‘Why mainstream forms of money are evil’ - in under 10 minutes
First, some definitions:
Evil:
a : morally reprehensible : wicked - an evil impulse
b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct
c : causing discomfort or repulsion
d : disagreeable
e : causing harm : pernicious
Money:
1 : something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment: such as
a : officially coined or stamped metal currency
b : money of account
c : paper money
These definitions only take us so far into understanding the nature of the evil in money – we need to dig beneath the surface of both of these ideas to identify the evil that I want you to recognise with me.
Evil seems simple enough – but it is to some extent subjective: what is evil to me might not be evil to you. What is less subjective, though, is our emotional responses that relate to survival and what we might call the pleasure/pain principle. While it might be true that some people are emotionally dysfunctional to the point of not feeling much at all – we all generally will feel the pain of being stabbed by a knife or more poignantly, the pain of being starving, homeless and likely ill as a result too. We will generally all also feel the pleasure of having our needs met and of feeling secure in life in general.
‘Evil’ is defined by dictionaries as causing ‘discomfort, repulsion and harm’ and in our current society we are likely to experience these when lacking money for any significant length of time. A lack of money tends to mean that we are unable to buy food, clothing or find a place to sleep and so we suffer and may even die as a result. Some of us, though, might disagree that this is ‘Evil’ because there is no intention to cause someone to end up this way and some may even claim that any evil involved is the doing of the person who is actually poor and suffering – they have somehow brought about this suffering on themselves through poor choices and thus the evil is perhaps their own. What if it could be shown that there IS intention to cause such harm to people through the use of money? Would that then make the money itself evil?
I will show you here that there IS an intent to cause harm that has been built-in to our money systems and that as a result, the causation of extreme suffering to people is intentionally unavoidable. I will also show that mathematically there is no possible other outcome than bankruptcy for a significant percentage of the population – as long as the money systems in use today continue to be used.
The complexity of the financial systems has made understanding this information unnecessarily challenging for most of us for a long time, however, thanks to the internet and many researchers I will be able to summarise the logic of the situation relatively quickly:
Wealth gap - The majority of the wealth of the planet (money, resources and property titles) is held by a small minority of the population, with most people having close to zero (or even less than zero due to debt). “The top 20% wealthiest households own over 93% of the stock” (source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/composition-of-wealth/). This means that most people who are born, statistically, will have close to zero support other than what they might claim from governments or as a result of their parents working for a business run by one of the wealthier families.
Government corruption – The situation is made worse by the reality that vast amounts of tax money is spent not on helping the human population, but on bailing out banks, paying for military/wars and is ‘lost’ in corrupt projects that aren’t properly overseen. For example – here’s a story from just a few days ago of how the US government has quietly given unstable banks $400 Billion without most people even noticing (source: https://fortune.com/2019/09/23/repo-market-big-deal-400-billion-bailout-unnerving/). The amount given to human services fluctuates but the general trend that sees much of the government’s tax money being syphoned back off to the wealthiest (who control the governments via their proxy politicians) is a virtually perpetual trend.
These first two points set the scene for why so many are impoverished from the get-go and why no matter how much tax you seem to pay, the problems never get any better. Those who do not do enough research tend to assume that the problem is a fundamental lack of intelligence among the least wealthy. These commenters often fail to do the needed due diligence research to know what is really going on in the mathematics and policies in the world around them. When throwing judgement on others we must always look first at our own involvement in causing what we are pointing at in others.
- Monetary Fraud – Perhaps the most important point here to understand is that the entire foundation of the money creation process is fraudulent. Money is a token that is intended to represent the value of things in our world to make trade easier. In a perfect world we would only receive the tokens that roughly represent the sum of the value of our past actions to the human community and therefore our value in the community should be to some extent reflected by the amount of money we receive, spend and hold. This is part of why people often get so obsessed with money, since they falsely associate money with a sense of self worth.
