Cain’s Legacy

Cain’s Legacy (or why mankind has a dubious future at best)

The source of this image is unknown to me. But the genius of the artist shouts out a truth that cannot be ignored.

“Power goes to those most willing to be and do the most heinous things to their fellow man. If you are without shame, without conscience, without moral compass, you can rise to the peak of ‘human’ achievement, such as it is, and take your place as a leader among men, a monster above those not willing to stare into the abyss that has already consumed you. This is Cain’s Legacy.”

Let me say that again for you in relationship to the modern world.

POWER, the ability to:

• alter society at large, literally change the world through the exercise of their economic, political or social resources,
• manipulate our environment and create catastrophic events beyond our ability to foresee the consequences of
• make decisions which affect the nature of the world at large,
• for good or ill, affect the lives of billions is now part of the human experience and relegated to an elite few. As few as 400 people control bulk of the world’s wealth
• be unconcerned for the consequences of said exercises of power. To be above any legal, social or economic responsibility for the exercise of that power.

This elite few:

• who instead of considering the conservation of nature for the greatest number
• fail to realize that they are now responsible for the entire human species.
• They fail to realize any decision or lack thereof can conceivably doom us all.
• in their current role as masters of resources, wealth and social control,  prefer to drain the Earth of its resources, harvest natural bounties and exploit the labors of those not fortunate enough to be born into wealth.
• promote the meme of meritocracy knowing they do not personally subscribe to it. There is no merit that helps you rise to the top, only the ruthlessness necessary to say and do anything to anyone.

But this is not entirely their fault. (What?) Bear with me a moment.

There is no training for becoming powerful. (Not an excuse, just an observation)

There is no class for directing the flow of wealth at the scales it is done today. All of the kings of old, their wealth, power and influence pales in comparison to that being wielded by our new corporate kings and their economic fiefdoms. Science and human nature are still learning about how compassion, humanity, and empathy are affected by our environment, our upbringing, our training, our use or lack of use of drugs which alter our mental chemistry.

WE HAVE NO COURSEWORK ON HOW TO BE HUMAN.  How to be good to each other, how to see each other as viable no matter our origins. We promote competition literally until death can be the only result.

WAR IS COMPETITION’S ULTIMATE STATE. When two groups cannot come to an agreement beneficial to both, if the groups are large enough, entrenched enough, then WAR is the result. We fight until we destroy the opposition, even if their perspective may bear more than a kernel of truth.

This is Cain’s Legacy. We kill our brothers rather than find commonality with them.

This innate blindness, this acculturated inhumanity to each other does not have to be our only path to the future.

What if we spent as much on peace and education as we did on war? 

• Could we not make the same profits? (I think so. And then some.)
• Could we not improve our quality of life? (Most assuredly and for more than just an elite few.)
• Could we not find cures for dementia, cancer, AIDS? (It would be nice; we haven’t cured anything since polio…)
• Could we effectively address the recursive problem of employment where automation removes jobs faster than we can make new ones?
• If we were better educated, could we stop depending on superstition to make decisions about our bodies, our lives and the disposition of the world’s resources?
• Could we finally address the most important issue in our human history, our burgeoning population that continues to explode without a means of dealing with the need for resources to maintain those new numbers?

There are more and more problems every year but we continue to spend money on the same things that keep us in the exact same place we are now; ignorant, arrogant, petulant and recalcitrant.

The same way we learned to use power and influence to manipulate the world, we could instead harness empathy and realize for us to make the world better, it will require the best EVERY PERSON CAN BE, the best every person can find within themselves, to selflessly discover new solutions to old problems.

We will need to come to the conclusion at every life, no matter how humble has the same potential as the greatest king, sitting anywhere in the world. Because until we do that, everything we do only delays the inevitable extinction of mankind. You don’t believe me.

You think I engage in hyperbole? I think not. I present exhibit 1 below, your honor. Watch the video below from beginning to end and ask me again when it is done whether I exaggerate. Realize everything you see here is happening all over the world. NO PLACE IS EXEMPT.

VICE AND VIRTUES

Watching an episode of VICE this week reminded me just how out of order our world is and how many people die every day without an understanding of a world beyond the one they are confined and limited to seeing.

Murder is a tool, hopelessness and fear, merely lieutenants in a war for the souls of men in a battle to manipulate, exploit, and control resources, in pursuit of wealth in a fruitless attempt to forestall death and personal suffering.

IT IS MADNESS to forfeit the future for the present.

IT IS MADNESS to use your children as explosives in a war that no one can win.

IT IS MADNESS to plow the forest into the ground and call it progress.

IT IS MADNESS to trap and slaughter billions of animals in conditions which breed diseases that escape into our environment and kill us and call it agriculture.

IT IS MADNESS to use oil and coal and radioactive materials whose potential consequences will be responsible for the deaths of billions when we have other choices.

IT IS MADNESS to subsidize technologies like hydraulic fracturing which use the world’s most precious resource, fresh water, to subsidize further mega-corporate wealth.

IT IS MADNESS to indenture children in diploma mills and having them toil for low pay while executives pass by them homeless in the streets at the end of the day.

IT IS MADNESS to make a government that can be bought by lobbyists who in their zeal to deregulate their industry fail to note the lack of safeguards when they do.

IT IS MADNESS to say we can’t cut military spending when there are no wars, except when YOU make them…

IT IS MADNESS to deny healthcare to millions when the politicians denying them have the very best healthcare in the world, at no cost to them.

IT IS MADNESS to deny the benefits of natural drugs like marijuana, while allowing pharmaceutical companies the option to avoid being responsible if their drugs kill people.

IT IS MADNESS to spy on your populace, tell them you aren’t spying and then punish anyone who proves the lies you have told as the lies that they are.

IT IS MADNESS to teach your people to be proud of their ignorance, to misinform them under the guise of news and use religion as a means of retarding intelligent discourse about anything.

IT IS MADNESS to create false divisions between people under the guise of race, religion, creed and to make them appear to be significant enough to kill each other over.

IT IS MADNESS to wage war, economic, social, religious, cultural or political when people starve in your streets for want of leadership and vision.

IT IS MADNESS to base your society on a mantra like “Greed is Good.”

IT IS MADNESS to mortgage the future to live well in the present.

IT IS MADNESS to fear the future enough to kill the present.

IT IS MADNESS to believe fear can ever lead to love.

IT IS MADNESS to believe lies can ever lead to truth.

SHEER MADNESS.

VICE on HBO: Episode 1 – Killer Kids