Humanity's Journey to Life: slave labor

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Day 222: Thor: The Dark World and What's Missing in Movies

Just the other day I watched the 2nd Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World, in 3D. I have to say, it's quite a testament to the skill of movie makers these days, that they can take a big, hulking guy, in a red cape, that flies around with a giant hammer, and make it not look totally ridiculous. That's quite impressive. But that's not what I'm here to blog about.

What I noticed as I was watching a sweeping view of the massive vaulted ceilings and stone columns and ornate décor of the interior of their opulent Asgardian palace, was what you rather don't notice while watching the movie, or really in fact almost all movies, which is – where are all the slaves?

Now, what do I mean by that? I mean – who built these massive columns and chambers and ornate decorations? It certainly wasn't the main characters of the movie. And who makes their clothes? Their fancy ornate costumes that flutter and shine so perfectly like the utter symbol of regality? Certainly not them. Who cooks their food, does their laundry, cleans their bathrooms?

I never used to consider these points in movies and shows. I used to just watch and try to 'sink into it' in a way and 'just watch the show', but this would often just seem so empty. And that's because movies usually are quite empty as in not having anything of real substance within them. Like they are usually just trying to evoke some feeling or emotion like 'hope' or 'excitement' or 'romance' and in the end you're left with nothing but a momentary feeling. There is usually very little that actually has any relevance to life, but is usually meant to be a momentary distraction from it, to distract from the general disappointment with the status quo or with how our lives are going by for a moment taking us into some fictional reality which becomes a sort of coping mechanism, so that we can tolerate our reality for a bit longer, without ever actually getting so bad that we would actually want to change it.

So I had eventually lost much interest in movies, until I found that it is actually a cool tool to test yourself and your awareness of reality. How you do this is to simply watch the movie and as you watch, don't just 'sink into it' like a zombie where it is really then just your mind watching it while you are in like a trance state not really here, and see what you notice as you go what is out-of-sync with reality. This becomes quite a fun game, suddenly the movie experience is not so empty, and you are testing, exercising and building your awareness as you go. Suddenly watching movies and shows has become a self expansive and rewarding thing to do.

It's also quite fascinating and quite humorous at times to see just how far departed from reality movies and shows can be.

It's also interesting to see in what ways a movie does actually mirror reality, like for example with the Thor movie, and many others, where in reality we tend to take for granted all the 'behind the scenes' stuff like who makes our clothes, and we have a whole slave labor thing going with people working in sweat shops to make our clothes, which we then wear as we're trying to be the characters in our own personal 'movie' of our life, where our clothes are just costumes that we wear to 'express' our 'individuality', while disregarding the truth behind them, and the fact that we're all wearing the product of slavery, essentially.

Just like as we watch these movies, we don't even for a moment consider how were the fancy buildings built and where are the people who built them, and did they build them because they were slaves to labor, or because they actually wanted to build them? And the people who made their armor and their clothes, and cook their meals, and clean their rooms, why aren't they in the movies? Who mines the rocks, the metals, filters the drinking water, grows the food they eat? And this goes for the 'alien' races as well. If we saw that stuff, those inner workings of the system that we tend to ignore, would it change our perspective on those people? Like when we look at how all that exists in actual reality and is a result of largely forced, abusive and/or poorly compensated labor – it's not so cool is it? So no wonder we don't show that in the movies, and we only see the 'pretty parts', the parts that we've given a 'positive' value – the heroes, the action, the suspense, all the emotional and dramatic moments.

But what I realized is that no matter how awesome that 1.5-2 hours in the theater was, the same reality was waiting for me when I walked outside. Actually, reality has been steadily getting worse, while we tend to hide away in distractions instead of face what's here. Imagine, if we sorted this reality out, then we wouldn't care so much about having a moment's distraction, which only lasts for a moment anyway, and never changes anything. No matter how much of a positive experience I had, nothing positive had actually happened, in reality.

