IF someone says their life is tough, and you say it isn’t – by using an example of someone with an arguably equivalent, similar or tougher life, who somehow managed to become “successful” – this is what you’re doing:
- you’re using a statistical anomaly to justify & rationalise ignoring this person’s problems … because MOST people of similar circumstances to your example ARE NOT doing as well as your example; the vast majority are struggling just as the person you’re speaking to, or worse, maybe even dead because of it … so your argument is 100% entirely invalid;
- you’re not helping … you may think you are, but you’re not;
- you’re being arrogant by assuming that your handful of minutes (at best) in considering this person’s situation – the vast majority of details about which you know nothing (as you’ve done no particularly deep investigation of their circumstances & history, if any at all … not that you’d be qualified to comment even with such research) – is somehow more relevant than the person’s own experience (over the decades of their life), from a perspective that could not possibly be closer or more intimately acquainted with all the details;
- you’re making the situation worse, because you’re using ideology to convince this person they’re somehow 100% responsible for everything that has ever happened to them, as if they were an entirely closed system, influenced by nothing in the external world (a situation which does not exist anywhere outside the conceptual realm, or in the extremes of physics) … which is thus patently ridiculous, and does that person further harm.
Why would you do this to someone who likely never harmed you, who desperately needs help, and who had the humility to ask for that help? … what kind of a lowlife arsehole does this to people?
Another similarly bogus critique of people’s struggles is to compare to yourself (or anyone else) who kept going through the pain, as if somehow this was the highest ideal to follow … FOR EXAMPLE:
- A person has a major health issue, but they’re still mobile;
- You say (of someone else) “well this guy kept going & he has a similar health issue” << as if somehow this was a reason to do the same … to just keep working regardless of the consequences;
- Truth is, that guy was desperate (exploited), ignorant &/or foolish in the extreme … because he should NOT have kept going, and is likely now in even worse physical condition, than had he stopped a decade or two earlier when it was still possible to reverse the damage;
- ie – economics is not a good enough reason to force people to continue working & further degrade their existing injuries/illnesses … anyone who cared one iota for a person’s well-being would tell them to do the opposite: to stop, to recuperate, to seek rehabilitation therapy … and they’d say: “there’s trillions of dollars in the economy, the top 1% wouldn’t even notice the tax burden of having you and everyone else in similar condition given proper treatment for however many years or decades it takes” << a billionaire will still be a billionaire after such social services are delivered via tax, and a millionaire will still be a millionaire.
So why do these cruel comparisons exist?
Simple … the status quo wants to ignore all the problems it causes & to blame someone else, particularly blaming the victim is one of their favourite strategies … indeed victim shaming has become such a popular culture, you will often hear people talk of “victim mentality”, as if somehow they were claiming evidence (never actually presented) that anyone who claims to be a victim of anything else, somehow STARTED with a victim mentality THEN developed the actual problem, and that if they dropped the mentality, the problem would magically disappear … which is arguably utter horse-shit, and a completely disingenuous, empathetically dissonant and morally bankrupt position to take with anyone’s problems.
How does Open Empire deal with personal struggles?
In a non-hierarchical society, where property trade & currency have ceased to exist – to ignore for a minute the transitional time between the status quo & such a future – a person is motivated ONLY to do what is necessary to access whatever scarce resources they desire, and they are motivated to do this via deliberate actions in both their consumptive & productive resource usage, which minimises scarcity & ecological & social harm, while maximising abundance & ecological & social gains … THUS:
- Some people won’t need or desire to do much in life, because they’re happy with a simple life;
- Others will want to prove merit for access to scarce resources, but will have neither desire nor skill in helping others, so they will get involved in other activities to prove their worthiness for access to the scarce resources they need;
- Others still will – through interest, desire or simple pragmatism – recognise their capacity to prove merit by helping others with their life problems;
- The value of helping someone overcome their life issues is then measured by how your assistance results in decreased harm & loss associated with this person, and through increased benefits & gains;
PUNCHLINE:
- Since a human being is basically an insanely powerful self-replicating mobile organic supercomputer … it’s potential is immense to say the least;
- THEREFORE: a person who has life issues is likely to be suffering losses that wouldn’t occur if not for such issues, and missing opportunities that also would otherwise not be occurring;
- THUS: the potential difference between their present state and a future state you could help them realise, is vastly greater than the difference you could make for the life of someone whom is already doing reasonably well.
Comparison versus the status quo:
The status quo generally pours loads of resources into those already doing well, and nothing (or less than nothing) for those who need it most … thus:
The status quo wastes vast amounts of resources getting minimal gain from those already doing well, and whom least need any assistance at all … meanwhile, far from helping those who can provide the most improvement to themselves and society – as they have the most room for harm reduction, improvement & further growth – it further persecutes and steals from these people.
This could not be less efficient if we tried to make it so.
Open Empire changes the paradigm of where we put our focus and why.
Under the Open Empire framework, if you’re seeking access to scarce resources, you do the following:
- keep track of your statistics versus those also seeking the same scarce resources;
- make the best possible case you can for why your usage of such resources will bring value beyond your own interests;
- others will specialise in help making such cases (because every good decision they help influence adds to their own statistics, and if you really have a good case but don’t know how to articulate it, it’s in their interests to help);
- you then spend as much time as you’re personally willing to dedicate, to doing good in the world, and if that means helping someone deal with their issues, you can do that, and they don’t need a budget to pay you, all they do is acknowledge that assistance, which in turn affects your statistics … and if you don’t want to help others, you find something else you can contribute.
Do you see what a vastly different economic paradigm this is?