By Latoya Ralliford
Are billionaires helping or destroying the global economy? Are they suffering from a god complex?
We are living in a space and time where we can make an impact to either save the world or bring the world into further chaos. Some of us have access to many keys that will open doors that billions can only dream of catching a glimpse of. At the same time, many of us cannot even imagine a world where we have access to resources at our fingertips. We believe that those suffering are struggling in a foreign place. But the reality is that millions go to sleep hungry every night in this land of “plenty.” In the looming dread of devastation from climate change, the developing ecumenopolis society keeps itself distracted with Pings, Posts, Tweets, and Toks. With every “swipe” or “scroll,” we shift into an irrational, self-destructive mentality classified as global insanity. Those who demonstrate rationality or a moral compass are silenced by trolls in this weakened state. While those who promote their insecurities, or their most intimate aspects, are cheered on and awarded with 5-minutes of fame – a moment that many influencers will try to reproduce by becoming a gimmick of themselves indefinitely.
“When the brain is overloaded by stimuli, as it usually is when we’re peering into a network-connected computer screen, attention splinters, thinking becomes superficial, and memory suffers. We become less reflective and more impulsive.” (Carr, 2010)
ENTER THE ANTAGONISTS.
Every good villain has a memorable entrance onto the scene. In boring stories, the author paints a picture of a villain who had always been evil just because the villains were evil. The villains that leave the most significant impact are those who demonstrate a hefty dose of narcissistic personality disorder wrapped in a beautiful packaging of charisma. And when the opportunity arises, they come in with their 3-minute sales pitches; then they snatch the rug from underneath us.
Most remember the most famous historic villains are Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Jim Jones, Idi Amin, and Bin Ladin. The traditional political villain list has expanded to include Vladimir Putin and former President Donald Trump in more recent years. But in addition to history’s most notorious political baddies, there’s another list of villains that are undetected for the most part. This group (the extraordinarily wealthy and/or the highly famous) like Jim Jones each has a devoted cult following. They have the most influence on either saving or destroying the world as we know it.
How is this possible?
The governments don’t control the future. Corporations own the future with the free market and globalization. And while no one can peer into the future, scientists and researchers can review, measure, and predict the consequences of irrational quantitative actions. As it stands, corporations are gaining ground by influencing power within government systems. A future owned by corporations is bad for social justice and the environment. The free market is a critical variable responsible for keeping slave and child labor active. The free market is also the leading party responsible for exhausting and unevenly distributing Earth’s resources.
Who are the key players in libertarian globalization? It is the extraordinarily wealthy and the highly famous.
There are many people who believe that the United States is already an oligarchy. But it is important to note that an oligarchy is not a republic. In an oligarchy, the average person doesn’t have freedom of speech. Don’t believe me? Look at the situation happening in Russia and Shanghai. The average Russian tried protesting the war with Ukraine but was sent to jail for speaking out. In China, millions of people (about 20 million people) were locked in Shanghai city limits because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Millions scream throughout the night for resources denied to them. But when members of the wealthy class speak out, the rulers listen because the wealthy class has the right to speak.
In the United States, Freedom of Speech is not just a right; it is a gift squandered and dissected by the highest bidder – Dr. Evil, The Collector, or Zorg. In each backstory, each villain has played various strategies that challenge or remove human rights. These actions are essential to note as a critical stage for observing corporate influence on American social structures and government policies.
The Backstory
The Collector is a character from an older age when technology was fresh and new. In creating his empire, The Collector managed to bring his kingdom to the top by making their product an industry standard for businesses worldwide. After being the wealthiest man alive for so long, The Collector dove into other social experiment projects. For some time, he observed society, and when he felt he had enough information, he proposed two radical movements: 1) the movement of selective reproduction and population control. 2) scorching the sky (blocking out the Sun) for a period to reset the planet's ecosystem services. While the notions of The Collector may be radical, they are also not entirely farfetched. Our Earth needs a significant change in human behavior to survive; this includes the need to reduce reproduction rates dramatically.
What makes The Collector a villain? The Collector is a villain because he wants the power to control the sky and human reproduction. While we must make more sustainable choices, a single person should not be pulling the strings.