We generally understand that if someone can get ‘money for nothing’ then the entire system of valuation breaks down and everyone else’s money becomes devalued – making their life more difficult. Everyone has to work harder, for less, as long as someone is making ‘money out of thin air’. When people are caught ‘counterfeiting’ money, they are sent to jail – because we know that ‘money out of thin air’ is a huge problem. However, the MOST wealthy, via the banking system and the controlled governments, have been doing exactly this for decades in a way that most people don’t understand and that has been made ‘legal’. This is partly why the cost of living seems to continually get higher, while the availability of money to the majority of people gets continually more limited. FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING is a key part of the problem here.
Many good documentaries have now exposed how the central banks have long been allowed to simply ‘imagine’ money out of nothing, loan it out at interest and then expect the money, plus the interest to be paid back (see: https://www.ureka.org/videos/watch/6348/the-biggest-scam-in-the-history-of-mankind-hidden-secrets-of-money-ep-4-mike-maloney and .https://www.ureka.org/videos/watch/61619/century-of-enslavement-the-history-of-the-federal-reserve). Professor Richard Werner published a scientific study and empirical evidence gathered through monitoring a bank’s systems in realtime – he confirmed that this ‘money out of nothing’ approach to banking is indeed how things are being operated (see: Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence
Banks can legally loan out a factor of around 30 times the amount of money they actually hold! Imagine if you could ‘loan’ people 30 times more the actual amount of money you have in your savings – plus charge them interest – you would be very rich in no time, as long as no-one found out what you were up to! Yet this is exactly what banks have been doing via fractional reserve banking. Not only does this mean that those involved become stinking rich at the expense of everyone else (which could be said to be a form of mathematically managed slavery) – but it gets worse. Since a huge amount of the ‘alleged’ money in circulation is actually credit and loans based, upon which interest is being charged – there actually isn’t enough ‘real’ money in circulation to pay back the interest. This can mean only one thing – many people who take out ‘loans’ and ‘credit’ WILL be unable to repay them. It doesn’t matter how ‘hard’ people work or really what they do, there WILL be a high percentage of people who go bankrupt. Understanding this mathematical reality is key to understanding how to improve society for almost everyone and is also part of why the claim that ‘poor people are just lazy’ is itself based only in ignorance.
Conclusion
If you lack money in our society you will suffer and possibly die as a result. The financial systems are deliberately configured to ensure that a certain percentage of people WILL lack money and that another group of people WILL end up with most of the money – regardless of whether ANY of those people actually provide valuable services to the community. This is not something that could have been created out of pure ignorance or by accident, especially considering the number of ‘economic experts’ tasked with monitoring the situation and setting policy.
Somewhere along the way, money stopped being a ‘convenient token for exchange’ and became a ‘weapon of enslavement and tyranny’. The harm caused by this can only be defined as evil, using the dictionary definitions already provided.
It is not possible to use the fiat currencies such as US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros without participating in a system that manifests evil on a grand scale. Even if you stop using these currencies and shift to alternatives such as cryptocurrencies, you will still be participating in the same evil since the new tokens can be bought using the old tokens and therefore are still subject to the same problems. The evil is both systemic and very well engrained into society’s structure. Logically, the only solution is to somehow try to ‘reset’ the economic system and ownership of ALL resources or to somehow evolve beyond the use of money altogether.
In my experience, evolution means adapting to live from the heart in a way that brings real and felt balance. It is no surprise that it is the financially poorest among us who are often known and felt to have the biggest hearts – they know what it is to suffer and they seek to prevent it wherever they can.
Those with the most ‘wealth’ also stand to gain greatly through a process of genuine, heart centred balancing in society – since they will no longer need to live in fear in their gated communities – wondering when the rest of the world will come to find them seeking justice. Compassion has the answers here and those who have been born into a world that has been turned against them while simultaneously trying to bury them in guilt for being too ‘lazy’ no matter how hard they try and too ‘stupid’ no matter how inventive they try to be – are the ones with the most to gain, the least to lose and often with the most compassion.
