Change Everything

Our mistakes are fundamental and so it’s essential that we change everything. Quickly. This essay may become the script for a video…

Photo by Brad Starkey on Unsplash

Everywhere, people work too much, and live too little. Worse still, together we are destroying the habitability of the planet.

We need to fix this.

People are serving economic and political systems. We need systems that serve us.

As humans, we have short limited lives. We live fewer than a dozen decades, usually much fewer. When we work producing useless crap — and that’s what we waste most of our lives doing — we are throwing away big chunks of our lives.

Furthermore, this limitless commitment to ever-increasing production has brought our biosphere to the brink of collapse.

It is urgent that we slash work and production as sharply and quickly as possible. We need less stuff and more life.

We are told this is impossible. But it is continuing on our current path that is impossible. What we are doing now is speeding us to climate collapse and the end of civilization on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

I don’t believe this is necessary or wise. I think our leaders, many of whom understand climate science, are functionally insane.

How else would you describe a person who knowingly chooses to destroy the planet he lives on — along with everyone he loves?

This is a plea for sanity. We must face the terrible situation we have created. We must end the destruction of lives and of the planet. We must begin healing.

And we must begin in earnest NOW.

We need to produce healthy food and medicine and housing for every person on Earth. And nearly all other production must stop.

Our reduced work — with 80–90% of current senseless work eliminated — will leave us time to live. To be human beings and not merely human resources to be exploited by some ridiculous “elites.”

Yes, we will do some work. It will be minimal and it won’t be paid. We will be producing what human beings need to live because we care about human beings.

In fact, that‘s what we all care about — except for a handful of psychopaths. How much money would you take to snuff out the lives of your loved ones?

The question itself is monumentally insulting. You would never sell the lives of your loved ones. Nor would you choose to sell your own life.

Yet we accept systems that require us to do just that. Our lives are nothing but our time. And our time is owned by our employers and our creditors.

We don’t own things. Things and certain people own us. Not only is this morally wrong; it is also fatally wrong.

As a civilization, we are suicidal and we must change now or die. That is the choice.

This requires noncooperation. We must refuse to do stupid work. We must produce and share what human beings need — and not mountains of extra crap.

Dictators were removed without violence by The People of Romania, The Philippines, Egypt, Tunisia, Serbia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and many, many other countries. Americans are equally capable of removing despots and we have begun with the No Kings movement.

We must finish that work and then replace the failed plutocracy with the humane community-focused system we need — one that serves the needs of the people and our planet.

This is the way forward.

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