Essay:Why mankind is miserable
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| “ | A well-organized crime group is called a mafia. A well-organized mafia is called a government. | ” |
—Andrzej Majewski | ||
The world is ruled by a blind force of three:
- interparticular reactions initialized by the Big Bang
- natural selection
- collective human stupidity (which I shall call "the wave"), represented by psycho- and sociopaths, as well as narcissists, actively or passively encouraged to gently bend the track which the wave goes through to their whim[1]
There are sometimes glitches in this matrix[2]. All oddities and freaks of nature, which eventually become an integral part of the norm. Life, sapience, sociological phenomena, schools of thoughts, religion, civilization, power of rule, cryptocurrencies, avant-garde art, romance and family - all of them are nothing more but anomalies which originally were not there, but through pure coincidence emerged and became - or will become - the norm. The fact that you are reading this text is an anomaly, as well. We wouldn't be having this discussion if it weren't for that chance event. And if we didn't do a thing as mundane as meeting each other, this discussion would, with 100% certainty, not be shared and - hopefully - become viral.
You most likely have freaks in your community. Mentally disturbed, potentially homeless or slightly criminal eccentrics. Each community has had such a freak, invariably. We are just "lucky" to live in the times where our freak also exists for us to witness his antics. They are semi-famous during their lives, but their spotlight extinguishes itself as soon as they die. And soon, as our natural reaction actually is, we seek a replacement. We often make a relatively normal person into a freak, unconsciously. The certainty is 100%. How that person becomes a freak is a matter of dice rolls. Coincidence. Chance.
Other, different freaks, are remembered for longer. Margaret Thatcher, Grigori Rasputin, Nikola Tesla. I want you to think for a second of their merits and the significance history puts to them. Does it correlate with their deeds? Are their deeds notable because they are beneficial, or are they just notable? Is a memory of them a measure of the benefits they have bestown upon us? Or is it literally a matter of this blind force - the wave - which selectively picked those individuals and decided that they all are worth remembering, regardless of their actual achievements?
Out of context quotes, some made-up-attributes, or life events. Those are the things we usually go by when establishing a person as a meme. In both the Dawkinsian as well as the modern-internet way. Not the things those people in question themselves consider their most significant life events.
The free market principle does work - at least when it comes to nature. It works in the entirety of the Universe. It works, but that does not mean it guarantees any results - let alone desirable ones. The fact that the Big Bang happened, that matter prevailed over anti-matter, that the Solar System was created, that our planet Earth was placed in an orbit which supports the life that we know and that Earth actually contained all the necessary elements in the right proportions to support life and, by extension, humankind - all a coincidence. A matter of dice rolls. The chance that all of this would happen in one place and one spot is miniscule, but to say the Universe is big is a massive understatement - thus, it was bound to happen, eventually. I'd say a little under ten billion years is quite a significant amount of time.
Natural selection and free market - figuratively - did the job. But it does not care what happens.
We do. At the very least, the vast majority of us can agree with one thing - we must preserve and enhance human life.
Do you know how to enhance human life? That's a rhetorical question. I want you to be aware that if you asked a hundred people how to improve our lives, you'd get a hundred and fifty different answers.
The two of the blind forces - interparticular reactions and natural selection - don't care. But one blind force - the wave - does care. But it is a blind force. It does not matter what conscious choice we make. Even if you were a dictator of our entire planet, if you made one wrong move and displeased either your citizens or your cronies, you would end up being abolished. And soon, the power void would require to be filled by someone else. That someone would need to rule by doing exactly what has to be done in order to maintain its power. That spot - that path - is narrow. You cannot turn around, go, and expect someone won't take advantage of that.
You cannot rule alone. You cannot rule indefinitely. This is impossible.
Thus, when the first sapient people realized that there was a power void in their pack, they established the institution of a leader. To be led by someone, you must make an impression that you agree to have a leader. It is irrelevant what you feel deep down. The outward expression is all that matters. You are letting things happen, even if you don't condone them. The leader was elected by virtue of two dice rolls - the first dice roll was for the prospective leader, since they had to convince the tribe that he/she is the fittest to rule. This may have been played straightforward the first few times. The second dice roll was for the community - whether they agree with the direction the leader is going towards. That second dice roll would repeat itself indefinitely until the elected leader would be abolished.
Then the next prospective leader came.
Eventually, someone discovered that cheating can help you win and/or maintain your power even when your decisions are not optimal for the well-being of the tribe. That someone must have been anti-social and remorseless - psychopathic, even - because those decisions affected exclusively the people whom the leader personally and intimately knew - often for years.
Skip forward a few millennia. A group of pariahs who weren't wanted anywhere else decide that it is either make a country of their own, or die. This is how Rome was founded. What other reason is there to establish a country?
Ambition.
Rome was founded on desperation, successors took over, hell-bent on ambition. Conspiracy after conspiracy. Crime after crime. Eventually, this strainer established deeply and irrevocably that to rival this inhumanity and cruelty, other countries must raise their game to measure up with this rising monster. Likely, Rome also had to adjust to other countries doing exactly the same, either for malicious reasons, or in a mistaken belief this is the only way to prevail over a rising threat. Soon, it was established that power can only be acquired by seizing it. If you do not seize it forcefully, you may get it, but your likelihood of maintaining it is very low and each second, you are rolling the dice to see if you lose it this very second.
Thus a natural consequence was born - that the race of power is bound to be won only by those who are most capable of psycho-, sociopathy and narcissism. The race for power, and thus, control over people - the wave, which through this, became a blind force - is built on social darwinism.
It does work, but the direction it is headed towards is not certain. And no matter how much rational thought an individual puts into achieving a goal, even the noblest and most beneficial of them all, it is very likely this individual's efforts are wasted. Either mankind won't ever find out about them, or people who have "better ideas" will stomp on them.
The only way to stop this is by eliminating the third blind force. The wave. Dictators, no matter how powerful, are incapable of ruling countries if their subjects won't sustain the country.
The most obvious solution would be an open rebellion, but people are unwilling to rebel due to fear of repercussions. This, sooner or later, turns into the prisoner's dilemma and the game of chicken.
The other solution is simply striking where the leader is most dependant on - raw produce: the human capital. Unfortunately, this is quite self-defeating for... obvious reasons.
The third solution - hardest to achieve - is having as many people as possible to realize what I have said above. Doing this will slowly make the wave less and less relevant.
Name it however you want, but this blind force does exist, controls us and makes us stupid and incapable of acting rationally. It exists solely to serve the very best (worst?) of psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists: people in position of power.
What does this crankpot smoke?[edit]
- Rules for Rulers, CGP Grey, 2016
- Is success luck or hard work?, Derek Muller, 2020
- A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding, 1957
- The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins, 1976
- CHIM, the Amaranth, DE 1