The Redefinition Of Humanity

We haven’t lost our humanity; we’ve redefined it as something more than muscle and blood and skin and bones. Now, our humanity is all batteries and pixels and satellites. We’ve extended ourselves so far outward that there’s nothing left inward. We’re entirely hollow, and ironically – but not surprisingly – hollow things are fragile and easily collapse in on themselves, which explains why our culture has become so self-centered.

Most people, and I’ll provide myself as an example, have an opinion of themselves that is diluted with self-importance. I drive just a little bit faster than the speed limit because I want to get there sooner than everyone else. I keep online journals because I think what I have to say is interesting. I think I’m a little bit better because I use proper punctuation, spell “yeah” correctly, and rarely – if ever – misuse a possessive s.

Lately grammar has become so ill-formed that it barely resembles the English language, which is clearly a reflection on our collective intelligence. Basic language skills are the only thing we have to communicate with, and if we can abandon these so easily, what else might we sacrifice as we evolve? What else have we already lost?

We’ve gone from fists to hammers, sundials to microchips, rocks to missiles. Technology is just an extension of our limbs. We’ve got devices that we can operate as easily as we can think, but this has not made us any more intelligent; it has made us detached. We do not hunt or harvest, we do not build, we do not have sex strictly to reproduce. We are not the creatures that came down from the trees to begin civilization. We are anachronisms on a cultural timeline, out of place and out of mind, doomed to a destiny of repetition simply because we do not correct our mistakes. Not that this matters, though; we do not make mistakes. We make oversights. We make excuses.

Our global conscience is of questionable existence because of our narrow focus. In a broader horizon, we would see our past and our future, with our present somewhere in-between on a skewed line drawing closer and closer to the edge. There are sustainable societies in both our past and our future, like the covers of a story gone absurdly out of control of its author, yet we continue to write. And the grammar that we use is as flawed and imperfect as we command it to be. They’re not just typos; they are examples of our sloth. And being lazy, even in what might seem to be the most minor instances, impedes our development as society, because it does not just stop at these tiny imperfections. The smallest crack in a pane of glass will make its way across the entire surface unnoticeably until one day there is nothing left to see through. Our humanity is already as fragile as this, with cracks running out from the center. Thankfully, we can still see the past, and thankfully, we can still see the future. The question is, can we see through the glass clearly enough to see the immediate and, hopefully, the best direction to proceed?

The Subconscious Danger of Personification

When you have time to spare and aren’t feeling too motivated, do you sit down and watch television? Or do you watch the television? Sure, it’s a minor difference, but it’s arguably very significant; which is why I’m going to argue this significance.

Television is a noun. Not a proper noun, either, just one of those everyday commonplace nouns, like radio. Now, when you’re in your car and you want to listen to some music, you don’t listen to radio, you listen to the radio. Why? Because radio is a noun and requires that tiny preposition. Now, let’s pretend your radio is broken and you had your friend Sam sing for you. You would be listening to Sam, not to the Sam, because Sam is a proper noun. So why, then, do most people watch television when they should be watching the television? Because we’ve over-inflated its status in our lives.

Television is no longer just some household item that we turn on when we want entertainment and off when we’re finished. It sits in the center of the living room with every seat angled in relation to its presence, often still turned on simply for the background noise. It becomes like another member of the household and we watch Television the same way we would watch Sam. The programs on it are intended to make us emotionally involved so that we tune in to see advertising for products that we think we must need because we trust Television as much as we’d trust a member of our family. We’ve personified it as someone important in our lives.

Television is a dangerous beast and it’s easy to become fascinated by its luster. That’s the point. It was designed that way. It is an efficient device for controlling your time and manipulating your mind. It is soma, it is the opiate of the masses, it is the new religion. And if you let it, it will consume you.

My Indisputable Argument For Omnivores

I know half of you are already dying to dispute this...

Homo sapiens were designed to consume nearly anything living on this planet. With the exception of various poisons and physical impossibilities, we can survive on almost everything Mother Nature has to throw at us; plants, animals, whatever. If it’s got a brain or a seed, we’ll eat it. It seems that man is a very evolved species of hunter-gatherers; so much so that we’ve gathered the ability to not actually hunt. We now have the technology to artificially grow animals purely to supplement our dwindling food supply! Mother Nature ain’t got nothing on us!

In order to speed up the process of harvesting animals – which, as you might guess, can take awhile – some companies inject the critters with all sorts of sketchy chemicals like steroids and hormones. These chemicals, as well as others present in their food and water supply, are absorbed into their bodies. Most farm feed is a combination of left-over grain, corn, and other animals. Even vegetarians aren’t safe because they’re eating the same grain and corn, which are sprayed with harmful pesticides and fertilizers. And not only that, but man and animal alike, we all share the same finite sources of water, which inadvertently keeps recycling these dangerous man-made chemicals; some of which just barely pass safety regulations! The result is a disgusting mix of various things that you otherwise would never consider eating.

