And the elite / ruling class continues to take from the poor to give to the rich.
But as long as they can keep us peons fighting each other, most won’t notice or care.
It’s bad because it’s impossible. It would destroy the planet if everyone consumed that much, then there would only be poor and starving. As it is, many suffer so some can have luxuries.
More on that Mississippi case:
As one text showed, Bryant explicitly mentioned some of those funds came from a federal program intended for needy families (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF) and that improper use of the funds is illegal…
At one point, Favre was seen asking “If you were to pay me, is there anyway the media can find out where it came from and how much?” in 2017.
That pursuit would allegedly see $5 million granted to build the volleyball arena for his alma mater and $1.1 million given personally to Favre to further assist the project. His daughter recently played volleyball for Southern Miss.
Striving for wealth is not the same as mindless consumption.
We have seen that the 1 % richest cause 50 % of pollution.
Annual average production of Co2 per inhabitant, per country is 4, 37 t and this level is too high. In fact it roughly should be half that.
The 10 % richest people own 83 % of the world wealth and 1% of the people own 50 % of this wealth.
[Liste des pays par émissions de dioxyde de carbone liées à l'énergie — Wikipédia]
[Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia]
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If we want that the inhabitants of the poor countries, not be rich, but live decently, rich people and inhabitants of the rich countries must diminish drastically their level of consumption.
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In fact the question is not only question of wealth sharing and social equality but of survival for our civilisation.
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I don’t see how that can be achieved.
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Is Humanity as a whole mad ? drugged ?
More wealth could be created if what we have now was used to educate more people and improve health generally. But we aren’t doing that. We are making stuff that ends up floating in the ocean.
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Maybe not, but striving for wealth is a form of greed, just as mindless consumption is. They are both forms of greed.
Greed isn’t always a bad thing in my opinion. Obviously, we don’t all have the same morality.
“If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes.”
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Greed is always bad, but as you say, we don’t have the same moral values. Still that doesn’t mean your idea of greed being a good thing doesn’t mean that it is a good, because it is not. Too bad scientists don’t study greed in humans like they do with monkies.
In game theory, the selfish move can sometimes be the best one. If you always sacrifice yourself, people will take advantage of you. In the long run, you have to figure out who you can trust, who will treat you fairly, give as well as take.
I found this article about some research on greed.
Greed really is good, as are income inequality, bullying across class lines and even the iron fist of the political strongman—in certain contexts, at least. That’s the conclusion of a new study from the University of Oxford, just published in Nature Communications. Using mathematical models of human social groups, the researchers found that when communities are hierarchically structured—meaning that there is a potential for high inequality too—the individuals at the top tend to make more of an effort in the interests of the group than those at the bottom, including competing with outside groups and facing potential danger in the process.
Do you observe this happening now? Where?
It’s a study of monkeys. Monkeys don’t build mansions or yachts and don’t enslave each other. They don’t withhold health care or have police with riot gear. There is a minimal amount of inequality they can create.
I take the article with a grain of salt. Now if it came from the APA, it maybe worth reading in depth, instead of skimming through it.
Yes, it always happens in politics. The problem is with huge, diverse societies like America not everybody feels like part of “the group”.
It says they studied humans and compared the data with studies on monkeys.
Agreed. We should only acknowledge studies that support our notions.
Sarcasm and irony in one post. Nice
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Ok I have read the paper.
The study is about primates behavior, humans included.
The conclusion is more balanced that the title: "Here’s not a thing wrong with the rich and powerful, provided that they remember what wealth and power are for. Blue-tailed monkeys and lemurs do—so how hard can it be? "
Matter is that wealthy have forgotten for a long time that wealth and power imply responsibility to the whole !
We have evoked other where the effects of the rich on environment, for instance. And the concentration of wealth is so strong that, at this level, other people are deprived of the essential.
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That’s not what I’m saying. The APA is the American Psychological Association. Their articles are scientific studies, not some Time magazine’s summary of it.
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I didn’t know it was a problem from media to summarize scientific studies.