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
Join a community aimed towards healing, balancing & evolving - plus receive rewards from the Steem blockchain at https://www.ureka.org
▶️ 3Speak
That was an excellent read and agree with 90% of it - but I am in the opinion that the mere presence of money is THE problem itself - Monetarism makes competition and the collusion for stablizing value unstoppable and unavoidable - The concept of monopoly is embedded in money --- Thanks for sharing Ura-Soul
I don't really disagree with you - however, principles of property ownership also factor in - since even without money, many of the same problems will exist as long as people can convince others they own regions of the planet based on other forms of paperwork! We need to find ways of reaching balance since we certainly do need - in many cases - the ability to have our own space. I suspect it is the case that these problems cannot be fully resolved until we increase our ability to manifest what we need to the point where there is no lack and thus no need to compete for resources.
great post buddy urasoul
although even if there was no evil govt and banks lots of people would still be poor and screwed because of their bad decisions since they are schooled by the verypeople who oppress them
its going to take decades and decades for people to see the light if we can even make that possible since we are so far off the beaten path we might never find our way back
keep up the good work bud
Thanks! I think without centralised government and massive wealth inequality, there would be more opportunity for people to learn freely and to make use of a 'learning market' that doesn't really exist today. It's certainly true that many people learn damaging information from others and continue to use it their whole lives. I feel that certain catalysts will come along to accelerate the process here - things are speeding up!
Interesting points Ura-soul!
What you say reminds me a lot of communization theories ideas of the elimination of the value form. Have you read end-notes? They go further saying that money is evil and through the elimination of it we can bring about a communist revolution. They also speak on the recontextualizing of labor into a form without toil.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on communization theory.https://endnotes.org.uk/issues/2/en/endnotes-communisation-and-value-form-theory
I tend to find communist type text to be very difficult to read due to the language used not baring much relation to the language used outside of that realm. I therefore need a lot of time to read through links like that one and to be sure I have understood them. I don't currently have that much time available and I have a backlog of 20+ books to read already! If there's an infographic summary of it then I'll check it out but otherwise I can't promise to get through it any time soon! ;)
This was a wonderful breakdown of the systemic evil inherent in our economically engineered slave system.
I think however that socialism (collectivism) shared as a solution at the end isn’t the answer as it has inherent problems of its own. Resetting the assets and money would be the place to begin making right the dysfunctions of the current monetary system... but wealth is always attracted to the minds and hands that preserve and care for it best. It flees the minds and hands of those who manage it worst. Value will always accumulate towards the few because of this singular reason recreating the greed cycle all over again. So what is the solution? Crypto and automated money systems are a giant leap forward. Yes. But governing and protecting subsequent policy is where the battle lines will always be drawn. I wonder how much nurture comes into play in determining how humans human... is this problem inherently a human one? Is this a nature problem? Or is this a nurture problem due to the evils of our current financial system?
One this to also consider (which you briefly brush against) was how one persons evil is another’s good. This is also the relative rule of the universe just like gravity is... What is good for one financially is also a vote against another. Much like an ant does what’s good for the ant and we do what’s good for us... it’s all good... until our unmindful foot crushes the ant where he crawls. Our good is his evil and so every response generates and equal and opposite reaction. That’s the difficulty in moral arguments of good and evil...
But one thing is sure in my mind... freedom at the cost of others freedom is no freedom at all and systems based upon this faulty foundation of thought as sure to crumble.
So it is with this in mind... that we all forge ahead with the hopes that we can build better crypto financial systems... one that puts financial prosperity in the hands of all who exchange it. The experiment continues...
Posted using Partiko iOS
Hi, thanks for responding here. To be clear, I didn't mention socialism or collectivism at all and was not referring to either. I did mention living from the heart, which is not the same as socialism (although socialism itself has differing definitions, depending on who you speak to).
" wealth is always attracted to the minds and hands that preserve and care for it best"
I'm not really sure how you came to this conclusion considering that you seem to appreciate the general message of the video here because I pointed clearly to how most of the wealth has been concentrated into the hands of those who are most manipulative, deceptive and basically heartless. They aren getting rich through 'careful management' - they have systematically used mind control and deception to hide the truth from the majority of people for so long and used both covert and overt oppression at every opportunity to maintain their power position. The disempowering of the majority is what needs to be healed now for everyone to go to their right place.
