Prelude:
“Work eight hours, play eight hours, sleep eight hours” (Nelson 1). These are the words which control countless lives. After waking up from a hypnotist show, a man sees the world for what it is… out of our control. Everyday demands our most valuable asset, time, for green paper that only holds value because of a collective agreement. People work tirelessly for a society that couldn’t care less about them, and they still lose so much. This injustice demands a change, one that should rupture the previous ways of thinking. In the formative days of American society, money was backed by gold. Because the dollar’s value was anchored in something real, there was a pragmatic understanding of what a person’s time was worth. But now, it is based on politics, ‘trust’, and what a small group of people deems valuable– it is the ultimate means of control. The idea is powerful, because it misleads people into believing what they do carries purpose. It is like a card trick: the audience believes what it is shown to them, but only the magician knows the truth. The pursuit of wealth has become a religion, and its nirvana drags millions into a self made cycle of devotion. People don’t know what exactly it is they’re worshiping. They fight for a spot at the table without knowing what they’re about to eat. We chase wealth because it promises everything we feel we’re lacking; it feeds the ego, and is the eighth, final sin: all the others, tailored to each individual. We are guided by the belief that there is something more out there for us–things we see in the movies: normal people saving the world, fighting the monster, and becoming ostentatiously wealthy. The world doesn’t work that way, though. Not everyone can be a genius or CEO, but the belief that they can be drives their lack of value in a market. However, when we look at our lives, how much change can actually happen? Kids are told that they can be anything, but as they grow, they’re also told to ‘be realistic’. The world needs people to work, so the media has spread the message that life can change in an instant, and everyone can be what they want (while downplaying the fact that most people are not actively pursuing their own success). Belief is fine, but belief without action is worrisome. Time-absorbing media like Instagram, Netflix, and Youtube are all keeping people blinded by the lie that some ‘inciting incident’ can happen to them without actively pursuing it. Working everyday leads people into wanting more than they have, and the world of endless information is what offers that escape. It is numbing to sit down and look at a phone for hours on end–numbing to the point of inaction. The world has posited certain ideas about usefulness. To be ‘good’ is to be productive in the eyes of the world, but to be happy is to find peace within ourselves. After we find our peace, society itself will collapse. The end of salvation through financial gain will relieve the masses, and companies that profit from suffering will dissolve, but so will conveniences. Thinking about the world from this point of view is scary, but the world after this change will be one step closer to internal peace and further from perdition. The market has become a church. Its priests spew lies of future success and obedience to a ‘merciful’ god of materialism. The religion is built upon immutable belief, so challenging it would cause a schism and thus, lead to something new. Hopefully, whatever arises is based upon law and careful examination of ethics. Right now, we believe cash is the ticket to the heavens; however, realistically, it delivers us right into the jaws of evil. The obdurate search for wealth has divided families, led to wars, and created indifference towards suffering. As cliche as it sounds, true wealth cannot be found in a bank account or be measured by currency or status. Wealth is a flawed measurement of peace. If society were to grow comfortable with such a truth, power dynamics would shift from the oligarchy of apathetic and cruel individuals to the everyday person. The rich and selfish would bleed freedom for the masses. Only then will people see through the magician’s card trick and set humanity free from the bondages of material comfort.
Part 1: Inadequacy & Control:
Some people achieve everything by investing very little, while others work day after day just for the hope of receiving far less. What separates them isn’t intellectual or any innate ineptitudes, rather it is the system itself. Our society claims to value production or output, but it bends what ‘production’ means in the first place: sometimes, it could represent political ties, and others it could be religious piety. Society is made only up of the people within it; if the people want something, then the society as a whole will yearn for it. That said, it is entirely possible for an idea to change society– just as the crusades transformed the religious aspects of Spain. Society being the aggregated decisions of the people makes it incredibly democratic (systems can be overthrown, power can be changed), but it leads to systemic partiality and prejudices against minorities within the system. A government acting in its own self interest can inadvertently reduce bias, as long as it reflects the government’s interest. Without a government, democracy gives power to the masses, but in doing so, it strips power from minorities who might know what the best course of action is for a given problem. For example, if a water shortage occurs, the people who are most educated about the problem (scientists and professors) will be overlooked by the masses, unless they are some sort of politician or public figure. This voting process condemns merit and expertise, thus marring the society as a whole. A government is, then, necessary to keep the power away from the masses. However, any form of government will carry the same ideas as elected officials, so it will make the same mistake as a pure democracy. This concept is not pragmatic. Typically, politicians and elected officials will have their own self-interests: monetary gain, status, or control. By the same token, the government will act as a means to achieve goals for elected officials. This will exacerbate inequality in society. The masses overlook the minorities, and the officials overlook everybody. So, the problem doesn’t lie in government or democracy, but more so with the people. Inequality will forever be reciprocated as long as the system is governed by self-interest (the impetus towards power). Moreover, money will bend to whomever is controlling it. The market takes joy in saying affluence is based on grit or hard work when that isn’t true. A person who looks a certain way might be viewed more positively during interviews than their counterparts, and vice versa, leaving the also-rans with fewer opportunities (despite their ability). Unfortunately, some factors that go into success are immutable. Our lives have been dictated for us, etched into our genetics. The rules of our world were never written in a constitution or elucidated by a set of commandments from God. Evolution has imprinted them in our minds for millenia. We serve these ‘natural superiors’, follow their laws, and live by their explanations. We’ve been damned from the beginning. Our government and its ideas were developed for those who founded it: the fortunate. However, there is still a way out- to wake up, because all dreams die when the people awaken.