I'd like to see what movies would be like if they weren't just here to distract us from reality for a little while longer. Or if they weren't made just to make a few bucks off of our desire to be distracted for a moment more. We would certainly see a lot less horrible movies that were made purely just for the money!

So here, sharing how I've transformed movies and tv shows into tools for self expansion and made them something actually worthwhile and truly entertaining, instead of just distracting. If you too have noticed how just blindly watching movies has become empty, try it out and see what you see.

This is also a cool point for those who may have come across all the info that is out there about how movies are used to 'brainwash' the masses, perhaps by the 'Illuminati' or the 'powers that be' and such, because if you are sticking to reality and developing your awareness of reality and crosschecking with what you see in the movies, then you are certainly not going to be brainwashed by it. So, this is also the solution for those that would fear that point. The solution being to make sure you develop effective self awareness and awareness of reality so that you can't be fooled, and movies and tv shows which are essentially total fiction, are thus a great way to test and assist in developing that. So you take the tool that's been used to 'placate' and 'brainwash' the masses, and actually turn it around and use it as a tool for the development of your own self awareness! And, you can still find the movies entertaining, which I did find of Thor: The Dark World.

There are also other dimensions to how you can use movies to increase your self awareness, which I will likely blog about in a future post to come, so stay tuned for that.

Day 218: When Our Jobs Don't Pay, We Need A Living Income Guaranteed

Here's a great article that in a lot of ways sums up what is going on in our labor system for the millions who are working low-wage jobs that don't pay enough to properly live: SeaTac’s minimum wage workers might not get their raise after all

One of the arguments against raising the wage is the businesses that won't be able to afford it, or may have to lay off one or a few employees.

But really – should businesses that can't afford to pay a living wage even exist? Otherwise what we've got is slave labor. And that is where the LIG comes in that provides the support buffer so that if you're out of a job for even just a moment, you're covered, and covered Far Better than Most Low Wage employees today, who earn far below a living wage, because the LIG will cover all your costs of living, whereas low wage even does not do that.

So you can start to see how having a buffer of a basic income can actually really take the pressure off of all aspects of our labor system, which currently is literally a life or death game. And this would take the pressure off of those who would want to have a business, because if it doesn't work out, which the vast majority of businesses fail within the first year, then it's not a problem, you're not going to wind up on the street.

And, if you really want to do something whether it makes money or not, you could, and still have enough to live effectively.

This would obviously result in aligning more people with what they'd really like to be doing. You could really follow your passion and have choice to do what suits you. I mean, do we really want people doing things that they really don't want to be doing? What kind of service do we get from that? The worst quality. This is why we have so many malpractice lawsuits, because so many of our doctors are in it for the money, and not because it's what they'd really like to do.

There's argument that having a basic income though would be a disincentive to working. But we are viewing this from the eyes of what is already here. I mean, what would you call disincentive? Being severely underpaid to the point where you have to take multiple jobs and still can't pay all your bills? Being short staffed and overworked, where the service you provide is often the cheapest it can possibly be and cutting corners is a requirement of the job so there is really no satisfaction in the service you're providing, and often facing disgruntled customers who don't like the poor service for the price they're paying when it's not like you are doing it on purpose? Receiving little to no paid time off or benefits? Where the company for whom your labor is making profits for has no regard for you? Where's the incentive in that?

Obviously our current situation is the main reason why people don't want to work. It's not that they don't want to work – they don't want to work in such conditions. Who would? Maybe only someone who has it even worse. But then, it's still not what they would really want, just the better out of two shitty choices.

Is this really what we want our labor to be like? There's no actual reason or need for it to be this way, and there certainly is no benefit. Investigate LIG, so that we can sort this out before it's too late.

