The Cost of Control
“Systems don’t serve people, people comply with systems.”
What is the cost of control?
The ability to be free to think, create, innovate and express ourselves is important to the enjoyment of our lives. It is, in fact, essential to our humanity. We perceive a realm in which we exist. Most of us have a desire to explore this realm at some level, We seek to understand our existence and create some meaning for our lives.
When this freedom and self-determination is artificially restricted it can create many negative consequences. When we feel constrained it creates a lack of hope, a lack of enthusiasm and a lack of initiative. When we believe that we will never be afforded the opportunity to pursue the things that genuinely interest us, despair and mental illness can follow. We question, “what is the point of living”? Drug addiction, suicide, homelessness, crime and a variety of social maladies can result. We see this in our world now.
Every attempt at controlling the human population, no matter how well intended, will have some negative effect. One person, or group’s, view of what is good, will never mesh with the views of billions of people. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all set of controls that will promote a sense of fairness and opportunity for all humans. Someone, isn’t going to be happy. Attempts at control and uniformity will create resentment and division. Yes, that’s right, even if we achieve a system where every human being gets exactly the same quantity of everything, there will be many people who think it is unjust. Why would people with exceptional abilities and work ethic push the limits of their skills, if they’re only going to receive the same life as people who do nothing?
It comes down to a word that is not properly understood anymore, value. People value different things. These values help them order their lives. When forced to live within the restrictions of a system designed to benefit their overlords, people will find little value, and conflict is sure to ensue.
Furthermore, in recent decades the value of work, ethics, integrity and loyalty have been degraded. They have been replaced by the singular focus of acquiring financial wealth. It no longer matters if you can produce goods or services that provide value to others. You just have to be able to get people to watch you on social media, doing anything, in large enough numbers to be paid so that those in control can bombard your viewers with slickly crafted messages designed to control their thoughts and spending habits. No new value has been created for humankind, only for those in control.
Control of our world is now in the hands of technocrats and bankers. These breeds of humans focus on efficiency and financial profitability. However, freedom, creativity, and life in general, are not efficient processes. Life is often random and messy. A fulfilling life requires free thought, trial-and-error, managing failures, and sometimes many years to “polish” an idea. Many things in life provide no financial return, yet they provide value to those who experience them.
Will the people who wield the power use it to liberate all mankind to think freely, to innovate, and to help our species actualize it’s potential? Will they use their control to herd us all into a digital factory where we feed their wealth at the cost of our own creativity and values? Do you trust them to exercise this control?
So, what is the cost of control? Loss of freedom, loss of lives, lack of trust, suppressed creativity, denial of truth, division, resentment, detachment from the reality of our physical realm. What?
Entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that things tend to move from a more ordered state to a less ordered state. Control tends to deteriorate. Maintaining control takes a lot of effort. So the more disorderly the subjects, the more difficult for the digital kings to control them. Just sayin’.