Sunday, April 7, 2013
On Superman
The thing I find most interesting about Superman isn't so much his fantastic powers, but more what he chooses to do with them. I suppose it's fairly common to fantasize about what you would do if you could have super powers. Now there are probably people out there who would immediately try to find a way to make these powers benefit themselves, because what's the point of being super if there isn't some kind of payoff? So maybe using these powers to get a lot of money or a lot of sex or even more power aren't out of the realm of possibility as far as top on the lists for most people. On the other hand there would be people like Superman, who would see these powers as a sort of responsibility to do more than just fly around and be rich. Everyone knows what Superman is all about. He's there to save the day when the day needs saving. Helicopter about to fall onto that field trip of little kids with puppies from the shelter. Superman will swoop in and protect them. Bank robbery where the goons have robotic weapons attached to their bodies and are about to take hostages. Superman will put a stop to it and make it look easy doing so. It's a comic book world so the stories have to be fantastical to keep our attention. Here's a question though. Is what Superman does every day really a good thing?
Sure saving those kids from becoming street pizza is hard to argue against. And bank robbers should probably be stopped, even if there is FDIC. Still what if the person he saved today was someone that wasn't supposed to be saved? Without getting too far along into the Final Destination scenarios, what if that person was supposed to die? Their time was up and while it would have been sad for those who knew them, it was part of the natural order of things. Instead you have this alien wearing a cape with a God complex coming into the situation like a red and blue monkey wrench and changing everything. Sure you could argue that if they were meant to die then they would have. Still someone or better yet, something, like Superman changes the rules for everyone and everything around him. He's an anomaly. On his own planet he's just like us. Fragile and susceptible to the world around him. On our planet thought he's a super man. He can barely be hurt. He defies the laws of physics. And if you believe some of the stories, he may in fact be immortal. A being like that stepping in to save someone from a runaway train is like us diverting the course of a river to save a few insects from getting washed away. A chain of events were set in motion and possibly had a purpose and was then interrupted by a huge X factor.
The other problem with Superman stepping in to save someone from a fatal situations is that once he's done it enough times people will start to expect it. At first people will continue to take every precaution that they normally would. Wearing a seat belt. Putting on a helmet. Not juggling that running chainsaw while riding a unicycle blind folded in busy traffic. When Superman comes along to save them from an accident it will be kismet. He was supposed to be there to save them from harm. Eventually though the expectation that Superman will be there to protect them will override other safety precautions. The construction worker doesn't bother to tie himself to the support beam because if he falls Superman will swoop in and save him from falling to his death. At this point Superman becomes like a parent who is there to catch their child before they fall. In this way people will never know any sense of danger. Sure they may be scared at the time, but in the back of their mind would they just assume that Superman is coming at any minute?
No matter how fast or strong or well-intentioned Superman is, he's still just one man. He can't be everywhere at every time. Even if he were running at 99% efficiency when it comes to saving people there would still be people falling (literally) through the cracks. So how would someone like that have time to have a relationship with someone or hold a day job as a journalist? I don't know much about journalism, but I do know that when they write things, they tend to have to do some kind of research beforehand. That takes time. Superman is going to allow that burning building to continue destroying lives while he gets the quote from the mayor about the upcoming budget talks? How would he even be able to take off the costume if there is something happening every minute of the day? Maybe he just focuses on Metropolis and only gets involved in the really big events that are worldwide? The guy can fly around the globe in minutes so for him knowing something terrible is happening across the country or the world would be like looking across the street and seeing your neighbors house on fire and thinking it's too far away for you to do anything about. Everyone he doesn't save would either be a conscious choice or a failing on his part. It could be he'd have to start doing triage in his head. If I save this commuter train from derailing then I save 250 people, but if I save them then the 45 miners caught in a cave in will die. Does it become a numbers game for him? And would he start having to make judgement calls on who he saves and why? Would it be women and children first and maybe people who are known to be assets to the human race? At this point isn't he essentially playing God?