Part 2: An Example of Control:
The phone itself has become an incredible source of dependencies. It was a tool introduced by Steve Jobs under the motto “Think Different”. Despite such an ambiguous, “inspiring” statement, it has done the opposite. The cellphone has created a mass of people that act, think, and talk the same way. Even worse, it created an intellectual dependency with the inception of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google, or even the calculator. A Cornell paper about the relationship between the brain and large language models or LLMS revealed over the course of several months, “users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels” (Kosmyna 1). People relying on these models are especially prone to a company’s persuasion (i.e. a company can market certain products or can even push certain narratives). If these LLM’s continue to become more popular as people become lazier, then more unified, artificial renderings of events can take over– elevating companies and undermining the health of society as a whole. As time continues to go on, one must wonder to what extent these companies will control our choices and decisions. It is not just the Large Language Models, but also the amount of time people spend on social media. An article entitled “Excessive social media use is comparable to drug addiction” written by Michigan State University author Caroline Brooks explores the correlation between excessive social media use and decision making using the “Iowa Gambling Test”. Researchers found that decision making of social media users was akin to that of people “who abuse opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, among others” (Brooks 7). What more can a corporation take from the people than their very own attention? The cellphone started a comfort revolution. Never before in human history has everything engrossing, especially entertainment and information, been found in a single place. A tool that was meant to be controlled is now influencing decisions and behavior: what is bought through ads, and what is thought through content. Billions are affected. Consequently, people lose interest in hobbies and family; the cellphone has taken everything that makes humans individual beings. Corporations now have unprecedented access to an uncapitalized area of human potential. In the past, companies would go out west to mine for gold, into the desert for oil, and sell cars to make a profit, but now, they’ve found that the human mind is a field laced with lucrative resources. Controlling attention is the greatest profit machine, because it drives the profit and also determines it. These companies will soon have the ability to sell anyone anything, creating a market that is controlled not by the consumer, but rather those in power; they are manufacturing desire and selling it at a price point they deem right.
Part 3: Conclusion:
Imagine waking in a world where people no longer have the will to change; they no longer have an understanding of the concept of change. And, even if they did, they wouldn’t know what was wrong with them. A world ruled by companies driven by greed does not care about what happens to the people– as long as they’re all still alive. This world will carry corruption on the grandest scales. Corruption not of bribery, but one secured in narratives delivered to signal specific messages to meet the likings of massive companies. Democracy, government, and peace would be tainted with the scent of decay…Vultures swooping down to pick at their once powerful bodies would take their places, delivering tirades to the masses about the past and the ‘beautiful’ future. The future that further immortalizes the names of the ‘geniuses’— those being the CEOs and politicians that have committed treason against their own. The masses will be forced like cattle to do whatever is wanted of them. A new dawn of systemic prejudice will arise, one that is dependent on which companies you subscribe to. The vulnerabilities of every nation would have been exploited by the powerful’s self-interest. Democracy, she would have fallen on the very sword that she created: the pursuit of happiness. The government would become not about the relations between nations, rather about NGOs and billion dollar corporations. The most powerful commodity was never gold, oil, water, or cash– it was human attention. Millions will walk this Earth distracted by the newest Iphone and blinded from what is going on right in front of them. Nonconformity will have been exposed as the ultimate heresy, its practitioners sentenced to death. Our politicians, as disturbed as the masses, will have one master. He will ask them to deliver sermons about the beauty of society, people, and power. This individual being none other than greed. Nations will fall at his hand. Societies will be like loyal dogs, pleading for scraps from the table. The peaceful and hopeful, the buddhists and abstinent, will be the last remaining. And to the masses? Nothing would have changed. In fact, life would have gotten better: the world would be bent for their pleasure, approval… and attention.