Life could be amazing, for everyone, all the time. Earth is an incredible paradise of plenty and endless beauty.
So what do we do with it?
What in the hell is wrong with us?
Why Things Are The Way They Are
There are two types of people who are the direct and indirect cause of (almost) all of the suffering in our world, throughout all of history. Evil People and their loyal supporters, the Ignorant People.
It would almost take an entire library of books to fully discuss what I am going to cover in this one post. It’s complicated, yet I am going to make it simple anyway, so I cannot go into every little exception. An important of this post is the reference section, read through it carefully and visit as many as you can, and be sure and watch A Message to all Humanity, which inspired me to write this post.Evil People
There are an estimated 70 million psychopaths in the world today. One percent of the population. That is a lot. A psychopath is a person who does not have a conscience to guide them. Psychopaths and sociopaths (sociopaths are about four percent of the population), are directly to blame for almost all of humankind's suffering throughout all of history!
Not all evil people are your garden variety serial killers. Some of them are actually much, much worse. Think of tobacco executives, responsible for millions of premature deaths, who have long known the dangers of smoking but choose to lie, hide and deny the facts, and even today still target children with their advertising campaigns. Oil executives, who while (secretly) knowing the dangers of pollution and climate change (for decades), have worked hard to prevent the adoption of clean energy. War profiteers, who are constantly pushing for military action — resulting in so many horrible deaths of innocent people. Then there are the world elites, whose selfish greed means poverty for more than a billion people and massive destruction of the environment.
Evil people are all around us: they are the ones telling us war is the solution, to buy their poor-quality (and unnecessary) products, that burning billions of barrels of oil and billions of tons of coal will have no affect on the atmosphere and oceans, that poisonous chemicals in our food, air and water are nothing to worry about, and that we can “trust” them.
Ignorant People
Ignorance: lacking knowledge or information. Ignorant does not mean stupid. Intelligent, well meaning and seemingly well informed people can still be ignorant.
Ignorant people are indirectly to blame for much of the world’s problems because they support evil people. Without support, evil people’s ability to negatively impact so many others would be massively diminished. When good people try to stand up against evil people, there always seems to be a wall of ignorant people in the way.
It is a very important point: evil people are almost nothing without the support of ignorant people. Unfortunately, the ignorant make up a majority of the population.
Example: the people at NASA are largely ignorant. How can I say that!?!? The planet we all live on is dying and they use their considerable resources on pet projects like sending probes to Pluto. How about we directly address our own many, massive, problems before we worry about the make up of some distant rock in space, rocket scientists?
Evil People Are Liars
Why are people ignorant? There are many reasons of course, but a major contributor is the fact that we live in a world so full of lies most people think up is down and down is up. The Elites, Politicians, the Mainstream Media, Corporations, the Military, and Religion —they fill the world with lies and ignorance. [Scientists even have a PC name for the lies, they call them “fictions”.]
The Elites
How did the elites get to be elites in the first place? There are some exceptions (so what) but for the most part the elite class have, throughout history, lied, cheated and murdered their way to the top. The elites are responsible for every war that has ever happened. Elite is almost synonymous with Evil.
Ordinary people often admire the rich. Here in BC the media loves to point out how a local billionaire “provides jobs”. What nonsense. He owns many businesses — who is going to work to make him money, sheep? If he has the chance to automate-away the workers he will do it in a heartbeat. He is excessively wealthy because his anti-competitive businesses over-charge for products and services, get special tax breaks and favours, pollute the environment (externalizes costs) and underpays workers.
This same billionaire made a large donation to a local children’s hospital, how generous of him. He kept only five billion dollars for himself — how will he possibly survive? It brings tears to my eyes when I think of his suffering.
99% of the rich are greedy, selfish parasites, using their positions of power to constantly steal wealth from everyone else. Occasionally giving back a little bit of what they stole doesn’t change that fact.
One of the great lies we are told is that competition is good. No, competition is good for the rich because it keeps people divided. Cooperation is what we need to improve everyone’s quality of life. I have worked with many engineers, and none of them build and invent to compete, they do it because they love to build and invent. People cooperating can achieve infinitely more than people competing ever could. Just look at the phenomenal success of open-source software.
