🌿 What's the role of society?

Let's take a step back and think about what should be the role of society? Some might say that the role of society should be to enforce a minimal set of laws protecting private property and personal liberty; this is neo-liberalism the ideology underlying pretty much all western countries. Moreover, the scope of enforcement is limited the country, and countries are expected to respect each other's sovereignty, and are very hesitant to give up their own sovereignty for global accountability.

Where does this lead us?

45% of the population is food insecure, and more than 42.3 million people face emergency levels of hunger with more than 300 million people facing chronic hunger . All this while 20% of food produced for humans are thrown out never to be consumed that is one billion meals per day.

Rich countries export poverty at astonishing rates: 700 million people live in extreme poverty that is $2.15 per day, not counting the people who still live in abject poverty but are above the artificially low line which does not properly account for the true cost of living, but is used as evidence of improvement while relative poverty measurements have stagnated or gotten worse.

Meanwhile, there are people who have hundreds of billions of dollars. Does Elon Musk really work 30 times harder than the combined effort of the 700 million people living in extreme poverty to warrant his unprecedented pay package as his defenders argue? He must be one hard working man. Perhaps that is why he only sleeps 6 hours per night, so he can put in more hours than the 700 million people. I'm sure his job doesn't require concentration, strategic planning, cognitive, or physical abilities all of which are severely impaired with 6 hours of sleep.

Not to mention climate-collapse looming on the near horizon, and is already responsibly for 14 million deaths per year, the industrial scale systemic animal suffering, the lack of accountability for corporations, or the rising global conflict. So much for respecting other countries' autonomy.

But society's role is just to enforce a minimal set of laws protecting private property and personal liberty they say. It bequeaths the individual to create their own happiness and prosperity.

If you don't like the prospect of dying or being displaced due to climate change, you just need stop climate change - vote with your dollar, and hope someone with more dollars doesn't vote against you, and if you don't like living in extreme poverty, you just need to work harder! Perhaps try to sleep 6 hours per night, and bring that hustle! If you're one of the 1 in 69 people in the world fleeing conflict, well good fucking luck. You're seen as an intruder to another sovereign nation that must be stopped.

I think we can do better.

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