Creative's Workshop 2020
Power and the Death of Individualism
Pro2 Day 64 (My Second Favorite Number!): Power and the Death of Individualism
My daily dedicated to the @wildcat’s weekly topic, with this week being centered on power
Assumed Power
This topic originally spawned as a result of asking whether those in power have an obligation to do good with their influence, especially governments and Big Tech companies. As I was about to lambaste how much I loathe these two entities for NOT doing so, I decided to ask a different question: why are they in power?
A sweet tie-in to my last wildcat topic on cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, I claimed that fiat currency only has value because its users grant it value. If fiat has value because we say it does, that also means that individuals who have lots of fiat are valuable, right? Sure looks like it. And who tends to have the most amounts of accumulated fiat? Government entities and in today’s modern world, Tech Giants.
True Power
What if the poor and middle class citizens of a nation just… decided that fiat isn’t worth anything anymore? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0QVjJSP8XI The rich will just use their imaginary monopoly money to make sure they keep their imaginary power :upside_down_face:
Why has such a system come to pass and accepted as normality? If we were justified in being scared of someone who holds true power, they better be purple and have the ability to wipe out half the universe with the snap of a finger.
The Fat, Dumb, and Happy
In high school, my 10th grade world history teacher told us the magic words needed to rule an empire: keep your citizens fat, dumb, and happy. He was specifically referring to the Roman Empire, which lasted over 1000(*) years using these principles. To cast the mirror on modern-day America, the same principles are eerily present:
Fat: a rampant obesity problem coupled with near-instant access to “affordable” junk and comfort food
Dumb: a grossly underfunded public education system running in parallel with skyrocketing tuition rates for those seeking university level education. Who can easily afford the tuition? Those already in assumed power :upside_down_face:
Happy: a phrase i came across recently: pleasure without purpose. In an almost hand-in-hand approach as fat, there is near-instant access to material for sexual gratification, endless amounts of doom-scrolling and online media streaming to consume, and a never-ending perversion to market useless products that don’t actually bring meaning to its consumers.
New Age Indentured Servitude
Calling back to the Rich Scared Of Revolt From Poor, Middle Class Americans video posted above, why don’t we just revolt? If we aren’t being chained to the floor from being fat, dumb, or happy, there is the idea of the indentured servitude disguised as the 9-5 job. Indentured servitude classically meant a contract between an assumed power entity and a contracted laborer, stating that after x years of work they will be a free citzen in the New World. Today we call that retirement after achieveing 59.5 years of age (Fun fact! The retirement age was set at 60 because at that point of time, 60 was the average lifespan of a 9-5 worker :upside_down_face:). If one were to decide to fall off the corporate wheel, how will you pay for your family and their never-ending expenses? Stay away too long from the 9-5 grind, and you will find yourself unqualified to work for any position! Is there any fail-safe if you find yourself unemployed? Well…
A Sayonara to Samurai
A while ago I was watching a fabulous anime named Samurai Champloo, a story about three wanderers finding their own meaning in the world through their journey together. What does champloo mean?
Champloo , also spelled Champuru, is an Okinawan word meaning “mixed up” or “stirred together”. It’s usually applied to a kind of stir-fry dish, but in a more general sense it’s used to mean “improvised, made up as you go along”.
They were outcasts because they rejected the notion of ever finding themselves subservient to the wills of an assumed power entity. This conversation in the final battle of the series really resonated with me as the centerpiece theme: the assumed notion that having no place at all in this world was far worse a fate than being the servant of another
The Wrong Age
This meme absolute boils my blood, I hate this quitter notion that we can’t be great because we weren’t destined to do so. So we roll over and accept our mediocre fate.
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I’d argue that our very present day is the most important age in human history: we are collectively deciding who we want to become as as species. I personally am pushing virtual reality as the advent of discovery, to collide potential realities we can be bring back to our physical world. [quote=”natashakuhn, post:252, topic:27487”] I want to know how you weed out your own truth in times where our identity is marketed to us [/quote] In Seth’s Creative Workshop Kool-aid, is it our job as creatives to make the people realize the truths that have been hidden inside us all this time.
@susanmclachlan @philkastelic @mariasokolowska @sabweld @michellebasey
my new VR buddies getting too big of a first impression from me :grin: @sydneydobersteinlarock @ParisaR
@homeroom11 @dragon