Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Planned Obsolescence is the Saving Grace of Capitalism


Why do we not have one standard of every product – for instance light bulbs or batteries or clothes – why do we have the cheap ones and the expensive ones, with the only thing making a difference between the two is that the cheap ones will break more easily? In the name of capitalism and profit this can easily be justified and understood – because in capitalism we have to keep the corporate machine going, we have to keep the economy going as the continuous production of products on a massive scale, day and night, seven days a week.

If all products were built to last, our economy as it exists today would collapse, most corporations would make a lot less profit, so lots of people would lose their jobs and so the money system would collapse as more people would become poor. So in a way this planned obsolescence is what keeps our economic system in place, is what makes sure that we all have a job and money in our pockets. So from the viewpoint of trying to survive in this capitalist system, we’d say this is ‘good’.

However if we look at our system and what it’s consequences are on our environment and on who and what we are becoming as the consumerist mentality – we’d have to notice that it’s not ‘all good/right’ – because how can a system that is built and dependent on planned obsolescence as the creation of massive unnecessary and polluting waste that is destroying the very planet we live on be ‘right’ or ‘good’? In fact it is completely absurd. Consumerism as planned obsolescence is the backbone of capitalism, we need consumerism to have our economy going, because without our stuff breaking so easily, and without people believing that they need all sorts of stuff that is constantly being invented by corporations, there wouldn’t be all those factories, businesses and corporations that we have right now to employ all of us so that we can make money that we then in turn spend on buying products that we believe we need.

Products like the light bulb are deliberately being made with a very short life span, so as to keep people buying lamps. And in every market of goods there is a ‘fashion’, wherein products simply go ‘out of fashion’ from one season to the next – so as to keep people buying ‘the latest fashion’. This is the ‘consumerist mentality’ wherein human beings become consuming machines, so used to buying, taking, getting and having much more than they need and so used to easily throwing things away, because ‘why not, I can just go buy a new one as it is so cheap’.

Now at first glance there isn’t really a problem with this, and the beings who inserted this ‘planned obsolescence’ into society weren’t trying to create an ‘evil plan’ to take advantage of people, they were just doing what they felt was necessary to keep the economy going and obviously to get people to buy more products – and everybody will (apparently) benefit. Though the ‘evil’ and ‘abuse’ in planned obsolescence, in consumerism and in capitalism is the one most important, most crucial and all determining point that was also the one point that was missed. And that point is earth, that point is life as earth and the animal kingdom – we never gave them much head, as we have since the dawn of our existence been taking everything for granted that is here.

Though now finally we are being faced with the consequences of the biggest mistake that we have ever made, which is to disregard the earth and the animals – because we never realized that the products that we buy and consume from the food on our plates to the clothes on our backs to the bricks or wooden logs that make up the house that we live in to the money we hold in our hands all come from the earth, they are the earth, even we ourselves as the human physical body is of the earth and cannot exist without all that is here.

This is the extent to which we human beings are disconnected from what is actually real, because we have been treating life as earth as the physical reality as if it doesn’t even exist by using and abusing it as we see fit and not ever taking into consideration what effect our every action has on all that is here and not realizing that the physical reality as nature it is in fact the only thing that really exist, because without it we wouldn’t be here.

For some reason we were always so blind an ignorant to actually believe that ‘because earth doesn’t object, or earth doesn’t put a price tag on her resources and the animals don’t really seem to fight back, we can just take everything we want’, because somehow we have always seen earth and the animals as ‘nature’ as something that is separate from ourselves, as ‘something out there’ with which we apparently can just do whatever we want. We never realized that the reason why earth or the animals never ‘objected’ or told us what we can or cannot do, is because they are us, nature is us and we are nature – so we were obviously assumed to be aware of who we are as a part of life, as life itself, and to therefore simply treat all that is here with respect, within the realization that we are here as a part of all that is here.

Yet, we saw/see ourselves as ‘the human being’, as an apparent ‘superior’ being that exist somehow ‘above’ nature as earth and the animals – when really that is but an idea, a belief that is not actually real. Because if we have a look at the actual reality and the way it works and our place in it, we’d have to come to terms with the fact that really we’re just a part of the whole physical reality that exist here, and as such it is our duty to consider the whole in everything we do. Though instead of doing that, we have always been living in this fictional belief that because we call ourselves ‘human’, we are some kind of ‘special being’ apparently ‘made specially by God’ and so we can treat nature as inferior – and now our ignorance to what is actually reality is coming to bite us in the ass, as we are now being faced with the consequences of what we have been creating and participating in for eons of time as human beings, by having believed ourselves to be ‘superior’ and to apparently not have to consider any other life form but ourselves.

