by sceneshifter » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:00 am
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><br><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:maroon;font-family:helvetica;font-size:medium;"><br><br><br><br>Can a person do great evil though doing nothing but good?<br><br>An important point if true.<br><br>Is it possible to have nothing but goodwill and yet cause great evil?<br><br>Is it possible to spend the whole of one's life doing things for the improvement of the world and yet cause the end of the world?<br><br>I dont mean, just: spend one's whole life doing things for the improvement of the world and yet see the world end -<br><br>I mean: although doing nothing but good, CAUSE THEREBY the end of the world, increase the strength of the forces that end the world, bring nuclear winter?<br><br>It doesn't seem possible - It doesn't seem likely - But it is so.<br><br>We could have EVERYONE working for the improvement of the world and nonetheless bring about the end of the world.<br><br>Not possible? You are certain that if everyone worked for the improvement of the world, the world would avoid destruction?<br><br>You will agree that if you are wrong about this, then you need to know, you want to know.<br><br>A warning, a reminder, an explanation of this will be most welcome.<br><br>Well, a person could do nothing but practise the violin, and yet cause the end of the body by not eating.<br><br>A person could work for family every day, with every nerve and all one's heart, and ignore the danger signs of war coming, and be swept into concentration camps.<br><br>A person could pull leaves from a poisonous tree every day - which is doing good, destroying an evil - and yet, cause the death of a child by not chopping the tree down and burning it.<br><br>One could tidy the car, or put on music in the car for the pleasure of the passengers, and yet cause death of all occupants by not steering or braking for red light, brick walls and precipices.<br><br>One could concentrate on restoring a part of a painting, and lose the painting by neglect of most of the painting. The perfect, thorough, conscientious preservation of a square inch of the painting would be pointless if the painting as a whole were to be lost meantime.<br><br>Are these examples too theoretical, too unlikely?<br><br>But the pattern is there: working on a part and practising total neglect of the whole<br><br>One could devote one's whole life to - risk one's life repeatedly - fighting crime in Los Angeles or Rio or Goa or Peking - and see the world end for lack of attention to the larger problem.<br><br>One could save the whales, or try to, and see all the whales die for lack of a sea to live in.<br><br>One could work with uttermost dedication and selflessness to the cure of cancer, and see everyone die of nuclear winter.<br><br>Will the child be safe if you remove leaves of a poisonous tree?<br><br>Will the car drive itself if you put the most excellent music on, clean the mirrors to immaculacy?<br><br>If you write the most brilliant symphony, direct the most entertaining film, fight crime with more success than anyone else, save more stranded whales, cure more diseases, defend more defendants, pass better environmental laws, will the world steer right therefore?<br><br>It is a hard and painful truth, that the answer is no.<br><br>GOOD ISNT GOOD ENOUGH - GOOD CAN BE VERY BAD<br><br>Fix the engine and lose the boat to a leak - Save the whales and lose the sea.<br><br>It is easy to say: it won't happen - But who is saying that? Sense or Non-sense? Reason or Unreason?<br><br>[We dont really have a word for unreason, do we - We think that Unreason doesnt exist, because there is no common word for it, because it is not often talked about.] <br><br>Why won't it happen? Because it is too big to happen? Because we are not paying attention there? Because we dont want it to happen? Because so few are paying attention there? <br><br>Were the majority so right when they believed that god was a person who existed? <br><br>When the majority argue for the truth of something from the fact that the majority believes it, they are making a mistake: A thing doesnt become right because a bishop or pope or king or scientist or majority says it is so. Most of the scientific certainties of 1900 are now 'known' to be false. Where is the medicine of the 18thC? Where will the medicine of the 20thC be in two centuries? Presumably where bloodletting is now.<br><br>Unfortunately, reality doesnt reward tryers, not even hard tryers - Reality rewards only those who get it right - Reality is no saint: Reality will reward someone who gets it right, even if they make no effort at all!<br><br>Picnic on a railway line, after choosing the spot with extraordinary care: result: bad - Picnic off a railway line, with no care or attention: result: good.<br><br>Goodwill, even the most perfect goodwill, with seriously imperfect grasp of reality, will produce bad results, not good.<br><br>Reality MERCILESSLY demands accurate prioritising. More important things have to be done prior to less important things. Even something very important has to take second place to something more important. Relieving even a very full bladder has to take second place to getting out of the way of a runaway truck.