Watch: George Carlin explains why the elites want the people ignorant
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Politicians and Government
Most of the people at the highest levels of government are not your elected representatives like they are supposed to be. They are there to work the system for their own (and their elite bosses) advantage, while creating the illusion of representing the people. Even the worst of them will occasionally throw the public a bone to maintain the illusion.
What is the response of most politicians when something truly horrible is happening in the world, such as when ISIS was murdering people on a daily basis? Why, to call a meeting at the UN, maybe in a couple months, cause right now, you know, they got dinner plans, and golfing tomorrow. What if it was your friends and family being murdered is that the kind of response you would accept?
One of the biggest lies of all is that governments need to borrow money from private banking institutions. The banks do not lend money they have, they simply create money out of thin air by typing numbers into a computer. Then the banks expect to get paid back — with existing money (taxes), or with real assets. It is one of the greatest cons of all time. In a sane world money would not be created out of thin air at the stroke of a key (causing inflation), or at a minimum the right to create money would belong only to public institutions. People who understand what banks are doing refer to them as the banksters.
Federal Reserve Chair Powell says he is not aware of inflation “falling differently on different socioeconomic groups” when it is obvious to anyone with a brain that inflation hits the poorest the hardest by a huge margin. That makes him a liar or an idiot. YouTube link here.
The Mainstream Media
The news? Hardly. Some of the most misinformed people around are avid followers of newspapers and TV news.
The mainstream media’s primary purpose is to make a profit for and otherwise benefit their (elite) owners. Spend some time following not-for-profit news, comparing how events are presented there relative to the corporate mainstream media, and you will see the mainstream media for what it really is: distraction, distortion and omission.
The Corporate/Mainstream media has long been pro-inequality, pro-war, pro-consumption, and anti-environment. This is no surprise as the elites own the media and exploit it for their own purposes.
Large Corporations
Large corporations have substantially more power and influence in the world than ordinary people do. Corporations are largely owned and controlled by the wealthy, who use the power and influence of corporations for their personal benefit. Almost every major corporation you can name has been fined for illegal activities, as well as scolded for immoral or unethical ones. Pretty much every single time they try to lie their way out of it. And the real owners almost never face any consequences.
Religion
The original con, created to manipulate people. All religions were simply made up in someone’s imagination, and that is all they are. Any claims that powerful deities exist are nothing more than children's stories, like stories about Santa Claus and leprechauns.
Throughout history, and still today, religion is used as an excuse for violence. Religion has always been at odds with science, promoting fairy tales rather than intelligent debate. Religion is at the very root of humanities ignorance. John Lennon was right, a world without religion would be a vastly better place.
War and the Military
Adolf Hitler is one of history’s most infamous psychopaths. He should have been completely ignored and forgotten from the first time he opened his big fat mouth, yet instead he gained the support of the ignorant. Fifty million people died in World War II. Why? Because Hitler talked and ignorant people believed him. Imagine if Germany had gotten Albert Einstein for a chancellor instead of Hitler. Imagine if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were the current president of the United States.
What About That Amazing Life You Promised
War, poverty, inequality, injustice, racism, and environmental degradation are collectively the fault of, and exist because of, evil and ignorant people.
The previous statement should be self-evident by now. It is impossible to be racist without being either evil or ignorant (or both). If ignorance didn’t exist, it would be impossible for evil people to rise to positions of power, where they do things like build up the military, and start wars. Why wouldn’t they rise to power? Because people would recognize evil and not fall for their tricks.
There is more. We don’t need to spend our lives working our butts off to make the rich richer, to buy stuff we don’t need, destroying the environment along the way. So much that we do is a colossal waste of time and resources: the military, the war on drugs, marketing and advertising, the finance/investment industries, fast food (and over-processed food) industries, the luxury goods industries, the prison industry, the insurance industry, the pay-day-loan industry, the real-estate industry, and our corrupt tax and legal systems. They all feed off of and enforce each other in an endless cycle of bullshit, all based on greed and ignorance.