So, when you think about it, you can’t be certain if anything you’re eating is chemical-free, not even if you grow it yourself. Vegetarians eat chemicals that affect plant growth. Omnivores eat those same chemicals in addition to biologically altering hormones. Bad news for everyone, huh? It seems to me that the lesser of these two evils is the herbivore diet; you’re still getting poisoned but at least it’s a smaller dose!

Our global population is growing rapidly and our food supply is being pushed to exhaustion. Because of this demand, the factory farms are going to constantly increase their production, which subsequently means more unnatural techniques will be used. And all those massive, money-hungry corporations have already shown their disregard for ethical and humane standards, so who can say that their new techniques will be any safer for us than their old techniques?

Now don't go quoting me out of context yet. I'm not saying that omnivores are the downfall of society – not unless they also vote conservative. I'm saying that their food is more genetically tampered with than a vegetarian's food. Personally, I think that’s sick.

Unless our government starts protecting us from literally eating ourselves to death, stop encouraging those Frankenfarms! If you buy meat, look for organic, grain-fed food.

For more information, check out the popular book Ecoholic by Adria Vasil (www.ecoholic.ca).

The Breakdown of the Democratic State

A functioning democracy requires an informed and involved population. Both of these parts are equally crucial to a democratic system of government. Currently, with unnerving regularity, these are being compromised, and we only have ourselves to blame.

It is far too simple to say that the media is at fault for the lack of adequate and relevant information presented. I don’t personally believe this. We operate on a capitalist economic system and the same supply-and-demand structure regulates how media organizations function since they are nothing more than an established private business. It’s true that they can sometimes offer a significant amount of detracting discourse, however it is the responsibility of the population to demand the relevant information. It is inarguably more important to be more concerned about society than entertainment, but we have become so withdrawn that we accept – and expect – the opposite. Entertainment will not - and should not - define a nation's actions.

In Canada, voter turnout has been in a reasonably consistent decline, from 69% in the 1993 Federal election to 64% in 2006, with dips to 61% in-between. I think that the majority of voters agree that their vote doesn’t make any difference, but at what point does this actually happen? Does your vote make a difference when you’re the only one voting? Of course it does. So what about when there are two people? A hundred? A million? At what number do you unilaterally decide to remain silent and allow the government to operate without your consent? And what if the majority of these non-voters voted the same way? It’s not that farfetched when you consider that non-voter disenfranchisement could be directly linked to their political beliefs.

Here’s a hypothetical situation. There are ten people lost in the forest; four of those people want to wait for help to arrive, three want to start building shelter and gathering food, and the remaining three don’t vote at all. So the majority has decided that they wait, and in the meantime the whole group suffers because there is no help coming and the people that could have made a difference decided they couldn’t. Multiply this by several million and this is what is happening in our country. If you aren’t involved or informed, you’re just waiting for things to get worse. That's how you've voted.

Our Evitable Future

(Yes, I’ve created the word ‘evitable’ which would logically be the antonym of ‘inevitable.’)

Whether you choose to believe or ignore the obvious, if mankind continues along our littered path, we are destined to end up with only a handful of outcomes and fewer choices than we have now.

Fossil fuels will become non-existent, and we will be forced to seek out other sources of energy. We’ve already begun looking into renewable sources, but since we still have oil left in the ground we are not nearly focused enough. We are more likely to hit an abrupt end rather than wean ourselves off slowly, and this will cause further problems. As fuel costs increase, more and more of the working force will be unable to get to work. If public transportation remains inadequate to support this growing group, businesses will have to become centralized. Locations that are not near major traffic arteries will find it harder to keep reliable staff, which will strain the economy in many ways.

Biological fuel sources will be developed further, which is clearly not a perfect answer to the fuel crisis. Biofuel is created from harvested crops which could otherwise be used as food. This is an important aspect to focus on, because everything is dependent on these crops. Animals that we raise for human consumption require seven times the amount of food that they end up providing, and since humans are not likely to give up their precious steaks, this is going to further strain the agricultural sector. Farmers have a number of obstacles during a growing season, which includes weather and the requirements of plants. Some plants, like corn, need such a high concentration of nitrogen that it takes a lot more effort to sustain the soil every year. Further, our escalating weather patterns are not likely to be any more predictable than they are now, so if we have a few consecutive seasons of bad weather, there will be less grain for these three demanding groups; humans, animals, and fuel.

