There's Enough Food, Shelter, and Sex to Go Around for All of Us

Why do we need to compete over everything? We fight over grades, sports, business, land, the opposite sex (and the same sex), parking spaces, homes, status, and so forth etc ad nauseam.

There is certainly enough room for everyone that can care for a home to own one, whether they can afford it or not, and among 300 million Americans or so there are certainly enough compatible couples for everyone to find a faithful partner, and there are just as many people happy being sergeants as there are happy being generals, and there's enough money and goods for all of us to be wealthier than any of us ought to be.

Unlike simply finding enough food, shelter, and sex to keep our reptilian brains happy, the ego is never satisfied, and has legitimized itself with intellectual arguments that deny other egos' basic needs like healthcare, education, sanitary living conditions, food, etc based on one thing and all the other things that revolve around that one thing: Money.

Example: "If you don't work, you don't deserve to get what others get by working." Certainly a good value to have, but if I'm not equipped to work, or don't have the education, or am too old, too young, or infirm, or was never wired with the right set of values that combine to create a good worker, what then? And who decides what sort of assistance I get, if any? The privileged and wealthy make those decisions, and they've convinced most everyone else that this is right, indeed, that we are fortunate they have this role, for if they didn't, we'd all be much worse off than we are now, and since we have nothing to compare "now" with, we accept it.

I do believe most of the intellectual constipation that passes for socio-economic insight on FOX and similar outlets is so ingrained that most of the pundits and listeners are oblivious to any logic or counterexample that would, if seriously considered, change their minds.

And then my gray matter takes over, the thinking layer that has thickened and convoluted over years of trial and error and speculative accretion, and I wonder if there is any Entity that directs any of this and gives it meaning, or is it just an unfortunate byproduct of Evolution that those who rely more on their reptilian brains often manage the fates of those that more often use their gray matter.

The stories behind the blog:
(A few that have haunted me lately)

Christian Choate
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Casey Anthony
Matthew Shepard

Pity, mercy, tolerance, fairness, etc are all gray matter qualities.