In terms of the causes of why people decide what they do - we are all unique, but most of most people is unconscious at this point and until we consciously become more of who we really are by deliberate processes of making the unconscious become conscious - we will continue to repeat the cycles of the past aeons with no real progress. Nurture is only as beneficial as our own nature has been free'd and this is our own responsibility. The fact that most people have never even considered this, let alone acted on it reliably, is part of why this whole nightmare exists. Ultimately, the financial system is a reflection of deep inner imbalance and injury that is very ancient - it pre-dates even the predatory patterns we see in the animal world.
It is possible for different groups with different needs to live in harmony, I don't actually need to kill ants (although I may do so by accident from time to time). There's always something to be learned in the process of coming into balance with others on a free will planet. <3
Ok! To pick up where we left off. Thanks for your response by the way @ura-soul!
I guess I should start by clearing some things up...
1st I definitely appreciate your breakdown of the inherent and engineered problems with our current government issued fiat. You are right in your assessment of the evils baked into the money system. (The proof is always in the pudding right?) And, I might add, I fully appreciated your eloquent delivery as it put to words what I have been thinking and telling people since I began to study money after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This is indeed a slave system and all the supporting systems (politics, media, banks, etc.) around it are meant to distract and keep people in the dark about the state of their freedom(s) and natural rights. This creates a static/evil environment where the status quo is upheld and innovation, change, surplus, and prosperity becomes next to impossible... If you are using the old money that is...
2nd All the above being said, I disagree with your purposed solution to the money evils of the world and although you may not have said "communist", "socialist", or "collectivist" the idea is from those "ist" playbooks and has already been tried with much pain and suffering. Yes... Justice needs to be realized... but in order for us to move forward we may have to collectively bond ourselves into something altogether new before any measure of this can take place.
Leveling the playing field (as you suggested) would likely require a centralized "authority" and thereby the seeds of it's own destruction would be sown right from the get go. My point was to say that even if we were able to effect the leveling of all capital (financial and such) money would, over time, gradually (or rapidly depending on the accumulated knowledge, experience, and wisdom) flow towards the hands that knew how to manage and maintain it.
Money in the hands of someone who only consumes for himself is bound to be spent towards those who are focused on providing for that consumption and who have an alert eye to managing and maintaining it's accumulation and expense. It's just a matter of time before we would find our selves as a society in exactly the same position as before. Right where we are today... Wealth transfers are unavoidable... Even if it means that people holding on to their old forms of money miss the boat as the economy shifts towards the new money. This is a matter of intelligence, flexibility, knowledge, experience, and wisdom. To support a new economic structure those who believe in it's potential are going to have to invest our time and capital in it's realization. This inherently means that some will have more skin in the game than others.
The other point to consider (about wealth being attracted towards wealthy minds and competent hands) If you put two people in any transaction together it is the one with the experience that will leave with the money... Every single time. It's inherent within human nature to human this way... Profit incentive in business and investment is the grease that makes the economic wheels turn. Trust determines the speed of that exchange towards the provision of the needs and requirements of our society. It's a proven way in which we hold together life and limb and I don't see that as likely to change or evolve anytime soon.
It's to bad really... I wish we didn't need money at all but even with the advent of the nuclear age humans still cling to and fight for what's good for themselves first. It's a scarcity mindset... in an abundant world. This mindset is at the source of all poverty and it's subsequent problems.
I think that the best we can hope for would be to re-write/re-invent our democratic systems and I think that's what this trend towards crypto currency is. I can envision a world where we vote for the itemized issues we deem as vital, valuable, and important rather than political figure heads spouting the benefits of capitalistic or communistic economic policy. These people have zero reasons to innovate a new and better future for their constituents because the current financial system has self preservation front of mind in all it's functions. There is zero reason for real change when the people who hold the old money (and the capital it buys) vote for things to stay exactly where they are. Change the money system and no longer will life as we know it stay in stasis.
