In the world today, pretty much everything that brings you benefit is the result of either:
- Art;
- Science;
- Philosophy, or;
- Environment (Nature);
… but unfortunately these things have been largely ruined by 4 foundational flaws of our civilisation:
- Capitalism;
- Democracy;
- Religion, and;
- Nationalism.
Capitalism destroyed art by whoring it out, by exploiting it to such an extreme that it utterly lost its soul in many arenas. Art in the mainstream became little more than entertainment, then devolved further into advertising & merchandising masquerading as entertainment, in turn masquerading as art. There are some good things that make it through the mire of commercialisation, but so often even technically brilliant singing sounds soulless, or some other attempt at art just seems to be a cynical grab for cash. The sad thing is, artists are forced to do this by capitalism, instead of being allowed to just produce their best art in their own way & for the sake of nothing but art itself.
Capitalism also had a hand in destroying the benefits of science, by bending it toward stupid agendas which only make sense from inside the insanity of this economic paradigm. We create countless problems that don’t need to happen in the first place, then we waste immense resources coming up with dozens of “solutions” instead of just getting rid of the problem, then we market the shit out of these solutions to sell as many units as possible, and we intentionally entrench the problems to extend the life of sales of the solution.
Similarly capitalism destroyed the environment, largely through the aforementioned bending of science, to develop faster ways of destroying and wasting things, such as inbuilt obsolescence, and the pointlessly redundant competition of the market, not to mention the manufacturing of perceived “need” via marketing.
Democracy also played a significant role in all this destruction, as democracy is nothing more than a popularity contest, and under democracy it is very popular not to have to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions; under democracy it is also very popular not to have to feel uncomfortable or threatened, so you can basically manipulate people into anything at all by manufacturing a threat & then promising security from it.
Religion has utterly bastardised philosophy, plagiarising enough good bits from other sources to cover up its own darker soul. People mistakenly think of religion as the source of such ideas as “do unto others”, but these phrases were plagiarised from Greek philosophers and others who predate those religions by 1000 – 2000 years. Even their supposed religious holidays & festivals are often plagiarised and bastardised versions of earlier pagan nature worshippers, but of course the modern day religions take out all respect for nature and other species, having us “celebrate” by killing trees & sentient animals then eating their corpses … all of which is apparently supposed to be “spiritual”.
Nationalism completes these 4 horsemen by getting people to focus on their perceived differences with other social classes, cultures, nations, and to take pride in pointless national achievements (such as sports), instead of respecting the land & ecosystems that actually support them, and respecting the biodiversity density and symbiosis of species in those ecosystems. Under nationalism we kick the person who is down, we close our borders to those in need (whom wouldn’t have been in need had we not been supporting fascists, terrorists & tyrants), and we trash the very land that gives us life.
These are the 4 horsemen of our Apocalypse, and we must get rid of them and come back to an appreciation of art, science, philosophy & nature.
Open Empire asks us to take responsibility for our individual & collective actions, it provides a mechanism to quantify & record those consequences, it provides a mechanism for us to reward each other for taking such responsibility, and it also respects our freedom to do other than what such guidance may advise (so long as we accept the consequences of that too) … it is the ultimate in anarchic systems.