Against Better, For Worse

Is the average person better or worse than earlier?

Obviously this is a loaded question and very complex, as it has to factor in a massive amount of information, which is largely subjective in terms of good and bad, as well as make assumptions as to what is worthy of better and worse. There is likely no objective answer to the question, but I still think it is worth considering, because it is the average person we have to rely on.

For instance, supposedly we are getting smarter by three IQ points every decade, but that is a standardized test (with questionable accuracy), which means that it doesn't give an advantage. But it would be interesting to see that change across populations to see if it is a standard increase, or if some regions, or groups, that isn't happening.

We are innovating and developing more technology, however it really is and may always have been, only a small percentage of us that are contributing creatively to this. For the majority, we are workers, doing the bidding of a corporate directive, helping a small fraction of society increase their wealth over others. So, since this is a world dictated by economic activity, wealth distribution might be a good indicator of whether we are better than earlier.

Economically better?

Let's look at the US and who is living the American Dream.

So, in about 35 years, the top 1% has increased their total ownership from 30% up to about 38%, while the next 9% are relatively static at around 38%, but the bottom 90% (funny how the considered "bottom" is nearly everyone), has fallen from 33% all the way down to 24%. Let's visualize what that means using 100 people and 100 dollars to represent total wealth.

1 person has $38
9 people have $4.22 each
90 people have $0.26 each

Now, this is using the totals for each bracket averaged over the group, but in reality, the difference between the top and the bottom of the one percent, is far greater than the difference between the bottom of the one percent and the bottom.

We can look at this if we use 1000 people and 1000 dollars.

10 people have $38 each
90 people have $4.22 each
900 people have $0.26 each

But the top 1% looks more like this:

1 person has $250
2 people have $40
3 people have $10
4 people have $5

They are all wealthier than the next 9%, but there is a massive difference of 50x between top and bottom. At least from a distribution of wealth (resources) standpoint, we are not better. And, this is at least partially caused by what was mentioned above, where we are working for others, but sharing in less of the rewards. The optimization of business hasn't been spread evenly through to the workers, because it is designed to benefit the owners, which means that by design, the wealth gap will continue to widen.

Are we physically better?

This is a hard metric to measure, because there is a lot of variation in what is physically better, as well as variation in the way we calculate it and, our ability to identify issues. For instance, it could be that a particular illness has increased in prevalence, but that is because our testing has improved. It can also be that what we value in health conditions has changed. So, risking the wrath of @bozz, I am going to look at it from the standpoint of obesity in the US.

Note: All of those bars indicate obese people.

The dark blue bars are severe obesity. So, while obesity has over tripled in the US over the last 60 years, severe obesity has hockey-sticked, and gone 900%.

Them gainz.

At the same time, we have better hygiene and healthcare, far more knowledge on health factors and how to affect them, more access to reliable food sources and access to any information we might want at our fingertips. Yet, the average American (70%) is overweight, with almost half in total considered obese. That is not the sign of being physically better, even though social media is filled with "fitspo" influencers with sixpack abs and thigh gaps.

Against Better, For Worse

While there are many factors in play to what makes us better or worse off than the past, I see that one of the core reasons is that we are less capable and take less responsibility for ourselves. Once upon a time, in order to survive in this world, we had to work and we had to build ownership in some way, otherwise we were left completely out of society. We built our own houses, we traded with neighbors, we ran our own businesses, we worked as family units, we spent leisure time improving our abilities.

Now though, as we become more disconnected and "independent" from each other, we have actually become more reliant on corporations to provide for us, to offer what we used to do ourselves, or have someone in our family or community help us with for some kind of trade. These are the same corporations that maximize their gains, to offer the highest ROI to the owners, increasing wealth gaps and decreasing distribution of wealth. And, since "money is power" in the economy by design, the power of legislation lays i the hands of the few.

Vote For Me...mes

And this is part of the reason why governments are never going to be in the best interest of the masses, because it is being influenced by two fundamental components of the system. The first is the obvious one, where the "rich get richer" and therefore have more influence over the direction of things like legislation. This means that those in power, are those who get to choose where wealth flows and inevitably, more of it is going to flow to the areas that increase those ROI numbers for owners, because that is the mechanism used.

But, the other reason is that the masses who "vote" are average people, and average people (using US to illustrate) are those who are likely in the bottom 90% of the economy, controlling a total of 24% of the wealth. If money is power, they have little. Not only that, the average person is also physically obese (standing in for unhealthy), which means they are likely reliant on various services, or are struggling.

You know what happens when we are both economically struggling and physically struggling? They are also likely to be emotionally struggling too, as there are multiple stresses, little chance for respite and life is a constant battle. Under stress, do we make good decisions?

From an economic standpoint, even if the entire 90% were able to unite and combine forces for a solid direction, the wealth is dwarfed by the other 10%. However, that isn't going to happen anyway, because it is within that 90% that most division lays, where people are emotionally supercharged at trivial ideas, like the color of skin, or where someone is from.

Meme
/miːm/
an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.

Socialized productization

Culture is propagated in the masses, but it isn't necessarily seeded by the masses. It is often like how the British royal family would do silly things like lift their finger whilst drinking tea, to see how long it took for their servants to pass it through to become popular culture. Now, the royals are the corporations, who are taking the profits from the spread of their ideas, their products.

And, politics is another form of productization, and has nothing to do with human advancement of wellbeing. It is about controlling the flow of resources to maximize the growth of what the controllers hold. Voting in a new president and changing parties, does nothing, especially because we are conditioned to vote for personalities, not ideas and practical changes. Not that we could make good decisions in those areas anyway, since we can't even make the right decisions on average to take care of our personal finances, and our own health.

While me might like to think that we are capable, I think that due to our cultural and personal habits that make us renters of our lives, not owners of our lives, we are not in the condition to make the changes necessary. Because of this, we keep clinging to a fantasy that if we come together and vote for the right person or party, things will change.

They will not.

The only way to change things isn't through resetting the system, it is by demolishing the system and rebuilding something entirely different all together. A system that doesn't maximize profit for the few, but one that maximizes wellbeing for the many. The current economic practices do not do this at all, and the longer they are operating, the more out of balance and sync the global economy and community becomes, which leads to large-scale disruption across everything that matters to us.

We don't own anything. We don't make anything. We don't apply anything.
Yet, we all believe we are qualified to say who and what is better and worse.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]