New money unlocks new ideas, solutions, and prosperity for all. I think that by investing in specific decentralized ideas it is possible to "vote" for what we want to see in the world. This is the real way to effect change. And I believe the new money has that capability. Eventually people will realize that the old money is severely limited and even handicap in this regard. One day people are going to laugh about the very idea of the new money being compared to the old and outdated money. It will seem absurd to them just like it is to us (30 years later) when we hear about the people who asked who the C.E.O. of the internet was.
@ura-soul! I bring these up not to argue with your perspectives... I bring all this up because I massively respect you and the way you articulated the current financial state. You are right on the money (pun intended) and I see value in talking about what could be the solutions that people will attempt in the near future. I may disagree on some points... But I don't need to be "right". For me being open and searching for the truth is more important. This conversation was and is invaluable so thank you for your time and ideas. :)
I think mo ey brings out the worst in people. If we weren't dependent on it but dependent on ourselves, say to grow food instead of buy it, life would be better, more appreciated.
Our natural state is abundance, yes. So much of the lack on this planet is engineered and manufactured lack. The corruption of the money process is all part of deliberately causing imbalance.
Moving the economy from a system of scarcity to a system of surplus... that would be the future many would work hard for. It’s something I think about often actually... how much work it takes to make a loaf of bread and how much work it takes to buy one. Specific want can be hard to supply... but nature provides in abundance to those who are flexible enough to receive whatever it provides... being more self-sufficient and building a system of exchange (support) among other likeminded individuals is happening outside of the current slave system... I think that’s why I have found my way to crypto currencies and private money. It’s a way to side step a corrupt system. It’s a way to set up the game for others and yourself to win where the odds of the playing board are tilted in our favour. I’m in good company. 🙂
I appreciated your conclusion which ended on a positive note, highlighting that there are benefits to all if we choose to create a new system coming from the heart. With that said, I'm not implying that everyone would be in favor of this but if enough people voluntarily decide to do so, things could change quickly.
Shifting from an enforced system, such as we have now - involving money and state sponsored violence - to a voluntary approach to creativity and life, can only help!
DW made a documentary about that bank thing about money out of thin air... i dont agree with a reset as it was tried with communism... you can also not disown land that has been for centuries in family possetion and split it among the people... no one would farm then and what do i do with a billionth of a share of an NSA super computer that got redistributed... also the person in power of such reset would effectivly be more powerfull and you can read "animal farm" to see how that goes with "all animals are equal except pigs (who rule the animals)"... the perosn in charge due to power dynamics of a government would also effectively be not a moral one to stay in charge (see "rules for rulers" by CGP grey)... i think its sufficient to have a system that encourages equality so that people can reach an equal equilibrium by them self without a massive wealth redistribution and massive change that would wreck small businesses and economy, but that is already what social democracy is trying to do... unless we the people say we demand a different payment method other than bank transfer but crypto they would stay in charge... money is worthless if you cannot buy anything with it...
We can buy influence... Steem is proving that. If we can use crypto to buy the intangibles... the fabric of society can then change. Real wealth comes from the earth and the labour required to extract it... but it can also consist of social capital and ideas. 💡 The capital is just founded on different values that’s all... if we own the ideas and influence surrounding those ideas... then the future and it’s bounty is in our hands to direct. A complete sidestep of the current financial slave system.
I'm not sure who DW is. The idea of a reset can be carried out in many ways. Communism has only really been seen in an authoritarian form that was funded originally by Wall St. bankers. I personally think there is a reasonably high chance that what the world has seen of Communism was deliberately set up to fail and act as a pressure valve for people seeking to escape the corrupt enslavement system that has been running in 'The West' for so long. Since we now live in a world where many people automatically assume that any criticism of capitalism and money means that the commenter is a communist and a bad person - I'd say the tactic and conditioning appears to have worked for the operators of the global slave plantation.
"you can also not disown land that has been for centuries in family possetion and split it among the people"
Well, look at the Enclosures Act from Britain's history - which was in many ways the beginning of the system of land ownership that we call 'normal' today. They literally did the same you are saying cannot be done, except they took the land from many people and gave it to a very small number of people. It wasn't right - but it has already been done. The problem with not agreeing to some form of reset is that you are then automatically agreeing to the result of the massive crime that we have inherited and which continues.
