The Book - Violence

Violence

In this book, I refer to violence a lot, and it's important to have a clear definition. I consider violence in a very wide context, like this definition that I love (thanks ChatGPT):

“In the context of the eight limbs of yoga, violence itself is generally described as any action or intention that causes harm or suffering to oneself or others. This harm can be physical, verbal, or mental in nature. It encompasses acts of aggression, hostility, cruelty, and any form of behavior that disrupts harmony and peace. The concept of violence extends beyond just physical harm to include emotional and psychological harm as well…”

Further, the definition as well encompasses self-violence. We blame a lot of the problems of the world on ourselves, and it's really important to know that it's not our fault. It really isn't. I tell that to everyone I know. Almost any pandemic violent affliction you have is almost certainly systemic, meaning that the system (our system that we created and manage) has somehow (we know how) made you desperate, and desperation instinctually leads to violence, and that's a normal reaction.

Inversely, violence causes desperation, that's the systemic problem - chaos is violence, lack of planning is violence, let alone abuse, greed, and manipulation. It's our system - it's not our fault we are here, it grew organically, but it is our responsibility.

Violence and desperation are cyclical and can be broken by proper planning and order.

***

The exact opposite of a collective is a resort.

This is confusing, I know, because I keep telling you that collectives look like resorts. One is fantasy and the other is real-life. You can't buy paradise, but - you and your friends can build it.

In a resort, we have a completely unsustainable superficial paradise paid for by guests and serviced mainly by poor people. That's abuse. Similar arrangements occur in cities with class divides: restaurants and hotels. The reasons are the same: the entire hospitality industry is bought and paid for and serviced by the poor. But you can't buy hospitality any more than you can buy love.

Malls are so well maintained and look like a futuristic society, but it's really artificial just like the resort. Ask yourself why mall store retailers can charge higher prices.

Figure: Alto Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Doesn't anybody want anything real? Not only is the world artificial, but it's built on the backs of the suffering, just as it has been for thousands of years. Religion hasn't helped. Politics hasn't helped. Our attitude hasn't changed in all the millennia. In all that time there has been no way to organize at the global level, but now, finally, there is.

***

As we transition to collectivism, it's worthy to attempt to save the lives of homeless people. Homeless people are most often substance addicted with severe mental health issues. Some will be so severely injured that there is no hope, and we should think of them like disabled people. We should take some responsibility because it was our system that failed them.

Addicts are vulnerable people who have been displaced or otherwise abused, so to heal them, we simultaneously protect them from the dangers of the outside world while offering permanent belonging and purpose. An hour of therapy doesn't help anyone because you can't buy psychological foundations.

Individuals and cultures that aren't successful in the mega-economy are the ones that rightfully find it meaningless. Lacking a better way to survive, they are desperate and often violent.

The ratio of homeless to not homeless people in the USA is approximately 1 to 600, so that's one or two to a community.

One of the most important reasons to live a better way is to make America great again - no, I mean it! And I'm a Canadian.

People all over the world look to the west and watch our movies and everything says money money money and get rich or die trying. It's simply irresponsible, and frankly immature. More importantly than sending money or aid packages to countries, we should be setting examples of how to be strong by living and working together, and furthermore we should make available to them the same system designs and exports that we are using for our own self-sufficient collectives.

I read a fantastic article recently about solar pumps for wells that are being used extensively in desert-like climates, apparently they are a tremendous success, the only issue is that they work too well and farmers are drying up aquifers. The population of a region should only be so large as its land and related technology can sustainably support it. I think this is obvious, and we must respect that, but we do not.

Violent people in the world are almost always retaliating against some other violence, which is a cycle that needs to be broken. We must find common ground on which to respect each other - religion and politics are not helping.

Education is the key to world peace - let's all agree first on that. Next, we must agree on what to thoroughly teach & learn - which absolutely must be how to survive happily by taking care of each other. As we improve designs & materials, we can share them and be stronger as a global population - to a degree we are already doing this online, it's just overshadowed by chaos.

***

Science has established that if we remain on our current path of unorganized growth of population, pollution, and agriculture, that we will face a reckoning within our own lifetime.

Reducing the population is actually an easy thing that we can do - so long as everyone agrees. It would take only one generation to achieve whatever decline we wish. Plant-based agriculture has shown to require only half the land used in animal agriculture. We could waste all the effort in the world trying to accomplish these things, and in the end probably destroy ourselves anyway, because they're band-aid solutions. It's not that those things aren't important, it's just that they matter very little while the root problem remains.

Raising awareness is not helping, and governments can't regulate an exponential mess.

The damage we are doing is systemic. If the priority is making money, then that's the priority. It's nobody's fault, people who get into big business do so because that's what we're expected to do. Nobody plans to destroy the planet and put people on the street, but primary intentions are so very critical - and we are so very effective at achieving them. The solution is to change the intention, to change the goal, to change the priority.

Nobody wants the story of humans to have an unhappy ending.

A government could incentivize and even regulate healthy priorities.

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