The Twin Blights of This World, or: Why Earth Sucks

This world has more than enough natural resources and intelligent minds to figure out how to use them. Yet it has disease, poverty, starvation, stagnation and ignorance. Why? Why the fuck does it have these horrible things? There is no material reason for it.

The reasons why distill down to:

1. people who don't want to do anything about it
2. people who can't do anything about it.

And I'm not talking about "apathy" or "powerlessness". I'm talking about evil and stupidity.

Evil

I'm talking about people like Eliezer Yudkowsky who only care about themselves, only about their own wants and needs. Though he may put up a convincing pretense otherwise, Yudkowsky would never consider punishing the members of his cult until they stop worshiping him mindlessly and start thinking for themselves.

I'm talking about people like William Gates III and Warren Buffet who care only about acquiring "tokens of economic exchange". Though they may put up a convincing pretense otherwise. William Gates III would never consider abolishing copyright law or advocating against aristocrat-controlled social services (so-called "private charities"). And Warren Buffet would never consider abolishing stock market speculation or abolishing public corporations.

I'm talking about people like Barack Obama and Al Gore who care only about domination and power. Though they may put up a convincing pretense otherwise. Barack Obama would never consider dismantling the US Congress and calling for a new Constitutional Convention. And Al Gore would never consider standing up for the truth and nothing but the truth, no matter what.

I'm talking about people like Steve Jobs and David Brin who care only about looking good. Though they may put up a convincing pretense otherwise. They would never consider doing anything that looked bad or reflected badly on them just to help the world.

Not a single one of them would ever consider abolishing or reforming the complex social systems they're exploiting ruthlessly in order to advance their own positions. Even though those systems are directly responsible for all the disease, starvation, poverty, stagnation and ignorance in this world. 

Why? Because they are evil! They care only about themselves. They're willing to mortgage all of humanity, all of civilization, the whole fucking planet even, for their own benefit! And that's why they're liabilities to, and can never be considered allies by, any intelligent well-meaning person.

Stupidity

I'm talking about the bloggers and letter writers and advocates who earnestly believe that "educating" and "informing" people will "change people's minds". Here's news for you: other people are just as stupid as you are and aren't going to believe anything you say unless it suits them. And even if it suits them, they're going to do fuck-all with this knowledge. Because knowledge doesn't change ingrained habits or values.

I'm talking about the protesters and activists who earnestly believe that "participating" in some ridiculous street theater to be gawked at by bystanders and laughed at by the media is going to change fuck-all about our social and political systems' behaviours. Here's news for you: the thing that killed the trade talks on property speculation and intellectual property was because China was dead set against it. It was going to happen anyways so just like the gay rights protesters, you accomplished nothing!

I'm talking about reformers who earnestly believe they can change the actions of a social system "from within". Here's news for you: social systems don't change their behaviours by absorbing new elements within themselves. For a system to change its behaviour just from assigning a new person to a predefined role inside it, the person so assigned has to be substantially different from the next most similar person from the entire pool of candidates for the given role. And the only way that's even remotely statistically possible is if you're the sole inheritor of a company. That's why it is logically and statistically impossible for you to ever change any large system by joining it. Why? Because dumbass, for all that you think you're a perfectly unique snowflake, you're really just like everyone else.

I'm talking about the ordinary people who earnestly believe that nothing that happens out in the wider world will ever affect their life. Here's news for you: if you're 40 years old then your generation had 20 years to industrialize China and India, and to modernize Russia and the USA. That's 20 years of educating people and making them wealthy enough to have leisure time. That's 20 years they could have been contributing to the scientific advance of humanity.

Because if you'd done that, then our planet would have been advancing scientifically and technologically at anywhere from two times to ten times as fast over a 50 year period (20 in the past, 30 in the future). And that 50 year period of super-accelerated scientific and technological advance would have almost certainly been enough to discover immortality within your lifetime. Immortality which you will now fail to have. Have you gotten the picture? The only reason you will die is because you were stupid enough to tell all the people who could help you to go fuck themselves! How's that for affecting your life?

Making This World NOT Suck

The fate of this world crucially depends on people smart enough to create new systems and altruistic enough to care only about civilization. Not about themselves, not about their stature, not about power, not about money, not about making a point, not about winning an argument, not about persuading others, and certainly not about looking good.

And while I'm at it, I'll note that mean is not evil, and nice is not good! Anyone primarily concerned with being nice is disqualified. There's a reason I don't respect people who whine that I'm a mean fucking bastard, and that reason is I automatically see these people as either stupid or evil. As if there weren't much higher priorities than making nice with idiots. As if it weren't sometimes necessary to castrate some lying egotistical scumbag actively working to destroy humanity.

The final criterion, as if there weren't enough criteria already, is that you have to know what the end result will look like. Because if you don't then you can never recognize "done". So for someone to make the Earth not suck, they will first have to know exactly what "not suck" looks like. Good fucking luck.

I don't know what to say beyond that. I don't want to say "the world is doomed, it's going to suck forever" because that's a lie. Nor do I want to say "you too can help this world by being less stupid and evil" because let's face it, you are stupid and evil. I've spent enough of my life interacting with you all to know this for a fact. Not that I ever needed to since look at this world! Yeah, and the very last thing I want to say is "don't worry your little head, I've got the problem in hand". Because guess what? You made this world a hellhole, you don't get off the hook. I will see you squirm!

No wait, I do know what to say. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY. Because I don't want you to follow me and you're incapable of leading on this (if anything at all) so at least don't make it any worse for me.

And also, I've been saying "this world" because this world isn't my world. My world is what I'll make of ... this.