Lost Opportunity: the cost of making the wrong decisions. Think of all the resources that have gone into wars and all those other useless endeavors. What if those resources (time + energy + materials) had been invested in productive endeavors, such as medical research, education, and green energy?
If people were not ignorant, there would be no wars, poverty, or many other terrible things, we would have cured most diseases by now, gotten our population under control, embraced free-time over greed, embraced automation, energy would be practically free (thank you sun and wind), major rivers would not end in dead zones, our water would be safe to drink, our air safe to breath, and we’d have a two (or three) day work week. Crime (and stress) would be almost non-existent because we would have equality and would help one another, and we would be free of repressive governments and corporations. The rich would not be getting richer (on the backs of others), and they would not be above the law. People would be healthier and cancer rates would be much lower. Our earth would be clean and regenerating itself, instead of dying like it is right now, because everyone would understand we need to take care of this planet if we want to continue to live here.
So, About that Amazing Life You Promised
You should have it figured out by now. We need to cure ignorance. Not a small task.
But what about evil? I don’t know if you can cure evil, but regular people can learn. People are very much the sum of their environment: what they are taught. Someone who grows up in a racist, hateful environment (not surprisingly) grows up a racist. Someone who lives and grows up in an informed and safe environment respects and cares for others.
This makes the failure of the mainstream/corporate media to properly inform people such a monstrous tragedy. They have the ability to reach so many, yet they refuse to acknowledge and expose our many problems, and instead do the opposite. They promote war, over-consumption and outright lies. And they do not let people know how much damage we are doing to the planet. All for greed and profit. One example of the mainstream media’s lies: during the global-warming debate of the last few decades the mainstream media has presented industry-paid spokespeople as if they were unbiased, and given them every opportunity to spread disinformation. The penalty all life on earth pays for that as been and will continue to be severe.
Pressure Works
What is pressure? In this context, pressure is when you do things like call up your elected “representative” and tell him or her what you think of their actions, and what you want them to be. When you complain to a corporation about what they have done, and tell them you will avoid their products until they do better. Pressure, in these and other forms, has worked and can continue to work. The lack of pressure is just as important — when you do nothing, we all lose.
Steps You Can Take
- In the words of David Attenborough “don’t waste”.
- Ignore the mainstream media, support not-for-profit news.
- Boycott all marketing and advertising, just tune them out completely. Read Culture Jam. Watch Minimalism. Use an ad-blocker.
- Support clean-energy initiatives. If you can, chose clean-energy over dirty. Oppose dirty energy.
- Support education initiatives. The more educated the population is, the better for the quality of life of every living thing on the planet.
- Spend your whole life learning. Watch documentaries, take courses, read non-fiction, etc.
- Support transparency in government and corporations, appose secrecy. The purpose of secrecy is to make it easier to steal from you.
- Strive to eat healthy and get plenty of exercise. People who choose to be unhealthy are a burden on medical services.
- Avoid fast and processed foods. Grow and prepare your own food. Restaurant food generally has too many calories often of the wrong type. Keep in mind that most processed foods are basically slow poison.
- Replace your lawn with native plants. They look nicer, are better for the environment, and (once established) are less work. Don’t use garden chemicals. Help nature.
- Do not over indulge in meat. It is bad for your health, indirectly supports cruelty, is bad for the environment and a major cause of climate change.
- Trees = life. Oppose efforts to cut down trees, support efforts to plant them. Plant some trees yourself.
- Value quality of life over material goods. Don’t be a “consumer”, be a person.
- Avoid debt as much as possible. Debt is slavery. Read The Blood Bankers and Snakes in Suits.
- Keep “work” to a minimum, instead volunteer, have a hobby, learn.
- Don’t fall for “identify politics”, it is divisive. Consider yourself a citizen of the world. Nobody gets to choose where they are born.
- Give the less-fortunate a break. Not everyone is equipped to deal with our hyper-competitive dishonest society.
- Don’t believe in unproven fairy tales. Believe in science (not perfect, but it’s the best we have).
- Be a do-it-yourselfer. Choose independence over dependence.
- Drive less; use mass-transit if you can. Get an electric bicycle.
- Support independence movements. People have a right to choose their own fate, not have it dictated to them (and taxed) by some far-away central government that only answers to the elites.
