DICTATOR WATCH
(www.dictatorwatch.org)

Contact: Roland Watson, roland@dictatorwatch.org

SOCIAL SUICIDE

April 30, 2017

(This is an observation on the deeper implications of the statement, Death of a Death Blog.)

It is easy to get depressed if you pay attention to what is happening around the world. For the cause on which I primarily work, Burma, aka Myanmar, and even though it is now widely regarded as a critical issue, there are still daily attacks against a small ethnic group known as the Rohingya. They live in the west of the country, and are considered to be one of the world's most persecuted peoples. Diplomats issue statements of concern about them again and again, but nothing happens. The country's dictatorship never lets up. (The dictatorship's puppet, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won't even use the word "Rohingya.")

Depression can easily lead to despair - the idea that nothing will ever change. As an activist, you can fall into a pit and start thinking that you should never have tried to help others, and that altruism is the height of stupidity. It is much better to care only about yourself, and to hell with everyone else. Long live Ayn Rand, and the "virtue" of selfishness.

Fortunately, with time the emotion fades and reason kicks back in. It is good to help abused people, and species. It is a worthwhile way to live your life.

Reason, though, also leads to another conclusion and which is no less distressing.

In the 1990s, I wrote a book called Freedom From Form, which is now available for reading as the University of Life website (linked on Dictator Watch). In it I tried to examine literally everything in the human experience, to determine what can be known about the fundamentals of the universe, life, and our species. It was a big job.

One of my insights was that we are approaching a worldwide social suicide, which at the time I predicted would occur in the second half of this century. I also envisioned that it would be abrupt and apocalyptic. I now understand, though, that it is already underway. We try to force all of our current conflicts into historical categories, such as religious wars or the clash of civilizations. But the crises now are actually the opening manifestations of what will become a planet-wide human breakdown. (Radical activists often refer to this as the collapse of industrial society.)

The greatest strength of our species is our adaptability - our talent to survive almost anything. But this is also our principal weakness. We use our adaptability to avoid the consequences of our selfishness and our appalling lack of foresight. This vaunted ability, though, is about to be put to a new test. And, it will fail.

It takes a supreme effort not be dominated by one's innate personal selfishness (think Buddhist enlightenment), but for most people the outcomes of failing to do so are localized. Your marriage may collapse, you might harm your children, or you could end up in prison. The major destruction of selfishness though occurs at the hands of the wealthy, notably through their lock on all senior offices of political and economic power. Pathologically selfish people positioned in this way do incalculable harm. Indeed, the wealthy still treat the poor as if they are serfs. I guess it has always been this way.

The world population, now over 7 billion, is poised to grow to 9 billion by 2050, and then 10, 11, and 12 after that. This will be catastrophic. Some cities will grow to 50 million or more. There will be famines that kill millions of people. So too water and insect-borne disease outbreaks, and genetically-engineered pandemics.

The wealthy believe that this can go on forever, that there will never be a breaking point. They are wrong. They further believe that they have the strength of numbers - their number of dollars, to be protected from the chaos. They are wrong about that, too.

The poor are easy to find, but so too are the wealthy. It is simple to identify where they live and work, and where they play golf, ski, sail, and go to the spa. It is also easy to identify their resorts, built as they are, on beaches stolen from local communities.

The greater power of numbers lies with the people. When the breaking point is reached, not even the retired SEAL Team 6 security guards that the wealthy employ will be able to hold off the onslaught. Remember what happened to Marie Antoinette, and the Romanovs.

The world is facing extreme problems, but I don't mean ISIS. The consequences of the rapacious greed of the rich and powerful are intolerable. They must be stopped.

Extreme problems require extreme solutions. Essentially, society's values have to be disrupted. The world that pays hedge fund managers hundreds if not thousands of times more than teachers, and social, health care, service, agricultural and factory workers, has to be destroyed. Inequality must be torn down and equality enforced.

Scandinavia has already led the way, but even there the steps did not go far enough. Put simply, all great wealth should be confiscated, and managed in trust for the benefit of the poor and nature. All personal income above a reasonable level should be taxed at 90 if not 95%. Intergenerational wealth transfers should be restricted. All tax haven deposits should be seized.

The idea that great wealth comes from merit is garbage. It results from a skewed, and rigged, social value system. So too that billion dollar rewards are required to spur innovation. All technology commons, starting with Google, Facebook and Amazon, should also be seized.

Lastly, for-profit legal structures should be banned. All organizations should be reorganized and run as non-profits.

If these steps are not taken, the human species will implode. Sixty million years of natural evolution will be destroyed.

The wealthy will of course fight back. They will do everything they can to preserve their power and privilege. A lot of people are going to have to die.

To the wealthy, I must ask: Are you truly sociopaths? Don't you have a conscience? Will you never end your incessant drive to have more and more? Do you really want to lose your head?