Steem is built on principles of anarchy. Anarchy means 'no rulers' and I see that a world without rulers is necessary in order for us to be empowered and for us to have balance. So that solves the issue of power imbalance and government. The challenge then becomes how to live in balance, peacefully... Which is an issue of personal evolution and compassion primarily.
What if it’s nothing to do with capitalism versus collective collaboration... what if it has to do with how we find consensus and decide on the monetary policies and functions of the future. What if the answer is in re-writing democracy so that people can vote with capital (rather than individual single vote) on the things they care about. The things that individually matter to them. So rather than voting democratically for a corruptible human that says he is going to change the world as we know it... we vote for the items we want to change and then those are implemented by the people assigned to the task. Upon completion the funds are then automatically and in an itemized fashion distributed to the people who did the actual work. Perhaps the failings of our time has nothing to do with socialism versus capitalism... perhaps this is the signal that democracy in its current state needs to be upgraded to meet the demands and requirements of our times.
All forms of democracy are an overpowering and denial of free will. They are the majority (or in your case, the wealthiest) overpowering everyone else. This is not balance and is really just another form of tyranny, oppression and enslavement. The normalisation of this over time gives it an appearance of being 'fair' - but you only need to walk in the shoes of it's victims and study history to feel how this is not optimal.
Giving voting power to the most wealthy is an absurd solution to our problems to me - why do you think it is a good idea? Are you taking the position that those with the most money are somehow automatically the wisest? Isn't the entire purpose of the video here to show part of why that isn't true?
From my perspective, there cannot be peace without balance. Balance means 'no part or individual overpowering any other'. Achieving this means constant and felt awareness/understanding of each others real needs, such that they all get met. Many people don't even know their own real needs - let alone the needs of others. Having money is in no way a signal that you understand the real needs of others deeply enough to make decisions that intelligently effect them. The solution here requires a process that includes personal evolution and an increased awareness of the felt and intuitive signals that tell us when our thoughts and actions are balanced.
The 'ubuntu movement' has an interesting and ancient approach. I don't agree with 100% of their logic, but the idea is basically 'if it's not good for all then it's not good at all'. Some might interpret this to mean that there is a loss of individuation - but that's not really true - the principle is intended to ensure that nothing gets set in stone unless it truly works for every single being. If such great ideas are not found, then we keep learning until they are - remaining totally agile and able to shift to new options along the way. Change is a constant that is deliberately being withheld as much as possible by those who have stolen the most and with the least heart.
an anarchic system as opposed to democratic system would achieve the same tyrany, people would invest in things from their contributed income into things that they believe in...
for example:
if people choose to invest military aid to resolve a conflict half the people would invest in israel the other half in palestine ending up arming both sides causing the maximum amount of cassualties possible...
if people choose to invest in a bike lane, other people will tear down the bike lane for more car lanes.... public goods are not always for all which is a big debate in the US about the governmental healthcare system as people dont want to buy a health care system that they dont use (while they may be using it when they got old and will rely on young people paying into the healthcare system)...
the democratic process eliminates the waste of public goods funding as people make up their mind in what they invest it in based on majority... if i dont plan to have kids what good does investing in education do for me? in that sense ubuntu does not make sense... we cannot eliminate someone being overpowered as not every snowflake can have their own way the world works..
i agree the steem upvote system is flawed but thats one way of keeping people making multiple accounts to upvote their stuff... unless we want a surveilance currrency as china is currently building that requires ur ID...
The ubuntu principle would generally not involve investing in military offense of any kind, in my interpretation - since military offense is not good for everyone.
"the democratic process eliminates the waste of public goods funding as people make up their mind in what they invest it in based on majority"
that is quite a naive statement that is not based on the evidence. huge amounts of public money get wasted as a result of choices made via alleged democractic processes. in most countries the 'democracy' is a controlled facade by design that offers voters little in the way of real choice. no matter who you vote for you get roughly the same direction in policy when push comes to shove and some of that is due to bribery, some to blackmail and some to just incompetence and heartlessness. controlling the opinions of the majority is not that challenging if you control the information flows in the world and deliberately manipulate thinking to disempower people - which is exactly what has been done for a long time on an industrial scale.