Day 177: We Are All Slave Owners, We Enslave to Own

You know what, we are all slave owners. We’ve just taken measures to not have to see the slavery first hand, so we can pretend it doesn’t really exist. We’ve transferred the task of slave-mastership over to corporations and made corporations the legal ‘owners’ of slaves, if you will, in charge of directing all the slave labor. We made them responsible, yet we all are ‘benefiting’ or utilizing/taking advantage of the slave labor. We gave the corporations the task of ruling/directing the slaves so that we can believe and feel like we’re not the ones actually having slaves, actually ordering slaves around, yet we do it every time we are in line at the coffee shop asking for a latte. The individual/s who are going to prepare and furnish you that latte, are not doing so out of the kindness of their heart because it’s what they’d really like to do, they’re doing it because if you don’t do your job you don’t make a living, and there aren’t enough jobs that provide an effective living, which means most have to choose what they can get. They are doing it out of fear of survival, we have no choice in this system, you find work or you suffer.

What’s really bizarre is that we’re slaves to ourselves. By me saying that I’d like someone to make a coffee for me so let’s have someone in a coffee shop for 40 hours a week, so that I can come in at some point in those 40 hours and have them make me a coffee. Yet, by accepting this system, I’ve made it necessary that I have to work 40 hours a weeks as well. Really, I will rather just make myself some coffee. It will take a lot less time than 40 hours a week. And if I am not working 40 hours a week, I will have plenty of time to make me a nice coffee. We do not need millions of pairs of jeans in shops that no one is even going to buy. Somebody had to make all those jeans, and for what. For all the unsold items to be destroyed so that can’t be used and then thrown away. WTF?

Yes, that’s right, the unsold clothes get holes punched in them so that can’t be used, as you can see in this article: H&M and Wal-Mart destroy and trash unsold goods and this article: Eddie Bauer Outlet Destroys Unsold Clothing, Throws It Away, where you will find links to more related articles as well. I mean, just because we can and do produce enough clothes for everyone to have clothes, we can’t just clothe everyone can we? No, that would make way too much sense, and wouldn’t make nearly as much profit.

When we’re in the store buying a new pair of jeans, we don’t even consider, where did this fabric come from? What did it take to make it so blue? Or put sequins on it? Or whatever it is. Or how did this underwear get wrapped around this piece of cardboard with a little piece of tape on it and put into this plastic packaging? We don’t see the hands that did this labor, that stand there all day long doing it over and over again. These things are simply not considered. We don’t care how it got there, it’s here and it’s mine and I like it. Doesn’t this remind you of stories and shows that show the nobility of the past, and how they would treat their servants, where they would demand something without any consideration of what it would take to actually create it, and if the servant says, ‘but how on earth will I get that?’ Or, ‘but your majesty that would be impossible.’ And then the royalty will threaten them with some horrible torture or death and often you’ll hear the words ‘I don’t care how you do it, JUST DO IT!’

And this is exactly how we, the 25% of the earth’s population that is living in elite countries in relative comfort compared to the remaining 75% that are in poverty and are working in the corporations that have gone overseas to set up the slave shops somewhere out of sight, so no one has to even think about it, and we can just go on buying the products without caring how it’s done, where they come from, what it took to make them, because we’re not the ones doing it, so we can just blissfully pretend that everything is alright in the world, and I can go on buying my cheap products and getting a sense of satisfaction because I feel like I am royalty that gets all the goodies, and has all this choice and options just laying at my feet. Yet most of what we buy and what is for sale is not practical items, is not even quality items, is not needed, but is just stuff created solely for the purpose of getting you to buy it so someone can make a profit. Without any regard for the effect that all this is having on our world/environment, where we’re busying abusing it in every possible way, which is inevitably going to lead to our own destruction, and then you won’t be owning anything.

Check out this video Science Of Persuasion for some examples of persuasion tactics involved in getting more sales. Which is just a drop in the bucket of the science that is implemented for the purpose, and effectively so, of getting individuals to buy buy buy, until we make our whole environment go bye bye.

To really get into the history and detail of how humanity has been and continues to be psychologically manipulated, watch the documentary series The Century of the Self

Follow the Economist’s Journey to Life blogs to see how Capitalism will be corrected into Equal Money Capitalism, into a system that really does work for all like it was supposed to.

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