Progress is not guaranteed?
There is no formal assurance that our society will move forwards and advance, that there will always be progress, there is not a law of nature to protect our legacy of our open minded liberty, the technological wave that is powering our economic uprise is not guaranteed to last forever and medicine advances can be outcompeted by nature. We are so use to perpetual growth that we think it is normal, we have never experienced anything except the expansion of the last one hundred years, it has been a wonderful ride but will the rollercoaster of life reach it's peak and start to descend at some point, the fall would be terrifying, could all our progress be lost forever. Just because something has not happened for a long time that does not mean it will not happen again, as we are all too aware of now, the Spanish flu was not the last pandemic, there are more asteroids out there, there are enough nuke to wipe out the earth a hundred times over, ice ages come and go, super volcanoes erupt and my favourite, people can be really stupid.
Preparations help but some forces are just too overwhelming, just building some dams does not mean we have controlled nature forever, impressive as it is, it is just a sandcastle compared to what time and pressure can do. We feel secure in our settled advance society, there is legal certainty and fairness, policing by consent, businesses can flourish, the arts are free to express themselves, the renaissance has thrived, information is free and widely accessible, these are things we should be proud of, generations of suffering have paid for it in blood and the fight has not been easy, but this is no time to rest, it is the time to push forwards and secure our legacy. The Romans thought their thousand years of rising empire guaranteed them eternal growth but the barbarians had other ideas and they never saw them coming.
We thought that it was the system that was at fault, that the pursuit of empires, that by empowering the individual, our world would be robust enough to last forever, the promise was that if only we had the time and the resources to do so, each people would be a strong brick in the wall so that we would never fall. In return for our labours, we were suppose to be entering the era of leisure, where people would make the rational decision to work less and value our time above all else, that was the path we were promised. Instead labour has been devalued, the only thing “worse than being exploited is being irrelevant”, there are winners in theory, there are billionaires and employee that are so prized that they are paid a thousand times more than the average worker. However they are not happy, they do not have work life balance, they just work every hour of the day playing the money game, then spend all their money to prove that they are rich which means they have to work even harder, it is a treadmill that crushes everyone in the end, and they never get peace as they are so fearful that it will all go away.
The rest of us live in the shadows of these economic powerhouses, bit players at the game of life, living according to forces that we do not even understand, Russia gets moody and we end up paying more for gas, a ship gets stuck and we do not get Christmas presents, China wants to expand with coal power and the air becomes poisonous, these are thing that not even America can do anything about, what chances do we have. Incomes go down, taxes go up, the cost of living spirals, more suicides, homelessness, addiction and no one cares, it is progress we are told but were we not told that progress should make these thing history.
Do the elites care or do they strategize, do they divide the mass as they have always done, five years ago there was an anti one percentage movement that sought fairness where is that now, crushed under the divides that the elites have highlighted and paid for, black and white, men and women, trans, gay, straight, vegan, non-binary, it is pick a team time sponsored by the rich and they will watch, count their dividends and laugh as we destroy each other. It is only when mob gets in the way of their lattes and shopping that they will realise that once the mob is free it knows no limit. Violence brings more violence, it is a firestorm that does not break until it is burnt out.
What we need are safe zones and the ability to get there, but again it is divide and rule, one country against another whilst the elites travel freely, whilst we are told we need to protect our zone like it is the holy land where there is honey and wine, we are putting up the barriers of our own prison. Controlling people never benefits the people, Brexit has confined an entire nation into a single open prison and there is no escape, no choice, you are stuck there no matter how authoritarian the government becomes, the freedom to move protects the individual from bad government, immigration controls gives them power over the prisoners who live there in the disguise of protecting them.
They then try to take our freedom of speech, to demonstrate, to live our lives according to our own beliefs, they act to control us, they even tell us what to think and all in the name of our own good, to protect us from thinking or acting in anyway that indicate independence of thought, that is a hate crime against someone now, as if hurt feelings were the same as hate. Once that kind of thinking takes over, you can never be woke enough in the long run, radical feminist becomes a trans hater, radical vegan becomes a vegetable murderer, suicides become attention seekers, there no logic except of the morally superior and you must obey, repeat the mantras or be destroyed and cancelled.
The only protection is to build your ark to survive until the balance returns when we stop looking for reason to hate and blame others for our own failings, to build in fairness rather than control over others. We do not want everyone to agree on a single set of ideas, that is unhealthy, but we do want tolerance for those we disagree with, so that we have the same benefit, we want a society that works to make life better for everyone not just the elites (though a happy, safe society also benefits them). We need a simple mission that everyone can work together on, building a wealth fund that pays for an universal basic income is a mission that will last for decades, it is a purpose that has real benefits to all. However whilst we are waiting build your own wealth fund, that is your ark, your option to step away until the world comes to it's senses, it gives you something that can not be cancelled and once you feel secure, help others to join you, build a community that values wealth rather than riches, that comes together in protection of our responsibility to each other.
This individual approach is the small part that you can play in guaranteeing that progress continues as it gives you control over resources, not to hoard but to use, a intelligent investor looks for real wealth not just money, they understand that it how you use resources not just having them is more important than anything else. That saving is more powerful than earning more, building a wind turbine gives you electric forever whereas burning money (or gas) keeps you warm for the night, that is the role of the entrepreneur to find better ways to do things, to create capital that produce income or savings, they are the well diggers, bridge builders, home insulators, by using resources to make the world more efficient to use less to produce more, we increase real wealth, we make more of what we have, we make the pie bigger for everyone to share.
Not everyone can invent new technology but all of us can use our resources in better ways, we can be aware that there is a limited pot of resources and that how we use it is important. Once you have solved your money problem it frees you up to spend your time instead, to invest your most precious resource in wise ways, self-care, education, meaningful pursuits, community activities, these all require time, high quality time and that is only available once you stop working sixty hours a week at earning money (if your work has meaning beyond that, it is worth doing, though in balance with your life). You are not going to remember the extra thousand on your bank balance when you die, but you will cherish the time spent with friends, and progress relies on the group, it is when friends and communities come together that we get to protect our progress.
We have to want to move forwards together, to do things greater than a single lifetime allows, that is something only groups can achieve, money can help bring a group together but it is the spirit that is more important, the meaning of what you are doing. Groups can be destructive and we should guard against that, however when they are positive, they can do the impossible, they can do more than the sums of their part, they can set the pendulum swinging that change the world. So if you want the world to continue progressing, for the future generation to have a better life, the greatest force multiplier you have is to find the group that is fighting to do better, to make life easier, to bring more resources to everyone and to use them more efficiently, go out there and fight to protect what progress we have made and to guarantee our future progress, if you do not, who will?
