Capitalism

Capitalism is very similar to evolution by natural selection. The problem with evolution and capitalism is that there is no wisdom involved. In capitalism there is a constant competition and only the fittest survives, just like in evolution.

I will quote Darwin: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

So, you see, suffering is an intrinsic part of evolution. Do we really want a system based on war, famine and death?

Just like evolution, capitalism creates its parasites and also its immune system, the parasites of capitalism are people who earn money by harming others and there are a lot of them. For example, capitalism creates thieves (parasites) and also creates the police (immune system). Thieves would not exist in a society where goods are spread equally. The inequality created by capitalism creates criminals so it also has to create the police.

Thieves are not the only parasites of capitalism. To me, all bureaucrats and all bankers are parasites. Politicians and lawyers are other parasitic life forms.

In capitalism, people don't care about harming others, they don't care about nature. If they can earn money from destroying nature and destroying human lives, they will because in capitalism money is more important than anything, it's more important than nature, health, peace and life. Smoking harms people and yet people are selling cigarettes and we consider it normal, that's how brainwashed we are.

Capitalism has created a new GOD, its name is "money".

Capitalism also creates wars. The war in Iraq is a good example. One of the objectives of it was to "secure Iraq's petroleum infrastructure". The USA wanted the petroleum.

The Second World War was also created (indirectly) by capitalism. It's no coincidence that WW2 started during the Great Depression. Germany was in a desperate state, it had to pay debts to the countries it attacked in WW1 but the unemployment rate soared to 30% (1932). Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the Nazi Party (with Hitler) was elected to power.

Before the Great Depression, the Nazi Party had 2,6% of votes (1928), after the Great Depression started (1929), the Nazi Party had 18,3% of votes (1930) and 37,4% of votes (1932), after Hitler was candidate for presidency.

So, you see, I'm pretty sure that the Second World War would not have happened without the Great Depression and the Great Depression is a direct consequence of capitalism. That's between 60 and 80 million deaths caused (indirectly) by capitalism. But capitalism has many more skeletons in its closet.

Millions of people are starving or don’t have clean water. They are in this situation because they don’t have money. There is enough food on the planet to feed us all. So, capitalism is at fault for this also.

Nuclear war

During the Cold War there was a strong threat of nuclear war.
I don't believe that the danger has passed. There are lots of people who would gladly destroy a country if they had the means. I'm talking about extremist muslims, mostly.

If we ever manage to destroy this world, I think that religion will have an important role in that, maybe through a war between islam and christianity (the religions of peace). We could, of course, destroy the world through peaceful means, like poisoning everything (and ourselves) by way of pollution.

I believe it's only a matter of time until extremist muslims get a hold on a nuclear bomb. Nuclear bombs are far more powerful now than they were in the Second World War, they are also smaller.

The Hiroshima bomb had a weight of 4,400 kg and an explosive force of 15 kilotons of TNT. A modern thermonuclear weapon weighing 1,100 kg can produce an explosive force of 1200 kilotons of TNT.

So, a modern nuclear bomb weighing 1/4 of the Hiroshima bomb is 80 times more powerful than it. That means 320 times more power per weight.

When we think about the total global nuclear arsenal of about 30,000 nuclear warheads with a destructive capacity of 5 gigatons (5 million kilotons), it would be a miracle if we wouldn't destroy ourselves.

I pray that people will become wiser soon, before it's too late.

Exponential growth

Most people don't understand exponential growth. Many of our current problems are caused by this lack of understanding.

A nice example of exponential growth is a legend: the man who invented the game of chess showed it to a king; the king was very pleased and wanted to grant one wish to that man. The man said this: "I want a grain of wheat for the first square of the chess board, two grains for the second one, four for the third one, and so on, doubling the amount each time".

