The all consuming pursuit of money wealth at any cost has destroyed morals and values
Research on income and subjective well-being shows that among the non-poor, increased income has little or no lasting impact on happiness. Yet the desire for more income remains a powerful motive among many people at all income levels. Is this simply because many people are misinformed and believe that higher incomes will make them happier, or are they motivated by something other than the pursuit of happiness? This paper argues for the latter. The paper begins by exploring this question, reviewing the literature on income and subjective well-being, and discussing of the role of utility in decision making. This paper then argues that three main factors lead us to value increased income even if it does not make us happier. First, happiness is just one value among many, and not the only conscious goal people set for themselves. Second, even when people are striving to maximize happiness, our tendency to overweight short-term payoffs leads us to overvalue the short-term rewards that income provides. Finally, I argue that our values-based decision making competes with other motivational systems and evolutionary drives. Three evolutionary desires are discussed: (1) to store resources, (2) to be sexually attractive, and (3) to manage our social relationships and our personal identity within those relationships. While all three motivations play a role in our desire for increased income, this paper argues that it is the third – the use of money and consumption as a social tool – that has the most important overall influence on our desire for increased income past the point where it ceases to increase personal happiness.
Technology makes our world smaller every moment. It shows us that there's still so much to learn, to wonder at, and to find out from each other. Let's be more tolerant of each other's views and beliefs and grow in harmony. At the end of the day, all the prettiness really amounts to nothing. Usurping some of President Kennedy's words..."Ask not what your world can do for you. Ask what YOU can do for the World."
The past 100 years
The past 100 years we have seen the age of information overload, greedy market speculation, cloning and chronic shortage of food.
Pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice and sloth.
While technology has advanced, morality has not kept pace; humanity's challenges change but they will never diminish; we face the same horrors today as we did yesterday and will tomorrow.
A century of contradictions: unparalleled technological and material progress accompanied by equally great spiritual and moral retrogression. In sum an age of social Darwinism.
Never more was our ambition greater than our humility.
It's been 100 years of selfishness, sophistication and expensive miscommunication. 100 years of the exploitation of the ephemeral. 100 years that has disguised our loneliness and ignorance.
Man's blind strive towards knowledge & materialism, one step closer towards Utopia, or annihilation.
This past 100 years mostly belongs to villains, dictators, democratic hypocrites, militants, terrorists, imperialists and a very little goes for the conscious politicians like Winston Churchill and scientists like Albert Einstein.
"Failure of the UN, Murder of Justice & Survival of Veto" Result; International Terrorism
A 100 years of machine computation and compilation, of a rigged market and arms competition and the evolution of a single global hegemony, after a fully-fledged experimentation with multiple social and political ideologies.
We lost our moral compass this century. Ten billion illiterate, five billion homeless and in abject poverty, a billion dead by starvation, half a billion dead by preventable disease, 200 million by war. The new gods of science, technology, and profit did not seem to care as life deteriorated for the majority.
We lost our moral compass this past 100 years. Ten billion illiterate, five billion homeless and in abject poverty, a billion dead by starvation, half a billion dead by preventable disease, 200 million by war. The new gods of science, technology, and profit did not seem to care as life deteriorated for the majority.
In the last 100 years people have created amazing technology. Only to have that technology destroy morals, family values, and small countries.
The north/south divide getting more entrenched everyday. Unimaginable riches, unimaginable poverty, what is there to celebrate or to gloat about?
The century when The Enlightenment flowered in The Holocaust. From American genocide in Guatemala to The Killing Fields, we have painted our moral bankruptcy in blood.
The loss of identity, the rise of intolerance, the growth of poverty and the manipulation of minds through media.
A century of corruption. All that was invented in this century has perfected the art of corruption, even the computers and the internet.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way".
A 100 years where the poor got poorer and the rich got richer. It was the period where money held higher value than human lives.
The age of Commercialism, Individualism, and Terrorism. Rampant materialism, at the end it will take us NOWHERE.
After the invention of "money" and "capitalism", there is one more kind of Homo sapiens, called "Homo slaves".
A century full of contradictions and misinterpretations. A century full of deterrents and veiled threats, that never worked. A century on conflict, but greater understanding. A century in which the weak grow weaker and powerful grow more so. A century where the rich get richer, at the expense of the poor. A century where the world has shrunk to the size of a phone cable so you know what everyone is doing and they all know what you're doing. A century where we've learnt everything and nothing.
"100 years of a Maturing World": We have made huge advances in our learning about science and technology, but the application of this knowledge has not always been beneficial. We are greedy for material things and we care far more about ourselves and the pursuit of money than we care about other people. We are a child growing through the teenage years. I only wonder what kind of world the "adult" years will bring.
The word that best describes the past 100 years: dishonesty!
Human beings have come to rely on governments, religious institutions, corporations, and the media to provide solutions for their problems. The result is that the world problems have increase exponentially and the individual is suffering.
In the words of Thomas Paine: "These are the times that try men's souls."
Compiled by: YJ Draiman
