THE UPSIDE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN

Across the globe, chaos is unfolding at unprecedented levels. Every day, a new country goes down, a new scandal unfolds, and yesterdays’ are forgotten. It’s so hard to keep up! I am aware that people are suffering, and things are bad and getting worse in a lot of places on this planet, so please don’t jump to your pitchforks and torches when I, quite sheepishly, say…

Maybe this is a good thing?

Yep, sorry to say folks, but this level of absolute, complete and total breakdown is our only chance at this point… the faster and more wide-spread the better. We’ve proven, as a species, that we’re not going to respond to minor, isolated incidents and uprisings (You know – little things like destroying entire oceans, mass global revolts and revolutions, epic natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns and the like). We’ll continue, apparently, to pretend nothing major needs to change. Just print some more money, bail out some banks and all will be well in the world.

We’re conditioned now to pick up a paper and go ‘hmmm, look at that, Spain collapsed today, that sucks for them,’ as if this is an acceptable and reasonable scenario. And while the perpetrators fix the very rates that ensure their wealth, while stuffing trillions into offshore accounts, I say… fine. Let them. Speed it up. Bring on more. The bigger, and more flagrantly damaging to us all, the better.

Because the only remedy for what ails this species is a complete discarding of currency and economics as it currently ‘operates.’ Personally, I always embrace the theory that you can’t have a renaissance without the dark ages. Which brings up one more consistent, routine human behavior that should be momentarily illuminated.

What is the one time that human beings set aside currency and economics and do the right thing? What makes them behave morally and decently, en mass? What is the one, single thing that has proven will make humans stop the childish, selfish behavior this monetary paradigm demands and promotes?

Disaster.

In the wake of disaster, for a brief period of time, people do the right thing. They stop for a minute and forget about costs, budgets, stocks, rates and profits. They pause, for just a second, and ignore bail-outs, bankers, politicians and that guy in the office next to you with the annoying tie that totally doesn’t match his socks. For just a small period of time, they get together and do good things… because they’re good things to do. All the bullshit melts away, and it’s clear as can be that none of that other nonsense matters, what matters is helping out people in need. What matters is behaving morally and decently.

Forget about the cost, just get these people food, medicine, shelter and re-unite them with family and friends. Re-build. Share. Care. Basic stuff. Volunteers clamber to help. Cheque books open, wallets pour out, millionaires work for free to help out some people who just need some help.

Well guess what. We all need some help. Food, medicine, shelter. Billions of people need some basic things. Economically, globally, it’s a disaster, and getting worse. On a massive scale, we need to behave like we always do during a disaster. Time to put aside all of that meaningless crap that we have given value to that has none and listen to that engrained decency buried in all of us. That real, genuine part of you that knows unequivocally what is needed. You know what’s wrong. You know what’s good and what’s just plain shitty about this world. We all do.

And it won’t happen because of a rallying cry, it will happen because it’s a disaster, and we’ve got no other choice. We’re still trying to dice things up into hundreds of individual disasters, but the reality many are realizing is that this is one, big, all-encompassing, human disaster. In the wake of this realization, we will have to get rid of the corrupt banks, the ruthless corporate greed, the smarmy, rhetoric spouting politicians.

Not even violently. We’ll just ignore them. Just phase them out. In the momentary clarity of disaster we’ll stop pretending any of this makes any sense. We’ll start to talk to each other, find out we all feel basically the same way. We all knew it was false and immoral and wrong all along. We’ll stop fighting with our co-workers and friends and family because we’ll know what we’re really angry about. Deep down.

Once this disaster hits full force, things are going to start disappearing. And it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of stupid, primitive crap we still give fake, assigned value to that has none.

The Fashion Industry

Jewelry

The Stock Market

Gossip Columnists

Political Punditry

Night Clubs

But it’s okay! These things need to die off. This is a good thing! These things need to be phased out. And they need to be replaced.

“Well that’s all fine and good Mr. Writer Man but what will we care about instead!?”

And here’s where I think I’ve got a decent thought… SCIENCE! Holy crap, if you want to find a little ray of sunshine in these crazy times, have you seen what science has been up to lately? With barely any support at all, science is landing rovers on Mars, creating synthetic molecules and uncovering gigantic mysteries of our past. They’re working on eradicating diseases, they’re out selflessly trying to warn us about upcoming problems and find viable solutions to them, studying ecosystems, gathering data, publishing findings. Well shit, it’s almost as if those crazy people are doing it just for the fun of it! It’s almost as if just the sheer advancement of human knowledge and understanding is motivation enough for them. Surely they aren’t in it for the money and the fame. Your nearest gated community is much more likely chock full of CEO’s, investment bankers, traders and real estate moguls than it is scientists.

What if those minds were applied sociologically? What if we freed them from the shackles of currency and allowed their own existing systems of logic, examination and co-operation to take over? What if the currency of the future was information and advancement of our systems of life? What if the richest man in the world was the guy who solved the biggest problems and improved society? Imagine that! Holy shit folks, we live in what could so easily be the greatest time to be alive on this planet. Why does it have to be so doom and gloom? Why is collapse and war and poverty the only outcome? Am I seriously the only one who takes a look at science and sees what truly matters? Isn’t that the answer?

It’s an economic disaster, worldwide, no doubt about it. Can’t we all get together and put aside the stuff that doesn’t matter and focus on what does? The advancement of human knowledge and understanding… isn’t that motivation enough? It could be. It’s enough for me. I’d happily shed my allegiances to country, to salary to social status if I could get up in the morning and know I was actually working towards the future! Working towards a sustainable, socio-economic model guided by scientific principles, tangible results instead of greed and oppression for the social advancement of a few gambling addicts.

Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t all of us really?

Isn’t that what’s eating away at all of us in the end?

The knowledge that we could be doing so much more, so much better, and yet we’re still playing this same old game with the same old rules we know for a fact don’t apply to us anymore. The knowledge that the majority of the things we do for money have no real, tangible benefits and completely fail to accomplish something meaningful. That our ‘leaders’ do not remotely speak the same language as us nor share our goals or desires.

Do you want to go to war with China or go to the moons of Jupiter?

Is there a single human being who answered war?

Let’s be honest… right now, it’s looking bad, terrible even. Hopeless. Inevitable.

But it’s also the one chance we have to cut the bullshit and do the right thing.

The question is… Will we?

The answer is… Likely not.

But we could

And that will be the defining decision of this era in humanity. Will we? Or won’t we?