The Financial Incentive Cripples Our Collective, Long Term Memory
Global Pandemics: Why The Next 3 Will Destroy Us
And Why Critical Research Fails To Find Funding Again And Again
Scientists and politicians have finally decided to sit down to talk about how we’ll evade the next pandemic. The only problem is that we’ve been here before and nothing has ever come from it.
This problem emerges from between two eternal truths:
1. Time heals all wounds.
2. Politicians don’t care about anything that doesn’t bring in a vote or two.
The financial motive almost requires that we fund preventative research only after the fact. If you don’t believe me, check for yourself. Humans are adept at the art of generational forgetfulness; especially if it’s well funded.
I want to make something very clear. Whether you’re a hardcore capitalist, socialist, or Marxist; as long as we live as separate beings who swindle, cheat, and throat-cut for an extra hundred in our paychecks, we will never escape this hole we are in.
“Okay smart guy,” you might find yourself saying, “if money doesn’t work, then why do we have super computers in our pockets, Space-X, and machines that can literally make super-human decisions?”
That’s a fair point … only it’s not.
Think of it this way: the amount of energy our earth receives from the sun is so astronomically and unfathomable large that it‘s easy for us to miss the fact that we could literally waste all but a fraction of a percentage and still be completely fine.
In fact — we do exactly that. I mean, when was the last time you made sure that all of the lights in your home were turned off if they weren’t being used? When was the last time you rode your bike instead of driving? When was the last time you took a “no technology” weekend vacation?
Chances are that it’s been a while.
I’m going to pull a little science out on you, but don’t worry, I’ll explain everything.
Here’s a quote from a previous post, ‘Money This, Money That’:
Entropy is a fact of the universe. You might be interested to hear that the three functions of money fly directly in the face of the laws of thermodynamics. All you have to do is consider the meaning of each of the three functions of money and compare them to the laws of thermodynamics.
For instance, ‘Medium of Exchange’; first of all, there is no “exchange” in nature. There never was and there never will be. Plus, what is being exchanged? Is it an equal and amicable exchange?
‘Unit of Account’ really has no bearing in that everything we measure has a unit of account. The problem is that this particular unit of account does not measure anything that is real or tangible. Currency’s unit of account is the measurement of an ethereal nothingness. Emotions, wants, and needs are the only things that actually give money value. The stock market has literally crashed before because people were scared. This is not a stable system — not by far.
‘Store of Value’ makes absolutely no sense when you consider that our dear mother nature never stores anything. Entropy always increases – period! No social agreement will ever change that. Think about it, this functions of money is to perform a task that is literally impossible according to thermodynamics.
So, you have to wonder how on earth this system is kept afloat. The answer is that our sun provides an incredible amount of energy. Enough to make a completely impossible system seem like it’s actually working.
It’s as if we had a magical source of endless energy – oh, wait … we kind of do. Unfortunately for us, we’ve become absolute masters at wasting it. One way we’ve decided to waste this endless supply of energy is to switch our perception of what value is from the endless magical stream of energy to slips of paper and entries in spreadsheets.
Suddenly, in situations where we need to tap into that endless source of energy (like, for example, maintaining a strong research focus on pandemic prevention), we fall short because what we’ve chosen to perceive as our source of energy fails to fulfill our needs.
This is exactly the situation we are in.
If not money, then what?
That’s a good question and that is exactly the topic of my research. While my research has only three years down and decades to go, I can tell you one thing; there are other ways to ensure everybody (and I do mean everybody) is safe, happy, autonomous, competent, socially accepted, and productive by providing each individual everything they need. When needs are fully met, wants become far less extravagant and wasteful.
My point is, as long as the profit incentive exists, we are endanger of falling short of our true capabilities and succumbing to greed, disease, and self deprecation.
Elon Musk worries about humanity being scrubbed from existence by the great filter. I worry that the great filter is the financial motive.