If an ascetic believer fasts, eschews possessions, and lives by begging to achieve spirituality, who can call this person a fool? The mindset required to denigrate such a life is itself what the monk prays to banish. Call it maya, or materialist excess, enormous creative talent has been expended throughout human history on its elimination. Are such efforts delusion? Are Buddha, Christ, Mother Teresa, & the Dalai Lama self-aggrandizing fakes? Can a life of value be lived with a minimum of possessions? After all, Gautama Buddha is still remembered, and influencing others, some 23 centuries after his death.
Pandemic modern videography exposes the once-hidden consumption habits of the 1% to the envious gaze of the worldwide 99% with no countervailing imagery to salve the have-not. Viewing such images, bereft of life-targets other than the wealth paraphernalia of their "betters", 99.999% are incentivized to take what they see, and human life collapses into the mob vs. bastion scenarios that brought down
If wealth, by definition, is the gathering of value by the few, then by that very definition, things possessed by the 100% are intrinsically worthless. If every person has earlobes, or a left pinky finger, no one creates wealth by storing up ears & fingernails. But each person has only one head. Store up a mountain of skulls & you create inverse wealth, by killing.... proving the ability to kill again by showing skulls.
Thus the conundrum of wealth. Wealth consists of intimidating the wealthless. Wealth exists only in the desire of those craving it. That which is universally shared is not wealth, but infrastructure. Redistribute the world's wealth so each of 7 billion souls owns one seven-billionth part, and at the instant of equality each man's status stays unchanged, so thin will "wealth" be spread. When one man gives away gold for a chicken to eat, equality evaporates and unfairness returns. Let a day, month, or a century pass, ...wealth once again resides where it always has, in the coffers of the wealthy. Wealth does not exist. Wealth is the incentivization of humans by other humans.
In a situation of universal enforced equality, humans still incentivize other humans. The inciting outreach is the first glimmer of nascent wealth... the birth of another's desire to have what you claim to supply. The streetwalker's come-on. Why is gambling so tightly entwined in human life? Gambling is raw incentivization, human to the Nth degree in its logic, its trickery, and its patent unfairness. Gambling is the raw worship of the Unfair. This is what human beings do. It is mankind's best-fit activity.
Consider the ludicrous scenario of Socialist societies undergoing great agony to equalize wealth, while hooligan mobs battle every Sunday in the streets & soccer pitch to win the match, win the riot, win the bet, and luxuriate in the Unfair. The unfair is the great attractant. When one male mates with a female who rejects another male, it is Unfair. When one person works night & day while another lives gratis off of friends' charity, it is unfair. When a shaman ekes money out of followers by praying for them, it is unfair. When an old person dies, and a baby is born, it is unfair. When a singer sings, and passes the cup, it is unfair. When a king cuts off your head, it is unfair. When you cheat your neighbor, it is unfair. When dogs run free, and humans cannot, it is unfair. Unfair is the norm. "Fair" is ephemeral, an unreachable shibboleth.
"Absolutely Fair" can only exist in some other world long ago, or coming soon to a riot near you.
"Absolutely Fair" cannot exist here, or now. It is Platonic fabrication, bandied for effect,
a conceptual manipulation.
"Fair" is a war cry, prelude to theft.
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