At this point wouldn't he have so disrupted the natural order of things that everything would be contingent on where he was and what he was doing at any given moment? The things he would be changing are based entirely on what he chooses. Would mankind still be in charge of their own destiny with someone like him around? Granted Lex Luthor is a megalomaniac, but his point about Superman isn't wrong. Having a god-like alien around stops us from achieving our own fate, for good or bad. We are often defined by our failures, sometimes more than by our successes. Only after we've seen the error of our ways or have lost something do we really understand our potential to overcome. Constantly being protected is comforting like a security blanket, but in the end it starts to do more harm than good. I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to have a real life Superman around, if only for the sake of knowing that someone like that could exist, no I'm saying that we should be our own superman and work on being more than we currently are. Capes are optional.
Sure saving those kids from becoming street pizza is hard to argue against. And bank robbers should probably be stopped, even if there is FDIC. Still what if the person he saved today was someone that wasn't supposed to be saved? Without getting too far along into the Final Destination scenarios, what if that person was supposed to die? Their time was up and while it would have been sad for those who knew them, it was part of the natural order of things. Instead you have this alien wearing a cape with a God complex coming into the situation like a red and blue monkey wrench and changing everything. Sure you could argue that if they were meant to die then they would have. Still someone or better yet, something, like Superman changes the rules for everyone and everything around him. He's an anomaly. On his own planet he's just like us. Fragile and susceptible to the world around him. On our planet thought he's a super man. He can barely be hurt. He defies the laws of physics. And if you believe some of the stories, he may in fact be immortal. A being like that stepping in to save someone from a runaway train is like us diverting the course of a river to save a few insects from getting washed away. A chain of events were set in motion and possibly had a purpose and was then interrupted by a huge X factor.
The other problem with Superman stepping in to save someone from a fatal situations is that once he's done it enough times people will start to expect it. At first people will continue to take every precaution that they normally would. Wearing a seat belt. Putting on a helmet. Not juggling that running chainsaw while riding a unicycle blind folded in busy traffic. When Superman comes along to save them from an accident it will be kismet. He was supposed to be there to save them from harm. Eventually though the expectation that Superman will be there to protect them will override other safety precautions. The construction worker doesn't bother to tie himself to the support beam because if he falls Superman will swoop in and save him from falling to his death. At this point Superman becomes like a parent who is there to catch their child before they fall. In this way people will never know any sense of danger. Sure they may be scared at the time, but in the back of their mind would they just assume that Superman is coming at any minute?
No matter how fast or strong or well-intentioned Superman is, he's still just one man. He can't be everywhere at every time. Even if he were running at 99% efficiency when it comes to saving people there would still be people falling (literally) through the cracks. So how would someone like that have time to have a relationship with someone or hold a day job as a journalist? I don't know much about journalism, but I do know that when they write things, they tend to have to do some kind of research beforehand. That takes time. Superman is going to allow that burning building to continue destroying lives while he gets the quote from the mayor about the upcoming budget talks? How would he even be able to take off the costume if there is something happening every minute of the day? Maybe he just focuses on Metropolis and only gets involved in the really big events that are worldwide? The guy can fly around the globe in minutes so for him knowing something terrible is happening across the country or the world would be like looking across the street and seeing your neighbors house on fire and thinking it's too far away for you to do anything about. Everyone he doesn't save would either be a conscious choice or a failing on his part. It could be he'd have to start doing triage in his head. If I save this commuter train from derailing then I save 250 people, but if I save them then the 45 miners caught in a cave in will die. Does it become a numbers game for him? And would he start having to make judgement calls on who he saves and why? Would it be women and children first and maybe people who are known to be assets to the human race? At this point isn't he essentially playing God?