Sourced from Flickr: Dr. EVIL (Doctor Malito en Austin Powers) | Su único propósi… | Flickr
Dr. Evil created the world's wealthiest and most successful companies. He is both loved and hated by billions. In his path to success, Dr. Evil has managed to find ways to dodge labor rights and restrictions. He and his company have pushed their employees beyond a healthy limit for years. Thousands of people cry out for the labor force to be unionized. And yet, each year, Dr. Evil's company fires those who complain. The terminated employees are replaced with new employees who can work for cheaper wages. As this company is running out of resources (i.e., a US-based labor force), they have begun outsourcing overseas jobs. Recently, Dr. Evil has turned his view toward space. It has been announced that there are trillions (if not zillions) of dollars worth of resources in our Solar System alone. (Carter 2020) Dr. Evil is determined to be the first to reach these materials but masks his project as Commercializing Space trips.
What makes Dr. Evil a villain? Dr. Evil is a villain because he has introduced a sweatshop process into the American industries. While working hard is good. It is not good to give individuals the workload of 3 people. Additionally, employees should have the right to speak up without the fear of being terminated. When a company's reaction to employees exercising freedom of speech is to fire them or replace them with robots or outsource to foreign places where employees make $50 a day, that process negatively impacts our economy.
Sourced from: zOrg by neneza on DeviantArt
Zorg is an ambitious young entrepreneur with an above-average IQ. With the help of his think tank, Zorg has built an empire under the name of a great scientist who, ironically, was against corporate greed. Regardless of the scientist's moral, Zorg has brought the scientist's name out of the shadows and has managed to form a cult following for himself and his muse. Zorg wants to own everything. Like The Collector and Dr. Evil, Zorg has no interest in paying taxes or investing in the US economy. Zorg has taken a similar elitist attitude by tapping into the elitist-wannabe market. Even though his fleet may be unsafe for the road (due to the giant computer screens in the front seat), Zorg has managed to find loopholes around regulation. Like Dr. Evil, Zorg wants to also “explore space” and has a strong desire to purchase a popular social media platform. Zorg creates a space company that focuses on the premise of commercial space flights and flights to Mars.
What makes Zorg a villain? Industrial Subsidies (including tax exemption) prevent companies from investing back into the economy they took resources from. If the average American pays taxes, then the average billionaire (or trillionaire) should also pay taxes. This money would cover the external costs that both society and the environment pay. In other words, there is no equivalent exchange of resources (this includes the labor force). Additionally, seeking control of a social media platform that supports free speech is a suspicious move.
It is sad to know that villains are an essential part of society. Heroes are, ironically, a rarity. It is crucial to realize that Hollywood convinces us that we all are heroes. The unfortunate reality is that many of us are the antagonist or the antagonist's cheerleader.
Take a moment to imagine this illustration:
In a grade school somewhere in our ecumenopolis, a kid is being beaten up by a bully. As they are getting hit, the child is looking around for help. Everyone nearby is either silently filming this beating, cheering on the bully, or walking away – trying to pretend they don't see or hear anything. Many of us are apathetic, long before the existence of smartphones. There are countless cases of this type of bully story. Most of the time, no one steps in and saves that kid. But every so often, someone steps in and tries to rescue them. There is no guarantee that their action will be successful, but the attempt (nonetheless) is heroic and speaks volumes.
The bystanders that do nothing are the antagonist's cheerleaders. Doing nothing is psychologically damaging to the child as the bully punches. We need a world full of more heroes who think about the consequences of their actions. While space is truly unique but building a sustainable future is dynamic.
Why is it more important to mine space than clean up the Earth's oceans and evenly distribute resources? In short, space mining is NOT more important than Earth.
Fun fact: Earth is about 83% water. 80.5% of Earth's water is saline water and undrinkable. About 2.5% of Earth's water is freshwater, and out of that 2.5%, there is only about 20% that is drinkable. (H. 2020) Our planet is a fascinating organism with so many complex ecosystem cycles and services to regulate the planet's toxins. Earth's complex filtration services include a complex distilling system that turns saline water into fresh groundwater (which takes thousands of years to complete). Freshwater is not evenly distributed around the world. In the next 30 years, we will have severe drought due to the agricultural and industrial industries' overuse and damaging processes that mess with Earth's rare freshwater. Commercial Agriculture is exhausting the planet's resources, and big bank corporations create an imbalanced economy. The problem of saving the planet (from impoverished communities to natural resources to endangered species) can be solved with Economics. All we need are resources (including monetary) and regulations widely distributed, and we can keep the planet beautiful for our children and our children's children. Resources like $46 Billion (org's purchase offer for the popular social media platform) could feed all 7+ billion people on this planet AND clean Earth's Ocean gyres (particularly in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – aka GPGP) of plastic and debris. $46 Billion could help the United States move towards zero emissions. $46 Billion could rebuild the country's education pitfalls or build air humidifier water fountains in regions with a shortage of healthy water. Although the Gold Digger race to mine gold-covered asteroids may seem innovative. Keeping the planet healthy is truly ingenious.