"if i dont plan to have kids what good does investing in education do for me? in that sense ubuntu does not make sense"
you choose what you invest in - that's good for you and unless you happen to control most of the resources, it's not necessarily bad for anyone in principle. part of the problem people have with this kind of free thinking is that they are so used to being controlled that they can't see beyond the box of control and imagine that it is possible to live without being forced to do something they don't want to do.
"we cannot eliminate someone being overpowered as not every snowflake can have their own way the world works"
every act of overpowering has a cause - which can be understood and changes made so that the causes no longer exist. 'the world works' as we align to direct it to work - what evidence do you have that the world works a particular way and cannot change? do you deeply understand the causes of and mechanisms within what has been called 'the human condition'?
as far as ID oracles for steem goes - I don't see that happening soon, though I know that steemit inc has plans for it and Voice on EOS relies on a new form of it using multiple smartphones. I'm not for it.
what ever form of reset you are talking about it will involve land and money to be forcefully taken from one party to be redistributed... if it is done using a centralized power it will likely be an evil one as ruling systems are usually built on pyramids of powers satisfying the links below as no ruler can rule alone... i dont see why u insist on a reset of power when a social democracy (or what people in the US wrongly call "socialism") can make a system that favors minimal inequalities so anyone can live well easily while the rich get taxed harder (as AOC suggested up to 75% which would not discourage wealthier to earn more while being able to support from the tax income the population)... An economy of low interest rate and startup incubation centers wehre anyone with an idea can loan money cheaply and build a company (like in europe) where people can go for free to college (like in europe) with free healthcare (like in europe) with laws that protect the equality of people (european law) and taxes that hit the wealthy (not yet in europe but hopefully soon) would provide minimal inequality in the long run without having to forcefully ceasing the property of people...
DW is btw Deutsche Welle which is a big news outlet that does news in many languages but they also make documentaries. German news outlets are not as largely influenced by US war politics (though are not completely independent) and we dont kill our whistle blowers.
I am not suggesting for anything to be taken by force - however, I am pointing out that the current situation is one that was created by taking things by force originally.. So if we were to truly live out the principles of justice that governments tend to want to claim to be founded by, then we would include within that a process of redistribution that recognises the epic scale crime that has gone on for so long and which has been passed off as 'sound economic principles'.
If I steal your clothing from your back, you likely wouldn't be too bothered about using violence to take them back from me. What's the difference between that and using violence to reclaim land that has been stolen on a large scale using fraudulent economics? I personally am not advocating for violence here because I recognise that real peace has to come through voluntary action - but surely you must realise that simple logic shows that those with the most will always use it to try to stay in that position unless challenged by something more significant than tax that they can manipulate and get out of?
Who checks the tax payments? Who monitors what is just and what is not? It all requires some degree of centralisation. Why is centralised operation of high taxation rates less evil than centralised, forced redistribution of resources?
I live in Europe and I can assure you that the 'free' healthcare is ever more being privatised and in important ways has always been thoroughly corrupted by the empire building groups that will continue to exist with or without a government. There is nothing really 'free' in all of that anyway since it was all paid for by tax, which many people consider to be a form of theft.
Well, as far as dead German whistleblowers go - I'd say Dr. Udo Ulfkotte counts as one, though he was probably killed by the CIA!
i suppose a decentralized government could be possible and perhaps better, but it would be a difficult currency to make and such currency does not exist yet.
non of the crypto currencies so far are combined green (maybe provide at the same time digital infrastructure like storj or filecoin), horizontally expandable (like Etherium with their sharding technique so that the blockchain never gets too big for normal people to mine), it should have smart contracts (more advanced than steem) and people would need to be able to adjust what their tax spending would be while currating possible government projects...
