economy User24 rant category: general, unfocused rage. -------------------------------- start rant: what is our modern economy run on? fuel? weapons? power in general? nah. what good would a trade economy be, if there was no-one to consume? the economy is run on us, the willingly exploited, isn't it wonderful? we can have anything we want, these days.. want to visit china? well, you can get a "visit china video" and experience it from the comfort of your own home. fancy watching a film? go rent or download it. no-one has experiences these days, we can do pretty much anything without any effort.. want to fly a 747? get MS flight sim! everything is for everyone, no limits, no boundaries, I can do anything I want from my chair, isn't that great! I don't need to put any effort into unproductive self improvement. There was a time when if you wanted to see an elephant, you would have to devote time and energy to it, then people wanted it to be more accessible, so they created zoos and now we have the discovery channel. It's funny, really, what seemed like a great idea has actually turned out pretty sickening. All this interconnectivity means we've got nothing to aim for any more, no limits, no boundaries... what a wonderful world. what a wonderful world. no reason to become productive, to give anything back, our lives are provided, even the people who try to kick back are burying themselves in the system. and it's hard to argue against, after all, isn't that what we wanted? There's no way to say no, even as recently as the 80's people were saying no, quite violently, how does one rebel against the perfect system? 030701 ... User24 the year is 2003, we've passed 1984 and 2001, some say with little change, but I disagree. The world is going through massive changes, too fast even to keep up with itself, wars start and end in weeks, government policies change in days, and the power of the consumer is expanding to an unimagineable level. Instead of having a local marketplace where competition is small, if existent at all, we have a global market - the small 'ethnic' shops that scrape a profit by solely on the fact that there's no shops like them for miles around are being replaced by a web full of competition. I used to buy my T Shirts from one of 3 shops in town, now I've just spend £14 on one from thinkgeek.com, where I have a wishlist totalling $147. The world is growing so fast we can't even keep up, people are already used to instant access - instead of having to wait until I can afford to buy music, I now download a song faster than I can listen to one, I can buy my T Shirt online in my lunchbreak, where before I would have to wait until Saturday, take a bus into town, browse for an hour and then maybe buy it. The places that were considered safe from net competition are falling; tesco.com allows you order your weekly grocery shop online, with same day delivery. Holidays, Car Hire, Events, Films, Gadgets and Gismos, all online. All the traditional restrictions simply no longer exist - opening hours are a thing of the past. In the time it's taken me to write this, I've looked a word up on dictionary.com, listened to 4 mp3s, checked the date and used the live rate currency convertor at xe.net. All without even moving my legs or breaking my line of thought. We used to think we lived in a fast world, where you could get to Australia in a week, telegram to London in a day, and telephone America for less than £30. What will we be doing 20 years from now? 030707 ... nomme interesting thoughts user24, thanks for sharing! check out the links below if you are interested http://www.kon.org/leadership/peace.html http://www.consultmcgregor.com/ - click on 'research papers' some of my mind swirlings for you all: like the way things are being run? i don't. where is the balance? the majority of the world's population work their bums off just to survive while an elite few enjoy the riches. you and I might have the luxury of using a home computer, but do you think that most people in the world have this opportunity? sure there are increasing numbers of netizens, but there is a great deal of people who are simply struggling not to die from war, starvation, and disease everyday. Did you know there is still human bondage in the world? likely even in your own country? why are people so willing to ignore such blatant disregard? i don't want to be a part of it all, but can i help it? i don't want to enjoy meals on the backs of others. shall i be your table? could we stand to flaunt our cola in front of those who are deprived of clean drinking water? why is it people want cheap food but think fancy fast cars should naturally be so much more expensive? do people think that the farmer worked any less harder than the car manufacturers? i tell you the family farm is dying and it is a shame. it started to hit big-time when they started introducing chemicals. biodiversity, agricultural diversity is shrinking, and i fear the corporate farm is on the rise. we are losing all sorts of varieties of plants and animals i haven't even heard of. the standard fruit/meat/product has to look a certain way to fit the customers accustomed sense of taste, and it has to meet determined yields and environmental stresses. all species must conform or be eliminated. we have become guinea pigs fed on what? why not go with a little more 'natural' variety? Do you stop to read labels? Do you have any idea how much junk is produced and consumed every year globally? worldwide there is a greater increase than ever in obesity and starvation . why is that? and why so much plastic? when i moved to the countryside i was shocked to find that stores closed early in my town, i kept going on about "why the hell don't they stay open 24 hours, geesh!" i thought everywhere had some 24 hour service 7 days a week kinda scene. now i'm glad they close at noon or 5 or 9 or whatever, and are closed on sundays, cause i'm glad to see the worker bees not being driven all night and day and weeklong. it really is unhealthy. ( there is something nice about when the shops close up and everyone is rushing home to their families or eating in cafés ). I can turn on a light no problemo, but when the power goes out, i have to rely on candles or start a fire, with the help of course of this little luxury called matches i can acquire with money. I can surf high-speed and check my email at 2:40 a.m., but i can't go to my local store and pick up groceries or books or rollies in the middle of the night. i have never 'bought' anything physical online, and i don't have credit cards. we don't have 911 and you can't just go ordering chinese or pizza whenever ya want to. but by being online, I am buying into something. 