Scarcity, Abundance, and GM foods

From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Wed Jul 10 2002 - 12:21:36 MDT


It occurs to me that our language patterns are the result of a history
of scarcity. When folks argue about whether intellectual property should
continue to be treated as real property, all participants are still
using a vocabulary based on scarcity. Perhaps if we developed a
vocabulary for discussing abundance this might lead to more fruitful
discussions.

One area in which we have no problems discussing abundance is when
talking about the extent of human stupidity. Thus many always assume
that clueless masses will flee from foods labelled as GM. Of course it
is human nature to have props by which one can define and elevate
oneself, thus we can feel more intelligent by dismissing most folks as
stupid. If the clueless masses had no issues whatsoever with GM foods,
and eagerly accepted them, we might be taking a much more critical
approach.

(While it's true that most folks have lived in misery and stupidity thru
all of human history, it's good to remember that *all* our ancestors
managed at least to raise children to an age where they could breed.)

Perhaps as extropians we might put some efforts towards developing a
language of abundance, and reserve the language of scarcity for real,
material goods. Eventually the scarcity language might also be
appropriate when discussing deficiencies in human intelligence. We can
only hope. (It seems more *extropic*, to me).

(Of course, time/space/resources in the universe are limited, so if we
begin to talk about universal resources using a language of abundance,
we'll need to make a mental note to revisit our language patterns some
several million years from now).

I try to put this into practice in my own tiny business. I'm happy to
discuss, at length, anything and everything I have learned about website
development. I figure that since I'm lazy, I need to kick myself in the
pants so as to keep learning and evolving. Some folks I've worked with
seem to feel that what they've learned is a scarce commodity, and they
need to keep it hidden and protected so that anything they say about it
can be billable to someone. My experience suggests that in almost all
cases, people will hire me even if I lay out everything I know upfront.
There is a difference between hearing a complete plan and implementing
it, which perhaps explains both why gathering data for expert systems is
so difficult and why I'm still finding interesting work.

Just a thought,
        -Mike

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