At this point wouldn't he have so disrupted the natural order of things that everything would be contingent on where he was and what he was doing at any given moment? The things he would be changing are based entirely on what he chooses. Would mankind still be in charge of their own destiny with someone like him around? Granted Lex Luthor is a megalomaniac, but his point about Superman isn't wrong. Having a god-like alien around stops us from achieving our own fate, for good or bad. We are often defined by our failures, sometimes more than by our successes. Only after we've seen the error of our ways or have lost something do we really understand our potential to overcome. Constantly being protected is comforting like a security blanket, but in the end it starts to do more harm than good. I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to have a real life Superman around, if only for the sake of knowing that someone like that could exist, no I'm saying that we should be our own superman and work on being more than we currently are. Capes are optional.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
On Looking Back at Today
If you've ever watched a PBS documentary about nearly any subject from say fifty years ago or older they all tend to be very similar in how they relay the information to you. At least the Ken Burns style has a certain way of showing you what happened, or at least how people remember it. Usually there are old photographs and someone narrating to set the stage of the time and place. Maybe there will be letters read by various people from that time, along with more black and white photos. It's a fairly effective way to tell a story when all the people involved are likely not around anymore to tell it. The thing is though, how much of the story are we really getting? In some cases the event is just too large to try and tell all the stories so instead it has to be focused on just a few people who experienced; say a town, a unit of soldiers, or a specific group of people that were impacted by whatever it was that happened. We know right away that something like World War II seen through the eyes of a small town in Kansas will be a much more emotional story than trying to cover something that went on for years and involved a large portion of the world while it was happening. Any documentary is going to attempt to tell a certain story, even if that story changed from the time they started to the time they finished. The filmmaker is going to influence the information that they find and maybe there is no "true" version of any event that is in the past.
I'm sure everyone looks back at yesterday and wonders how they got by without what we have now. We quickly become accustomed to today's features and it's almost alien to think of a time when they didn't exist. Ask someone under the age of eighteen to think of what life was like without the internet or a phone that you carried in your pocket. Ask someone under the age of forty to imagine life without the civil rights we have today or of a time where mankind only dreamed of going into space. The previous generation is always looking at the current one and wondering if they really know what's going on or how good (or bad) things are in comparison to how they were. Once you go back farther and farther it becomes more difficult to get a true record of what was really happening then. People took pictures and recorded it on film. They wrote about it and kept track of their thoughts just like we do today, but the ease in which to store and spread what you saw and experienced wasn't always easy. Plus often times things were just lost because at the time no one considered it to be important enough to keep. How much of history is just memory because someone didn't feel the need to capture it? And maybe that's not exactly a bad thing. Somethings aren't meant to be captured. Some moments are here and gone before we know what to do with them.
Today we have even more means to record the moment, for all the good and bad that comes with it. Not that long ago people would break out the camera to capture special moments like holidays, graduations, and weddings. Sure there were some people who recorded more than that and probably have boxes of tapes sitting around somewhere collecting dust. Most of it may not be anything anyone wants to go back and look at. Maybe though someone will find those tapes and catch a glimpse into moments between the big events. Looking back at childhood pictures you may notice that in a lot of cases they were posed or were taken during a special occasion. Some of that had to do with the fact that the camera wasn't as prevalent as it is today thanks to smart phones. With everyone walking around with a camera in their pocket it means we have a lot more pictures of mundane things (and a lot of cat pictures). At least for me there is a lot of mystery to how my parents were as kids. I've seen pictures of them and I know it's them, but it's a moment frozen in time. I don't know of any movies of them. Any letters that they wrote were written for a specific reason, say a letter home or whatever.
Today we email, text, and tweet to the point that its specialness is lost. I'm not saying the form of communication is bad. It's just that when you can send an email at any moment during the day about any subject then it loses a bit of its importance. Tweets and texts aren't any different. Maybe you kept that text to a childhood friend, but I have a feeling that after about the fiftieth one you're not too concerned with saving it. Now a letter from that same friend may be something that you carry around with you for years. Is what they have to say any more or less important than in the text? I'm not sure. How about the pictures from your tenth birthday party where that one kid ate too much cake and threw up on your presents? What about the picture you took of the bacon wrapped shrimp you had last week? Maybe in that moment it was important, if only to you. Does quantity of recorded memories reduce the quality of them?
