Timothy Wilken
‘Wealth’
The collective term we humans use to describe what we value is “wealth“.
The human species emerged in the world of space-binding. Here the rule of survival was fight or flight. The values in this world were adversarial. Adversary relationship originates on earth in the animal world. Earth supplies limited space for the animals. Space is finite. Good space is even more finite. This means it is very limited. There is only so much good water, so much good grazing land, so much good shelter, and so much good food. There is not enough to go around. The space-binders must compete for this limited amount of good space. They compete adversarialy. They compete by fighting and flighting. They compete by attacking and killing other space-binders. Humans living as space-binders follow the adversarial rule. They compete by fighting and flighting. They compete by attacking and killing their enemies. In this world survival depends on securing good space and avoiding bad space. Bad space is where the predators live – bad space is where you lose – bad space is where you die. Bad space has threatened humans for a very long time as Jared Diamond explains writing in 1998:
“For most of the time since the ancestors of modern humans diverged from the ancestors of the living great apes, around 7 million years ago, all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, as the Blackfeet still did in the 19th century. It was only within the last 11,000 years that some peoples turned to what is termed food production: that is, domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops.”
Jared Diamond makes the point, that for 99.9% of the seven-million-years that our species has existed, we have been hunter-gatherers. And, for that same period, our species has been dominated by the adversary way, and all human values have been adversarial values.
Adversarial wealth – physical force
Physical force is what adversarial humans value most. The force to physically control other humans. Adversarial wealth is weapons, fighting men, horses, fortresses, that which gives me the adversarial advantage.
In our modern world, adversarial wealth is B2 bombers, F15 fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, tanks, military satellites, explosives of all types from hand grenades to nuclear weapons, trained soldiers and last but not least guns.
The adversary world is a game of with losers and winners. This is a world of fighting and flighting – of pain and dying. Survival depends on securing good space and avoiding bad space. To win in this game someone must lose. Winning is always at the cost of another. All humans living in the adversarial world are struggling to avoid losing – struggling to avoid being hurt. Recall our definition:
CONFLICT –def–> The struggle to avoid loss – the struggle to avoid being hurt.
Here humans must fight and flee to stay alive, and they do. Always ready at a moments notice to go tooth and nail to avoid losing – to avoid death. Losers/winners is the harshest of games. Winning is always at the cost of another’s life. The loser tends to resist with all of his might occasionally prevailing by killing or wounding his attacker. So both parties can lose, turning the game – losers/winners into losers/losers.
If we analyze adversary relationships, we discover that individuals are less after the relationship. (1+1) < 2.
In the adversarial world where the loser forfeits his life. (1+1) = 1. Or, in the end game of losers/losers, both adversaries may die in battle. (1+1)=0.
The adversarial value system is much intact in our present world. Much of today’s wealth is weapons. Nearly all of today’s nations maintain large armies, navies, and airforces. They also maintain equally large national, state, and local police forces. The number of weapons in private hands is equally enormous – over 200,000,000 just within the United States1999. Adversary wealth is physical force – adversary wealth is firepower.
Adversarial humanity uses force to seize their wants and needs. By coercing the actions of others with force or threat of force, they seek to protect their own lives and well being. They seek to optimize their individual survival and to make their individual lives meaningful by hurting others.
Adversary humanity sees self and other as separate – as different – as distinctly apart. Things are black or white – good or bad. You are either for me or against me. You are either my ally or my enemy.
However, in 1776, a new option for humanity emerged with the institutionalization of Neutrality. And with this new option came a new set of values – neutral values.
Neutral wealth – money
Neutral relationships originated in the plant world.
Sunlight provides unlimited energy for the plants. Each individual plant needs only the sun, and adequate water and minerals to survive. Plant survival does not require any relationship with other. This fact makes plants the independent class of life – independent of other.
Humans living in the world of institutional Neutrality view themselves as independent of others. While they should not deliberately hurt other humans, they are not required to help them.
