Standard of living vs wealth inequality

 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/06/this-viral-video-is-right-we-need-to-worry-about-wealth-inequality/

 

Most of the kings and queens of the past never flew in an airplane, talked on a phone, rode in a car, had a microwave or even many of the foods any of us take for granted. They didnt have medicine like we do for surgeries (except the egyptians, they had antibiotic beers/brews), mail, access to porn or information sources like the world wide web. Some didnt even understand basic biology (tsk,tsk).

Doesnt make the mask pulled over the face any better. People walk around in chains and most dont even know it. The few that do dont care enough.

The reality is that the u.s. lives better than most of the world. We set ourselves up to be that way, just like every body of government that ruled powerful nations for centuries before.

....Our thoughts are nothing more than recycled ideas people have been comparing, contrasting, complaining about, and discussing for millennia.

We live under the delusion that any of it matters, our ideas are Unique, our opinion valid and worth respecting and so forth. Human nature I guess.

 

Sounds like prison tbh......

 

I think the whole standard-of-living argument/stance is really a cop-out - sure, standard of living will generally increase as civilization advances, this is given, but in order to enjoy our standard of living other nations must also pay the price. We can't really say "the ends justify the means" when in order to sustain this lifestyle and standard of living we take in (consume) far more than we give back (produce) and also enable perpetual poverty and warfare in other parts of the world. Yes, our general standard of living has increased as a product of advances in society, but some of the factors that got us here and kept us here also belong to our darkest history and will leave behind a legacy for centuries to come. Wealth inequality is a huge issue, monumental, especially when you look at things globally. The US and the UK have been the biggest enablers of this inequality globally, exacerbating already existing geographical advantages. This is only going back so far though, as of course there have been many empires before the British and the Americans...
 
All I'm saying is that we can do better. This is nothing to be proud of as of now.

 

You asked "is it ok to be a slave?" disregard the rest of that sentence and ponder this a moment.

Is it okey to exist to serve someone else, to not be free to have and make our own thoughts, to even be aware that our thoughts were progated to and for us? To be endlessly distracted from reality, to be stuck in an endless loop, a game of trickery that never ends, to gamble with ones freedom, while the keys to the otherside of that door jangle in front of us?

You said, "my basic needs are met...and...i...am....allowed.........." your next proclamation, "i am happy."

So my next question is, "who told you that you are happy, slave?

Its not up to YOU as an owned individual to have a thought process, for you are provided for and thinking and deciding are none of YOUR concern.

Do I sound disrespectful, perhaps narcissistic and agressive? Because I am not. I am merely responding to your existance in a way that reminds you the label you have chosen to endure for no other reason than "because."

Freedom is a sharp blade with two sides, neither forgiving. You may swim, you may sink, you will eat or you wont, the haves and have nots. There is no inbetween.

Who decides if that existsnce is okay?

With a master we make no decisions. Id rather die than live a life of comfort without the freedom to exist in whatever way i choose to. There are few things a man should choose to die for. Freedom is on my list.

 

I agree.

It doesnt matter how many words we put on paper. None of us are truly free.

There may be a time when you are in a miserable existance, perhaps broke down in the middle of the desert during the hottest day in history, with a lot on the line, like your familys livelyhood or health and you will know then you are truly free to fail. We all come to that point a time or two if we're lucky enough to be humbled with that pie, but in everyday life, we are taxed and stolen from endlessly while decisions are made to limit how we go about our existance for the most trivial things.

Nothing but war, revolution, or a rights movement will change that imo.

I think we become complacent in our cage.

 

 
I'm not just talking about slave labor.

 

Where do you think slaves came from?

 

^{Waiting for Running to post some links......}

 

 
Slave labor was "third world" labor and the accrued credit from that might be running out ...
 
just noticed it's already been mentioned, but it's worth repeating.