People today don't tend to write letters as often anymore and most of our communication is electronic. Plus we tend to change phones, phone numbers, and email addresses quite a bit throughout our lives and even if we don't, we don't really keep a lot of that old communication laying around. In say 30-40 years if someone were to try and piece together the life of someone living today do you think it would be easier or harder to do since we tend to be somewhat disposable with our communications to people? You'd think that with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Myspace, email, text messages, random photos taken with your phone or camera that you'd get a fairly clear picture of a person's life, but are we right back to where we were fifty years ago where the pictures and words left to tell the story are only the highlights that we chose to keep? We have what seems like instant communication, however, are what we recording anything that worth keeping? Is the majority of what we capture ultimately going to end up in the electronic shoebox in the back of the closet? That's if it's saved at all. We assume that someone is keeping that information somewhere. It's like when you pass someone broken down on the side of a busy road. You don't stop to help because you figure there are lots of people. Someone has to be on it already. Not everyone could drive by without helping. On a lonely country road though you may be more likely to help someone because you know that you may be that person's only hope for a long time. So do we think it's safe to not worry about keeping our history of today because someone else in the sea of millions of capture points will do it for us? Twenty years from now we may look back at today and wonder what happened to our history because we don't have anything more than some 1s and 0s to hold the place of something tangible that reminds us of how things were.
I'm sure everyone looks back at yesterday and wonders how they got by without what we have now. We quickly become accustomed to today's features and it's almost alien to think of a time when they didn't exist. Ask someone under the age of eighteen to think of what life was like without the internet or a phone that you carried in your pocket. Ask someone under the age of forty to imagine life without the civil rights we have today or of a time where mankind only dreamed of going into space. The previous generation is always looking at the current one and wondering if they really know what's going on or how good (or bad) things are in comparison to how they were. Once you go back farther and farther it becomes more difficult to get a true record of what was really happening then. People took pictures and recorded it on film. They wrote about it and kept track of their thoughts just like we do today, but the ease in which to store and spread what you saw and experienced wasn't always easy. Plus often times things were just lost because at the time no one considered it to be important enough to keep. How much of history is just memory because someone didn't feel the need to capture it? And maybe that's not exactly a bad thing. Somethings aren't meant to be captured. Some moments are here and gone before we know what to do with them.
Today we have even more means to record the moment, for all the good and bad that comes with it. Not that long ago people would break out the camera to capture special moments like holidays, graduations, and weddings. Sure there were some people who recorded more than that and probably have boxes of tapes sitting around somewhere collecting dust. Most of it may not be anything anyone wants to go back and look at. Maybe though someone will find those tapes and catch a glimpse into moments between the big events. Looking back at childhood pictures you may notice that in a lot of cases they were posed or were taken during a special occasion. Some of that had to do with the fact that the camera wasn't as prevalent as it is today thanks to smart phones. With everyone walking around with a camera in their pocket it means we have a lot more pictures of mundane things (and a lot of cat pictures). At least for me there is a lot of mystery to how my parents were as kids. I've seen pictures of them and I know it's them, but it's a moment frozen in time. I don't know of any movies of them. Any letters that they wrote were written for a specific reason, say a letter home or whatever.
Today we email, text, and tweet to the point that its specialness is lost. I'm not saying the form of communication is bad. It's just that when you can send an email at any moment during the day about any subject then it loses a bit of its importance. Tweets and texts aren't any different. Maybe you kept that text to a childhood friend, but I have a feeling that after about the fiftieth one you're not too concerned with saving it. Now a letter from that same friend may be something that you carry around with you for years. Is what they have to say any more or less important than in the text? I'm not sure. How about the pictures from your tenth birthday party where that one kid ate too much cake and threw up on your presents? What about the picture you took of the bacon wrapped shrimp you had last week? Maybe in that moment it was important, if only to you. Does quantity of recorded memories reduce the quality of them?