it would be already amazing if there was a cryptocurrency that could give loans as a smart contract, but steems "minnowbooster" project is the closest thing i know to a smart loan.... loans of any size for anyone even if its a few dollars (micro finance banks are amazing for that reason)... banks are much greater evil and if we use a currency that could get them out of the equation would already be a great help...
until such currency exists i will be fine voting governments that support my social democratic, non military, and climate friendly values even when the parties i vote for dont make it into the parlament :/
"Ulfkotte, bereits seit mehreren Jahren gesundheitlich angeschlagen, starb am 13. Januar 2017 im Alter von 56 Jahren an einem Herzinfarkt"
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Ulfkotte
Udo died after serveral years having health problems of a heart attack.
government is inherently the idea of majority rule over minorities - so no matter how much you attempt to decentralise it - it will still have an unbalanced form.
my main issue with cryptocurrencies is that without some kind of reset that levels the playing field, they just continue the old problems in a new form.
Personally, I don't advocate that anyone choose to be ruled by others - it's not healthy ;)
Ulfkotte was the only highly experienced media figure to have openly stated that he was being paid by the CIA for his whole career to lie to the world and also that he didn't know anyone in the mainstream media that wasn't also being paid to lie in the same way. It is no surprise to me that he died not long after. There was a public admittance as far ago as the 1960s that the CIA can cause heart attacks in people in an undetectable way. It is obviously possible that he had a heart attack anyway - but I would not rule out him being murdered too.
i agree most cryptocurrencies would give the same problems since its the most unregulated forms of capitalism... so im not sure if such transition is possible... and you dont need to vote for a change in currency, it may be enough to just not give value to cash... if a group of people can independently survive and grow their economy based on a currency the government cannot do anything about it and their money becomes worthless as it is only worth as much as the value we give it
The gulf in class between the rich and poor is evil enough, the fact that i can't necessarily access the amount of money I want to meet my need is evil enough really and as much as it doesn't infringe on anyone the definition of evil might vary in opinion
I think there is a coming of age happening where enlightenment about money reaches the general public. Money is not actually a medium of exchange. Money is a method of measuring/assessing the commercial value of an item.
This quote by Alan Watts was very enlightening to me:
So, you remember the Great Depression when there was a slump? And what did we have a slump of? Money. There was no less wealth, no less energy, no less raw materials than there were before. But it’s like you came to work on building a house one day and they said, “Sorry, you can’t build this house today, no inches.”
“What do you mean no inches?”
“Just inches! We don’t mean that… we’ve got inches of lumber, yes, we’ve got inches of metal, we’ve even got tape measures, but there’s a slump in inches as such.”
And people are that crazy!
Alan Watts, Philosopher
Hahaha! Beautifully said! I love Alen Watts for his amazing way with words. Thanks for this comment. 🙂
@wil.metcalfe He certainly knew what he was talking about. He is one of the few modern philosophers that acknowledges that fiat tokens (money as some call it, is inherently lacking of any value).
Haha.. I am not an expert in 'the great depression' - it's an area of history I haven't really studied much - but i like the metaphor!
Nothing is evil and good, it's just who is using it.
Posted using Partiko Android
As stated, the dictionary definition of evil includes 'causes harm' - so you are claiming here that nothing causes harm inherently. I'm pretty sure that there are many things which cause harm, regardless of who uses them - such as nuclear weapons, for example.
I think, action causes harm not the thing, like nuclear energy can be used to take care of our energy needs or as a weapon, it is in the hands of the one using it to make it evil or good.
Like snake venom causes harm but it is also used as a medicine. A knife can be used to kill and is used to kill, but it is saving many lives in the hand of a surgeon.
Posted using Partiko Android
Nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are different ideas. You can have a nuclear weapon and not use it - which might be said to not be evil - but just the fact that it exists causes psychological and emotional harm to people that has knock on effects which lead to other problems. There is no love in a nuclear weapon and it is fair to say they are an evil invention.
Similarly images of extreme abuse, such as child rape, are obviously not loving and it does not depend on who uses them - the fact that they exist is evil in itself.
That's what I said, actions can be good or bad or evil, but the thing which is performing that action or out of which that action is produced is not.
Posted using Partiko Android