( TEN MINUTE READ)

The world relative to its human population is quite large. It is 123 billion acres in size of which 37 billion acres is land, about 4 acres for ever man woman and child.

However to day the world is dominated by corporations that follow the logic of finance capital – the logic of money.

The only thing one can be sure of is that in today’s societies, is that wealth is concentrated.

“It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when one in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day…. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy.”

1. Bill Gates
2. Amancio Ortega (Spanish founder of Inditex)
3. Warren Buffett
4. Carlos Slim (Mexican businessman)
5. Jeff Bezos
6. Mark Zuckerberg
7. Larry Ellison
8. Michael Bloomberg

These 8 Men Control Half the Wealth on Earth.

They hold the equivalent of the wealth of 3.6 billion people.

Six of the eight individuals are American, and four of the eight (half the list) come from the American tech community — Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Ellison. It’s also interesting to consider that four of the arguably most powerful people on the planet weren’t elected, and some of them work actively to fight poverty and injustice. Again, there is that question of perspective.

The problem is that they are deeply interconnected but at the end of the day, this is about something larger than a few wealthy individuals.

With the state of the world we live on ( as we are becoming digitized citizens, driven by technology in the hands of the few.) one could not be blamed for feeling despair because of our inability to shake off the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

If people don’t have a real living wage, they can’t build wealth. If they spend their lives in debt because of a shortage of affordable health care, they can’t build wealth. If they struggle just to get a job in the first place due to discrimination, they can’t build wealth. Wealth for all can only happen when we engage our collective political and social will to distribute it fairly. Unless the growing gap between rich and poor is addressed, the world can and should expect more political unrest, rage, and the kind of backlash many say led to events like Brexit and Trump’s election.

By now must of us know that the world has passed through different ages to get to our digital world, the information economy, or cryptocurrencies.

It has been said that the Industrial Revolution was the most profound revolution in human history, because of its sweeping impact on people’s daily lives but hidden behind its benign name is a history soaked in the ingredients that have the world in the mess it is now in (Imperialism, Greed, Wars, Slavery, Capitalism, Profit, Mass production of goods, Workhouses of the poor, Consumerism, Inequality, the rise of cities, POLLUTION AND DESTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENT, the rise in technology, the rise of socialism, key inventions and innovations that served to shape virtually every existing sector of human activity along industrial lines, with many new industries. The invention of the Internet in 1969.

Western post-war world order will not continue forever, because system theory states that when a system, or in our case the interconnected elements of life, becomes stressed or unstable it is susceptible to disruption and sometimes momentous change.

That’s where we are right now.

So what do you mean by world?

Most of the time, things are more complicated than they seem initially. All of our norms have been blown up, some have catapulted ahead a dozen years, and others have regressed.

Truth, reality, facts, science and many norms we take for granted are undergoing transformation ad and in theory, governments have the last say. But what if companies/organizations are more powerful than governments?

The toxic polarization we’ve endured is now further dividing into alternate realities where citizens consume different information, see different “facts” and passionately hold opposite opinions.  The truth doesn’t matter.

Fundamental values that define every person, family and community regardless of their belief system are under attack from data and profit seeking algorithms.

How are we responding? Go back to our over-consumptive ways?

From the wreckage of 2020 we are a changed society, aware of the waste of fast fashion, committed to supporting local businesses, and soothed by the beauty of the natural world.

Sacrifice defined earlier generations, but not our current generation.

The pandemic has been our era’s true test of character, while authenticity and compassion are in the main social media like clicks. As much as everyone likes to complain about technology, imagine what the pandemic would have been like without the internet, apps, Wi-Fi, streaming, laptops and mobile phones. With no other choice, tech adoption blasted off, as consumers embraced it at levels predicted for five or ten years in the future. Out of all that change, ecommerce has to be the biggest and fastest consumer shift ever, as most of the world logged on to get what they needed.

Amazon emerges from 2020 as an even larger entrepreneur-swallowing black hole that it was before.

We’ve become accustomed to the pace of tech innovation moving society along faster and faster, whether a fun distraction or a necessary evil, people have integrated new devices, applications, and activities into daily life raising the bar on every level.

Reckoning still awaits in realms of policing, environmental reform and justice, racial justice, wealth, income, workplace inequality, and democracy but nothing prepared us for use of  Nuclear weapons.

With more human made material than living biomass exists on the planet, we also have physical evidence of another tipping point the Climate.

Will we ever come together?

Can you conceive of something of which you’ve had no prior experience? I cannot imagine any human being capable of doing so. This is a key to how we understand one another, because it exemplifies our reliance upon a pre-existing stimulus for thought.

Abstract concepts such as ‘love’ seem to exist in the entities which harbour them, as they are in many ways incommunicable through experience of the physical world, and are transferable only through language. “

Every being cries out silently to be read differently.

Reconciling with change will take more time for some and less for others but change there has to be. Our problem is how to achieve it without destroying the gift of being alive.

If ever 2023 is the year if a friend asks for help give it.

So here is a proposition.

Why not wage a CPS WAR ( Copy Paste Send) on those who are in power to take Action.

We can become part of a solution, not add to a problem, by posting intentionally on social media, transforming it from an empty distraction to a simple living tool. Being intentional with your posting and your consumption goes a long way to ensuring that social media is a part of your life, not the whole of your life. Social media doesn’t have to be addictive brain-numbing fodder.

 As always with this simple living lark, it all boils down to intentionality.

So here is an example where an  CPS WAR campaign could make a difference.

TAKE THE COST OF LIVING:

Orange the French Telephone / Internet streaming / monopoly,  supplies Live boxes ( That could not cost more than 100 euros to make.)

They charge 29.99 euros rental (a month) for the use of the box, for life.

The current population of France is 65,632,612 as of Thursday, December 29, 2022.

If half the population have a live box ( 30,000,0000) X by 30 = 900,000,000 Euros a month.

I most be missing some thing here. 900,000, 000 a month to supply streaming / internet.

What ever about offering different services this is plain robbery TO BE PAYING 360 Euros a year for a box the cost around a 100 euros.

WHY NOT INSTIGATE AN CPS WAR ON ORANGE TO HAVE THIS CHARGE REMOVED.  I.E. SEND THEIR HEAD OFFICES THOUSAND OF EMAILS, SACHERATING ITS OPERATIONS, TILL THEY AGREE TO REMOVE THIS COST.

It won’t save the world, but if did worked it might be the first step to empower technology to be used to benefit the silent without a voice.

Long ago, in the cave known as silence
Man lived in harmony:
song-less, muted, free
Only a hand-print on a wall
Then a distant human call
Would shatter that primal unity.
By day he’d pray to earth and sky
Heed the wisdom of the ancient trees
At night he’d dance ‘round moon and fire
Take solace in the infinite seas.
Gesture would mimic conversation
Silent ritual his only Lord
Collaboration, sweet simplicity
Love in the dormant vocal cord.
But the end came in the name of word
Sending echoes through that cave
Until man’s world became as thus
And the soul met a shrieking grave.
Man lost something upon that hour
Lost intuitive understanding
The human tongue tore man from man
When wordless truth succumbed to speaking.
Confusion, division, language, war
Born upon that single rasping roar
Until misunderstanding between one and all
Beleaguered man forevermore.

Bianca Laleh, Totnes, Devon

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com