Treatise on the benefits of being

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The question of where the world and each person in it (and first of all himself) is moving, has occupied the minds of many people for thousands of years around the world. Modern people, who have at least a little knowledge of history, are aware: various civilizations have arisen and disappeared all over the world.

They had beliefs, conducted economic activities, created cultural objects and had certain technologies. Incas, Sumerians, Aztecs, Romans, Egyptians - perhaps every person with even primary education can continue this list. Some civilizations have left a noticeable mark on world history, and modern people clearly feel this, other civilizations are almost unknown. And most likely there were civilizations about the existence of which nothing is known. And they had their own gods, rich men and rulers, artisans and warriors.

So what has changed in a person after thousands and tens of thousands of years? If you remove the light touch of "civilization", then a little. We have gods (though there are atheists, but most likely among our distant ancestors there were also people who deny any gods), there are elites and rulers: both sovereign and puppets. There are warriors, people of labor and intellectuals (people of science and art). Eternal values have not gone anywhere: gold, land, food, fuel, women. To them were added medicines, cars and mechanisms. I deliberately do not focus on non-precious metals, polymers and other non-finished products.

Thanks to medicine and international law, more people live on our planet today than at any other time in the foreseeable past. And every person strives to leave descendants, many generally see this as the meaning of their existence. Well, leaving offspring is one of the basic instincts inherent in all living beings. There is nothing reprehensible here. But with resources, things are more complicated: thanks to the mechanization and automation of labor, human labor productivity has increased many times, only the paradox is that all machines and mechanisms belong to specific people. And it turns out that a weak old man who owns an automated production produces more than a hundred tribes in Africa, where there are many young and strong people. And all would be fine (what do we care about Africa with its tribes?), But the process of automation is growing. Yesterday, the warriors, working people and the intelligentsia were the middle class, using mechanization in their industries, they provided for themselves and a few other people. Today they find it increasingly difficult to compete with robots.

So it turns out that one way or another, the existing civilization will go to the dustbin of history after its more or less successful ancestors. What will happen next? A new round of development, a new renaissance. The wheel of history will make another turn. Sooner or later, no matter what god you believe in, how many riches you have, no matter what talents you have, you will have to start with the ability to get fire, food and water. Teach your children basic survival skills, they will teach their children, then there will be a chance for the revival of civilization.

But what about the present? Sovereign rulers are not stupid people. It would be naive to believe that this is what presidents are. Every independent country has a "club" of rulers (secret or overt), because in the modern world there are too many threads: one person is not able to control everything. And these rulers are well aware of the laws of the existence of civilizations and are trying with all their might to preserve the existence of modern civilization as long as possible, and in the event of its collapse approaching, to preserve as many resources as possible under their control. Whoever played cards will understand that all international politics is a bluff. And whoever throws his "cards" earlier and starts the process of the collapse of civilization, he will be left with nothing. Whoever holds out the longest will have a head start by the beginning of the Renaissance. If only the process of extinction of our civilization does not lead to the complete death of all people.

So what will remain for us or our descendants on the eve of the "end of the world"? Have a bloody feast? Become an ascetic? Pretend nothing is happening? If earlier people clearly felt only their own frailty, as a rule, finding consolation in religion, then modern man also tends to feel the frailty of the entire civilization to which he belongs. He saves himself from this feeling, as a rule, escaping from the real world to the virtual world.

And by the way, what is the name of our current civilization? We know the Sumerians, Incas, Babylonians. And their own name has not yet been invented. Maybe this is the prerogative of the descendants? Probably so. In any case, the Sumerians hardly called themselves Sumerians, and as we do not call ourselves now, we will be "renamed" in the future. But you still need to name yourself. And using this name, help our rulers as long as possible to maintain it from degradation and collapse. The energy of the masses of people can do a lot, because the existing order of things, despite the growing imbalance between the poor and the rich, still suits the vast majority of the world's population.

The stratification of society … this factor, coupled with a growing population and labor productivity, is perhaps the main indicator of the level of development of society, its place at any given time on the curve of the life cycle of civilization. Just imagine: there is a tribe, it has an elite: a leader supported by a shaman and several of the most powerful warriors. This tribe produces "food" and "luxury products". Luxury products are completely at the disposal of the elite, a small part returns to the tribe, so as not to grumble. Food is distributed as follows: the tribe receives exactly what it needs for food, the rest is taken by the elite. He consumes as much food as he can, the rest is exchanged by other elites for the food they need. If a crop failure occurs or the tribe simply grows so much that the elite gets "little", a war begins. This war leads to the destruction of a neighboring tribe, or their own, while the elite flees, preserving the acquired wealth. Everything else is just variants of the events described (various alliances, change of elites, etc.).

But one day some wise ruler invented a barn. In a lean year, it was no longer necessary to exterminate a neighboring tribe, so as not to die of hunger. Then tools of labor were invented, animals were domesticated. There were so many provisions that even with a significant increase in the number of people in the tribe, there was no need to fight for food. Perhaps this moment became the embryo of the first civilization. But why did the wars continue? The point is that the moral level of the elites remained the same: the insatiable nature of man demanded more and more luxury, slaves, slaves. The cycle of history is relentless: the elites became more and more insatiable, wars became bloodier, civilizations replaced each other. And do you think that something has changed in the present tense? Are the elites finally fed up and no longer wanting more power and wealth? No, a miracle did not happen, and already in the 21st century from the birth of Christ, the elites have "nuclear fists" to continue the terrible game. In which the rest of humanity is pawns.

Each person has not come to this world in vain. But not everyone can think, and if they know the meaning of the word "honor", then they do not consciously follow it and do not teach their children to do it. Some people are free to choose their role in the world, others are not free in their choice: just as a slave on a plantation became a slave by birth, so the crown prince in the royal family must be part of the elite. There are, of course, exceptions: both the slave and the prince could escape and change their fate. But their place was invariably taken by someone else, without changing the very essence of the processes taking place.

Every person in the world should realize that he is one of the small cogs of modern civilization, which has reached truly incredible heights in comparison with the achievements of all previous ones. And no matter how his own fate and the fate of the entire civilization develops, descendants will be forced to recognize our civilization as the brightest and most outstanding. Of course, if humanity does not disappear from the face of the Earth.