Humans build businesses and corporations that exploit human frailties and weaknesses. They exploit the human need for chemical hits, they exploit the illusions that humans are victims to. Corporations have made humans their collective bitch. Businesses fail and adapt and evolve quicker than animals do, so you could say that from an “enlightened” or “higher” perspective, humans exist to serve businesses. (If businesses could talk, that’s what they would say, just as humans say the same about animals and the earth.) The corporation is a superior living entity to the human being (so was the kingdom and so is the nation-state) in the sense that it is more robust to failure, and for the time being seems more capable of exploiting humans than vice versa. Some humans create corporations hoping to empower themselves by enslaving others, but few manage to escape unscathed- they are unwittingly enslaved themselves, by ambition and the trappings of wealth.
This isn’t to say that businesses are inherently bad, no, not at all. Businesses are way more cunning than that. They know that they have to empower their victims to some degree so that they’ll be kept alive. Unenlightened businesses are parasites that kill their victims (this is totally fine for narcotics, for arms-dealing, for alcohol, for fast food), while enlightened businesses are symbiots that empower their hosts. (This requires an entirely different rhetoric from what I’m using, but I’m sticking with the current style for dramatic effect.)
Businesses and corporations have helped to boost standards of living, they have helped to combat disease, sickness and famine. They have brought abundance, healthcare, knowledge and information to the masses. They have enabled us to better understand ourselves and the processes that we are governed by (which subsequently allows us the luxury of criticizing the manner in which we receive these luxuries. A Few Good Men.)
Hopefully, as people get more enlightened and more aware of how people use businesses (and businesses use people) to exploit people, we’ll demand that the exploitation is replaced by empowerment. Business should be about the creation of real value for people, not the exploitation of human frailty and weakness. Hopefully we can build an immune system to protect ourselves against this so that we can get the good while keeping out the bad.
Businesses are animals, bags of human beings chasing profits and growth. The question arises whether we can rewire the neurochemistry of businesses, and if so, can we use these large superstructures to rewire the neurochemistry of individuals? It seems plausible, given evidence that people are influenced by their surroundings and social circumstances. (It would be so easy to become prescriptivist and use such rhetoric to do horrible things to people, though. It’s important to earn legitimacy through honest discourse.)
We seem to have drifted from the central focus- what the fuck does it mean to be a human being? Quick recap- it involves being a bag of chemicals chasing chemical hits. There are certain trends and patterns in the way we seek our chemical hits. Natural selection has selected (randomly) for social animals, so many (most) of us are wired to get pleasure from meaningfully contributing beyond ourselves. (Or the illusion of doing so.) Self-expression. Pleasure. All of us seek pleasure and it’s fucking ridiculous how little we talk about it in polite conversation. (Deja vu- I mentioned this the last time, didn’t I. Oops.)
What is school for? To prepare kids for life? Well, adults, what are the most important lessons you’ve learnt? I should ask people. I shall.
A random thought/insight/expression: Social life is an elaborate dance of conquest and desire in subtle forms. I want to write about this, to write about the “problem” of lust, or the human condition that is lust, a desire for conquest, endless desire, to conquer others, to conquer land, to conquer people- psychologically, emotionally, physically- sexual conquest… what it is to live with that and to make sense of it and to realize that we treat people very differently depending on how they manifest those desires. And nobody teaches you how to do it right. But we disproportionately reward people for getting it “right” and we punish people for getting it “wrong”. Right and wrong are of course arbitrary concepts decided by whoever is in power. This should probably be a separate article altogether and I think I’ll write one about my personal experiences and perspectives.
What are the lessons? All greatness begins with baby steps. It’s important to solicit negative feedback from friends (says Elon Musk). It’s important to persist and to work hard and to fight for something that you’re psychotically obsessed with (making the huge assumption of course that there’s anything in your brain that allows for psychotic obsession, and that your obsession is something healthy and positive and desired by the masses.)
Clearly we need to understand people’s brains better, and how we behave as people, and study is so, so important. Hail thee, scientific method. If only you were applied more rigorously across all fields, at all times, that we might learn at a breakneck speed and realize our potential as a species. Man, imagine if we could bring plants to Mars and grow them there. It would be the furthest that Earth-plants have ever been, and we, that is, human kind, would function as Earth’s sort of “gardener.” What if that’s what we are? What if we’re supposed to spread plants from Earth to beyond, and that other planets aren’t actually meant to be bare and barren? Of course all of this is hogwash and a liberal application of the human need for causes and meaning. There’s no such thing as “meant” or “should”. That’s just us imposing our will upon reality. But we can, so why shouldn’t we, as long as we’re not really hurting anyone? We have to be critical and turn inwards on ourselves- in a healthy way- so that we can grow and learn. Natural selection has selected for us to be this way.
We’re all animals, after all, chasing our chemical hits. The question is, how do we align ourselves and our environments and our societies such that we create optimal conditions for the maximal realization of these chemical hits in a way that is positive, sustainable, healthy and non-damaging to humans and to nature?
Meow.