Reader Alert - this is a long monologue that might put you to sleep - may be its only redeeming quality.
I am going to tackle two complementary yet opposing ideas that I kept thinking about over this weekend.
One of Anonimity - Just like this author has the ability to express what amount to anonymous thoughts on a wide variety of subjects - without getting personal - and have a decent readership there is some credence for remaining Unknown.
Another example may be one where you board a transcontinental flight and have just you and a seat mate to while away around five hours. Chances are you may strike up an innocent conversation like making an observation about the state of air travel. That may lead to some further banter and if the seat mate seems inclined to expand on their points of view a wonderful back and forth, all while not even introducing oneself to the other.
What is this type of exchange and how does it work? Partly because we want to enjoy expressing some thoughts without judgement. Without the need for Identity. Without really worrying about the 'I know where you are coming from' cliches. 'No baggage' (ideal for air travel but that is a matter for a different blog).
That leads me to postulate that the time may have come to think of getting away with this whole notion of Identity.
What is Identity - some describe it as 'Who Someone Is?' or it could be something more complex like 'Person's conception of their individuality'. One can go off the deep end trying to get philosophical about this question.
Basically it tries to distinguish one from another. That is what identity boils down to. I submit to the idea that we - the humans - are all born unique in some ways while our DNA makeup is almost the same. That said we think we are also defined by our place of birth, our given name and in some economies a number tied to your arrival that serves to track your goings on from there on out. Taxes, Credit Worthiness, Security Risk et al.
I also theorize that we have gone too far in classifying things - from an individual level to entire countries on this planet. We are attached to our identity.
The entire notion of maintaining individual identity is really pointless when most of what happens is on this one rock. I would ideally see a world that has no countries, no separate governing bodies, no individual currencies, no flags and no teams.
What we will have is variety of languages, food, cultural heritage and ways of doing things. That diversity will make it enriching as it does within the containers called countries except better. We will have freer exchange of ideas and people. Better outcomes without artificial constraints.
I truly believe that all the mumbo jumbo exists because we somewhere in our conscience feel insecure about the other person next to us (except the one on the airplane).
I think all these ideas can coexist like they do today but under one big planetary form of governance.
Guess what might happen to the economic well being? I suspect the quality of life for the entire planet will jump. It would be in the best interest of the planet to not go to wars. No more defense spending. May be some - in case the aliens show up.
What about health care and welfare? We would really have to provide it to all of humanity without borders getting in the way of doing the right thing. There will be no need for the notion of 'Doctors without borders' because there will be no borders. Just doctors.
This philosophy can continue to apply to food sources and energy distribution and travel without visas. Wow. I am sure it will destroy some jobs like Immigration and Naturalization.
Think - why naturalize when people are already nature's creation? (Except those that have been Botoxed - we will have to come up with a different tactic to naturalize these characters).
Additional jobs in the border patrol arena and such will be extinct... yet we will have to create new ones to keep track of how many people need food and shelter in different parts of the globe.
Silliness like the World Bank and IMF will cease to exist when we really would not need to manage credit and debit balances of each countries and prepare goofy graphs to show how one nation is doing better at increasing their GDP vs. another. Ultimately the shell game will be exposed.
Of course it would feed a lot of egos to think they can now vye for Ruler of the Planet. I mean from the days of Alexander to Hitler to all the James Bond villains, many have cherished the notion of ruling an entire planet.
Ideally if we applied common sense (I know dream on) we could self - govern a lot of the goings on around the world and figure out the best way to preserve ourselves. I am still dreaming I know.
As far as identifying the billions around the rock with unpronouncable names - we simply work on a more realistic, well defined and executed version of the Social Security Number or Adhar card. Each birth gets documented by a massive computer and each kid gets a bar code zapped or embedded in their arm. Then on its identity is merely a string of digits.
No need for Andrews or Shankars or Ivans or Wally. Simply 4553533598022022. That will pull up an entire record of the latitude and longitude of this person's first arrival and the biological numbers that created it. No need for street, town and zip codes. All live and die on earth. Speaking of which we might just work out a way to control the expanding population - a good thesis was presented in a recent thriller by Dan Brown.
Which brings us to the other aspect of our identities. We somehow have got used to an idea of an address that defines us. We first have it as the place of birth then where we grew up and then perhaps where we ended up during the course of our careers. Nonsense. The world will actually be more productive if we can contemplate a phenomenon where everything is temporary.
What is this fascination of coming back to the same washing machine? We may end up developing technologies that makes clothes obsolete. Then no need to store things so we can call them our own. Just use what's there. Its everywhere.
Hungry? You visit a vast food bank and grab what you need. Eat and move on. Go do the thing that you are good at. You may stay in one place and keep doing it but you do not have to. You could be in perpetual motion. Much like the nomads did. Go where the hunt is good.
Share - enjoy - spread out.
I am going to tackle two complementary yet opposing ideas that I kept thinking about over this weekend.