When there does happen to be sufficient yield to sell, farmers will always sell their product to the highest bidder. Once fossil fuels are diminished, and if electric cars aren’t available, the most likely highest bidder will be the fuel companies. If most of our food is being converted to fuel, then the costs of food will increase. As food costs increase, the price will proportionally increase. Seeing as how the demand for food will always be increasing, famine and poverty are not unlikely possibilities. When the population becomes impoverished and malnourished, both the health care sector and the general labour force begin to feel that extra burden. Once this happens, the majority of the population will be unhappy and social class tensions will increase, leading to crime and violence.

The root of this problem is, of course, our dependency on oil. We have to urge our government to plan ahead with our fuel problems. Not only do we need vehicles that are powered through completely renewable sources that do not impede on our food supply, but we need those vehicles and fuels affordable.

A Realistic Approach To Capitalism

A government is comprised of a body of people that were born no more or less able for their job than you or I. There is no divinity, inherited gene, or magical elixir involved. Government, then, is merely a group of individuals working alongside each other. Often, each of these individuals has their own political interests which clash with the interests of other individuals or the group itself. Very ineffective. Now take a similar body of people who do have a common goal, such as a large corporation. Whereas a government’s attention is diluted, a corporation’s is saturated: they want to make money.

A corporation with such enormous financial weight has significant political gravity that can be used to influence individuals, even members of government. Ironically, it is the lack of government cohesion and response that has lead to this current corporate dominance. Government created the laws that enabled corporations to expand their sphere of influence past merely the consumer. It is now so far out of control that it’s nearly irreversible.

A government cannot cross a border and set itself up in that country’s market as easily as a corporation can. Globalization and multi-national corporations are not an ideal solution to the world’s problems, and in fact are often the direct source of them. For example, the violent oppression occurring in most third world countries is directly related to corporations using those countries for their commercial productivity, whether through resource or labour exploitation.

The market for a product does not simply exist without reason; it exists because there is a demand for it. Whenever you spend money on a product, you are condoning the actions of its production in every aspect, from development to shipment. Each dollar you spend is a resolute vote, and it is your duty as the deep-thinking and conscientious consumer that you are to vote for what you believe in. The threat of globalization is a reality. We are allowing developing countries to be used as a commodity to “enhance” our lives. The ideals of capitalism have no concept of moral boundary. It sees every place and every thing as an opportunity to sustain the corporation’s profitability. It responds only to the market.

A corporation that responds only to the market has only one Achille’s heel: the market itself. Government can affect the market in some ways through tariffs and regulations, but this has little impact on the ability of the product to be sold. For example, cigarette manufacturers are forced to put warning labels of a certain size on their packaging, but this does not stop people from buying them. The consumer has more ability to affect a corporation than government does, and we have much more power as an individual consumer than we often believe. Any corporation that has any intention of staying in business will accommodate the consumer. The only thing that has to change to see a dramatic shift in ethics is our demand. If we tell these companies what we will and won’t buy, it is unquestionably true that their products will change. As these products change, so will the world. Standards of living will improve globally, which will dynamically reduce hostility and segregation.

To paraphrase Karl Marx, consumers of all lands unite!

A Brief Look At Idiocy

Consider for a moment the last time you thought to yourself, “why are there so many idiots in this world?” Well, ponder that rhetorical question no more! I have the answer, and it’s so simple that even an idiot could have thought of it… and maybe I did! The number of idiots is increasing in direct proportion to the overall population!

Given the fact that our population continues to grow despite overwhelming scientific evidence suggesting it’s unsustainable, there is exponential possibility for future idiots. Let’s assume that only 1% of the population are idiots, which is likely a low estimation. Two centuries ago, there were about 900 million people on the planet, which works out to roughly 9 million idiots. Today there are about 7 billion, which works out to 70 million idiots! That’s a massive increase in idiocy! These idiots are everywhere, too! They aren’t restricted just to one city, like Ottawa, they’re spread out all over! They’re driving drunk on the roads, stopping in the middle of the walkway at the mall, being president of the United States… it’s idiot madness out there!

We have a predisposition to control our pet population through spaying and neutering, with the logic being that we don’t want to have stray animals running around. Imagine if we applied this same approach to people! This way we wouldn’t have stray humans all over the place, reproducing uncontrollably and being nuisances! Before you get your panties all in a bunch, by “stray humans” I do not mean homeless people. We are all nothing but strays, physically or mentally. We live on a planet with finite resources and area. We have the ability to live peacefully with each other and with nature… but we choose not to. We continue in our habitual ways, possibly due to arrogance and possibly due to ignorance, unwilling to compromise or change. Maybe we’re all idiots, some just have better disguises than others?