People today don't tend to write letters as often anymore and most of our communication is electronic. Plus we tend to change phones, phone numbers, and email addresses quite a bit throughout our lives and even if we don't, we don't really keep a lot of that old communication laying around. In say 30-40 years if someone were to try and piece together the life of someone living today do you think it would be easier or harder to do since we tend to be somewhat disposable with our communications to people? You'd think that with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Myspace, email, text messages, random photos taken with your phone or camera that you'd get a fairly clear picture of a person's life, but are we right back to where we were fifty years ago where the pictures and words left to tell the story are only the highlights that we chose to keep? We have what seems like instant communication, however, are what we recording anything that worth keeping? Is the majority of what we capture ultimately going to end up in the electronic shoebox in the back of the closet? That's if it's saved at all. We assume that someone is keeping that information somewhere. It's like when you pass someone broken down on the side of a busy road. You don't stop to help because you figure there are lots of people. Someone has to be on it already. Not everyone could drive by without helping. On a lonely country road though you may be more likely to help someone because you know that you may be that person's only hope for a long time. So do we think it's safe to not worry about keeping our history of today because someone else in the sea of millions of capture points will do it for us? Twenty years from now we may look back at today and wonder what happened to our history because we don't have anything more than some 1s and 0s to hold the place of something tangible that reminds us of how things were.
Monday, March 4, 2013
On the China Shop
I go through these phases where I feel clumsy. Not just physically clumsy, but also like I'm barely able to get the right words out. I've talked about feeling a step out of sync with things before, but this is a little bit different. This feels as though at any moment I'll crash into something. When I'm driving I feel like at any moment I'll be caught looking the wrong way and turn to see a train headed right for me, even if I'm not near any train tracks. Overall it feels like I should just keep my head down and wait for whatever this is to pass. The only problem is that you can't just hide away and hope it goes away because you have to keep on living your life, even if people around you seem to be looking at you as though something is hanging from your nose.
The thing is that maybe when this clumsiness cloud has centered on you, other people can sense it. It could be like walking into a familiar room and knowing something is out of place. Something about you is out of place and people notice it, even if only subconsciously. Then again maybe part of the problem is that everything you see is off kilter so people are looking at you normally and instead you see them as staring back at you like some sort of alien doofus that's going to break something. Maybe it's a bit of both. I've considered the somewhat cosmic scenario where these situations are just a manifestation of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time in our own lives. We feel clumsy or out of sorts because we're not where we should be and until we get back into place we feel as though we're smashing through life. While that could be true, I sometimes wonder if maybe it's also something physical and mental.
We've all had times where we feel like we're on fire (in the good way). Everything is going our way. Maybe we find ourselves a little more quick witted than usual. Maybe we feel especially lucky for a certain period of time. What if during those moments, no matter how long they last, everything inside of us is operating exactly how it should be. It might not be perfection, but it's about as close as you can get while still being a mortal. Nothing lasts forever and we eventually go back to "normal" where there are good times and bad times, hopefully either equaling out or balancing more towards the good. If those times of near perfection where we just feel like we're spot on are possible because of something internal then it would stand to reason that sometimes things aren't working perfectly. Now the opposite of perfection is total disaster and while I don't think that's always what's at work, I do think maybe it's some minor monkey wrench within us that's throwing everything off. This whatever-it-is is enough to make it so that words don't come out right or we constantly think we're going to bump into something.
So I suppose the question really isn't just what do we do to fix this when it happens, but also how do we prevent it from happening again? One could argue that the internal is directly related to the external, meaning that our environment is as much a contributor to what happens inside of us and what is inside of us also shapes what surrounds us. If one aspect isn't right then does that mean it throws off the whole picture? Plus there is so much of our lives and ourselves that we simply can't control so it can sometimes feel like we're at the mercy of randomness. That of course bring up the whole notion of if there is truly random events in the world or just parts of some greater series of events that we can't always see. Maybe if you could see your lifeline on a map, showing exactly where you were headed and where you were supposed to be going, you could make out the time when you are wobbling out of control and deviating from what should be your path. Those minor deviations could be those times when you feel like a bull in a china shop, crashing into life around.
