Things we make

I often hear people complaining That the demise of the world started with the industrial revolution.
It was at this juncture in history when humans were able to increase the production of goods hundredfold. With this vast increase in manufacturing came profound changes in agriculture and transportation.

There were also many side effects, not all of them positive, that came along with this "revolution". I employ quotation marks due to the fact that the effects of this revolution were not readily felt as was the coming of the Nuclear and Information ages.

Economic imbalances became more obviously profound between countries that had access to modern technology and to those that didn't. We can easily observe those differences around us in the world today. This imbalance, in my opinion, is one of the major factors in the imperialist and aggressive capitalist attitudes that propagated much of the territorial disturbances that occurred.

Even with all the negative aspects of modernisation such as increases in waste and pollution, socioeconomic disparity and labor abuses. There have been a great many benefits to our lives and the world in general. Advances in science and industry have allowed us to live longer and more safely. We travel faster and communicate with each other at speeds that would have astounded our grandparents. Engineers have provided us with bridges and buildings, aircraft, roads and waterways that, when constructed properly, allow us to live and travel and move more freely than at any other time in history.

We have so much going for us that we really have to stand up and take a serious look at why we haven't grown as a species. With all of these amazing contrivances and contraptions; these engines and motors- why are we still producing "garbage"? Why is so much of our monetary resources and material wealth used to produce better and more efficient ways to slaughter each other?
Yes, I know. These are not new questions. Does that really matter?

I am just sitting here on a Sunday morning enjoying a pot of coffee and tooling around with my computer all because others have seen fit to make these things available to us. Just as these same people have provided us with Earth shoes, Sea monkeys and the Chia pet.

I put up a post of pictures at Tobacco Road and I just couldn't stop from wondering what would happen if we, as a unified race of people, turned our intelligence, our energy, our ingenuity towards an ethical and moral revolution where education proceeds commerce and compassion is valued more than material wealth.
Spending our energy trying not to outdo each other, but rather to find a way that works for everyone. Hmmm, that kinda sounds like The Nash equilibrium employed at ethical rather than mathematical situations.

I don't know where this post came from, but I am glad it was posted on a Sunday...