Their success or failure depends solely on their own efforts and talents. Individuals have no relationship with each other. Individuals have no awareness of each other, they ignore each other. To survive in the neutral world, you must be self-sufficient. If we analyze neutral relationships, we discover that individuals are unchanged by their relationship. They are neither less nor more after the relationship. They are the same. (1+1) = 2.
Choices which do not hurt or help are neutral choices. Actions which do not hurt or help are neutral actions. Relationships which do not hurt or help are neutral relationships. The mechanism of relationship is conducted through a free and fair market with the honest exchange of merchandise of good value at a fair price. Recall our definition:
FAIR TRADE –def–> The bartering to insure that the exchange is fair – to insure that the price is not too high or too low – to insure that neither party loses.
Institutional Neutrality is about fairness. The market place is a fair and safe place to exchange goods and services. Neither seller nor buyer should be injured in the exchange. Products should represent a good value and be sold at a fair price. All citizens are guaranteed freedom from loss.
The medium of exchange in the neutral world is money. Money is used as symbolic representation of all real wealth. For all intensive purposes in the Neutral world money and real wealth are the same. Money is what neutral humans most value. The money to purchase help. Neutral wealth is any negotiable security – cash, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, that which can be exchanged in the fair market.
Neutral humanity uses money to purchase their wants and needs. By purchasing the actions of others with money, they seek to protect their own lives and well being. They seek to insure their individual survival and make their individual lives meaningful by ignoring others.
Neutral humanity sees self and other as independent – as separate – as different – as distinctly apart – as buyers and sellers in the great market.
And, if other is not independent, if other does not have the price of admission to participate in the great market, then neutral humanity cannot see other at all.
In 2001, humanity has the option for synergic relationship. If we choose Synergy we will adopt a new set of values – synergic values.
Synergic wealth – mutual life support
In a synergic culture wealth is defined very differently. Synergic wealth is that which supports life for both self and other. It is mutual life support. Synergic wealth by definition excludes adversary wealth – physical force that hurts other human beings, and neutral wealth – money that ignores other human beings.
Synergic humans recognize that interdependence is the human condition. They recognize that all humans need help unless they wish to live at the level of animal subsistence. They choose to help others and trust that others will choose to help them.
They know that adversarial humans use coercion to force others help them. They know that help obtained with force or fraud is the lowest quality help because the helper is hurt.
They know that neutral humans use money to buy help from others in the fair market. Help purchased in the market place is of average quality because the helper is ignored.
They understand that synergic humans use co-Operation to attract help from others. They help others and trust others to help them. They know that help attracted by helping others is of highest quality because the helper is helped.
Recall that when others understand that by helping you, they will also be helped, they will automatically help you. That when others understand that when you win, they win, they will support and celebrate your every success. Recall our definition:
Co-OPERATION –def–> Operating together to insure that both parties win, and that neither party loses. The negotiation to insure that both parties are helped, and that neither party is hurt.
Synergic relationships are mutually helpful. Both parties in the relationship experience a gain. In Synergic relationships, one individual plus another individual is more after their relationship than before. (1+1) >> 2. Synergic relationships are marked by low conflict, high effectiveness and enormous productivity.
Synergic humanity uses co-Operation to attract their wants and needs. By attracting the actions of others with co-Operation, they are able to protect their lives and well being. They seek to insure their individual survival and make their individual lives meaningful by helping others.
Synergic humanity sees self and other as components of the same whole – as aspects of the same unity – as existing together – as a co-Operative alliance. Co-Operation is mutually life affirming. Both self and other join in an alliance to seek mutual survival. They seek to be more together than they can be apart.
Making Money
Today, our human society is dominated by Neutral values. We humans believe we are an independent class of life. We humans believe that making money is the way to make wealth.
Making money is not the same as creating life support–synergic wealth.
We humans are an interdependent species. We meet our needs by making exchanges in the marketplace. Supply and demand often determines the value of things that we need. High demand raises the value of a particular good, as does low supply. It is scarcity that gives everything its maximum value.
