The Choice
I lost respect for someone I work with recently when he told me his primary motivating force in college was the money he would earn afterwards. While I understand the appeal, allure and temptation of setting oneself up for a comfortable, secure lifestyle, I am worried that this individualistic constitution might ultimately compete with the overall health of the earth and the overall health of human society.
A person who is motivated by money does not necessarily mean that person is a "bad person" who will never do good for others. There are many examples of humans throughout history, and living today, who maintain high amounts of wealth but also complete acts of altruism and kindness on a regular basis. However, there will be situations in which the two ideals come head-to-head. A person who’s primary motivation is money may, at times, sacrifice their own comfort in the moment for a greater good. But at the end of the day, the decisions made will usually not be decisions that sacrifice or involve a significant risk of losing one's status of comfortability and security.
Some might argue that this is how life works: Darwin’s idea of “survival of the fittest” has proven to be popular, particularly in capitalistic cultures. While competition does seem to naturally exist amongst plants and animals, these forms of life do not have the same consciousness that has manifested in humans. From my understanding, the goal of plants and animals is to survive, and as humans, we do fall into the category of animals and are therefore also motivated to survive. However, I believe that our kind of consciousness comes with a kind of responsibility.
Our intelligence and human consciousness allows to think in different scales of space and time. Our technological innovations have become extensions of the brain itself— and we now have created tools that can process, model and understand information and different scenarios beyond what any individual human can do. While these facts and our progress are amazing, we have some very important and time-sensitive questions to ask ourselves: what are we going to do next? How can we use technology to improve functioning ecosystem of life? How will we prioritize problems to tackle, challenges to work through?
How we choose to prioritize and what we give attention to is a direct reflect of our values.
I am writing this because I am alarmed by the rate at which we are currently destroying biological diversity and seeing continual rises of inequality within communities, cities and countries across the world. I am further alarmed by the very blatant indifference held by those who have achieved a comfortable and secure lifestyle. I personally see that the progression of technology has create two paths forward for us to contemplate, and each path is supported by opposing, foundational values.
The choice is up to all of us.