But what would happen if space mining became a booming industry? In short, Earth's economy will be ruined. If you think that the cost of living is high now, wait to see how it will be when Billionaires claim trillions of dollars in resources from space. For one, the wealth gap would be worse than it is now. There would be no middle class. There would only be the grossly wealthy and the pitifully impoverished. If you want to glimpse the future, look at the scary prototypes: Mumbai and Dubai. In Mumbai, billionaires live in high-rises that tower above the slums of the unfortunate. These slums aren't built up as a choice to live a "free life," like the camp cities in the United States. The residents of these places in Mumbai have no other option but to live in the filth left behind by the wealthy. (VICE 2014) The exaggerated affluent lifestyle in Dubai, on the other hand, is a small piece of that world. Thousands of indentured servants, brought in from various places, live in barracks in terrible conditions while the gluttonous retch coats their Rolls Royce with gold. In the environment of Mumbai or Dubai, it is not an easy place to crawl out of the poverty pit.
Outside of a major imbalance in the global economy, we have to ask ourselves: do we want to be the generations that had the means to save the planet but chose not to?
The Tragedy of Commons is one of the four social traps humans suffer from. In the Tragedy of Commons, individuals prioritize short-term personal gain over long-term well-being. In other words, we would rather abuse the resources we have now, even though this may mean that in 10-years, we will have nothing.
All for what? A round trip to the outer rim of Earth's atmosphere and a pipe dream of colonizing Mars?
Random Food of Thought: Space Realities No One Wants to Talk About (DeGrasse et al. 2016)
Urine-based drinking water: The only water available to you will come from your urine to stay hydrated.
Floating in a tin can lined with human/animal waste turned into bioplastic to protect you against radiation.
30% of all the world’s astronauts have died due to space travel.
Did I mention radiation and mouse burgers?
Space Junk: Why stop polluting Earth when you can pollute Earth’s atmosphere with floating debris that can become dangerous objects hurling through your ship or crushing people on Earth?
Conclusion
Let’s make being smart - cool, again. Perhaps we can return to thinking rationally in a world filled with intellectual people. We should try to be the hero who stands up for the weak instead of being the bully’s accomplice. Today could be when we decide to have a healthy planet for our children. Changing our future for the better will require us to stand up for our rights and needs.
Bibliography
BBC. 2022. “Twitter Board Meets Musk to Discuss Bid, Reports Say.” BBC News, April 25, 2022, sec. Business. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61212567.
Bozeman Science. 2016. “Water Pollution.” YouTube. January 4, 2016. https://youtu.be/GNGKsubYJ9U.
Carr, Nicholas G. 2010. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton.
Carter, Jamie. 2020. “A Bizarre Trillion-Dollar Asteroid Worth More than Our Planet Is Now Aligned with the Earth and Sun.” Forbes. December 5, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/12/05/a-bizarre-trillion-dollar-asteroid-worth-more-than-our-planet-is-now-aligned-with-the-earth-and-sun/?sh=4032219b31c9.
Degrasse, Neil, Charles Liu, Jeffrey Lee, Eugene Mirman, Chuck Nice, A Leighton, and Geographic Channel. 2016. Startalk: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
H, Jay. 2020. ENVIRONMENT: The Science behind the Stories. S.L.: Pearson.
Sheetz, Michael. 2021. “Elon Musk v. Jeff Bezos: Billionaires Continue Battle over Space-Based Internet.” NBC News. September 1, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/elon-musk-v-jeff-bezos-billionaires-continue-battle-space-based-intern-rcna1848.
VICE. 2014. “Mumbai Slums.” www.youtube.com. 2014. https://youtu.be/W338nhg3pDc.