As though it wasn't enough, we have an entire society that worships money and all means to obtain it. Now, there's the pitch. The game is all the ways in which humanity cons itself to obtain it.
Why, though? This question is equally damning for morality as it is a perplexing philosophical meandering into what happens to humanity once it's need for survival is replaced with the fruits of their labor with an idealistic piece of paper or an account controlled with a piece of plastic.
When I was a wee little tyke, elementary school is the earliest I can remember being taught this, I was told humanity needed three fundamental things to survive. Now, even at the time I found one of them to be a rather arbitrary survival trait that was more dependent upon where the human was existing than anything else; however, those three items of necessity were food, clothing, and shelter. For the sake of simplicity we will assume water falls under the food category.
I imagine, and research agrees, that before mass civilization existed those fundamental things were provided for in the small tribes, lacking in currency of any sort and essentially, if trading did exist, was done in a means that traded goods and items as opposed to using currency.
Currency changed that, of course. No longer did someone have to give up their supplies or goods in order to gain someone else's. Currency became a tool to enrich lives.
Again, for the sake of simplicity, I will leave out thievery and other nefarious means of accumulating currency and focus on the positive side of currency.
Tactically, this worked well because if two neighboring tribes or cities wanted to trade in this manner, it broadened everyone's lives with things they were not otherwise experiencing.
Now let me attempt to bridge this gap. When times became hard and a farmer's crops didn't render enough food, currency alleviated that by ensuring that food could still be had. Likewise if farm animals began dying off from some disease. Currency then doubled as a tool for survival.
Now, in today's society, currency, or money, is our means of survival. We don't have the land to grow crops on to eat, and even if we do most of us wouldn't know the first thing about growing our own food (or have the time). Money is the requirement to put food on the table. Without money we become homeless, we don't have shelter or clothing. Essentially, those three necessities are now reduced to one singular necessity - money.
So what happens if one has to live off of such a small amount of money that they can barely afford those necessities? Well, the easiest thing to do is attach a desire to wanting more of that money because, at that point, more money equals more survival, or, at the very least, better survival.
That leads us to our modern day. Over 40% of the population in the USA can't afford the basic necessities. Forty percent of the population in this country is struggling to survive. Forty. Fucking. Percent.
It is actually closer to 43%. (a quick google search will fill in the rest of that information for you).
If that many Americans are struggling to survive, imagine how many of those are wishing for more money. If that is what they wish for, it is only natural for it to turn into a worship. Afterall, the whole premise of things being worshiped is the wish for something else - in religions case, for a better world in the form of an afterlife. People worship celebrities because people wish they were said celebrity. Worshipping money is, like the other forms, an extreme form of desire.
The worshipping of money, though, is also what has created the idolizing of figures like Donald Trump, who exudes the image of wealth in everything he does - or at least attempts to. That is also where the big con comes in. Official record now states that he has told over 5,000 falsehoods and untruths since he became sitting president. That isn't even in two years.
Better yet, a look into his history will show you how often he has conned people our of their money - a fake university, convincing city government to give him a substantial tax break for something he never returned on, all the way down to paying a company to make over an ice skating rink and then take all the credit - this being after he guaranteed they'd get their due respect.
And why has he done all this? I can't imagine to answer the full depth of that question, but one very obvious and equally prominent answer is money. Except, he doesn't need all of his to survive.
Of course, the average person isn't a con artist - they just want to survive.
-Dustin S. Stover
Why, though? This question is equally damning for morality as it is a perplexing philosophical meandering into what happens to humanity once it's need for survival is replaced with the fruits of their labor with an idealistic piece of paper or an account controlled with a piece of plastic.
When I was a wee little tyke, elementary school is the earliest I can remember being taught this, I was told humanity needed three fundamental things to survive. Now, even at the time I found one of them to be a rather arbitrary survival trait that was more dependent upon where the human was existing than anything else; however, those three items of necessity were food, clothing, and shelter. For the sake of simplicity we will assume water falls under the food category.
I imagine, and research agrees, that before mass civilization existed those fundamental things were provided for in the small tribes, lacking in currency of any sort and essentially, if trading did exist, was done in a means that traded goods and items as opposed to using currency.
Currency changed that, of course. No longer did someone have to give up their supplies or goods in order to gain someone else's. Currency became a tool to enrich lives.
Again, for the sake of simplicity, I will leave out thievery and other nefarious means of accumulating currency and focus on the positive side of currency.
Tactically, this worked well because if two neighboring tribes or cities wanted to trade in this manner, it broadened everyone's lives with things they were not otherwise experiencing.
Now let me attempt to bridge this gap. When times became hard and a farmer's crops didn't render enough food, currency alleviated that by ensuring that food could still be had. Likewise if farm animals began dying off from some disease. Currency then doubled as a tool for survival.
Now, in today's society, currency, or money, is our means of survival. We don't have the land to grow crops on to eat, and even if we do most of us wouldn't know the first thing about growing our own food (or have the time). Money is the requirement to put food on the table. Without money we become homeless, we don't have shelter or clothing. Essentially, those three necessities are now reduced to one singular necessity - money.
So what happens if one has to live off of such a small amount of money that they can barely afford those necessities? Well, the easiest thing to do is attach a desire to wanting more of that money because, at that point, more money equals more survival, or, at the very least, better survival.
That leads us to our modern day. Over 40% of the population in the USA can't afford the basic necessities. Forty percent of the population in this country is struggling to survive. Forty. Fucking. Percent.
It is actually closer to 43%. (a quick google search will fill in the rest of that information for you).
If that many Americans are struggling to survive, imagine how many of those are wishing for more money. If that is what they wish for, it is only natural for it to turn into a worship. Afterall, the whole premise of things being worshiped is the wish for something else - in religions case, for a better world in the form of an afterlife. People worship celebrities because people wish they were said celebrity. Worshipping money is, like the other forms, an extreme form of desire.
The worshipping of money, though, is also what has created the idolizing of figures like Donald Trump, who exudes the image of wealth in everything he does - or at least attempts to. That is also where the big con comes in. Official record now states that he has told over 5,000 falsehoods and untruths since he became sitting president. That isn't even in two years.
Better yet, a look into his history will show you how often he has conned people our of their money - a fake university, convincing city government to give him a substantial tax break for something he never returned on, all the way down to paying a company to make over an ice skating rink and then take all the credit - this being after he guaranteed they'd get their due respect.
And why has he done all this? I can't imagine to answer the full depth of that question, but one very obvious and equally prominent answer is money. Except, he doesn't need all of his to survive.
Of course, the average person isn't a con artist - they just want to survive.
-Dustin S. Stover
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