The thing is that maybe when this clumsiness cloud has centered on you, other people can sense it. It could be like walking into a familiar room and knowing something is out of place. Something about you is out of place and people notice it, even if only subconsciously. Then again maybe part of the problem is that everything you see is off kilter so people are looking at you normally and instead you see them as staring back at you like some sort of alien doofus that's going to break something. Maybe it's a bit of both. I've considered the somewhat cosmic scenario where these situations are just a manifestation of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time in our own lives. We feel clumsy or out of sorts because we're not where we should be and until we get back into place we feel as though we're smashing through life. While that could be true, I sometimes wonder if maybe it's also something physical and mental.
We've all had times where we feel like we're on fire (in the good way). Everything is going our way. Maybe we find ourselves a little more quick witted than usual. Maybe we feel especially lucky for a certain period of time. What if during those moments, no matter how long they last, everything inside of us is operating exactly how it should be. It might not be perfection, but it's about as close as you can get while still being a mortal. Nothing lasts forever and we eventually go back to "normal" where there are good times and bad times, hopefully either equaling out or balancing more towards the good. If those times of near perfection where we just feel like we're spot on are possible because of something internal then it would stand to reason that sometimes things aren't working perfectly. Now the opposite of perfection is total disaster and while I don't think that's always what's at work, I do think maybe it's some minor monkey wrench within us that's throwing everything off. This whatever-it-is is enough to make it so that words don't come out right or we constantly think we're going to bump into something.
So I suppose the question really isn't just what do we do to fix this when it happens, but also how do we prevent it from happening again? One could argue that the internal is directly related to the external, meaning that our environment is as much a contributor to what happens inside of us and what is inside of us also shapes what surrounds us. If one aspect isn't right then does that mean it throws off the whole picture? Plus there is so much of our lives and ourselves that we simply can't control so it can sometimes feel like we're at the mercy of randomness. That of course bring up the whole notion of if there is truly random events in the world or just parts of some greater series of events that we can't always see. Maybe if you could see your lifeline on a map, showing exactly where you were headed and where you were supposed to be going, you could make out the time when you are wobbling out of control and deviating from what should be your path. Those minor deviations could be those times when you feel like a bull in a china shop, crashing into life around.
Friday, January 11, 2013
On Money
They say money changes you and I started to wonder why that is. What is it about money that inherently changes the way people behave. It can drive someone to lie, steal, cheat, and even kill to get it. What is it about money that causes that level of reaction, or overreaction? Why do we want money so badly? Is it because of the things we believe it can get for us? Maybe that's all it really comes down to. Money is just a concept we use. It's our way to keeping track of just how much of what you want you can have. I guess in that regard then money can equal freedom, at least in our society's terms of what freedom is. Currently our society is a capitalistic one, where one's success is rewarded with money. We tend to associate money with power because money gets you what you want. Just look at the Hollywood movie producer, who is a multi-millionaire, that controls the lives of not on the movies they produce, but also the lives of the people involved in them. They wield a ridiculous amount of power, and not just within their own little world. That is thanks to not only their own wealth, but also their ability to make money for others. Money can influence even political power. Look at our own elections. In order to be even nominated you have to generate a huge amount of money. This is just to be seen. Then if you're elected, you have to start bringing in even more money for your eventual reelection. In addition to normal skills like being able to lead, understand the law, and navigate the world of professional politics, one has to be a fundraiser as well. Does that mean money is the root of all evil or just a necessary one?
Not all that long ago it used to be that we would barter for our goods and services. You want that sack of flour then you'll need to work on my roof for a few hours. Time and energy were exchanged for equal (hopefully) time and energy. Somewhere along the way that changed. Instead of a direct exchange of services, we now tend to hand over whatever currency is accepted in exchange for something. So now if you want that bag of flour you're not going to be talking to the guy who milled it. Instead you're talking to the supermarket chain that worked out a deal with said guy or group of guys to pay them a specific amount of money for their product in exchange for the ability to take that bag of flour out beyond the reach of what the guy could have hoped to done on his own. I'm not saying this setup is bad because I don't know any guys who mill flour, which means if I want it then my options are kind of limited. No, the problem really comes from other situations where we're exchanging our time and energy for something other than equal time and energy. I have agreed to work 40 hours in a week so that you'll pay me an agreed upon of money that I can then turn around and spend on whatever I want, which is usually bills. The basic assumption is that the money you're giving me is going to have value equal to the time I invested in getting it. When you think about it though, does the money ever really match up in value to the time it took to get it? And it makes me wonder as well are we devaluing ourselves in the process? It can be rare to see your time and energy get turned into something tangible rather than some numbers put into your bank account where the other numbers live.