We have been destroying, polluting, draining, exploiting and depredating earth and all that is here like crazy, without ever having considered anything but our own personal ‘special’ desires – and in this we have shaken up earth’s natural processes and self sustaining abilities to the point of no return. So we are completely self-responsible for our impending doom, our inevitable demise as ‘the human race’ – as we will be faced with the reality of the physical, which is that we were never ‘special’, yet within believing that we were somehow special and therefore didn’t need to care about anything/anyone but ourselves we have in fact become the world’s biggest abusers. And so we will inevitably be wiped out as earth is trying to restore itself again and we are in fact not superior but quite inferior creatures.

Join us at Desteni and find out how you can stop yourself as the abuser of life and stand up as a respecting being as part of the physical reality as life itself

And visit Equal Money to get to know the solution for humanity to restore itself and earth through a new monetary system that is not based on abuse but on respect for life

Also find out about the first part of the Equal Money Book - The Future of Money

this and many more products about Equal Money and Self Perfection can be found on Eqafe

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Consumerism and resisting an Equal Money System


Within an Equal Money System it is imperative that we will be looking at what is best for nature and the animal kingdom – so that we can live here on earth within mutual respect for all that is here, in this respecting ourselves as living beings that are part of life as the ‘earth experience’. This however implies that we will have to give up consumerism – as consumerism is the expression of absolute disrespect towards everything and everyone. Within consumerism not only nature and the animals pay the toll and get abused but also many of our fellow human beings are forced into degrading labor to keep the consumerism-machine going and many countries are being ‘sucked dry’ by the rich and wealthy consumerist countries, leaving the beings living in these unfortunate countries with little or no resources to take care of themselves and each other.

As evidently appalling as this reality of consumerism that exists today is, it is still used by people as a reason for why they do not want to have an EMS – because ‘I may have to give up some of my desires’, when it is in fact these desires that we’ve grown so accustomed to and to which we’ve defined ‘who we are’, that are the very things making ‘the earth experience’ a living hell for many beings.

Desires weren’t even supposed to exist in the first place – as they are the source of abuse. When we desire/want something or someone, as what is supported in consumerism, we don’t actually consider the reality of that which we desire/want, we don’t consider life as the life in another being – we only consider ‘what ‘I’ want/desire’ as ‘my own personal feeling’ wherein ‘I want this so I can feel good so I must have this now’, so then we will do whatever it takes to ‘have’/’get’/’take’ that thing/being that we want/desire and often this will lead to manipulation, lies, deceit and corruption because we are willing to do anything to fulfill our desires and we will close our eyes to the abuse that is the result of it just so that we can continue fulfilling our desires.

This consumerist ‘mentality’/’attitude’ as wants and desires as who we believe ourselves to be, is however mostly cultivated by our up-bringing as what our environment has taught and shown us. We in the west (=the wealthy countries) have been ‘pampered’ by the industries that sell us their products – we were born into this consumerist system of apparent abundance so since childhood we’ve lived in a system where, if you have the money, which most of us do, you are ‘king’. Stores and shops go out of their way to make everything as easy and comfortable for the customer as possible, because within this capitalist society, the customer is king. So a lot of unnecessary waste has been created to produce wrappings, bags, containers, commercials, etcetera to make the customer feel good about the product and want to buy it more. So products these days are being specifically designed to play in to the human beings desires and wants and to create even more desires/wants – all in the name of profit.

The companies present us with a beautiful picture and depiction of ‘reality’ and ‘life’ to instigate and feed a good/nice/positive feeling within us as the customer – while in fact at the same time they are trashing and abusing the actual real reality as nature and the animal kindom and other human beings to do so. So things are in fact all in reverse – while we are indulged in good, positive and nice feelings about ourselves and the world that are supported by commercials and the entertainment industry, the opposite is actually going on and we have actually become the biggest destroyers/abusers known to Earth.

