Television is not a right. Home ownership is not a right.
As of February 18, 2009 all television broadcasts will be digital. If you only have an analog television set, you will be out of luck. You will no longer be able to receive over-the-air broadcasts. This does not effect most cable subscribers. This does not effect most satellite subscribers. This only effects people watching local channels with rabbit ears sticking out of their televisions. What’s the solution? Are people going to have to *gasp* buy a $40 digital converter box? Of course not; the government has developed a program to help these poor, rabbit-eared people—-the TV Converter Box Program.
The TV Converter Box Program is making available over $1 billion worth of coupons that households can use to purchase digital converter boxes for their televisions. That’s right, $1 billion. Our tax dollars are being spent on a program that enables a small fraction of television owners to continue to enjoy crappy local programming. Of course there are countless frivolous government programs out there. But, this one is completely ridiculous.
We live in one of the wealthiest and free countries in the world. Still, having said that, watching television is not a right. Sitting down with your family and watching the evening news or the most popular crime drama is not a part of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Watching television is a privilege. Much like home ownership is a privilege.
The government recently passed a $700 billion “economic bailout plan”. What most people don’t realize is that before the economy will be bailed out, first, the large corporations (who control the economy) must be “bailed out”. What if the bailout plan didn’t get passed? A depression? Perhaps. At the very least mortgage companies (that are the largest contributors to the current downfall of the economy) would implement much stricter lending requirements. In fact, this has already happened to a point. O.K. So what? People with less than perfect credit will not be able to get a home loan. Again, we live in one of the wealthiest and free countries in the world. Even so, owning a home is not a right. It’s a privilege. So you can’t buy a house? Get over it. Simply having a roof over your head, rented or owned, makes you better off than many Americans.
Home ownership is not a right—it’s part of the “American Dream”. Well, not all of everyone’s dreams can be realized. If the U.S. Government continues to coddle the American People with ridiculous programs and bail outs the economy will never turn around. Progress will never be made. Wars will never end. Things will never change. Some people are better off than other people. That’s part of capitalism. Get over it. You can’t watch television? You can’t buy your own home? There are two solutions—work harder or start a communist revolution.
Why Hasn’t the Internet Increased the Overall Intelligence of Society?
Sometimes I wonder why people don’t seem to be very smart. It was understandable in the past when knowledge was passed down from one generation to the next and only the privileged had access to books. But, as time goes on information becomes more and more readily available yet society as a whole doesn’t seem to get much more intelligent.
Perhaps the reason is socioeconomic? People that do not already have high intelligence can’t afford the means to have constant access to the internet and, thus, gain the knowledge that it can offer. Perhaps the quality and reliability of the information presented on the internet is to blame? I know plenty of people that think they’re right about something because they read it on the internet only to find out that they (it) were wrong. I’m man enough to admit this has happened to me (damn internet!). Maybe people in general aren’t interested in gaining knowledge? In order to benefit from the amazing amounts of knowledge available today people actually have to put forth effort to actually access that knowledge. Albeit it’s an incredibly tiny amount of effort but it is effort nonetheless. Perhaps people are still scared of the shiny box in the office that emits light and is attached to a tiny board with letters and numbers on it? And, what’s this “mouse” thing that’s attached to it?
No, none of these are the reason. The reason that the internet hasn’t made humanity smarter is because no matter how easy and cheap it is to access and operate and no matter how many volumes of encyclopedic knowledge it contains, the internet can’t improve common sense. I had a job in high school flipping burgers and the owner of the restaurant said something that I’ll never forget. He said, “If a man can ever figure out how to bottle common sense and sell it, he will instantly be the richest person in the world.” Unfortunately that’s as true now (post-internet) as it ever has been.
Is Technology Still Genuinely Improving Daily Life?
I was contemplating the advancements in technology throughout American history. We’ve had some amazing developments that have drastically improved the way we live our lives: the cotton gin, the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, the personal computer, the cell phone, etc… But, it got me thinking, have recent inventions and developments in technology drastically and genuinely improved our daily lives?
We have email and the internet in the palm of our hands. We have cars that can compensate for driver error and park themselves. We have instant access to endless amounts of information on the internet. Do we really need all of these things? Do they really improve our lives? I don’t think so.
I believe that recent developments in technology take something away from humanity. Technology makes life entirely too easy. Americans have become lazy. What’s the motivation to really learn anything when the answer to any question can be found on Google in less than a second? What’s the motivation to develop advanced driving skills when a car will correct significant errors? And, if it doesn’t correct the errors then the driver will surely be saved by the six airbags and countless other devices that promote a barely-true sense of safety.
