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Mostly thoughts from a time before I began to change myself.
But I'm changing that.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Price of Becoming a Big Industry / Depravity, Money, and Manipulation


I read a quote somewhere; I stumbled it. It said that Zuckerburg sold people's private/personal information, became a hero, and made billions, while Assange exposed dirty dealings (after changing specific things so they aren't as bad for the security of the nation) and became a pariah. It doesn't seem fair. I hate the idea that some guy made money by betraying the trust usually present in social networking. It makes me sick. 

As soon as I heard about the facebook privacy issues, I deleted mine. Now facebook is ubiquitous, on most sites. I set adblock to block it, and since then, I haven't been to facebook, but my adblock has blocked components of it 600+ times in a few months. It seems it is nothing so much as a plague. 

I guess the two choices for companies are get big, then become "evil", saying people should have nothing to hide, or get big BY becoming "evil", and giving out people's information to the highest bidder. Or just anyone who will give money.


About money: I find it to be a pretty terrible thing. (to a large extent) How much suffering could be avoided if people were not always looking to gain value? Value is a fairly arbitrary thing to begin with, but humanity has made it into something so much worse! Value is placed on objects, and suddenly there is conflict to obtain these things, and everyone wants them.

[Although, for the sake of convenience, the existence of currency is a necessary "evil", representing the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. What is worse than currency, though, is the placement of value on things that are not inherently useful enough to be worth what they are, e.g. diamonds]

If we had the technology to stop using fossil fuels at all, I do not believe that we would, until they are just about gone. Why? Because oil is very profitable. Money (and "valuable" things) in its current form is one thing that is holding back our advancement as a species. The people who work hard to get a large business are often the ones who want to keep making more money at the cost of... anyone else. But money itself is not so evil; what people do to make money, on the other hand...

A friend of mine brought up an interesting point: fossil fuels took millions of years to form beneath the earth. Yet, once humanity found out how useful they were, we used them up in hundreds. If the earth was sentient, one could imagine that it would see humanity as a scourge upon itself. We do not hesitate to tear into it, and destroy wildlife, to suit our own ends. For if one person would hesitate to do so, surely their ruthless competitor would do it. The environment and our descendants are paying the price for "our" living in luxury. At least until they have the technology to fix it all or go to another planet. (and hopefully not do it again for money!)



I have put off reading anything about interacting with people, because: A) I would rather learn through my own experience; B) I think learning enough about something makes it uninteresting, because eventually you're [basically] running every action through a formula because you find the best way to do it; C) I do not like the idea of manipulating people, and much dislike the people who do. However, when dealing with people who have read such things, (especially if they are selfish and/or you are naive) one is vulnerable to their machinations if one is not suspicious of the person's intent.

I much dislike near everything about this, especially the fact that one has to be on guard around most other humans, and the amount of effort spend to perfect the "art" of dishonesty and manipulation. I also dislike every manipulation that involves benefit at the expense of the manipulated, and in general the kind of jerks that go around manipulating people to their own selfish ends. 

I don't think I have suffered more than the average person because of things like this, luckily.

If only everyone could afford to trust everyone else. I would like that very much. But I may as well wish for an end to currency; it's about as feasible.

24 comments:

  1. I guess it is. But it's not like spacing it or putting in pictures more makes the thing any shorter. So... nothing can really be done about it.

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  2. The world relies on scarcity, currency is the natural evolution in bartering. It is a universal product that can readily be exchanged for goods and services.

    Everything runs on scarcity, there is only so much "X" (be it time, money, gasoline, whatever). When you consider the huge demmand of crude oil ,it's a very versitile material that is used in many products from gasoline to plastics, and the very limited supply of it, it's no wonder why we consider it so valuable.

    The world is unfair, but that's how it works. By understanding the way things work you can develop improvements.

    I like your blog, I'll be following.

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  3. yes, I did mean to add something about currency itself being a necessary "evil", and that it is really placing value on things that are not useful enough to be valuable that is worse.

    I will edit the post to reflect that; thanks.

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  4. I see using fossil fuel as our only true means to become advanced enough to continue without it. If we never used up all our fossil fuels, we would not have the opportunity to keep our quality of lives at this level, nor would we ever get to this without it. The technology is there, but it will never be truly utilized until we need it.

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  5. The basis for alternates to fossil fuels have been around for decades, it is only now that people started investing in them.

    Following and supporting.

    http://illuminatinwo.blogspot.com

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  6. humanity is definantly like a virus or cancer is a better word, as cancer also exhibits uncontrolled growth that comes about from normal cells. Humans evolved normally but suddenly we have evolved to a point where the old rules of survival of the fittest no longer apply to us, and we now exhibit uncontrolled growth and therefor consumption of resources.

    Harsh as it is to say, I believe that out of necessity the human population will decrease drastically in the next 100-200 years or maybe even less, due to famine, drought etc. Once balance is restored we may find that there is a maximum sustainable population for humans on earth.

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  7. I have made peace with the fact that my posts are, in no way, interesting. Makes blogging a whole lotta easier. :D
    Following and supporting!

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  8. Alternatives to having "interesting" posts are having "amusing" posts. Maybe you could have some sort of pattern, where one post is throught provoking, and the next gives you a laugh? Will take away the pressure of needing to constantly one-up each of your previous posts, anyway.

    Still, an interesting read - I shall be following!

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  9. I have exactly the same problem sometimes!
    But mostly it's that i can't find interesting things to write :/

    http://hans-mylife345.blogspot.com/

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  10. Just water down the tea...that's what I do...

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  11. it's not hard writing interesting reviews, it's hard finding interesting games though!

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  12. Yep, greedy bastards are going to run us dry of fossil fuels. I'll laugh when they were too stupid to find more efficient methods.

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  13. This is actually a very insightful post. Diamonds are highly valued by society for whatever reason, and we don't have much of a use for them. Cool. ~.~ You seem like a nice guy, assuming you're a guy, because females are incapable of thought.

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  14. Like said, humans pretty much ruin the earth. Why the hell can't people see what the shit they're doing?

    Also, you said people'll be empting fossil fuel resources first before switching to alternative fuels. Stupid humans. I think it's best to always have some backup, even in the form of fossil fuels. If we ever need it again, we can't use it, because we already used it all now.

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  15. nice article!!

    you follow me: http://all-around-toto.blogspot.com
    and I will return the favor ;)

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  16. The interesting ones will still be here to read. Don't worry about it too much.

    Cheers,
    http://tucsonianlifeblues.blogspot.com/

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  17. One big difference between Assange and Zuckerberg is that one sold one released information of those who are powerful and the other sold information of those who are weak and ignorant.

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  18. I like that comparison. Good input.

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