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Replying to
At civilization level, progress is mostly 90% opportunistic steals, 10% disciplined drives. It’s only at the relative individual social mobility level that it looks like 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
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We’re still collectively free-riding on a 150-year old “steal” — burning our very distant ancestors for fun and profit. The hard workers get a bit more of the fossil fuel pie for a lot higher effort. And we’re always paying off old externality debts and creating new ones.
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We’re paying for ancestral sins like the invention of religion, the food pyramid, etc. We’re bequeathing a high-carbon, destabilized environment for future generations to deal with. We’re a free-ride/pass-the-buck species.
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Replying to
Nose to the grindstone mentality also helps keep the populace busy while they’re getting robbed/exploited/colonized/replaced (at which point you blame them for letting themselves become replaceable). Lazy people start getting “ideas” ...
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