Steve Smith wrote at 08/30/2013 01:47 PM:
We will (often) take convenience and familiarity over safe or healthy. Our
consumer economy has shaped itself around this simple fact.
I'm often berated by Renee' that I make too little money, that I should get some 6 figure
job working for someone else on whatever nonsense vision they have. I'm even berated by
business partners and colleagues along the same lines. I once asserted to one of my
colleagues that we shouldn't simply work as many hours as possible for a client,
even/especially when the client demands silly wastes of our time. His response was
"Why not?!? If the client wants to pay us to do XYZ stupid thing, and doesn't care
how many hours we have to work to achieve that stupid thing, then why not?"
My response back to him was, predictably, because we're not really here to make
money. We're here to do things, make things, improve things. Their (Renee'
and my colleague's) understanding of the world is to profit while you can, then
slowly drain the kitty when you've become obsolete. And I don't really have a
very good argument against that understanding. All I know is I don't share it.
I imagine I'll work for peanuts until I'm obsolete, then burn the rest of my
time drunk on MD 20/20 under the nearest bridge.
I get that same feeling when I use Amazon, Google, or Costco ... or go to the
zoo or Sea World. Are we really here to consume things pre-packaged for us by
others? TV as pre-packaged content. Boy bands and American Idol as
pre-packaged talent. Even Lady Gaga or Marilyn Manson as pre-packaged
perversity. Or, are we really here to pre-package things for others to consume?
My guess is Yog intended us to consume whatever we could, then excrete the rest, which some fundamentally different
organism would devour as food. If we all eat the _same_ "food" and excrete the same ... uh ...
"excrement", then pretty soon, there'll be no "food" and we'll all be waist deep in
"excrement". In that sense, I don't mind consumerism. I just mind the homogeny of the consumers.
That in mind, I'm looking forward to Stephanie Forrest's talks at the SFI Ulam
series on Sept 10,11,12.
http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/ulam-lectures-forrest-announce/
Very cool! Thanks for mentioning that.
--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
And all the lies that you tell me
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