The king didn't understand exponential growth, so he said: "I can give you a sack of wheat", but the man said: "I just want what I asked for, no more, no less". It was impossible for the king to grant him his wish because the number of wheat grains amounted to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. That amount of wheat is approximately 80 times what would be produced in one harvest, at modern yields, if all of Earth's arable land could be devoted to wheat.

The world population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion in 39 years (1960 - 1999). If that trend would continue, we would have 12 billion by 2038, 24 billion by 2077, 48 billion by 2116, etc.

Resources are being exploited at an exponential rhythm, that's insane. The only way that would work is if resources were infinite, which are not.

If the economy grows by 2% per year, in 35 years it would double.
What we do is just unsustainable, we are growing exponentially on a limited planet. We are acting as if there is no tomorrow. Are we incapable of understanding the consequences of our actions? This will end badly.

Beggars

Giving money (or anything) to beggars is wrong because you encourage that behaviour. If nobody would give anything to beggars, they would not exist. There would still be poor people, but they would not beg because nothing would come out of it.

Even worse is that people tend to give more money to begging children and mutilated beggars. Some poor families have more children because begging children bring them more money, this is the case with a lot of gypsy families. People also mutilate themselves to earn more money by begging.

In India, there are organized gangs which exploit children, sending them to beg and mutilating them because mutilated children bring more money.

Beggars exist because of this sick society. It's odd that in prison people have a roof over their head and food, but society can't provide shelter and food for (all) poor people. Do poor people have to commit crimes so that they could have a roof over their head and food (in prison)?

Again, I need to stress the fact that all people need a home, food & water, education and healthcare.

You should read this:
http://www.childright.nl/en/index2.php?navid=212

Altruism

My favourite example of altruism comes from an unlikely source.

In the animation movie "Aladdin", at one point Aladdin steals a bread and goes through a lot of trouble because of it but, finally, he arrives in a safe place and prepares to eat. At that moment, he sees two children searching through trash for something to eat. He gives his bread to those children, even though he is hungry.

I think that most people wouldn't have done that. It's difficult to be truly altruistic in the real world. When people have everything they need they can afford to be altruistic. When people lack some basic things, altruism becomes more difficult.

In this world, a truly altruistic person is a dead person because there are lots of people dying of hunger. For example, if there were hungry people around you, at what point would you stop giving them your food and begin to eat it yourself? At what point would you think: "my life is more important than another human life"?

Luckily, we don't have to take those decisions every time we eat because hungry people are mostly in underdeveloped countries (out of sight, out of mind).

As I showed before (in my post about overpopulation), giving them food is not the solution because that would only increase the demographic explosion and there would be more mouths to feed.

So what do we do?

wrong world

Have you ever had the feeling that you don't belong in this world? Yeah, I have that feeling. Maybe I was made for another world but just ended up here by mistake.

I find this society, this world, absurd. I don't believe in property, I don't like money.

I don't understand why humans have multiplied this much. I know that's what life does but humans are supposed to be rational beings and yet they are not. They have killed each other since their dawn and they are not any wiser now.

I'm not even sure if it's such a bad thing that humans are destroying themselves. You probably noticed, I don't like humans that much. There were some exceptional ones but most of them are stupid.

I would just like to go to some remote farm or something and live the rest of my days peacefully. I don't want a family, I don't want children, I don't even want friends. I don't have any, anyway, but I'm fine. I don't want money, I don't want property, I don't want anything really, nothing more than a peaceful life.

I thought about becoming a monk but I don't really fancy being a slave to religion. I like the fact that monks have a cooperation based society and not a competition based society. I'm sick of competition, I want to be altruistic. In this sick world, a truly altruistic person is a dead person.

Heaven on Earth

What would heaven on Earth look like? I believe that an earthly heaven would not have inequalities, all people should have everything they need. The world's resources belong to all of us.

Money or property would not exist in this world, there would not be poor or rich people.

I believe that we can create heaven on Earth but it seems that we are not wise enough to do that (yet). Heaven on Earth would be governed by reason.