I never make posts like these. But with everything that's going on right now, a quarter of the world being in lockdown, finding myself locked out of my home, knowing people recovering through COVID-19, I just wanted to express my thoughts freely. I'm sure most of you have had similar thoughts (well, not my exact COVID-19 predicament, but generally what I have to say about ambition), so feel free to share your experience.
We humans are pretty odd creatures. We have made tons of imaginary systems and ideas for ourselves to follow, just to give ourselves some meaning or purpose. While we can discuss very many different avenues, let's talk about something more concrete - economy. Whether at a micro level, or a macro, it's all about economic growth. People are going about their way creating new things, and other people are buying these new things. We never really stop to ask if any of these new things are really required, helpful, or worse still, are harmful in the long term.
Well, most products and services out there today are certainly not necessary. There are a lot of products that can provably be harmful too.
I'm sure you have seen this hierarchy (Maslow's) before. We live in a world where the basic needs are taken care of across a lot of the world. There are still plenty of people struggling to live below the poverty line, but if you are reading this blog, it's fair to assume you have your basic needs figured out.
Notice how there's nothing in this pyramid about creating new things and getting money for them? One can argue that some people need money to achieve the psychological and self-fulfillment needs, but I have learned the hard way that for me, personally, that is not the case.
Taking a wider view, it's now clear that our indulgences has led to widespread ecological destruction, and triggered the greatest extinction event in the last 65 million years. Has it been worth it?
Over the last couple of years, it has become increasingly difficult for me to justifying going out and being productive. The carbon footprint and general wastefulness left behind in my line of work is immense, and the end product seems not worth the hassle at the end of the day. I used to be an ambitious person a decade ago, and accomplished a lot of things through selfish and egotistical motivation. To me, it seems like the best thing I could do, even before COVID-19, is to stay home and work in a profession that actually makes a basic difference whilst minimizing my carbon footprint. For now, I can delude myself by thinking, if I'm productive, I'll offer jobs to a whole bunch of people, and maybe that'll help. But I don't know how long it is before this last wall crumbles.
I have been contemplating giving away my crypto holdings anonymously. I feel I have no use for this money, and worse still, if I did use it for some luxurious indulgence, it'll just make me feel worse and guilty.
So, should we all just give up and retreat to farming and hunter-gathering? No, of course not. I'm going to continue living in a metropolitan city. Specialisation is awesome, among plenty other human innovations. I just feel, at this time, that there needs to be a balance between "progress" and "sustainability". We have gone way overboard with our imaginary problems and solutions, without ever considering the drawbacks of each. I hope once the dust settles on COVID-19, we as a species will look at some cold, hard truths and reorient how our societies function. We're a long, long way away, but I'd like to see a society where psychological and self-fulfillment needs and mental health are prioritized over GDP growth.
After basic needs; the final thing money can buy is time. Time to build relationships, create something beautiful, accomplish something. Sometimes you can figure another way out or somehow make time; but often you end up having to choose what you will sacrifice. Will I have a social life or will I paint? Will I work full time and have more money and less time, or work part time and worry about bills?
One thing I appreciated about curie and other curators is their upvotes had given me time I would not have had otherwise to work on my art; and also have a life. I saw a lot of other artists on here experiencing the same thing; a real unsung flowering of creativity was going on due to the gift of time. That seemed to end rather abruptly for many when steem collapsed; but much beautiful work is still being made. Hive breaking off from steem gives me hope; not just for Hive, but also for steem oddly enough. Perhaps they could become two good different places with different philosophies and my favorite artists will come back again.
That's kind of what I was hinting at - I don't think we should need money to buy time. It should be a basic need, and dare I say it - right, that all people of a developed society should have.
I'm sure the Hive/Steem situation will cool down over time. Best to stick around and keep doing what you are doing.
I note the Renaissance directly followed the end of the waves of plagues that decimated Europe in the Middle Ages. I expect the agility of the survivors had a lot to do with that, and will after this plague as well.
I certainly agree with you that the reality of the human condition is of deep significance to us, and mere ease cannot meet the needs of our humanity, although it is true that the needs of our humanity cannot be met unless our basic economic needs are first.
Baby steps, I guess.
The Black Death was kind of insane, losing up to half the population of a continent seems impossible to imagine today. With COVID-19, even in its worst case scenario, we are not really thinking of pure survival, as much as its effect on economies and society, so it's a different context. But yes, like the Renaissance, I do hope there'll be some deep introspection into today's societies and systems. I simply cannot imagine the debt-based global economy being sustainable after this. Very interested to see where bitcoin ends up in the years to come.
The current financial model and systems fail to factor in the true value, or cost of something, which I have a bit of a hypothesis on.
Cost of Raw Material + Cost of Energy + Cost of Labour + Cost of Logistics + Cost of Eventual Disposal / Upkeep / Replacement = True Cost.
There's probably some logistical elements of that chain I'm missing there.
Items (whether they be food stuff, a video game, or a house) - should be priced appropriately in order to account for quality, sustainable inputs at every element that makes up the true cost of an object.
By outsourcing, the liability, or true cost is simply shifted elsewhere (be that pollutant, labour cost, or other elements) - which as we've seen, is not very sustainable.
I don't know much about economics, but I find the work that actuaries do unreasonably satisfying as they seem to grasp this concept of the "true cost" of things.
That's pretty much how global economies worked till we discovered that irresistible drug - debt.
You're absolutely right that the "hidden costs" are not being accounted for. Things like workers' mental health, pollution implacts etc must need to be priced in. We'll need a new form of economics to achieve this.
Debt too, has a true cost, as we're starting to see as one person can't service it, the chain of events beyond start to unravel in all elements of the economy.
Very true
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