The laws of supply and demand were originally formulated by Adam Smith before the invention of advertising. Advertising is a powerful tool designed to create demand. This tool is a constant and insideous companion to modern life. It is enormously effective at creating demand. You can’t watch television, listen to radio, read a magazine, or even drive on the public highways without being bombarded with advertising. This prolific advertising creates a strong demand for products and services that have little or no benefit to humankind.
Most of this advertising created demand is for our wants not for our needs. Wants and needs are not the same. I want a Mercedes, but I need transportation. I want a gold Rolex, but I need to know the time. I want Guicchi loafers, but I only need shoes. I want a million dollar architecturally designed home, but I only need safe, comfortable housing.
Our present culture is dominated by the idea that more is always better than less–that expensive is always better than inexpensive. Two phrases in common use today encapsulate this attitude: The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.” and “He who dies with the most toys wins!”
Recall however that Nature is always seeking more for less–always seeking maximum efficiency in all that she does. Fuller called this principle of seeking more for less the “dymaxion” way. This is of course simply another way of stating the Principle of Least Action. In science the most elegant solution is the one that explains the most with the fewest variables. A synergic culture will be dominated by the dymaxion ideal. The best will be that which accomplishes the most with the least. Doing more with less will makes more available to help others. Helping others so that you are helped in return is the operating basis of synergic culture. There our human wants will move towards congruence with our human needs.
But, back to the present world, today’s wants are not only more than we need, but they often are not even good for us. I want a cigarette, but what I need is to relax. I want a drink of alcohol, but what I need in to reduce the stress in my life. I want an extra dessert, but what I need is more love in my life.
Much of what we want is not helpful for us and often times even harmful. But the laws of supply and demand respond as well to human wants as they do to human needs. Those products most demanded whether for wants or needs are considered valuable. And it is the possession of valuable things that is the usually definition of wealth. This means in today’s world many harmful things are valuable–cocaine is very valuable, and possession of a ton of cocaine would make me wealthy.
In a synergic science, we make a major distinction between creating life support or synergic wealth and just making money which is neutral wealth. Synergic wealth is more than just what humans want or value. Synergic wealth is that which supports human life.
Synergic Wealth is defined as life itself and that which promotes human well being generally–that which satisfies the human needs of self and other–that which promotes mutual survival and makes life meaningful for self and other.
Recall that money is not really wealth. Money is a symbolic tool that can be used to represent real wealth. It was originally invented as a mechanism to protect real wealth. This distinction has been lost in our modern world. Today there is no distinction between money and real wealth. Most of today’s activities have as their only purpose the making of money. As R. Buckminster Fuller explains:
“Those who have learned how to make money with money–which money can never be anything but a medium of wealth exchanging–have now completely severed money from its constant functional identity with real wealth . . . About 90 percent of all U.S.A. employment is engaged in tasks producing no life-support wealth.”
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. How can you tell if you are helping the human condition or simply making it worse?
You must ask yourself, am I creating real wealth with my actions and my leverage or am I just making money to purchase the life support I need? Do my actions and leverage create life support–that which promotes human well being–that which satisfies human needs–that which promotes both human survival and human meaning? Do I create the real wealth necessary to support myself and my family, or do I live off the real wealth created by others.
When we analyze our present world, we discover that most individuals in today’s world do not create the real wealth that supports them and their families. They live off the productivity of others. These are not obvious criminals or thieves. Most of them are completely ignorant of their unknowing participation in the plundering of their fellow humans. They are busy making money which in today’s world is easily exchanged for life support–real wealth.
If as Fuller tells us 90% of employed Americans are engaged in tasks that make money, but produce no real wealth, what are these Amercans doing?
Obnoxico
Some of those making money, but producing no real wealth are involved in making products to satisfy human wants. In 1947 Buckminster Fuller created the fictious private-enterprise corporation Obnoxico as an example of how companies can exploit the “wants” of humanity to make money rather than create life-support. As Fuller explains:
“In my theoretical Obnoxico’s catalog the number-one item suggested that on the last day that your baby wears diapers you very carefully remove them, repin them empty, and stuff them full of tissue paper in just the shape in which they were when last occupied by your baby. You pack this assembly carefully into a strong corrugated-paperboard container and send it to Obnoxico, which will base-metallize the diapers, then gold- or silverplate them and send them back to you to be filled with ferns and hung in the back window of your car. The easily forecastable profits from this one item ran into millions of dollars per year.