How is it that a majority of the world's wealth is kept by a very small minority of people? It's seemingly always been that way too be it monarchies, business owners, or extraordinary individuals who did something special. I can't fault someone for wanting to maintain their level of wealth. Very rarely do people want to go backwards in what they have. So we ask ourselves how does that billionaire justify making another fifty million dollars when they already have more than enough. Couldn't some resident in a third world nation ask that of a middle class family who is living on the combined salaries that is less than eighty thousand dollars a year, which could be exponentially greater than anything they could hope to make in their own lifetime? The family that's living on eighty thousand dollars may be very comfortable. They'll have bills and complications like everyone else, including the billionaire. Sure the billionaire is able to fly to Monaco to race a car made of diamonds against a solid gold robot he had commissioned, but some way or another he has to pay for all that, even if his reserves are much greater than the average person. The middle class family is able to keep their fridge stocked with food, their kids in new clothes, and has access to just about any medicine they would need for non-emergencies.
I'm not saying that billionaires should give their money away. I'm not mad or jealous of them for having that money. I'm just curious what they did to get it and in such high amounts. As with many things I'm sure a lot of circumstances had to come into play. They say it's easy to make money if you already have plenty to start with, which is why a lot of people will assume that if someone comes from a wealthy family then it is assumed they'll always be rich as long as nothing catastrophic happens. Is that really successful though? If you start out with a million dollars to your name and you turn that into a billion aren't you just doing what most other people are doing? Someone who starts with a thousand dollars is likely to turn that into something greater than a thousand dollars. So what are these people with money doing with their wealth? Sure some of them may be sitting on it because like Scrooge McDuck believes, the ownership of money is its own reward. Others though are spending that money. When money is spent is has to be going somewhere. Does it all just sort of circulate back to the original owner in those cases? I guess my question is how is it there are trillions of dollars moving around through the economy and yet for the most part everyone's portion of it stays roughly the same throughout their life?
Is the accumulation of wealth all just arbitrary? If tomorrow your bank account said zero then the world around you would immediately decide you have zero worth, at least until you sort out the problem, assuming you could sort out the problem. That doesn't address the larger issue though, which is that our very money, regardless of how much you have in the bank, under the mattress, or invested in offshore accounts has a value that we all have to agree upon. Currently our money isn't backed by gold like it used to be. It's backed by something else now and it's an elaborate game to keep convincing everyone we know that it's still worth the value printed on it. I don't think that tomorrow our money is suddenly going to become worthless. I doubt even that our personal value of money is going to change all that much. I do wonder though about recent situations where it's becoming painfully clear that our money isn't exactly safe and those who are supposed to be in charge of it seem to be more interested in maintaining their own levels than performing the services they were expected to do for their customers. I find it hard to believe that other countries have their economies crumble and even collapse while our own country soldiers on. Sure we have recessions and depressions. One has to wonder though does each time that happen does it make our dollar just a little bit weaker? Will it eventually get to the point where we all ask ourselves why we're using this piece of paper, which is a note saying we have some numbers in a bank, is so important to how we live? If and when that happens will we turn our attention back to something more tangible in value?