So, indeed an Equal Money System implies that we will have to stop our abuse – for the benefit of all life, as we will be looking at how to live here in this world as all of humanity together within respect for each other and respect for nature. We are going to have to become ‘accustomed’ to new ways of living – instead of living within constantly trying to fulfill personal desires and wants and in this being ignorant to the consequences of our actions on the planet and on other beings that are also here, we will have to look at and investigate how to live within respect for life as the Earth. This will be a learning process, as we’ve never actually practically done this.

It is important to realize that we have never practically lived within respect for life because it seemed as though we never had to, as we are currently living in a system wherein we abdicate our responsibility in this world and place it in the hands of ‘our government’ as ‘the leaders’, assuming that they know best and they will do ‘the right thing’ and we can just continue as is – obviously we haven’t realized that the destruction/abuse of the planet is not at the hands of ‘our government’ but it is all of us collectively as each one individually, that have been participating within ignorant consumerist behavior by not taking self-responsibility for our presence here. This means that in an EMS, there will be no ‘government’ as ‘leaders’ that apparently ‘stand above’ everyone else and make the decisions and apparently ‘take care of everything’ – yes, there will be a ‘management’ as a logistics ‘organ’ that is specifically in place to direct practical points within society though not from the perspective of it being a ‘higher power’ that will take responsibility for us and that we can blindly trust to decide what needs to be done for us, as how things are today – we will have to make an effort because that is what is required within taking responsibility. And, really, up to this point we have been acting/living like spoiled children that are completely clueless to how the world functions and who we are within it, yet we’ve believed ourselves to be superior and know everything there is to know so in this way our stupidity, ignorance and blindness is justified.

In an EMS each one individually will be educated to be able to stand as an actual respecting, respectful being that is able to take responsibility, a being that can be trusted with life – because we realize that life is in the hands of all of us, of each one individually. So it will be a process at first to come to terms with what we’ve allowed in this world by having allowed ourselves to become ignorant, and to align ourselves with what is best for all, because ‘the EMS’ is not like ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’, ‘communism’, and all other ‘isms’ as a system that apparently functions on itself and that simply requires us to trust and follow it as if it will take responsibility for us (which it clearly hasn’t) – the EMS requires the active participation of each one of us, because we ARE the EMS, the EMS IS us, as that is the only way to bring about a world that is best for all, is if all participate.

To learn about how an EMS will practically be implemented – join the forum for discussions www.equalmoney.org

And for training on becoming a self-responsible being join the forum www.desteni.co.za and www.desteniiprocess.com


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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Consumerism and Education


When we have a look at how children are being ‘raised’ and ‘educated’, we may notice that they are being spun a lot of bullshit – that is very blatantly displayed by the media, such as television, where everything is a lie, everything is fairytales and make-believes. Children are being presented a beautiful, magical, pretty world where everyone and everything is happy and smiling and singing about happiness, love and joy, where animals and plants can talk and sing and everything has a ‘happy end’. Just have a look at ‘Disneyworld’, the number one children’s theme park, and Disney movies, the number one children’s television entertainment – it is all fairytales, none of it has even remotely got anything to do with the reality.

It is even so that if you have a look at what is going on in this world today, the fairytales that are being sold to children are the complete opposite of the real world. And then there is Santa Clause and Halloween, and all other holidays that function as an excuse for children to get presents and candy and money, that have a ‘fairytale’ legend/story around it to make it seem as though it isn’t just about buying and consuming and having, wanting, needing and feeding the consumerist mentality in the children, as the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ mentality.

Spinning bullshit before children is commonly accepted as ‘normal’ and apparently even required – when considering the amounts of lies that parents tell their children, on the one hand to make/keep the child happy and on the other hand to apparently ‘protect them from the truth’. For example with regards to sex/sexuality – parents seem to be almost incapable of just saying it how it is, so they make up stories such as ‘babies come out of cauliflowers’ or ‘babies are delivered by a stork’, ‘they come falling out of the sky’ and whatever other stories that parents may come up with in their fantasy. Because apparently children need to be protected from the truth about how this physical reality works.

Parents themselves can also enjoy themselves in telling lies to their children – the enjoyable factor being seeing the look on the Child’s face that believes every word the parent says, seeing just how much power the parent actually has over the child. That is in fact the truth about these ‘little lies’ that parents tell their children – from ‘where children come from’ to Santa Clause – it is the abuse of power by the parent to satisfy some twisted desire to feel powerful. This is very obviously justified by parents and by society in various forms where children are being presented as these ‘dumb, naïve beings who will believe anything you tell them’ and because they are apparently so ‘dumb and naïve’, for some reason they have to be told lies, because ‘they wouldn’t be able to handle the nasty truth about this reality – about what actually goes on in this world’.

