Our Social Hangover

Is greed good? I guess it must be since we live in and willingly accept a fixed social construct fine-tuned for thousands of years that has created a huge set of for-profit industries organized around our most addictive impulses:

• drugs > addiction (fentanyl)
• fast food > obesity
• gambling > addiction
• guns > violence
• liquor > alcoholism
• online gaming > addiction
• payday loans > poverty
• porn > addiction
• smoking > addiction
• social media > dysfunction
• streaming > obsession

The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher

And then, we spend a huge percentage of the federal and state tax revenues generated by these industries to try and control, enforce, penalize, and rehabilitate the consequences our impulsive and addictive behaviors and social hangover which creates a massive negative social impact and cost, year after year, decade after decade.

• drug and alcohol addiction
• breakdown of relationships, marriage, families
• cognitive offloading and erosion of humanness and thinking
• damage to physical and mental health
• erosion of truth, trust, and the overall social fabric
• financial risk, dependency, bankruptcy
• violence
• and worst of all, passing along to our children, generation after generation, our destructive addictive impulses either by our example and/or our genes.

The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture by Pamela Haag

Many cities, states, and our federal government are on the brink of financial breakdown and desperate for more tax revenue. Mega-billionaire gambling opportunists are ready to step in and take advantage of this desperation by promising a flowing tap of cash squeezed from the weakest impulses and addictions of human beings.

Unfortunately, the meek are not inheriting the earth.

Regardless of what Gordon Gekko said, greed will (not) be good in the long term for society with the exception of the 1% who will make big money from the transactions on both sides of this equation, resulting in …..

….. a few big winners, and millions of losers.

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The 1% Doth Protest Too Much

Big Questions

What will better serve the Common Good: More assault weapons on the street in anybody’s hands? Or, fewer assault weapons on the street and only in the hands of law enforcement and military?

Big Picture

Big Picture / Human Society / Social Organization/Change / Social Hangover

• addiction recovery:
  • Alcoholics Anonymous: What don’t we know about AA? The 13th Step
  • Shatterproof
• corporate greed:
  • McKinsey Apologizes For Helping Purdue Pharma ‘Turbocharge’ Opioid Sales NPR
  • Wall Street
• PRODUCTION & UTILIZATION OF WEALTH