One of Anonimity - Just like this author has the ability to express what amount to anonymous thoughts on a wide variety of subjects - without getting personal - and have a decent readership there is some credence for remaining Unknown.
Another example may be one where you board a transcontinental flight and have just you and a seat mate to while away around five hours. Chances are you may strike up an innocent conversation like making an observation about the state of air travel. That may lead to some further banter and if the seat mate seems inclined to expand on their points of view a wonderful back and forth, all while not even introducing oneself to the other.
What is this type of exchange and how does it work? Partly because we want to enjoy expressing some thoughts without judgement. Without the need for Identity. Without really worrying about the 'I know where you are coming from' cliches. 'No baggage' (ideal for air travel but that is a matter for a different blog).
That leads me to postulate that the time may have come to think of getting away with this whole notion of Identity.
What is Identity - some describe it as 'Who Someone Is?' or it could be something more complex like 'Person's conception of their individuality'. One can go off the deep end trying to get philosophical about this question.
Basically it tries to distinguish one from another. That is what identity boils down to. I submit to the idea that we - the humans - are all born unique in some ways while our DNA makeup is almost the same. That said we think we are also defined by our place of birth, our given name and in some economies a number tied to your arrival that serves to track your goings on from there on out. Taxes, Credit Worthiness, Security Risk et al.
I also theorize that we have gone too far in classifying things - from an individual level to entire countries on this planet. We are attached to our identity.
The entire notion of maintaining individual identity is really pointless when most of what happens is on this one rock. I would ideally see a world that has no countries, no separate governing bodies, no individual currencies, no flags and no teams.
What we will have is variety of languages, food, cultural heritage and ways of doing things. That diversity will make it enriching as it does within the containers called countries except better. We will have freer exchange of ideas and people. Better outcomes without artificial constraints.
I truly believe that all the mumbo jumbo exists because we somewhere in our conscience feel insecure about the other person next to us (except the one on the airplane).
- We are worried of the 'What If'?
- If the people of the planet become one under the Earth Party then how will we have law and order?
- Who gets benefits and who does not?
- How do I brag about my growth rates if I do not have anyone to compare myself to?
- What happens to rivalry?
I think all these ideas can coexist like they do today but under one big planetary form of governance.
Guess what might happen to the economic well being? I suspect the quality of life for the entire planet will jump. It would be in the best interest of the planet to not go to wars. No more defense spending. May be some - in case the aliens show up.
What about health care and welfare? We would really have to provide it to all of humanity without borders getting in the way of doing the right thing. There will be no need for the notion of 'Doctors without borders' because there will be no borders. Just doctors.
This philosophy can continue to apply to food sources and energy distribution and travel without visas. Wow. I am sure it will destroy some jobs like Immigration and Naturalization.
Think - why naturalize when people are already nature's creation? (Except those that have been Botoxed - we will have to come up with a different tactic to naturalize these characters).
Additional jobs in the border patrol arena and such will be extinct... yet we will have to create new ones to keep track of how many people need food and shelter in different parts of the globe.
Silliness like the World Bank and IMF will cease to exist when we really would not need to manage credit and debit balances of each countries and prepare goofy graphs to show how one nation is doing better at increasing their GDP vs. another. Ultimately the shell game will be exposed.
Of course it would feed a lot of egos to think they can now vye for Ruler of the Planet. I mean from the days of Alexander to Hitler to all the James Bond villains, many have cherished the notion of ruling an entire planet.
Ideally if we applied common sense (I know dream on) we could self - govern a lot of the goings on around the world and figure out the best way to preserve ourselves. I am still dreaming I know.
As far as identifying the billions around the rock with unpronouncable names - we simply work on a more realistic, well defined and executed version of the Social Security Number or Adhar card. Each birth gets documented by a massive computer and each kid gets a bar code zapped or embedded in their arm. Then on its identity is merely a string of digits.
No need for Andrews or Shankars or Ivans or Wally. Simply 4553533598022022. That will pull up an entire record of the latitude and longitude of this person's first arrival and the biological numbers that created it. No need for street, town and zip codes. All live and die on earth. Speaking of which we might just work out a way to control the expanding population - a good thesis was presented in a recent thriller by Dan Brown.
Which brings us to the other aspect of our identities. We somehow have got used to an idea of an address that defines us. We first have it as the place of birth then where we grew up and then perhaps where we ended up during the course of our careers. Nonsense. The world will actually be more productive if we can contemplate a phenomenon where everything is temporary.
What is this fascination of coming back to the same washing machine? We may end up developing technologies that makes clothes obsolete. Then no need to store things so we can call them our own. Just use what's there. Its everywhere.
Hungry? You visit a vast food bank and grab what you need. Eat and move on. Go do the thing that you are good at. You may stay in one place and keep doing it but you do not have to. You could be in perpetual motion. Much like the nomads did. Go where the hunt is good.
Share - enjoy - spread out.
I am all for it- the lack of identity and global visalessness.
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