Clearly we (adults/parents) don’t seem to realize that children are who/what we make of them – they become what we teach/feed them, so if we keep them in a private little world of candy and presents and if we pretend as if Disney is real, then we are creating beings that will not be able to stand in this world/reality and take responsibility for it because they are not even part of this reality as they were never shown reality as how it really is. What we parents don’t seem to realize is that the kids of today will become the adults of tomorrow – they will become our lawyers, politicians, doctors, parents, scientists. So what and how we are teaching these beings now, especially during the first 7 years of their lives wherein they are so pliable, will shape the world of the future.

If we dare to open our eyes to how we treat/teach our children (= as if they are ‘dumb and naïve’) then we can see the kind of adults we are creating – which is beings that do not see the world as it really is, because apparently they are too weak to handle it, and who then go and create a made-up world that will make them feel good about themselves, as what we are doing for them at this moment and as what we are doing for ourselves as well, within consumerism, because this has also been the way that our parents have raised us – as beings who are weak, dumb and naïve, who are not able to truly take responsibility for themselves and this world and who need to be ‘pacified’ and ‘sweetened’.

So, what of this idea that we seem to have about children that they can’t handle the reality and that they apparently need to be ‘sweetened’, that they need Santa clause and Disney movies and theme parks – apparently a child needs to feel happy and therefore it needs to be lied to about reality and the world that they live in because this world/reality is not a happy one. Have we forgotten that we were the ones who came up with the concept of ‘happiness’ in the first place? because when you look at a baby or a small child, they are quite satisfied on their own. They never asked for television, Disneyworld, stuffed animals, toys, candy and birthday parties – it was us who introduced them to it, us as this entire reality, as everything in our society is saturated with this kind of ‘child entertainment’.

Parents will often feel obligated to participate in this consumerism behavior that is being forced onto children through the media and entertainment, because they cannot send their children to school without having them come in contact with other children who display their products and tell everyone else about their parents who give them every new toy that appears on television. At school is where children, through other children, are being introduced to the ‘ways of this world’, wherein everything seems to be a competition of having always more and better and newer stuff. As all children just want to be part of the group, they will without questioning, simply copy the other children – as a behavior that they have subconsciously copied from their parents. And then parent will feel obligated to also buy unnecessary shit for their child because they wouldn’t want them to be unhappy – as in ‘not being accepted by the other children’ and ‘not getting positive attention’, not realizing that it is this belief that our children need to feel happy (as a conditional inner experience) that we have taught them as if it were the reality. When in fact this ‘happiness’ is the fairytale/fake reality that we have spun/shown/told them because we looked down on our children by for some reason believing that they are ‘too small and too innocent’ to see and handle reality.

It shouldn’t be difficult to see and realize that one will only be ‘unable’ to handle reality when they are not in fact in reality, when they are not educated about the workings of reality and when they are being kept in the loop of what is actually going on. How we see our children is in fact who we ourselves have become, believing ourselves to be too weak and dumb to be able to handle reality and take responsibility for this entire world – so that is how we will treat our children, and within this continue the cycle of ignorance and stupidity that lies at the heart of all the problems that we face currently in our human society/world.

So, how about instead of us introducing the new generations of this world to the same lies and bullshit that we have been sucked into – we present them with the truth and in this we take responsibility for creating the new human being of the world as one that is capable of actually solving the problems and who will not attempt to escape into a fake-reality like consumerism as a pacifier/sweetener due to a lack of confidence and common sense, which will obviously only make matters worse.

How about we get over our own inferiority-issues as the desire for power that cause us to not see our children as equals, and therefore not realize the consequences of our behavior towards them.

We do not need to continue like this anymore – change is possible.

Come and discover how we change ourselves and every following generation of human beings into self respecting, real beings that are able to stand and take responsibility for all life equally – at www.desteni.co.za

And investigate the new monetary system of 2020 that will create an environment for parents to express themselves as the truth towards their children and not feel obligated/forced to comply to consumerism as lies and bullshit – at www.equalmoney.org


There is also a book available about Equal Money - 'What the FAQ is an Equal Money System?'
so check out the Desteni Store for support in the process of self change and investigating Equal Money