Systems, Algorithms, Progress: Oy!

Ultimately, you can be happy living in a hut and eating what you hunt or gather, and you can be happy living in a shiny house spending a bunch of time by the computer (a little harder that way but you can be). It’s not the technology that defines happiness.

And ultimately, the purpose of everything is happiness and expression. Nobody feels happy if one’s creative energy is ether suppressed or disrespected. Even the deeds of the worst tyrants are instances of creative expression—expression of broken, misguided minds, but expression none the less.

ABOUT CIVILIZATIONS.

A lot of what’s happening in the world today is based on the tricky old definition of ‘civilization.’ Somewhere down the line, the trajectory of civilizations was defined in a mechanical way, as an evolution of machines (even at the expense of people). The state of technology was declared to be the sole measure of progress, and progress was automatically defined as something we need. In the end, like any adventurous but unbalanced thing, progress became an act of running away from ourselves.

I suspect the definition was created in the retrospect, by the ‘winners.’ Technology can be wonderful but when its use becomes a goal in itself, the meaning runs away, and it becomes dysfunctional.

RELATED: Progress Is Just Another Buzzword

I think this is how it works. Say, there is a community, and the community lives in relative balance (something that is based on the knowledge about the world and about maintaining a healthy emotional balance, NOT on a bunch of theory or fear or guilt). Then somebody becomes curious about unchecked power. Usually, when the community is balanced, a project of erecting a structure controlled by unchecked power is difficult to implement, people know better.

Well, guess what, systems to the rescue!

At the right time, the ambitious person can introduce belief systems and practices that make people weaker and less aware of how things work. Slowly, or abruptly. Historically, this is how small nations were force-converted to theoretical monotheistic beliefs (like my people, or many other nations in Europe, Africa or the Americas), Buddhism, etc.. The conversion was typically a political act, and was accompanied by blood (yes, conversion to Buddhism was often bloody, too) since nobody in their right mind just wants to abandon something practical that works, in favor for a new theory. Or the ambitious person finds a powerful foreign ally whose nation has already made the leap to ‘civilization’, and uses the military support to elevate himself as the leader of this new thing (that nobody really asked for but that has the power to give an illusion of progress–because, in order to be a leader, one has to be a leader of something, right?)

Later on, people figure out ways to instill their spirit into the new thing and express themselves inside a new system, but a little bit of truth has already been chipped away, and each subsequent system tends to be a little more difficult to navigate for freedom of the soul. Not impossible, just far more convoluted.

Long story short, by the time colonization happened, most of Europe and Asia were already knees deep in this ‘civilization’ business, and thus, had fewer reservations as far as storming into somebody’s home, breaking everything-everything-everything without any regard for the spirit, raping nature like it was an enemy of humans and not a generous benefactor, and then claiming that their success was a sign that God loved them more. That is the most fascinating part, ascribing one’s physical ability to harm somebody with more kindness due to a better understanding of natural laws, to existential superiority.

True, rapist mentality gives one a short-term advantage but in the long term, not so much. And it has very little to do with being loved by God more, it has more to do that we have a lot of free will. But look, our advanced civilization is bleeding, people are unhappy and crazy, how is it a good thing?