and opportunities. Promoting true merit is healthy for humanity, however anyone that is born into wealth has proven nothing and is a destructive obstacle of progress and achievements. These are the indications of corruption exploitation and a failed system when such individuals lead. Intelligence is not genetic. You do not know of the great things Einstein’s parents or children discovered. No community produces better. No gene pool is superior. We are a reflection of the opportunities we have. Most people have very few if any opportunities in life. The rich can fail countless times and still try again and again. This is meaningless and harmful as it concentrates power and opportunity amongst the incompetent and incapable.
You know that nature programs saying “complex social hierarchy?” It is part of that. Everything we do is part of it. There are multiple forms of hierarchical display. Our primary form is the insane use of the means for fundamental survival, aka wealth. This is a very primitive and barbaric form of display. Academia and visual media arts use reputation as a form of hierarchy; sports use meritorious achievement. We are only animals determining class and rank. No one living can opt out because ostracization is still a class and rank, as is simple survival.
Writing about a very hard science fiction future pushed me into this space. Particularly, what are the implications of post scarcity if one completely discounts the argument that, ‘it is an idealist utopian fantasy,’ and tries to address the real complexity of humanity.
Always tread the high ground. You do not need to make any statements or push any sentimental or ideological perspective.
If you are into it, read The God Emperor of Dune for a great example of exploring complexity of characters and how to tackle the subject.
Leto II is extremely dominant and authoritarian to he point of instability and terrorism and yet at the same time he is also the most altruistic and kind person in the Dune universe. Duncan is the lover ladies man and ideologue but also foolish and impulsive. Siona is a strong women and on of the main characters and yet there is not even the slightest hint of some feminist agenda even though this was written in the 1960’s to 1970’s. Hwi is a beautiful smart woman with depth that is torn between the love of two men. Nayla is a shallow but likable soldier with remarkable loyalty. She is part of an all women’s army called The Fish Speakers. There is even a passage where this army goes out of control and rapes men. This is the only element of the book that I felt like it was clearly delineating Frank Herbert’s stance that the women in this book were in fact a ideological choice and more than just great character building. Yet still, nothing about this was forceful, it was simply amusing in breaking preconceptions of my reality. I highly recommend the read.