IFC - S1 : R32 entry- The Freedom of Knowledge
Source
This post is an entry for the Information Finding Championship hosted by @apolymask.
The theme of this round is freedom. The description of the round is below.
The subject of this quest is one I think that is really important.. One of the most important things actually.. "Freedom" or the quality of being "free" Free in etymology is believed by some to mean "To love". And I think that's a good description/definition. Cause if you truly love someone or something, you set it free right?
Do you truly love someone or something you enslave? Or do you love what their enslavement brings you?...
...It would be amazing if we could help free more of the world, though I recognize we're not even truly free here where I live.. So.. I'm a bit limited. What do you think? How do we help freedom grow in the world? I'll give a bonus 1SBD to the person who I think answers that question best.
Your entry doesn't have to have anything to do with politics or writing, it could be a song or a drawing or a movie or just about anything you can think of, though I think just about anyone could write up a little blog post about what they think freedom means to them and that it might work well for you in regards to the judges voting. Doesn't have to be fancy, we all have different opinions! And we would love to hear your opinion!
If you are interested in joining you can find more information right here.
My Entry
Freedom, as I would define it is the ability to do things without restraint. A plant has the freedom to grow however it can. Wild animals can go wherever they want, they may get killed, but that is a result of the liberty of other animals. This definition that I would think of is not so much different from Google's definition
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
Let's take a look at what ol' Oxford says about freedom as well while we are at it.
1 The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
2 The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
So, if we turn over to the humans, are we as free as our chimp cousins? Well, the chimp can go anywhere it wants and doesn't have to worry about needing a passport. The chimp doesn't have to work to buy food, it just finds it and brings it back for others. They also don't form laws that require them to wear pants, and indeed, don't enslave others. So, with these points made, I want to say that chimps are freer than humans.
The Problem
What stands out to me is the money thing, that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We work, to earn food, that is weird, man. As a recent study is showing, it appears that Americans work more hours than preindustrial workers in the UK. Now, that is bananas (pun intended).
We slave away to make a living in today's economy (hence the phrase). Without working, we can't eat or pay bills; we can't pay bills, we get fines and jail, then we have debt. With debt, we become financially enslaved. Now, what is the difference between a sharecropper from 1900's America and a person experiencing crippling debt today? Give you a hint, not a damn thing is different. People work to pay off their debt, all the while it keeps growing and ligers like a black cloud.
The Solution
How do we begin to change? One of my favorite sociologists is Frederick Douglass. One of his better-known quotes is, "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." That is something that I live by and carry into my teaching style. People need to educated to understand their freedoms and that there are better ways to live. Take East and West Germany for example; years were spent dropping pamphlets on the East side, outlining the better life on the West, without these drops, the people would have no idea. Fast forward to more recent times, USBs are put in ballons containing South Korean dramas and world news and are sent to the North to show them the lives they could have.
Was life in West Germany or is life in South Korea an ideal utopia? No; however, it is a better life overall and a start. How does this relate to today? Well, most of you reading this probably had it drilled into your heads that after HS you should pursue university, work that 9-5, buy a home, have 2.5 kids and dog. Is that even possible today? No, more like go to university, not find a job, go to grad school, work that 8-6 plus Saturdays, rent a flat, have maybe a kid and possibly a cat because you don't have time for a dog. Our education and work system is still based on the industrial era, be smart enough to work the machine but ignorant enough not to ask questions. To quote George Carlin, "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." Ain't that the truth...
Source
So, how do we fix this? We need to spread knowledge, inform people that the current system no longer works for the population and technology we have. We can replace the factory workers and provide food for everyone, one Steemian, I follower @reko, makes posts about how much food is thrown away and what he saves (please check out his blog). We are far too wasteful, and it is a joke that nations starve while others become obese. Note, I am not promoting socialism, I am for volunteerism, as the British historian Lord Acton has stated, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The further we could get from government control, the better in my opinion.
I am not going to make this about government though, what is most important is people's freedoms. Providing knowledge of the history of how things once were, you may see that things were, in fact, simpler and people were in comparison freer. If we could begin to agree to use what we have to better each other and go back to those peasant times of working with the sun and resting during the day, the world would start seeing less greed and more freedom.
The Dream
It may sound crazy, but imagine going back to work lives like peasants, but within a volunteer system. We don't need money, so no debt, it takes away the greed when we do things for each other and allows us the freedom to live our lives as we want. Please, let me know what you all think about this idea, I am always open to new ideas.
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STOPI actually agree with this. We have a tendency to look at the peasants as beneath us, but where did the vast majority of Art come from? Yes they worked hard, it was a hard life, but they also were able to create, very little creating today, some but not a lot. They also understood compassion, and they totally got and understood respect.
Right, that maybe where we get the stereotype of the poor artist. It blew my mind to think about how much free time people had back then. Since the industrial revolution we just work like machines.
And when we are not working, look at how many people complain about being bored. I know a few people that work, just for the sake of working, to have something to do. A lot of society looks down on people that do not work, even those that have retired after working hard for a lot of years, it all about what did you do today syndrome. No one like to hear that, "Well, I slept in, had a leisurely cup of coffee then a slow breakfast, oh and while I was eating breakfast I watched a little squirrel playing in the backyard, and then there was this spider building a web"..really people do not want to hear things like that in society very often, when you start to say things like that the response is "What you don't work"?
Really fascinating info, especially that study you posted about workers now and in older times. Wow.. I've been complaining for a while on social media about how it seems like people are enslaved yet instead of physical chains they are mental ones.. And if you think about it.. That's sort of what is happening in a lot of the world, the people in power have used their mental powers to construct a system in which they are on the top of the pyramid and everyone below them has a much harder time. So.. In a sense.. This whole economic and governmental system they have us under is sort of like our "mental" chains.. If we could somehow realize this in mass numbers, perhaps we could change the system and throw off these mental chains. Or at least.. Make progress and move more in the direction of freedom.
Oh.. Also in your question about returning to some kind of moneyless system of work.. I think there's some interesting aspects to that, however.. In my mind.. I feel like, the technology is becoming so amazing.. In the future work should almost be a choice. We could already feed the whole world right now if it wasn't for corruption, what about when we get these new 3d printers that can even print food? I mean.. On another hand, I think there will always be certain jobs that some people need to do. Like.. Firefighters and healers and educators and things like that.. So to me in the future I think it would be more of a choice. If you want to work and help society you can, but I don't think it should be forced cause that's not true freedom.
However.. In order for some kind of fair and just system that benefits everyone like that, we need to remove ourselves from the current corrupt governance. The two systems can't work together unless they are like on opposite sides of the planet and even then, they can't because the current form of government wants to enslave the whole world.
So.. I think we need to remove ourselves from this and also have a better model to replace it with. The moneyless working idea you presented has some good sides to it! Though to me, I still kinda think money has an important place and serves as a symbol of value based on our efforts and time, but.. The system we have now is just too messed up.. People are too spiritually undeveloped so they wanna horde it at the expense of their family and friends and neighbors, etc.
A lot of that greed would vanish if we entertained an idea like the one you mentioned, which I think would be great.. So.. It's definitely something to think about! If we could produce a system where the incentive for greedy hoarding was gone, wow.. The world would be such a better place!!
Awesome entry as usual! Thanks for sharing!