<br><br>Unfortunately, we are only slowly growing into a consciousness of the global world. First, for a minority, with books, and today, for a majority, with books and tv. And most books and tv do not increase consciousness of the globe. Even international news is news of parts of the globe [countries], not the global events, like the loss of topsoil at the rate of all of the topsoil in 100 years, or the inequity/violence factor of one billion. [That is, pay for a unit of work ranging from $x to $x billion.]<br><br>Unfortunately, these global events are happening just as much as international events are, but are under-reported. Speaking broadly, global events are unreported.<br><br>We have created global events before having the global consciousness to see them and confront them.<br><br>We may think that global events are someone's problem, but we are sure that they are not our problem. And most people do not believe it is important for it to be anyone's problem. We are not making sure that someone is dealing with them, and we are far from aware that it is important to deal with them. 99.99999% of us give them no thought at all. Global events running amok! On the loose! Ungoverned!<br><br>And it is not enough if SOME gives it their attention. The general human will has to give it their attention. Because only the general human will prevails. Unlimited fortunes exist because the general human will gives to them its approval, or does not remove its permission. Unlimited wealth is unlimited poverty is unlimited escalation of violence.<br><br>We have unlimited wealth, and unlimited violence, but we do not have a clear will to limit fortunes. We have a general understanding that a huge increase in the payrange per hour of work will cause a huge increase in violence, which will be escalative/accelerative, but we do not have a general understanding of the connection of payrate range and violence - though the step from the one to the other notion is a very small step. Despite a very clear idea of how we would feel if our pay was permanently cut to 100th.<br><br>We have some notion of the high correlation of money and power, and no notion of limiting tyranny by limiting fortunes.<br><br>We have a very hazy notion of the importance and purpose of justice. We have very little notion of overpay and underpay, despite pay from $1 to $1,000,000,000 for a 100 hours' work. Despite pay from a 1000th to a million times the average. <br><br>We have a strong idea that there exist religious wars and racial wars, and very little notion of economic wars, although there are no wars where there are religious and racial differences unaccompanied by economic differences, and although there are wars where there are economic differences without religious or racial differences.<br><br>We have a confident idea that violence is caused by human nature, although violence is proportional to economic differences. Eg, hourly payrange has been spreading throughout history [the rich get richer etc] and violence has been increasing [from sticks and stones to ICBMs]. Eg, Middle East: extreme overpay-underpay and 50% GNP defense costs, versus Scandinavia and Japan: egalitarian and 2% GNP defense costs.<br><br>We know that the contribution to the sum of wealth by an individual's work must be limited, but we have no idea that unlimited wealth means overpay/underpay/violence.<br><br>We make no connection between our universal policy of: everything you can get is yours, and the facts that 99% are underpaid and 90% are paid between a 10th and a 1000th of the world average hourly pay. We think that slavery is generally at an end, when 90% of people are between full slavery and sadistic extreme slavery! We are complacent, when 1% steal over 90% of earnings! Steal $60 trillion every year!<br><br>We have sincere people trying to stop nuclear weapons, entirely without reference to the money-fight that escalates to nuclear weapons - which is like attacking a damburst with a mop. <br><br>We know that the average work is around 50 hours a week, and that no one can work more than about 100 hours a week, but at the same time we feel [judging our feelings by our behaviour] that somehow an individual can, over decades, earn, on average, 50,000 times the average pay per hour! And peak up to a 1,000,000 times harder work per hour!<br><br>Clearly, our consciousness is like a swiss cheese. Holes in which are discovered, like holes in underwear and insurance cover, by accident. Actually, in the case of holes in consciousness, undiscovered even by 1000s of years of escalating accidents.<br><br>The moral is: wakey, wakey, all. The moral is: thinking caps, gentle men and gentle ladies, or a black silent planet, soon. <br><br>Fill in the holes, or die.<br><br>We are screaming towards extinction - a temperature drop three times an iceage - with pedal-to-the-metal pay-theft and violence, but we may save the whales. <br><br>'Snot our fault the bloody ocean froze, is it.<br><br><br><br>If you want to survive, if you are not certain that you want your family, your race, your country, your species to become extinct, publish this article as hard as you can. Who knows? It may only require a 100 or a 1000 or a 1,000,000 human monkeys to get this message, for all to get it.<br><br>The author is Amirightor.</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <p></p><i></i>