Not all that long ago it used to be that we would barter for our goods and services. You want that sack of flour then you'll need to work on my roof for a few hours. Time and energy were exchanged for equal (hopefully) time and energy. Somewhere along the way that changed. Instead of a direct exchange of services, we now tend to hand over whatever currency is accepted in exchange for something. So now if you want that bag of flour you're not going to be talking to the guy who milled it. Instead you're talking to the supermarket chain that worked out a deal with said guy or group of guys to pay them a specific amount of money for their product in exchange for the ability to take that bag of flour out beyond the reach of what the guy could have hoped to done on his own. I'm not saying this setup is bad because I don't know any guys who mill flour, which means if I want it then my options are kind of limited. No, the problem really comes from other situations where we're exchanging our time and energy for something other than equal time and energy. I have agreed to work 40 hours in a week so that you'll pay me an agreed upon of money that I can then turn around and spend on whatever I want, which is usually bills. The basic assumption is that the money you're giving me is going to have value equal to the time I invested in getting it. When you think about it though, does the money ever really match up in value to the time it took to get it? And it makes me wonder as well are we devaluing ourselves in the process? It can be rare to see your time and energy get turned into something tangible rather than some numbers put into your bank account where the other numbers live.
How is it that a majority of the world's wealth is kept by a very small minority of people? It's seemingly always been that way too be it monarchies, business owners, or extraordinary individuals who did something special. I can't fault someone for wanting to maintain their level of wealth. Very rarely do people want to go backwards in what they have. So we ask ourselves how does that billionaire justify making another fifty million dollars when they already have more than enough. Couldn't some resident in a third world nation ask that of a middle class family who is living on the combined salaries that is less than eighty thousand dollars a year, which could be exponentially greater than anything they could hope to make in their own lifetime? The family that's living on eighty thousand dollars may be very comfortable. They'll have bills and complications like everyone else, including the billionaire. Sure the billionaire is able to fly to Monaco to race a car made of diamonds against a solid gold robot he had commissioned, but some way or another he has to pay for all that, even if his reserves are much greater than the average person. The middle class family is able to keep their fridge stocked with food, their kids in new clothes, and has access to just about any medicine they would need for non-emergencies.
I'm not saying that billionaires should give their money away. I'm not mad or jealous of them for having that money. I'm just curious what they did to get it and in such high amounts. As with many things I'm sure a lot of circumstances had to come into play. They say it's easy to make money if you already have plenty to start with, which is why a lot of people will assume that if someone comes from a wealthy family then it is assumed they'll always be rich as long as nothing catastrophic happens. Is that really successful though? If you start out with a million dollars to your name and you turn that into a billion aren't you just doing what most other people are doing? Someone who starts with a thousand dollars is likely to turn that into something greater than a thousand dollars. So what are these people with money doing with their wealth? Sure some of them may be sitting on it because like Scrooge McDuck believes, the ownership of money is its own reward. Others though are spending that money. When money is spent is has to be going somewhere. Does it all just sort of circulate back to the original owner in those cases? I guess my question is how is it there are trillions of dollars moving around through the economy and yet for the most part everyone's portion of it stays roughly the same throughout their life?
Is the accumulation of wealth all just arbitrary? If tomorrow your bank account said zero then the world around you would immediately decide you have zero worth, at least until you sort out the problem, assuming you could sort out the problem. That doesn't address the larger issue though, which is that our very money, regardless of how much you have in the bank, under the mattress, or invested in offshore accounts has a value that we all have to agree upon. Currently our money isn't backed by gold like it used to be. It's backed by something else now and it's an elaborate game to keep convincing everyone we know that it's still worth the value printed on it. I don't think that tomorrow our money is suddenly going to become worthless. I doubt even that our personal value of money is going to change all that much. I do wonder though about recent situations where it's becoming painfully clear that our money isn't exactly safe and those who are supposed to be in charge of it seem to be more interested in maintaining their own levels than performing the services they were expected to do for their customers. I find it hard to believe that other countries have their economies crumble and even collapse while our own country soldiers on. Sure we have recessions and depressions. One has to wonder though does each time that happen does it make our dollar just a little bit weaker? Will it eventually get to the point where we all ask ourselves why we're using this piece of paper, which is a note saying we have some numbers in a bank, is so important to how we live? If and when that happens will we turn our attention back to something more tangible in value?
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