'buy relying' on manufactored goods and electricity I am participating. some people have never heard of electricity or email and can only imagine what pizza must taste like. I can ride in a car and go faster than i could possibly walk. I can hop on a plane and go anywhere. I can use money to obtain food and clothes and stuff, but money for me is something quite limited. so, when it runs out i go without or try to be creative. I don't think i have ever had more than $1000 cdn in my hands at any one time ( i am obviously not Rockefeller's daughter). But I am rich compared to a lot of people out there! I eat everyday! I am so grateful. a lot of people have never been in a car or flown in a plane or had three square meals a day. i can get bread from the store or i can take time and energy to make it myself. I can buy the flour, or i could grind it myself from the grain. I could buy the grain, or I could grow it myself or trade with someone who does grow. why everything instant? convenience? how convenient is it to work for hours and hours for some factory so that you can buy that bread? i know it is convient and practical for all of us that we have other people fulfilling certain roles in society (she's a doctor, he's a pilot, that's the waiter) so that the machine runs smoothly and we all get the desired results, services, products and pleasures .to be a good little cog. but why money? why can't we just do these things for one another and share the resources respectfully? haven't you ever just wished you could go into a store and walk out without paying? haven't you ever done or wanted to do something for someone without payment? No matter how much I try to avoid getting caught up in the system I am unavoidably trapped by the fact i was born into it. I don't want to support monster corporations but i do on a continual basis. handkerchief or paper serviette? Disposable diapers or cloth nappies? which would you prefer? The local marketplace is very much alive where I am, great food, live music, art, and I love it! but i still need to use money? yes and no! people trade too which is cool. In the past year I think I have shopped in less than five chain stores. but no matter how hard i might try, i am still buying into it all. i don't want a packaged processed world that destroys itself and then has to purge to purify. I want to see people happy and not forced into this monkey system slavery. i think money can be a divisive tool and is a symptom of societal imbalance. why must some have, and have more, while some have not? (sorry this is so damnably long and message boardish of me) ~peace~ 030707 ... nomme Addendum- was watching a show about the dawn of agriculture and the rise of civilization and it seemed so on parallel with what i was trying to say but (failed i think) to do so. i didn't mean to sound harsh and condescending. i think we are on the verge of something different. like the hunter gatherers who changed with agriculture came so many things. trade, economy arose. with the advent of currency, came writing; and thus the furtherance of communication, enabling us to grasp concepts like butterfly wings and to write theories upon them. evolution is a hapening event. what will become of us in this 'brave new world', how will life change, if agriculture as we know it dies? 030708 ... nomme happening, not hapening, oops! 030708 ... User24 nomme, I couldn't agree more; we live in an instant world that is killing everything that cannot be mass produced, if demand falls by 2% the production is stopped, and it's not like the consumer is in charge of demand anymore, ever tried round lettuce? it's cheaper than iceberg, but no-one buys it because no-one sells it to them (I only ever buy round lettuces because I read about a farm that was bought by a supermarket chain, convert over to pure production of round lettuces, and then a year later, it was decided that iceberg lettuces were better - the farm is now out of business) Join me in buying round lettuces! buy anything that's produced less than the others, and when it gets popular, switch back! make the market change faster than they can keep up! anyway.. back to the point.. you're right we cannot escape the capitalists, they make the adidas sports jackets and the Korn hoodies, they produce cases for Britney Spears' album, and Slayer's. Whatever we do, we're buying into the system, as I said before, how do you rebel against a system that envelopes everything - even the revolutionaries? I think we are on the verge of something, but it's just going to be a bigger, stronger version of what we've got now - a global market where all the wealth is not distributed, but held within companies. In the past, power has been held with treaties between countries, now it's sits in invisible contracts between companies. buy second hand clothes, cheap food, download music and films, mend your clothes, don't go to the cinema, go for a walk. rebel as much as you can, for as long you can. and make a statement, however much you feel it's tacky and cliché, you must let people know that however hidden, there is a movement against this system. 030708 ... User24 we are lucky to be living now, when the system is still young. 10 years time and it may have too firm a hold. 030708 ... nomme round lettuce! yummy now i want salad for breakiefast. buttercrunch, now that is something to write home about. funny though, i eat less iceburg than romaine or curly leafed, grand rapids types... i guess we got good choices at our markets! iceburg is usually more expensive than the butter/curly varieties here. if there is an organic food co-op in your area ppl, please look into it, i implore you....such yumminess! support your local farmer. support crop variety and sustainable uses of the land and and resources. organic isn't always more expensive,