- Demand accountability from governments and corporations. Watch Dirty Money.
- Be aware of and resist attempts by government and corporations to dictate how to live your life. Read 1984.
- Learn what propaganda is and how to recognize it. You really need to do this, because then you will see your life is full of propaganda and lies.
- Have nothing to do with the military. If you know someone in the military, encourage them to quit. Encourage your government require the military be only for the defense of civilians. Read War is a Racket.
- Read history and watch documentaries about history. Understand history and you will understand how things got to be the way they are. Watch The Untold History of the United States.
- Learn what “the race to the bottom” is and take a stand against it. What the documentary The Corporation.
- If you are going to have children, two at the very most. More than that is ignorant and selfish. Zero or one is better.
- Don’t be an optimist. Optimism never solved any problems, it is just an excuse to be lazy.
- Remember the super-rich, the elites, are your only true enemies. They are the spreaders of lies and misery.
- There is a war on — a war on you. Join and support groups on the front lines, and start defending yourself.
As the centuries have gone by, humankind has become less and less ignorant. With today's technology it is possible to accelerate that trend greatly, and it is possible we will reach a point, eventually, where life will be amazing — for everyone.
Keep reading, you are getting to the most important part of this post.
References
Note: why include references from the mainstream media? There are still good people in the mainstream media, it is mostly the people at the top that are a problem. All I can do is scratch the surface, you need to continue your search for the truth beyond this post.A Message for all Humanity, the inspiration behind this post:
Authoritarians Drunk on Power — really good article on how governments no longer answer to the people
You are being lied too — a free online course — an older post of mine
Two books: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us and The Sociopath Next Door
Billionaire's are often psychopaths and sociopaths, Are psychopaths running the world
15,000 scientists from 184 countries have a warning for humanity (now 20,000 — these numbers keep going up)
People ignore facts that contradict their beliefs, Trump is just a distraction
Must read: Arrest of Julian Assange is an attack on liberty itself
Earth’s sixth mass-extinction event underway, and humans are to blame, more here, and ignorant humans driving orangutans to extinction, also half of African species face extinction
The IMF’s plan to take money-creation away from private banks
Banking with Hitler, World spends $3 trillion a year on military expenses, with the US behind almost 80% of military trade
95% of tested baby foods contain toxic metals
Twelve year old explains how to fix banking (and why taxes are so high)
Eisenhower warns of the military industrial complex in his farewell address
Map of ocean dead zones, also David Attenborough warns: Oceans under greatest threat in history, and Ocean dead zones growing rapidly
Oxygen levels in oceans dropping dangerously
Fishing industry doesn’t want public to see what fishing industry is doing
US Government puts the profit interests of corporations before the interests of children (this type of thing happens nearly daily in the US)
CDC: 40% of cancers linked to excess weight
Global wildlife populations have declined almost 60% since 1970, and here. As “stewards of the earth” humans are so far a miserable failure. Also 30,000 elephants killed in 2016
There are an estimated 40 million slaves in the world today, and here, and here
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Richest man in the world cuts worker’s health care benefits
War crimes of US presidents, from Eisenhower to Clinton
The CIA, war, and the mainstream (corporate) media
Tobacco companies target youth in India
32 tips to avoid being manipulated (well worth 15 minutes of your time)
Perpetrators of genocide say they’re ‘good people’
Industrial farming crops to feed livestock is destroying the planet, and the hidden costs of feeding livestock
Palm oil industry wiping out wildlife and ruining the planet, also 10% of world’s wilderness lost in less than 25 years
Chevron executive secretly pushing anti-electric car movement in Arizona
The USA Liberty Act: Just an example of how politicians give their bills misleading names (can you say propaganda)
The banks war on cash, and banks convicted but no penalties
Journalist killed: an example of how the elites deal with unfavorable publicity, Witness in former Italian PM’s trial poisoned
Kangaroo court in the UK, corporate media pretends all is well
Richest eight men have more wealth than 3.6 billion people, and only the rich keep getting richer, also this, and also this, and this