“Somehow or other the theoretical Obnoxico concept has now twenty-five years later become a burgeoning reality. Private enterpriseis now building airports with ever-longer walkways and hotels with ever-increasing numbers of levels of ground-floor and basement arcades to accommodate the ever-more-swiftly multiplying Obnoxico stores.
“Human beings traveling away from home with cash in their pockets, thinking fondly of those left behind or soon-to-be-joined loved ones, are hooked by the realistic statuettes of four-year-old girls and boys with upturned faces saying in a cartoon “balloon,” “What did you bring me, Daddy?”
“As the banking system pleads for more saving-account deposits (so that they can loan your money out to others at interest plus costs) the Obnoxico industry bleeds off an ever-greater percentage of all the potential savings as they are sentimentally or jokingly spent for acrylic toilet seats with dollar bills cast into the transparent plastic material, two teddy bears hugging an alligator, etc..”
Look around today, and you will find no shortage of products that fit in with Fuller’s concept of “Obnoxico”. Television, radio, and our sunday newspapers are filled with ads for these silly products that are of little or no value to humanity. Those creating these obnoxious products are simply seeking to earn their livings by making money. They are unaware that making money is not the same as creating life support.
Advertising–Creating Human Wants
Some of those making money, but creating no life support are engaged in selling products and services to satisfy human wants. Recall human wants are not human needs. Today’s great market the hallmark of neutral organization spends enormous amounts of money and effort in advertising to create human wants where none existed.
When you really need something, you do not require someone to inform you that you need it. If you need something, you will automatically go and look for it. Wants now are a very different case. I don’t know I want something until I see or hear an advertisement for it. It is estimated that $170 billion is spent annually on advertising to generate demand for products and services that we almost never need. And the entire cost of all advertising is added on to the price of the products and services we are being urged to buy. As David Shenk explains:
“In 1971 the average American was targeted by at least 560 daily advertising messages. Twenty years later, that number had risen sixfold, to 3,000 messages per day. More than 1,000 telemarketing companies employ 4 million Americans, and generate $650 billion in annual sales. Today’s commercial messages have crept into every nook and cranny of our lives–onto our jackets, ties, hats, shirts, and wristbands; onto bikes, benches, cars, trucks, even tennis nets; onto banners trailing behind planes, hanging above sporting and concert events and now, in smaller form, bordering Internet Web pages; onto the sides of blimps hovering in the sky. Magazine ads now communicate not only through color and text but also through smell and even sound.”
This barrage of 3000 messages a day is not to sell us any thing we need. We don’t need advertising to urge us to meet our human needs. We may benefit from a directory, i.e. the Yellow Pages of the telephone book, or a catalogue of available products, but we certainly don’t require a constant bombardment of messages telling us where to get out needs met.
The purpose of advertising is to make money, not to create life support. And it is very effective at making money by generating enormous demand for unneeded products and services to satisfy artificially created human wants.
Advertising injures humanity–Even, if we were somehow wise enough to ignore advertising and never purchased a single unneeded product or service, advertising would still be very damaging to the quality of our lives. It intrudes into every facet of modern life, wastes so much of our precious time, and disrupts the very fabric of our lives.
Imagine a world without advertising–Magazines, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Movies all without advertising. Take a few minutes to really imagine it. It would be wonderful.
Play money
Some of those making money, but creating no life support are speculating in currencies, commodities, and the stock and bond markets. Speculators buy low and sell high. They do not invest in anything. They are seeking to gain a momentary price advantage and realize a quick profit. Their only interest is making money. Today’s markets are such a large part of our political-economic world that most living humans assume they have always existed. This is of course not true as Hazel Henderson explains:
“Until the sixteenth century the notion of purely economic phenomena, isolated from the fabric of life, did not exist. Nor was there a national system of markets. That, too, is a relatively recent phenomena which originated in seventeenth century England.
