man-eat-man

it's a man-eat-man world

by mark may 2013

in cambodia, a person with a salaried job (iow not a farmer) must work several months to afford to by a computer of any kind. however, since the buyer does not know how to achieve an optimum benefit from the computer, the value of the work done to pay for the computer is mostly wasted. iow, the value of work done by the buyer as represented by the salary in the form of money, would benefit the buyer far more when spent on alternate goods or services. however, social forces come into play which compel a person to buy a computer which they do not know how to use to a level of benefit that is equal to the cost.

furthermore, technology in general, as it becomes increasingly sophisticated through the efforts of scientists, conversely becomes decreasingly beneficial to the majority of people. for example, cryptographers develop increasingly secure methods of encryption to secure online transactions such as banking and commerce. however, the vast majority of people on earth do not benefit from this advance in technology. in fact, in cambodia, no ordinary person has a credit card or even a bank account. banks in cambodia continue to make sub prime loans to ordinary people with the strategy of taking their land when they default on the loan. so primitive, craven, and opportunistic are the people of this culture. here it can be observed like the opening scene of the film "space odyssey" which with extreme exaggeration depicts the gap in benefit between the actual users and the intended users of technology.

since in a free market economy the development of technology is intended for sale to unknown individuals, the goal is blind to every aspect of the future but revenue. the developers and the sellers only infer that someone with money will arrive at the store to buy the new gadget. they do not know specifically who will buy it, and they do not know or care whether or not the individual will actually benefit from the product. as technology become increasingly incomprehensible to the ordinary person, the buyer must increasingly accept the blame or responsibility for the inability to use the technology to its full or intended potential. this blind aspect of marketing promotes commerce that is insensitive to the needs of people in general. this also is an inhumane environmental result of technology. it can be compared to "unintended consequences" of technology, but now that this theory is well known and intentionally ignored, it is clear that the free market is intentionally subversive to people in general. in other words, the development of technology and subsequent marketing for profit is mercenary.

more generally, while developers may claim that the solution to a medical problem for example is their purpose, history shows that every solution produces at least one or more new problems which are equal to or worse than the original problem. the new problem is unknown to the developers. likewise, many technological breakthroughs have been accidental. this is a complimentary pairing of the unpredictable and unintended results of development of new technology. as the population increases, the quality of life continues to decrease for the majority of people, including in many cases the people who participate in the development. real estate in certain locations in california can not be purchased except by people who have a disproportionately large amount of money, iow, the vast money at in their possession is not logically indicative of any beneficial contribution the individual made to society. this implies that the mercenary aspect of a free market is unhealthy for the majority and only benefits a small minority of individuals who exploit the majority to an optimum level.

one of the components of this exploitation as seen in cambodia is the subversion of public education systems by the collaboration of large private enterprise with corrupt government leaders. when government does not serve the people, then it is no longer "government" per se, and effectively dissolves itself into the unfettered market enterprises. once this occurs, the majority of people may observe that the quality of public services available to them is very poor or non existent. most of the government schools in cambodia only offer instruction to grade 9 or 10, thus preventing most people from completing high school. the motive for this is singular and intentional. in cambodia, government and private enterprise are indistinguishable except by name and thus benefit from a mass of slave labor. the "elite" in cambodia, while they too are often truly uneducated (in spite of holding degrees purchased from various institutions) do not perceive economic benefit from a majority well-educated population; therefore, we can infer that the leaders or "elite" group exploit the masses because they neither contain nor express any empathy or compassion for people in general. in cambodia this effect is visible on the surface. in the united states, on the other hand, a person may work at an ordinary job and believe that they have never participated in corruption. they fail to realize that the 30% or so taxation they pay is used to subvert governments and wage war in other countries. they fail to realize their responsibility, in the same way that they daily cook and eat meat without ever killing an animal.

and so i offer this proposition. now that you are habituated to buy, cook, and eat meat without ever killing an animal, and now that many meats are to some extent unidentifiable mixtures of slaughterhouse products, such as sausages and hotdogs for example, if you ate a hotdog during the excitement of watch a game on tv, and if that hotdog was composed of 20% human meat, would you notice?

it might already be a man-eat-man world.