Ranting: Enough Is Enough

This is related to a short write-up that I did on "greed" a while ago in economy class, mainly to re-examine the idea of greed and the question of "how much is enough". I find the idea of greed a bit paradoxical (sp?) now and have been trying to work it out because greed, I realized is the cause of both progression and retrogression of humanity.

Now, I asked myself, how, exactly does that work out?

Our arboreal ancestors were greedy, they wanted more food, better chances of survival, and so put their primate brains together and thought something up. I imagine standing up is a good invention because it made the erect animal look much bigger than it does wen it's hunched down, and thus can scare away a few preditors. Same with fire, I suppose. Up with the survival rate.

Nowadays though, we're greedy in almost the same way, for slightly different things. We want things cheaper, why? So we can afford more of them. We want things fast, why? So we can spend more time consuming other goods and services. But it is these greed that drives our advancements in technology. What the consumer wants, the producers deliver in a competitive market (notice the the omission of the word "perfectly"), and what the consumer wants that a profit-earnign producer can't yet produce, the producer will want to set aside a portion of its profits for research, to produce that wanted-and-not-yet-available good. They know there's a market out there, and they intend to reach it. Why? Profit. Why? More money. Why? So they, in turn, can spend more and consume more. It goes in a nice spiral. One has to admire the symmetry of it.

However, it's also greed that causes the setbacks in human progression. Here I will insert double volume of my opinion, stand warned.

War is a waste of time and resources. Despite of what other people say, war still originate because there are some people out there who want what they can't currently have. They're greedy, they want what they can't have, they fight. We have war. Greed is also the source (or should I say "a source") of depravity in humanity. Corruption and illegal markets are all ways for the few extra-greedy individuals to earn more. Again, follow the same logic: more earning = more money = higher consumption.

An interesting idea to consider is, while greed is providing the incentives for progression, the same greed is undercutting the incentives for progression by retrogression. Think rent-seeking behavior: the companies earning a profit will want to lobby the congress to keep making a profit. Had all of the resources been employed for developmental research, I'm sure our technology would be increasing faster than they are now.

In the end? I have reached a somewhat disturbing conclusion in the forms of a few statements. 1. Greed (some call it the "urge", don't ask me why) is hard-wired into the brain, meaning that it's here to stay. 2. Therefore the current trend will, in all likelihood, continue. 3. Therefore, what we will see is a continued advancement of technology and a a continued decrease of morality.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institute of the universe.

-Johann von Goethe