“Of course markets have existed since the Stone Age, but they were based on barter, not cash, and so they were bound to be local. The motive of individual gain from economic activities was generally absent. The very idea of profit, let alone interest, was either inconceivable or banned.”
Day traders are new breed of speculator emerging in the current American stock market. These individuals are drawing a lot of attention by buying and selling stocks many times a day. They hold on to their purchases sometimes for only a few minutes to a few hours again seeking to buy low and sell high. Collectively, all these speculators are having a large effect on the global economy. Henderson explains:
“Regulators and central bankers were forced into collective action on a crisis basis after the 1994-95 Mexican peso crisis, since none could defend their currencies, even in concert. Central bankers’ policies are defeated each day by the collective action of currency traders staging “bear raids” on weak currencies at will. U.S. treasury Secretary Robert Tubinand and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan’s efforts to coordinate thirteen countries’ central banks to boost the dollar prior to the June 1995 Economic Summit meeting between the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, and Japan and later efforts gave only short-lived warning to currency traders–at a cost to their respective taxpayers of over $2 billion each. Increasingly, central banks will have to shift from managing domestic money supply to focusing on global aggregates. No longer is it only developing countries that are swamped by waves of hot money washing across their borders. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the total stock of financial assets traded in global capital markets will increase from $35 trillion in 1992 to $83 trillion in 2000.”
Speculators do not create life support. They are only making money. And all the money they make through this process is at the expense of life support created by someone else. Speculators do not really invest in anything. But what about the Stock Market? Surely, this is a place where real investment takes place in companies that are creating life support.
It depends of course on whether I invest in a company creating products and services that support life, or I invest in a company just making money by creating products and services to satisfy human wants. But let us suppose, I do invest in a company creating life support then surely my investment is contributing to the creation of life support.
How the Stock Market works
“It all starts when a company wants to raise money to invest in something they think will be profitable, such as a new manufacturing process, more production capacity, or a new product. The company can do this a number of ways, but the two most popular are to borrow the money or sell part of the company. Borrowing the money is usually done by issuing a “bond” which is a promise to repay the borrowed money with interest.
“The next most popular way for a company to get money is to sell “stock” in the company. This is essentially selling a bit of the company in return for a promise of getting a split of the profits when there are profits to split. Stocks are also called “equity” because the owner of the stock has equity, or part ownership, of the company.
“When a company is formed, or incorporated, it sets up a certain amount of stock, which is worth about as much as the paper it is printed on–stock in its infancy carries no real value outside of the company. When the original owner of the company needs to raise money, he has to find good natured people with money to burn and sell this stock person by person, one person at a time. A share of stock signifies the holder owns some fraction of the company and allows the owner to enjoy part of the profits of the company. The stock may have a “face value” given to it when the company was formed, but you couldn’t walk into a grocery store with $10 worth of this stock and buy a loaf of bread.
“As the company becomes even larger and needs to raise even more money (usually several hundred million dollars), the stock will be offered on the open market. This is when it gets interesting. An initial public offering is made of so many shares of stock at a predetermined price, say $15 a share. People who invest in the stock market usually read the Wall Street Journal looking for initial public offerings, or IPO’s. At the moment the stock is sold to a shareholder it is worth its selling price of $15 a share. Now, you could turn around and sell it for $15 dollars to someone else and then go buy a loaf of bread, if someone is willing to pay you $15 dollars for it. The stock has now gone from being held by a few owners of the company, who would have a hard time selling it, to being held by thousands of owners who could sell it more easily because it is now being traded at stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange or via the NASDAQ.
“Soon after trading hands a few time, the people buying the stock now determine the value of the stock by what they are willing to pay for it. Sometimes the price of a stock that sold for $15 a share at its initial public offering will drop like a rock. Other times, it will skyrocket. The value of the stock is set by many, many people trading it in a free market. And even though a person buying a share of stock may be a hundred times removed from the person originally buying the stock from the company at the IPO, that person still owns some teeny, tiny fraction of the company. I don’t know how they do it, but the company keeps track of all their stockholders, even if a person holds one share for a week.
