Slaves To Consumerism
We are slaves without a cage. We are like the ancient Roman slaves, who were free to walk around, but we are realistically trapped within the constraints of the society we live in. In reality these constraints dictate our movements. We aren't allowed anywhere near the mega rich and powerful unless we are a proven, loyal and unquestioning servant. We need special permission to travel the world with passports and visas. Consumer society makes us believe we need to start a family, sign a 30 year mortgage, work 40+ hours per week for 40+ years where you spend time away from your family until you retire into a sedentary, medicated state, unable to travel and enjoy your retirement due to medical issues. You are convinced to, instead of following your passions and dreams, to find a good paying office or factory type job that pays "good money". But what is the value of money, when in the pursuit of attaining more for your retirement, you are unable to enjoy the fruits of your labour? The stresses of working all those years with all those different people, a lot of assholes included.
Sport is used along with alcohol, advertising and gambling to keep us preoccupied and not questioning the status quo. Every year more and more laws and regulations are voted in but rarely are they voted out. Are our archaic laws really up to date with today's society? The internet is ready and waiting to take over from the minority dictating policy and give direct power to the masses. If this happens, the ideal scenario is that all peoples IQ’s are raised to their potential, poverty, slavery, war and disease will all be eradicated and we can live in an open, safe and free society. The likely scenario would be that the government will try to regulate and control access to the internet, working with corporations, using Artificial Intelligences to manipulate our emotional state. Thus keeping us in a materialistic, fearful and cognitively sedated state.
One question I have is, if people don’t trust the government to have their best interests at heart, why do they sit back and allow the government to become more and more invasive in their lives? I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a government but like all systems the bigger and more bureaucratic it gets, the less mobile and more controlling it becomes. It can stagnate in ideology and become more distant from the people. The government gets bigger because the people are lured into thinking they will be happier with an easier life if they give the government just that little bit more power over them. We are also shown a slide of hand where they dazzle us with entertainment, advertising and sport while the slow creep of total control takes over everything in our lives, one regulation at a time.
The culture of large bureaucratic government departments and corporations isn’t one of saving money. Ever heard the following statement, “we have to spend our entire budget this year otherwise next year we will get less”?. This culture of rewarding wasteful spending with a bigger budget leads us down a rabbit-hole where the government needs to get bigger, therefore needing more tax revenue to pay for the bureaucratic machine. As government gets too large it gives less back to the community. Infrastructure starts falling apart, they promote fear through the news and enable our materialism and love of sport and TV to keep us distracted.
We have the technology to vote on individual issues online bringing power to the masses in a true democratic revolution. However this will never happen unless we wake up and realise that the power of the people is stronger than any government. The power of the people starts with the individual. As individuals we need to take responsibility in our lives and not rely on the government’s scraps. It may be more work for us but it will lead to us becoming more fulfilled and happy. The more we depend on the government the more they will handle, keeping us 'protected' from ourselves while we feed on their materialistic teat. We have been complicit in this for a long time but how long will we participate in stripping away our own freedoms?
We are slaves but our chains have changed to consumerism and self doubt.