Thursday, December 24, 2009

We can No Longer Work Together

One of the marks of a great society is its ability to accomplish great tasks - and this means the ability of many people to work together. When this ability is lost, the society disappears - perhaps leaving its monuments behind, such as the Great Pyramids - and perhaps nothing at all. Since most of our accomplishments are now digital and require digital storage, most of these digits will probably disappear with us, like the marks of footprints in the sands of time. Recovery will be impossible.

Looking at the economic mess we are in, we should be able to back off and say "We can all figure this out together" - or as our Founding Fathers once said "Let us reason together." But such an idea never crosses our minds, because togetherness or reasonableness, no longer exist for us. We expect someone else to take care of us, we want someone else to be in power, in control. And sure enough, these someones have appeared, behind their facades, taking care of themselves, while pretending to take care of us. And we rejoice - and at the same time, wonder what happened to all our wealth. 

The mere idea of anything like central planning and control gives us the willies. So we have a series of bubbles, each more serious than the last, taking us straight down the road to hell - when we think we are going to heaven. 

We can't tell the difference. 

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