“Sometimes the value of a share of stock is determined by crazes, such as the internet which tends to drive the price up quickly, but the price may also fall as quickly when the craze looses it “newness”. More often than not, the price of stock is set by how much profit the owner will receive, or dividend, and by the company’s current earnings and their prospects for future earnings. A company with little hope for the future will be frowned upon by the people wanting to buy their stock, and the buyer will not pay very much for it (its price usually doesn’t drop to $0 right away, as there are optimists and opportunist who will take a chance on disfavored stocks and will keep the price from falling to nothingness over night).
“It’s just like trading baseball cards. When stock is traded on the open market, the only reason it is worth so much is because there is someone out there willing to pay that much for it. No magic, no mystery.”
The stock market is really two different markets–the primary market for new shares and the secondary market for existing shares. The primary market is where companies offer new securities for sale to the public. When a company first joins the Stock Exchange their initial public offering is made offering new shares to the public. Also established companies listed on the Stock Exchange from time to time may issue additional new shares to raise additional money. It is this selling of new shares in this primary market that raises money for companies. Once the public has purchased these new shares, they are then free to turn around and trade these now existing shares as they like in the secondary market. The proceeds from such trades goes entirely to the shareholder. Sales of existing shares in the secondary market does not raise money for the companies.
Now the vast majority of stocks bought and sold every day are existing shares in this secondary market. Most investors are not seeking the small return that comes from dividends paid by the companies on the stocks they purchased, but rather hope that the market value of these shares will increase enough so that they will profit when they sell later. Again, we have a case of buying low and selling high–we are just making money rather than creating life support.
Buying and selling stock is almost completely divorced from the companies whose shares are purchased. The rise and fall of stock prices often have little or nothing to do with the real value or health of the companies themselves. The stock market has become like a global casino. Will I get lucky. Will I buy low and sell high. Will I make money. There is no thought of creating life support.
Crack dwelling
Some of those making money, but creating no life support are dwelling in the cracks between the creators of life support. These cracks have been created by our adversary-neutral government.
Crack dwellers include the service industry that surrounds the Stock Market. You are not allowed to purchase stocks or bonds directly. You require a stock broker to be sure that you pay a commission everytime a trade is made. Commissions are paid with every buy and every sell. The stock brokers are always winners regardless of whether the stocks go up or down. They make lots of money, but of course create no life support.
Government employees are fully supported by by tax dollars. The American government (federal, state, and local) consumed 44% of our national income in 1996. To the extent that government action does not help the people, and certainly in all instances where it hurts the people, this represents plunder–crack-dwellers. Our government wastes much of the national income it siezes in the name of the public good. As Hazel Henderson explains:
“As most U.S. citzens know, state and local governments in the United States are often the most corrupt, dominated by financial and corporate special interests. Local politicians almost routinely line their pockets, thanks to inside information on where airports, roads, and other projects are to be sited, allowing profits for politicians and their friends from real estate and construction deals.”
Accountants and attorneys spend many hours working in the cracks between the people and the government. They are living off the productivity of their clients–crack dwellers.
Before you buy a house a Title Search is legally required. Fees are charged for this service that is many times greater than its real value. Recall Fuller told us that the Banking industry collected over $1 billion in 1978 just for transferring home-ownership deeds–crack-dwellers.
The entire Real Estate Industry is based on government licensed Realtors getting into the cracks between the buyer and seller and “earning” 12% of the selling price of the house–crack-dwellers. Once a home is sold it must be financed and here again the banking industry charges “points” to originate the loan in addition to the prevailing interest of the moment–crack-dwellers.
Today’s health care system is full of crack-dwellers. Occupying the cracks between the providers and users of health care, some CEOs of today’s modern HMOs are “earning” as much as $400 million a year by denying needed health care to their members. As a practicing Physician, I now spend hours each week playing “may I help my patients” with clerks who know nothing of medicine but are instructed in blocking all requests for authorization–crack-dwellers.
