Endless economic growth upon endless economic growth?I am adding this post to the I-Ching because this is my life... This is also wisdom taught to me in my life until now. I have to be honest! I never liked school. I liked to draw pictures and to study for myself anything from Art to World History. I would sit in all the classes at school and think .. this setup is unrealistic and impractical as it teaches nothing to do with life and practical survival.
In nature all resources are finite - including land.
Perhaps we should find natural balance?
At age 17 I was happy to find my first job working in a bookshop. I read a lot of books and so I have to work in a bookshop! I already decided I did not want to go to College or University even though I had a brilliant mind. I was more inclined to applied real world than intellectual world. I thought everyone around me would be happy that I was working and bringing in money to buy food and pay the rent.
After a year went by I came under pressure from my family and extended family to BE SOMEONE. There was relentless pressure to go to College and get a Degree .. and I will explain why as all this is related to current world events and social unrest in every country. The education systems around the world are not practical .. they are simply a way to extract social wealth and create future debt.
My situation was the same that we see taking place in all countries experiencing a general growth in wealth. You send you kids to College .. you get them EDUCATED .. the next generation have to do SOMETHING with their LIVES. The young people have to be BETTER than their parents and improve their lives. Education is also a misrepresented status symbol for many families.
The situation in my life was that my parents generation after the 2nd WW experienced improved economic conditions and higher living standards [although we struggled financially as a family]. These parents wanted to see their children get an education. These parents were deprived of that level of indulgence. Having a College or University Degree was something they could only dream of. I came under pressure at 18 years old to fulfill my parents dreams. If I did not have a College Degree then I was a worthless nobody.
At 18 years old I held out for some time and refused to discuss a College education and then close neighbours added even more pressure [all the same neglected generation as my parents] .. and so I went out to get myself a College Degree. I wanted to study ART .. but as I had a B+ in Sociology the academics refused my art application and would only accept me for Social Sciences.
These academics who totally worship grades were in shock that I would want to learn Art when it was clear I was a top research student who clearly understood the workings of society. People at the time told me that I would never have a future with an Art Degree but that Social Sciences would underscore my Career.
I am going to skip a few blocks to having a good Social Science Degree. BUT in the four years I studied the external political climate changed radically and by the time I graduated there was a secret politically motivated employment block in place for anyone with a Social Science Degree. I did not know this at the time .. but everywhere I went with this Degree was a closed door!
The political reasons for this illegal act was that the close study of society and power .. institutions .. corporations .. was seen as being Socialist / Communist and a threat to the fixed social order. If the fixed social order is that weak .. that it cannot absorb insight and observation ?? Then it is inherently a closed system based on fear .. lies and slight of hand.
Like a Casino they do not want you observing the dealing of cards from the bottom of the deck. I then worked in a rural country postal delivery service that I truly enjoyed more than anything. I again came under pressure from my friends and family .. that I have a good Degree and I work delivering letters in the middle of nowhere out in the boon-dogs.
Did they mean I would have been better off in a city?
I discovered that a College Degree was really a superficial form of prestige and has absolutely nothing to do with the real world: Survival and production of goods and resources. At least an ARTIST produces creative value that can alter the minds and hearts of people regardless of language barriers and nationality.
The education system is based on the delusions of endless growth.
The truth is that endless and ever increasing growth does not exist .. and that Nature does not allow it to exist. It is an intellectual ideal that is physically impossible to maintain. The growth period experienced by my parents generation was based on resource costs and a growth in production. By the time I graduated the system was in a state of decline. The high point had been reached and the reset was on the down curve.
Economically the system had reached it resource production high point resulting in higher wages .. higher costs .. higher prices .. increasing house prices with higher taxes and social costs. Everything was going higher and the result was that western society reached a ceiling. Then began the downward trend while financial institutions and taxes increased their charge on society.
Delusions of Endless Growth!
As you can imagine! Knowing what I know I am not going to believe the MAGICIAN. Nor am I going to trust the card dealer at the Casino. I am going to watch them dealing from the bottom of the pack. Then I am going to questing the everybody wins theology posted on the doors of the Casinos. The whole societal model is based on a complete illusion [or lie].
The model of bigger returns for ever and ever into the future is insane. The pressure is on for the next generation to go one higher than their parents or be seen as FAILURES. This whole psychology is a game. Very few people have their eye on the ball. Too few people know what is taking place around them.
Rather than the illusion of endless growth society needs balance. Part of the current problem is that everyone in the Casino got too greedy. We don't need businesses to expand. The base of production and building has to be in proportion to the human and physical environments. Most important of all: Water resources have to be protected.
The Casino Is Rigged
Many students leave College only to find that it is the right CONNECTIONS that get you a job and not the College Degree. This mindset is similar to generations of family passing on knowledge and skills. The connections activity is actually a animal based behaviour from early agricultural and hunter gatherer cultures. If you study anthropological rural communities the same process is used to pass resources to the next generations.
For a naive student to turn up in a business environment with a Degree and expect to be successful is like a person born in a large city with no experience of farming communities to expect to be accepted into a society that knows how to feed itself from Nature.
Yes! The behaviour is exclusive! But it is founded on customs of generations of families teaching and passing on their knowledge and experience to the younger generation. Financial and political institutions are using the same behaviour thinking that they are more advanced than farmers and rural communities.
The Internet is to some extent changing this pathway.
The Internet allows a new form of cross-learning and communication that is creating a Global Planetary Family with self-organising learning structures and broader knowledge sharing. Because this level of technology is new to mankind there are no set rules for abilities to learn coding or technical applications. This could change the world!
If there are broad based non-personal learning and sharing applications then the old models of knowledge sharing on a limited family scale morph into a larger Open Source learning application that can be effortlessly applied anywhere in the world by anyone who has the skill to do so.
In a way the narrow door to knowledge of the past has now been opened up to Universal Knowledge and Universal Sharing without borders and without gatekeepers. At the same time there has to be an understanding that balance and not exponential growth is the key to success.
The architecture of balance...
