The Most Destructive Paradigm: Owning Earth

excerpt of my own writings

The Most Destructive Paradigm: Owning Earth

Although the fallacy of owning Earth deserves a chapter on its own, let’s first scrutinize the most obvious to connect a few essential dots. The most striking one, without a doubt, is the unfettered market privatization of anything we can think of. Owning earth, implies that anything must sell. When man thinks Earth belongs to him, that presupposes and comprises all life living on Her. Drawing the line becomes impossible since the very nature of any paradigm is to expand. It is only when man begins to accept with humility that he belongs to Earth, is subjected to Her own Laws instead, that he also really begins to respect life and use Knowledge for a greater good. When Knowledge doesn’t evolve along those lines, it is rightfully perceived as competitive, inimical to individuality and eventually a threat to societies or even his own species. The prevalent war syndrome highlights this within every civilization. Fighting for natural resources also points to property rights and borders as a fiction. That the latter have been and still are scapegoated for the sake of monetary power, Earth’s ownership.

Humans should be free to settle wherever they want to. When humans are contained, restricted, they also are more controllable. An open border policy has thus little to do protectionism but the ability to move freely. Protectionism is no more less than a prison without bars. Unfortunately, such an open border premise is unworkable if not implemented on a planetary scale. At this level also, reversing the trends is impossible without a major shock to the system. There are tremendous challenges ahead since cultural issues have rather been used throughout mankind’s history to instill ‘divide and conquer’. Socially, for example, Multiculturalism is too a paradigm operating as a ticking bomb since every race on Earth is being competitively exploited one way or another (in the same way Nature is), and thus causing resentment and racism between cultures. Let alone Robotics, which when fully implemented, will stand against all races. It is important to link the ‘fallacy of owning Earth’ and to the ever steadily erosion of free will over the centuries - and conclude that freedom never really existed. Indeed, by the same token, we ought to wonder about the consequences of privatizing birth in the UK and which will turn ‘giving birth’ into another mega business, reinforcing social competitive stratifications.

There are many clues out there for us to see as why the paradigm of ‘Owning Earth’ is truly the cause of most of our competitive planetary ills, if not all of them. The odds that we’ll eventually be driven into considering a new set of metaphysical guidelines for societies is too getting clearer by the day, but this will eventually imply to question the worthiness of religious monopolies whose goals are to own and market spirituality. Claiming religious ownership of any faith and Oligarchical Collectivism goes hand by hand. The countless religious wars humanity has gone through makes it rather obvious. Today, they are waged under the guise of democracy.

Without owning the earth, we can own the results of our efforts = own the earth.

This is quite a late development flowing out of the capitalist idea. It contains many dangers - not least, catastrophic crop failure and mass starvation - and is morally repugnant, as well as socially destructive. It will end with the collapse of all present monetary economies, but by then, there may not be much left to fight over.

Not necessarily. Monetarism (capital, ‘the market’ and consumerism), dominion (humans as the apex of creation, with unlimited prerogative) and territorialism (control and defence of an area and its resources) are concepts from different stages of human evolution. You might want to study and deal with them separately, and trace how each stage builds upon the assumptions and expectations developed in the previous stage.

Many primitive religious systems were based on this idea. The religions of civilization encouraged the dominion idea at the expense of balance, harmony and humility. The civilizations that did this were extremely successful organized predators. Success is difficult to argue with (especially when it’s heavily armed, touchy and aggressive), so the only way back to those values is over the ruins of civilization.

They did! Everywhere. And multiplied like there was no tomorrow.

True. But that’s how they want it. If they didn’t want to, they wouldn’t so enthusiastically co-operate in their own and one another’s incarceration, oppression and exploitation.

It’s a bit more complicated than this.

So, which is it? Never was any freedom, or it eroded? I can see different kinds and degrees of individual freedom in different societies, and different kinds of social organization. I don’t see a traceable progression of more overall [global] freedom in any specific period of the past to a less generally free present. I do see the overpopulation and increasing consumption straining the relations among tribes, territories, cultures and commercial interests.

They’ve always done that, and people don’t seem to mind.

Some are. The form of governance has little effect on religious bigotry or conflict. People will give it up when/if they find something that satisfies the same need more effectively.

Territoriality can be found in all species. Human territoriality is just taken to the extremes.

Naturally since human beings are the apex predator at the top of the food chain it makes sense as to why human beings have achieved an existence of global territorial domination.

What separates human beings however from all other species is economics in a purely monetary and currency sense. No other species has this kind of organization or systemization on living and existing.