I feel like a shift in motivation over the past century has caused us to deviate from attempting to honestly improve society. I feel as if inventors of days past were far more motivated by ideas and contributions and recognition. Grandiose profits seem to be the driving force for most inventors and developers in today’s world. The result is that recent advancements in technology fail to significantly “improve” society; they merely make life easier. Those two things are not one in the same.
All Wrong?
I recently hiked to the top of a mountain just so I could see what was on the other side. I stood there, by myself, for some time. I had forgotten the beauty that could be found in a lack of buildings, a lack of people, a lack of noise, a lack of laws, a lack of pollution, and a lack of society. It made me think—what if we have it all wrong?
How did Americans start with such amazing unmolested beauty and create the urban jungles that we have now? Why did they work so hard to disrupt the peacefulness? I assume in the beginning that is was all innocent. They wanted to make life easier—provide shelter from the elements and make food more readily available. I think they got carried away after that and never looked back. Yes, it made life “easier”, but industrialism ruined the core of the land. Maybe the miners and settlers weren’t just looking for excitement and fortune. Maybe they were seeking an escape from the rigors of the newly developed industrial nation. They soon made it from one coast to the other and lived in peace with the land for a brief period before industry caught up with them.
Perhaps the spirit of the miners and settlers still thrives within all the people that reside outside of city limits. They find their little bit of peace in the mountains and in the plains—even in suburbia. While there’s a portion of the population that spend their entire lives trying to be an integral part of city life, there’s also a portion that strive to avoid it.
My trips to the mountains make me think that the people avoiding city life may have it right and all of the rest of us are wrong. Leaving behind all of the priorities of traditional society, even for a brief period, is incredibly liberating. I jaunt to the top of a mountain puts things into perspective. The things that cause worry in an industrialized nation become incredibly trivial. Profit and individualism are quickly forgotten. A feeling of oneness with nature is almost overwhelming. The thought of working a 9-5 becomes a faint and ridiculous memory. It feels right. It feels as if that’s what society should be—not what it has become. I believe it’s possible to return, even very slightly, to a society that will generate feelings of this sort.
A step backwards is not always a step in the wrong direction.
Struggle is Relative
Sometimes I feel as if everyone is living the same exact existence. I feel that everyone worries the same amount. I feel that everyone struggles the same amount. I feel like everyone is happy and sad the same amount. The only difference is relativity–what is relative and important to each individual.
The single mother living in ghetto may struggle to feed her child. A CEO may struggle to pay for his son to attend an Ivy League school. Any outside observer will quickly deem the single mother’s struggle as more significant. However, I believe that each struggle is equally as important to the individual who experiences it.
Every person creates a world for themselves within their lives. It’s a microcosm of the world as a whole. Their little world contains the people that they know directly. It contains the geographic locations that they physically see with their own eyes on a regular basis. It contains the activities that they regularly take part in–work, play, driving, etc… Of course their world contain other things. It contains a larger scale. Their world contains the masses of people that they see on a daily basis. It contains knowledge of far away locations and activities that they may never take part in. But, all of these extra items are fuzzy. They’re not as sharp and as important as the regularly encountered things. The CEO may think of taking a vacation in Barbados while the single mother may not even be able to find Barbados on a map. But, at the same time, the CEO would never be able to find the welfare office even though it maybe within walking distance of his office. This is where relativity begins to play a role. To the mother in the ghetto, her job waiting tables is the most important thing in her world (second to her child). The CEO’s most important thing maybe his son’s performance at the afore mentioned Ivy League school. Which one of these things is actually more important in the larger scheme of things? No one can really judge. But to the CEO and the single mother, each thing is the most important thing to them. And, probably equally as important to each of them.
Regardless of what you’re worrying about or what you’re struggling for, we all struggle and worry about something. Regardless of how significant or trivial our source of worry might seem to an outside observer, it is the most important thing to us. No one person’s struggle can be judged as less or more significant than the next.
The single mother might encounter the CEO and tell him, “you can’t understand my struggle. You haven’t lived my life.” Which is completely true. However, he need not understand what it feels like to struggle to feed a child because he does understand struggle itself. And, that is all that is needed to relate to each other. I may not understand your struggle. But I do understand struggle itself. I believe that most conflict is caused by people not being able to relate to each other–not understanding each other. People need to realize that we all struggle. We all suffer together regardless of the source of our angst.