Catholic church claims child sex abuse victims consented, more here, The irony? Pot calling the kettle black? Pope warns of lies
If the benefits of exercise could be bottled, it would be dubbed a miracle cure
Exxon-Mobile misled the public for decades, and here, and here
American’s top fear: corrupt government officials
How much fossil fuel’s have been used in your lifetime? And what happens when countries switch to green energy
Corporations have all the power
A rather long article on the harm caused by the car culture
We need bees to pollinate a third of our food supply, so why are killing them, and here, and a 75% decline in flying insects over 27 years, and here, and the ‘good’ bugs appear to be dying off
Robot and AI watch (collection of links)
The Real News (no corporate advertising or government funding)
Monsanto lied about Roundup, and Monsanto finally gets a taste of it’s own poison
All sea-life will be negatively affected by rising CO2 emissions, and here, also CO2 emissions at all time high, and here
High school teacher uses simple risk-analysis to explain why we should not ignore global warming, also climate change deniers cite another ignorant as proof
How the US for-profit healthcare system has failed compared to other countries, and here, and here
The Death of the Oceans — a collection of news stories from around the web demonstrating the shocking decline of marine life globally, Dying Planet, Animals are people too
The US Government’s Reign of Terror
The Deep State — what it is and why you should be concerned
Soft drinks associated with higher risk of death, also sugar-free sodas linked to higher risk of death, and higher plant protein consumption (rather than animal protein) associated with lower risk of death
Another government blatantly demonstrates the elites are the priority
UN: polluters should pay for the damage they cause
Air pollution is the leading cause of cancer; pollution kills more people than AIDs, TB and malaria combined and pollution killing about 9 million people each year, also VW (and others) cheated on diesel emission standards (more here), and pollution from Europe caused drought in India, and pollution levels exceed safe limits in over 2000 cities, also 95% of earth’s population breathing dangerously polluted air
Exposure to nature important for mental health
Tax wealth, not income; The criminalization of politics
Farmers excessive use of antibiotics fueling the rise of super bugs
The US Dept. of Defense is one of the world’s biggest polluters
The fallacy of demonizing Russia, and more here
Princeton study concludes the United States is not a democracy, and here
CIA-backed rebels behead young boy with a knife, share video online
Politicians and their unending lust for power
How a single person, Thomas Midgley, caused long-lasting damage to the entire planet (inventor of CFC’s and leaded gasoline)
US has spent one trillion dollars on the Afghanistan war, achieved nothing, also every American taxpayer has contributed $23K to wars since 2001.
Propaganda and the mainstream media
Best way to help North Korea is to spread knowledge (and fight ignorance)
In the 1950’s the US and Israel conducted radiation testing on children, killing thousands of them, and here
The Alcohol Industry is misleading the public
Corporations behaving badly example number 4,722,386,983: Coca-Cola using cash to influence research
Johnson & Johnson lied about asbestos in it’s baby power
Goldman Sachs gets off with just a fine for criminal behavior
Goldman Sachs CEO breaks law, loses $2.2 billion and causes huge fine, still gets paid millions
Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness, and here, and here
Corporations lying again: Internet providers spread lies to kill bill
US national debt hits $20 trillion
AT&T trying to destroy the Internet
Ajit Pai: head of the FCC and fulltime corporate lackey wants to destroy the Internet (the most powerful tool in support of democracy ever invented), and here, and here
Global food brands cheating in eastern markets with inferior products
So you think you live in a democracy where you can choose your own fate? So did the people of Catalonia, and here, and here, and here
Corporations have more say in government than people
CNN stacks townhall audience with political activists, fails to disclose, Biased reporting at CNN
People can learn: former neo-Nazi learns he was wrong to be racist
Corporations: Equifax CEO gets bonus for being incompetent
Nestlé major source of plastic pollution, and Nestlé makes billions from water it doesn’t pay for, and here
Africa’s elites plundering their countries
The Atlantic selectively edits to smear WikiLeaks
Does prison work, and America the police state
Money As Debt — awesome 50 minute documentary on YouTube
Defense spending and war are bad for the economy
Apple, the world’s most profitable firm is also a tax cheat, and Apple fights against your right to repair your own property (because having $900 billion in spare cash is not enough for them?)
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” — Albert Einstein