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History-will-not-remember-us-fondly.md (5382B)


  1. ---
  2. title: History will not remember us fondly
  3. date: 2021-01-07
  4. ---
  5. Today, we recall the Middle Ages as an unenlightened time (quite literally, in
  6. fact). We view the Middle Ages with a critical eye towards its brutality, lack
  7. of individual freedoms, and societal and technological regression. But we rarely
  8. turn that same critical lens on ourselves to consider how we'll be perceived by
  9. future generations. I expect the answer, upsetting as it may be, is this: the
  10. future will think poorly of us.
  11. We possess the resources and production necessary to provide every human being
  12. on Earth with a comfortable living: adequate food, housing, health, and
  13. happiness. We have decided not to do so. We have achieved what one may consider
  14. the single unifying goal of the entire history of humanity: we have eliminated
  15. natural scarcity for our basic resources. We have done this, and we choose to
  16. deny our fellow humans their basic needs, in the cruel pursuit of profit. We
  17. have more empty homes than we have homeless people. America alone throws away
  18. enough food to feed the entire world population. And we choose to let our peers
  19. die of hunger and exposure.
  20. We are politically destitute. Profits again drive everything — in the
  21. United States, Citizens United gave corporations unfettered access to buy and
  22. sell political will, and in the time since they have successfully installed
  23. politicians favorable to the elite class. Our corporations possess obscene
  24. wealth, coffers that rival those of nation-states, and rule over our people via
  25. their proxies in political office. Princeton published [a study][0] in 2014
  26. which showed that the opinions of the average American citizen has a
  27. statistically negligible effect on political outcomes, while the opinions of the
  28. elite can all but decide the same outcomes. Our capitalist owners have
  29. unchallenged rule over society, and they rule it with the single-minded
  30. obsession to create profit at any cost, including lives.
  31. [0]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
  32. The US Capitol was overrun by armed seditionists yesterday. Armed seditionists,
  33. who, by the way, were radicalized on the internet. As a computer engineer, I am
  34. complicit in this radicalization. The early internet was a sea of optimism, full
  35. of enthusiasm about the growing connectivity between people which had the
  36. potential to unite humanity like never before. We early adopters felt like world
  37. citizens: making friends, collaborating, and uniting with no respect for borders
  38. or ideology. What we hadn't realized is that we were also building the most
  39. powerful tool the world has ever seen for censorship, propaganda, and
  40. radicalization.
  41. The companies which built this technology are modern slave drivers, broadly
  42. eroding worker freedoms in the first world, and in the third world seeking to
  43. exploit the cheapest slave labor they can find. We are developing technology
  44. which facilitates the authoritarian and *genocidal* policies of China. Anyone
  45. who speaks out is fired, corrections are quickly issued, and a statement of
  46. unconditional support for the profit generating, population murdering thugs is
  47. proclaimed. I speak passionately to my peers in my field, begging them to fight
  48. back, but many lack the courage, and most don't care — so long as their
  49. exorbitant paychecks keep coming in. Money, money, money. We are at one end of a
  50. process which launders money to wash off the blood. Morals are dead.
  51. It's not just America — democracy is on the decline world-wide. A friend
  52. in France recently took to the streets to protest against the introduction of
  53. laws protecting the police from citizen oversight. Populist traitors tore the
  54. UK out of the EU, effective last week, dooming their people to economic and
  55. political destitution. The Greek economy has failed, right-wingers are passing
  56. discriminatory laws against LGBT Poles, and conservative populism has taken hold
  57. of much of Italy, just to name a few more. Social and political systems are
  58. regressing worldwide.
  59. <a href="https://redacted.moe/f/85f7d261.png">
  60. <img
  61. style="max-width: 100%"
  62. alt="A visualization of democratic decline across Europe and Eurasia, showing that declines have outweighed gains in each of the past 10 years, demonstrating a persistent net decline in democracy."
  63. src="https://redacted.moe/f/85f7d261.png" />
  64. </a>
  65. <small style="display: block; text-align: center">Source: <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2020/dropping-democratic-facade">Freedom House</a></small>
  66. Our entire society boils down to one measure: profit. We are being eaten alive
  67. by capitalism. Americans have been brainwashed into a national ethos which is
  68. *defined* by capitalism. In the relentless pursuit of profits, we have eroded
  69. all political and social freedoms and created a system defined by its remarkable
  70. cruelty in a time when we have access to greater wealth and resources than at
  71. any other time in history.
  72. Perhaps future generations won't remember us after all, considering that in that
  73. same relentless pursuit of profits we are vigorously rendering the Earth
  74. uninhabitable. But, if they do live to remember us, they will remember us as a
  75. wicked, cruel, and unempathetic lot. We will be remembered in disgrace.