The issues we are calling "problems" seem to all be "symptoms" of one deeper actual problem, and if we don't fix that, the symptoms will simply, like whack-a-mole, emerge somewhere else.
Of course, nobody wants to fix it, and besides they argue, its hard to fix -- as if fixing the rest of the mess we're all in is easy or cheap.
The "it" I'm referring to is the core of civilized behavior, a culture that encourages, if not demands, a few basic virtues: honesty, respect, compassion, integrity, and humility.
Once, I thought pretty much all religions agreed on those. "Science", in a massive disservice to mankind, seems to have undermined religion but not replaced the parts required for a civilization to continue to operate with something at least as good. We now have a high-tech, zero-wisdom society. Great.
Again, please dear reader, ignore the "hard" part and ponder what would happen if these were repaired.
Example - the "mortgage meltdown" would not have occurred, not due to astounding oversight by some Czar, but because average people would have consulted each other before biting at sucker bait. Even those who bit the bait could have decided to pool forces and move in together and share the rent or mortgage, instead of sinking into catastrophe separately.
Mass behavior can be changed -- ask the TV, tobacco or alcohol advertising gurus -- it's what they do.
The point is it simply doesn't work to make a world where everyone is out for maximum greed, selfishness, and rudeness and then we try to constrain that explosion with endless leaky regulations and regulators.
It is NOT a given that "people are just like that." We make them like that.
We can change what we make each other. There is no other way out, and we will keep on being forced to confront this inconvenient issue until we finally yield and deal with it.
The issues we are calling "problems" seem to all be "symptoms" of one deeper actual problem, and if we don't fix that, the symptoms will simply, like whack-a-mole, emerge somewhere else.
Of course, nobody wants to fix it, and besides they argue, its hard to fix -- as if fixing the rest of the mess we're all in is easy or cheap.
The "it" I'm referring to is the core of civilized behavior, a culture that encourages, if not demands, a few basic virtues: honesty, respect, compassion, integrity, and humility.
Once, I thought pretty much all religions agreed on those. "Science", in a massive disservice to mankind, seems to have undermined religion but not replaced the parts required for a civilization to continue to operate with something at least as good. We now have a high-tech, zero-wisdom society. Great.
Again, please dear reader, ignore the "hard" part and ponder what would happen if these were repaired.
Example - the "mortgage meltdown" would not have occurred, not due to astounding oversight by some Czar, but because average people would have consulted each other before biting at sucker bait. Even those who bit the bait could have decided to pool forces and move in together and share the rent or mortgage, instead of sinking into catastrophe separately.
Mass behavior can be changed -- ask the TV, tobacco or alcohol advertising gurus -- it's what they do.
The point is it simply doesn't work to make a world where everyone is out for maximum greed, selfishness, and rudeness and then we try to constrain that explosion with endless leaky regulations and regulators.
It is NOT a given that "people are just like that." We make them like that.
We can change what we make each other. There is no other way out, and we will keep on being forced to confront this inconvenient issue until we finally yield and deal with it.