Insurance clerks at some of our largest Health Insurance companies routinely throw away every third claim they receive on the basis that this practice will significantly delay payment, and if the insurance company is lucky as many as one third of providers will not rebill–crack-dwellers.
These are only a few examples. If you look around, you will discover that our adversary-neutral world makes cracks between every buyer and seller–between every producer and consumer. Today many modern humans are living in the cracks “earning their livings” off the productivity of others.
What’s so wrong with wanting things?
Human wanting will survive a synergic revolution. In a synergic culture we humans will also want things that we may not need. But our wants won’t be artificially generated just so someone else can make money.
This change will mean an end to unsolicited advertising. Some would argue that this would mean an end to free television, or cheap newspapers. I would argue that commercial television, and newspapers full of advertisements are neither free nor cheap. When we purchase any advertised product we are paying for our “free” televison and our “cheap” newspaper. And, this ignores all the time we waste being distracted by misdirected advertisements.
When humans have need for a product or service, they will take action to meet their needs. Clear and easily accessible information about all available products and services will be a part of synergic culture. However, advertising as we know it today will go the way of the dinosaur.
What’s wrong with just making money?
The money makers in today’s world are among the most respected and admired. The vast majority of humanity thinks there is nothing wrong with just making money since they are completely unaware of the difference between just making money and creating life support. Of course the difference is that making money is making neutral wealth, but it is not creating synergic wealth.
Those just making money are often the “winners” in the neutral-adversary reality of our modern world. But the price humanity pays for this minority to win is the necessity for the majority of living humans to lose. Those who just make money still need life support. They get it by trading their Neutral wealth–money for Synergic wealth–life support.
If as Fuller tells us 90% of Americans are just making money–Neutral wealth then only 10% of Americans are creating life support–Synergic wealth. No wonder the majority of humans are losing.
The truth is especially hard to believe if it requires that we take action–if it requires that we change. If humanity is to have a future, we must take action–we must change. If humanity is to have a future, we must believe the truth.
Solving the Fossil Fuel Energy Crisis
Now the above introduction brings us to the point of addressing our first problem that is The Fossil Fuel Crisis. Buckminster Fuller, writing in Critical Path published in 1981, explained:
“Scientifically faithful, synergetically integrated, time-energy, electrochemical process accounting shows that it costs energetic Universe more than a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum when the amount of energy as heat and pressure used for the length of time necessary to produce that gallon of petroleum is charged for at the New York Con Edison Company’s retail kilowatt-hour rates for that much electricity.
“About 90 percent of all U.S.A. employment is engaged in tasks producing no life-support wealth. These non-life-support-producing employees are spending three, four, and more gallons of gasoline daily to go to their nonwealth-producing jobs-ergo, we are completely wasting $3 trillion of cosmic wealth per day in the U.S.A.”
We could save trillions of dollars in real life support wealth by paying all those individuals engaged in tasks producing no life-support wealth to stay home and keep off the roads.
Should we pass a law?
NO! NO! NO!
It is a complete waste of time to expect big government and big business to help us. They are the problem. They are invested in a model of society that depends on separation and scarcity. Big government wants only to get re-elected and big business wants only to make a buck. Together they completely dominate our current political-economic system by their reality of one dollar = one vote.
They cannot solve our human crisis. They don’t have a clue. They can only make it worse.
It’s up to us. We can only rely on ourselves. We need individuals of integrity to join with us to build a new model of society that depends on co-Operation and abundance. And, by abundance I am referring to an abundance of integrity, intelligence and responsibility. Then we can begin restructuring our society in ways that will lead to a relative abundance of matter-energy even within the finite world we inhabit.
Modern society is currently ruled by a political-economic system that is controlled and determined only by money. One dollar = One vote.
The only votes that count in our modern human society are the dollar votes you exercise by buying or not buying products.
Products found in today’s market can be divided into three categories. These are synergic products, neutral products and adversary products.
