More Questions

Thursday December 2, 2004 - 1:12AM EDT

I ask myself questions about THE MAN and THE MACHINE. The arguement that the comforts of life are not free seems to always come to the forefront when questioning the bent of society. That question is used a lot to put doubt in the minds of those who don't agree with THE MACHINE and THE MAN. The question is valid no doubt, the comforts of life are not free and certain things are traded for them. That question does not concern me nor does it make me waver my questioning THE MAN. There is something else that is much more important and a question that drives me more. The comforts of life are not free and we must pay for them somehow, my question is this...how long can we continue to pay for these comforts in the currency we use today? That is my question, that is the question that no one asks, that no one seems to be aware of. The whole hardwork motto is a half-truth, invented in times when people thought the earth was infinite in its abundance. For the first time in human history we know that this is not the case, that eventually this planet cannot support billions and billions of humans consuming its resources forever. Hardwork to obtain what? A piece of land for yourself and your family. Guess what, pretty soon there won't be enough land for everybody. There are those that will argue that you just didn't work as hard as I did to get that piece of land. That may hold water for a brief time, but the fact of the matter is that the amount of people who work hard keeps growing and the land available keeps shrinking. We have to change our thinking and the fundamental way we live, or eventually we may not live. We still live as if everything is infinitely abundant, we still say that "you to can fullfill your dreams" When those dreams are a based on the consumption of resources and the possesion of things then there is a problem. Such dreams are limited. It is a lie to say that everyone can have those things, because they can't. Can everyone live like Bill Gates or The Sultan of Brunei? No, there isn't even enough square footage for 6 billion people to have as much land as either one of those people posses. I think in some ways we do realize it is a lie, that is why we attach the notion of doing things right and following some type of strict path to those dreams. Those whose dreams are not fullfilled simply did not do it the right way, did not follow the correct path. It allows us to further perpetuate a lie by excluding people which reduces the strain on the precious and finite resources of this planet which allows the lie to live on another day. Human inhabitable planets are hard to come by and if we don't figure out how to live on them and not use up everything then we are in trouble. The root of the problem is so utterly simple, too many people not enough planet. People don't realize that Earth is not the whole universe, that Earth is limited and a small part of this whole universe. What does one do when everyday of their life they are locked into a system that will eventually cause their demise. Think about this. If population keeps growing as it has and we advance no more technologically than we are today how long will it take before millions or billions die because the Earth is unable to support the current level of human living? So we just wait, for what? Who knows? Stopgap solutions, a freaking messiah. Maybe people will gradually wake up and things will change, hopefully in my lifetime or at least in the liftimes of those after me.