truthlovebeauty: paganbuddha: landofnoddreams: Work Buy Consume Die Presumably, the message here is something along the lines of “haha, what the hell are we doing?!” How, indeed, have we gotten ourselves into this mess? Well, the thing is, the revolutionary idea would be coming up with something different. Looking at the simplest social animals - and our prehistoric ancestors - it seems like little has changed: WORK: hunt and/or gather; BUY: trade what we’ve hunted for things others have gathered (and/or vice versa) or in exchange for food on a later day when the hunting or gathering doesn’t go well; CONSUME: eat whatever we’ve accumulated by the end of the day; DIE: die. We work much more complex jobs, buy things in a much more complex market, consume much more complex things, and die like usual. But if the problem is that this all seems rather unfulfilling and banal, the problem is that it is, and always has been. And that’s because the really important parts have been left out: ‘compete’ and ‘reproduce’ - which tend to amount to the same thing. Life is a competition. One for dominance, power, status, wealth, “coolness”, sex, etc. - which all work towards and amount to reproductive success (i.e. the passing on of our genes). Which, I am first to admit, is a pretty stupid goal, particularly since I have no interest in saddling further generations with my stupid genes. But whether you recognize it or not - and want to play that game or not - that’s still the way people are geared. So it really doesn’t matter how we compete - in the case of modern western civilization, it’s largely through competitive consumption - just that we are damned to compete. -Dutch

truthlovebeauty:

paganbuddha:

landofnoddreams:

Work Buy Consume Die

Presumably, the message here is something along the lines of “haha, what the hell are we doing?!” How, indeed, have we gotten ourselves into this mess?

Well, the thing is, the revolutionary idea would be coming up with something different. Looking at the simplest social animals - and our prehistoric ancestors - it seems like little has changed:

  • WORK: hunt and/or gather;
  • BUY: trade what we’ve hunted for things others have gathered (and/or vice versa) or in exchange for food on a later day when the hunting or gathering doesn’t go well;
  • CONSUME: eat whatever we’ve accumulated by the end of the day;
  • DIE: die.

We work much more complex jobs, buy things in a much more complex market, consume much more complex things, and die like usual. But if the problem is that this all seems rather unfulfilling and banal, the problem is that it is, and always has been.

And that’s because the really important parts have been left out: ‘compete’ and ‘reproduce’ - which tend to amount to the same thing. Life is a competition. One for dominance, power, status, wealth, “coolness”, sex, etc. - which all work towards and amount to reproductive success (i.e. the passing on of our genes).

Which, I am first to admit, is a pretty stupid goal, particularly since I have no interest in saddling further generations with my stupid genes. But whether you recognize it or not - and want to play that game or not - that’s still the way people are geared.

So it really doesn’t matter how we compete - in the case of modern western civilization, it’s largely through competitive consumption - just that we are damned to compete.

-Dutch