So if I settled somewhere, someone should be free to settle where I have? Kick me out through force? No, I suppose you wouldn’t agree with that. So how do you guarantee that I can settle anywhere?

No. They should not. 1) Unfortunately, it is alraedy a law, a human right, that humans are free to settle wherever they want to, although it is also already a fact that it has been leading to desastrous situations. 2) Owning Earth as the most destructive paradigm and the free settlement of humans belong together, and both have been leading to desastrous situations.

The current human rights (including the right to settle wherever humans want to) are rights that support owning the Earth. So the current human rights are false. No human should de allowed to own the Earth. Most of the human rights begin with the words “every human” or “everybody” or “one” (human - of course) - and that is a huge problem, because these words do not stand for all humans but for those humans who have the most power. So those with the most power are allowed to own the Earth, whereas all other humans settle in concentration camps called “cities”.

When humans are in concentration camps called “cities”, then they are more controllable. Where do humans prefer to settle, if they are allowed to settle wherever they want to? In cities.

An open border policy supports to own the Earth and to control people even more effectively (see above).

Protectionism is a part of the immune system of a society.

Changing the world means owning the world.

Yes, and that is because of their upright gait, their free arms and hands with fingers than can oppose (=> thumb), their very large brain, their language that leads to philosophy/science and all the technological/technical skills that lead to owning the Earth, the solar system, the universe.

My kynical invitation as a response to a cynical behavior: “Take part in the project ’owning the universe‘”!

The problem isn’t ownage in of itself, but the way they own it. They treat it like little kids, as if the Earth is their plastic garbage bin to dispose of. They don’t care about their own futures, and they don’t care about Earth’s.

humans do not travel freely, still need a passport… and often visas… bureaucracy restricts freedoms. always
politicians have argue in favor of protectionism, economic and social, for thousands of years. Did it work?

theft and murder will forever remain a crime. such an argument is senseless

sure… but globalization has destroyed everything. Nature and caused immense human sufferings, until we take responsibility for that, we are setting ourselves up for our own extinction.

Man’s destiny should sublimate which of an apex predator. Should be. He should be the “earth custodian” instead. Thats the only 2 choices he has.

Well then I have no understanding how “Humans should be free to settle wherever they want to. When humans are contained, restricted, they also are more controllable” is an argument for you, as you stated.

the day people understand that attacking others will restrict their freedoms eventually, they will stop doing so. But now, we’ll need a major upheaval to get it.

The problem is the huge differences between those who have been held back for millennia, particularly, ex colonial nations resentment is not about to disappear, just like that toward their keepers.

I
n addition the ex colonials have learned much more quickly the art of acting, to suit who ever they want to endear to their new found civility. It’s like a
baseless awareness of people’s virtues, of nicety, co-operation and empathy.

In case of a major cataclysm, who would be the beneficiary of pent up and unexpressed grievances?

I am sure , that peripheral characteristics would weigh in fairly quickly.

What is this prescription for despair? I am sure with time, where the oppressed had more than a shortcut method to study from, Cliff’s notes of democratic principles, than time it took Western civilization thousands of years to learn, - things would be fairly predictable.

But as things stand, it’s like a crap-shoot, anyone’s guess is as good.

Humans do not own Earth. We are merely custodians of it. It was here long before we were and it could equally be here long after we are gone
It does not need us but we very much need it as it is the only home we have. And so we should look after it and not take it so much for granted

Wishful thinking!
Kantinism has failed for advocating it, should , should, should, and the new philosophy of science hush hushed such an attempt, by advocating shorter and shorter spans to immediate satisfactions, pre fabricating built in obsolescence, all in the guise of candy wrapping diminishing returns. That is the real inflationary spiral, getting more and more, and enjoying it less and less.

glad to hear/read this… so glad… actually I am writing a blueprint for A Voluntarist and Futuristic Society, Man as Earth Custodian. I’d appreciate your opinion at some point, when done.

So, if I leave my house and someone settles there, how is it stolen or attacked, if ownership isn’t allowed?

you are referring to savagery, animal behavior. and if you think within that very premise, I cannot answer that question.

My premise is that of a man who has evolved and is aware and conscious.

But think further, the elites design the borders for us anyway, either by war or economic treaties/invasions… borders are truly fictive, always been. Donald Trump for example wants to build a wall, while the real problem is CAFTA, NAFTA and the WTO. The wall is useless… look at the EU block threatened with collapse due to a massive refugee crisis, itself the consequence of the west bombing the middle east. It is the plan.