People live in the cracks, meaning that chaos creates niches in which humanity can exist. Imagine if the world were perfectly efficient - you couldn't waste a second. Every waking moment would be accounted for, and you would consume no more than absolutely necessary to maintain your metabolism. You would be a human being encased in a metal life. Imagine how many more people the world could hold if we could only somehow get to absolute efficiency. 7 billion is nothing. Soylent Green is only the beginning.
500 million has been suggested as a good world population that would permit humans to live with some kind of dignity. I agree with this. 13/14 of us should just die ( just as long as me and mine are spared ). To leave a bit of room for growth, maybe half of the remainder should go too leaving 250 million or so survivors.
Yeah, I'm a genocidal maniac at heart. I'm not racist or anything, I don't care who lives and who dies as long as it's not me and mine doing the dying, but humans are pests - especially to other humans. I'm also too lazy to do anything about it, and I have doubts as to whether the living or the dead would be better off. Consider that those remaining living and their no doubt plentiful decendents would be cursed to live on. Some say: Life is suffering. And I don't believe in Nirvana.
At least the sun will go red-giant someday and cook all the unfortunate little earthlings into vapor.
But since I'm here, I'd rather live in style than not. Some, like the Libertarians, believe individual property is sacred, and some like the Communists, believe property is theft from everyone else who would use the property. ( note the capital L in Libertarians and the capital C in Communists, I'm talking about dogmatists here, not ordinary people )
I believe that property is theft, AND that there is *absolutely nothing wrong with theft*. If you can keep the property you claim ownership of then it is de-facto yours to enjoy. Those you stole it from ( everyone else ) should realise that you have wronged them, and you, the claimant to property should defend it from everyone else if you wish to keep it. This is how every other animal operates, and it is how honest humans operate too. The taboo against theft is a con as is the concept of ownership itself.
Might ALWAYS makes right. If you disagree your opinion is by definition wrong.
If you want to fight about it, then you're soon dead, and so your opinion is irrelevant. The living exist by force.
Read through the famous 'Ten Commandments'. There isn't one I agree with per se.
That being said, such cons are useful to manipulate others with. Moral absolutists crashing against each other create lots of cracks and debris in which to live. Moral absolutes are like a piece of rubbish plywood from which one can build as safe little shanty in which to live, or not, leaving it for the next denizen of the social slums to build with.
Philosophical rubbish isn't the only kind of trash in our environment. Your relationship with whatever institutions you depend on are merely unavoidable. You stick your holdfast into a crack and filter the water for food. If there were ever an institution that had no cracks, it would be a sentient machine with no need for humans at all.
If you are more than a 'wage slave' ( I don't like that term, but it's concise ) then your human dignity is due to your being a successful parasite upon the rest of society. Even 'wage slaves' steal their meager nutrients from everyone else by wedging their little holdfasts into a spot that for some reason can't yet be automated. Why can't we just obviate the need for these pesky humans???
Left, right, meh.. I think the left has shut it's collective mouth in recent decades because it realised that the things it traditionally advocated shrunk the overall economic pie, and everyone else realised it too. Some benefitted ( like those in unions that did not lose their jobs, or in some countries, eg, communist party bosses ), most did not.
Recently, in the absence of much of a left in a more rightward leaning environment, of course some still benefit while most do not.
The thing is capitalism exists even if it is outlawed, even if there is no money, even where it is anathema. Social capital, physical capital, political capital, favors etc are always traded. They are impossible to outlaw effectively. There's no point in trying. People are going to steal from each other and accumulate capital in whatever form people are using.
It's a truism, if someone is accumulating more than you, then they are stealing from you. You can try to accumulate more yourself by stealing from others, and this is the route most of us ( including me ) prefer, but that doesn't change the fact that relative success IS to be despised.
But then, ANY success is to be despised. It's generally wiser to steal from the weak, as they can't fight back. Do I steal a dollar from you, risking retribution, or kill a raccoon and steal it's pelt to sell for a dollar? The choice is a no-brainer.
There are too many humans anyway. Why not aid those stronger than you in plundering from the weaker? It's probably safer and pays better than other options right?
I have no problems with this per se.. It puts me on the winning side probably since I live in the first world. However it creates a monster in my own backyard that will some day come to eat me too.
Chaos needs to happen but it's not my job to cause it. I'd rather not be near any of it. I'd rather sit back and watch other people kill each other and mind my own business.
There's a monster growing in the US that needs to be put down so we can get back to being our blessedly lucky old isolationist selves.
There needs to be a constitutional ammendment to get the money out of politics.
