Friday, September 29, 2006

Sir Rant-A-Lot

How much knowledge is too much knowledge? Should we really take in all the crap the world has to offer and process them all at once?

I ask this because I’d recently found myself downloading and watching way too many programmes on the environment, on saving the world from global warming, the rising costs of oil (although it has fallen recently, and I’m sure only temporarily), incredible dream-like energy machines and of course, conspiracy theories.

It sorta eats at you. It wears me out. The entire social subconscious and its guilt battling with its nefarious counterparts, like its capitalist drive. We all hope for a better tomorrow, and arrive at it in many different ways. Saving the earth is more like saving the environment for our children to grow up healthily in. Instinctively, we will always be doing that, even those who are profiting from destroying the planet now.

I have come to that conclusion simply because those businessmen don’t seem all that worried. Sure they are loaded, but if they knew that the planet would be dying because of their actions, they’d either stop it now, not have families, or purchase property in the Himalayas, to survive the treacherous weather and rise in sea levels.

There has to be some conclusive evidence out there that the planet can weather all these through (pardon the pun). They do not release it because they love to have that culture of fear, to force people to purchase now, and gain instant gratification before its too late. They have weakened us so through their many campaigns of consumer product redundancies. Bigger, better, faster MORE!

So those green people out there are just jumping the gun. They are exploring new energy sources at a premium. The big guys have it all planned out already. They are just waiting for the drillings to come up with nothing. Then they’d convert our petrol stations in a blink of an eye. Business continuity is always a priority. And they shall use up all current resources before enacting and spending millions to ensure said continuity.

I guess that has always been the case. The powerful have risen up because of the way they function and succeed in society, and once there, they would do anything to maintain the status quo, for that already states that is will be them who are at the top. It takes something monumental like a revolution to restart things, and new leaders will slowly rise up and the cycles continue.

So whats the truth behind this directionless rant? To me, its simple. Let’s chill. Let’s just let the economy run its course, for our individual actions do not really cause an impact as some people might lead you to think. Live for yourself and yourself alone. We shouldn’t worry so much about the macro, and focus more on the micro. Bring your sphere of concern closer. Cherish all around you, and just donate or do some charity for those beyond said sphere. You cannot help everyone.

Until my business, which also would be a force of global change, comes along. With great wealth comes great responsibility.

1 comment:

Chippy said...

I think very Tree-hugger would hate you. Period.

Capitalism rocks. It is almost the be it and end all of all problems. Think of it this way: - Imagine all property being privately owned. I mean who the hell but a nutcase would destroy his own property? I mean wouldn’t that just reduce his property value?
Even if he did (some odd fetish of sorts), the pollution would be very much contained as the moment it spreads to another’s property, the nutcase property owner would be sued as a matter of right.

I mean C’mon! Capitalism is the THE system of technological progress. What else but that will save us from the end of the World, the Armageddon, the day of extinction of mankind?

Isn’t it bloody obvious that this works? Privately owned locks and streams of Scotland are far cleaner than the government owned cesspools of socialist India. That’s good enough an evidence for me.

But yet again, my (oh so dogmatic) education tells me otherwise. Quote Chapter 6, Pg 12: Market externalities need to be internalized with government regulation.

I have to admit it. Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And ‘more’ doesn’t really resonate well with saving the environment.

"The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves. We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies. In a war such as this, then, what is victory and how will we recognize it?"

Cheers.