1) There are synergic products. The use of these products makes the user more happy, more effective, and more productive than they would be without the use of the product. The product is good for the user. The user must win, but even more importantly, everyone else must win. I win, you win, others win, and the Earth wins. Synergic products are good for humanty.
Vote your dollars wisely by only buying those products that help humanity. Buy only synergic products.
Some products are conditionally synergic. They are beneficial only if and when used carefully and/or under the supervison of an expert. These are products that can help or hurt depending on the condition of their use. Examples would include prescription medications, power tools, heavy construction machinery and equipment, etc, etc.,etc..
For products, that have utility only if used carefully or under the supervision of an expert, vote your dollars wisely by making it a condition of purchase that those products be used carefully or under the supervison of an expert.
2) There are neutral products. The use of these products are without benefit or harm. The users of these products would be equally happy, equally effective, and equally productive without the use the product.
Scott Meridith writing on the Energy Research Group , an internet discussion group in March and April of 2001:
“For example, I’ve often observed that the entire global “soft drink” industry could and would be eliminated in any rational world, as this is a collossal waste of energy and resources, with only two outcomes:
– a brief and mildly pleasurable stupefaction of the senses
– tooth decay“So, is the energy involved in the soft drink industry doing “useful work” or not? From a rational point of view, obviously no. Completely and absolutely useless. Just rots your teeth. Now calculate how much energy it uses, in all aspects, and how many people it directly indirectly employs.”
A neutral product is one that has no effect on the happiness, effectiveness, and productivity of the user of the product. No one wins. No one loses. Neutral products are of no benefit for humanity.
Since these neutral products have no benefit, buying them is a complete waste of time, energy, and resources. So don’t buy neutral products.
3) There are adversary products. The use of these products are harmful. The users of adversary products are less happy, less effective and less productive than they would be without the use of the product. An adversary product is one that reduces the happiness, effectiveness, and productivity of the user of the product. The user loses, and even worse everyone else loses. I lose, you lose, others lose, and the Earth loses. Adversary products are bad for humanity.
Don’t buy adversary products.
CommUnity of Minds will co-Develop these Buy/Don’t Buy Lists following careful research and examination, followed by synergic decision making. We can bring the power of community as leverage to steer our society towards synergic products.
We strongly encourage our readers to use these lists as determining guidelines for all purchases.
Don’t Buy
Don’t buy those products that are bad for humanity. Don’t buy products that hurt people. Don’t buy products that damage the Earth. Don’t buy products that waste the Earth’s finite resources.
Conditionally Buy
Conditionally buy those products that when misused can be bad for humanity. Conditionally buy potentially dangerous products only when they are used undersupervision or very carefully to help people. These are products that sometimes help people, and sometimes hurt people. They need to be used carefully and/or only used under the direction of an expert.
Buy only the Dymaxion Three
Do buy those products that are good for humanity. Do buy products that help people. These are products that help people. These are products that don’t damage the Earth. These are product that don’t waste the Earth’s finite resources. You are encouraged to buy these products, but not all of these products. Buy only the best of these products. Buy only the Dymaxion Three. By limiting your buying to only the agreed on best of class, you are not buying less than the best. This shifts your voted dollars to those manufactures make the best products. It also shifts your voted dollars away from those manufacturers making the worst products. This will greatly reduce the waste of time, energy and resources now expended making mediocre products.
The Dymaxion Three is an evolving list of the best of class of those products on the Buy/Conditional Buy Lists. The three best products of each class will be listed. Inclusion in the list will be by consensus decision based on their achievement of dymaxion status.
Dymaxion means the product that offers the user the most for the least. It provides the greatest value for least expenditure of time, energy and resources — More for less.
Dymaxion is that design that gives the user the most value at the least cost. Factors of dymaxion worth include quality, ease of use, safety, durability, efficiency and elegance. If two products are otherwise equal, the one that is least expensive in time, energy and resources to create, operate and maintain is the more dymaxion. If two products are otherwise equal, the one that has the longest usable life is more dymaxion. Utilization of the dymaxion three will provide an enormous savings in time, energy and resources as efficiency is a strong determinant of dymaxion status.
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