August 31, 2022

Coldest Story Ever Told

Let me tell you a story.

It's about a society that crushes a mother.
This smashed mother surrendering her values and proceeding to step on her child.
And this squished child attempting to become an adult in this society.

This society demands the highest quality results from its individuals, ideally as fast as possible. In order to ensure timely, high quality results, individuals must compete with one another. In an era where humans supply the vast majority of physical and mental labor, the mentality this society demands of its individuals is considered healthy, and consistently creates individuals who produce quality results. However, some individuals learn to prioritize the competition and the accompanying rewards at the expense of producing quality results.

This mother is caring for a child by herself. An intellectual disability limiting her desire for social interaction, and an ideologic falling out with her family has rendered her alone. She, however, is a genius. She works in the biomedical field, seeking a treatment for a well known disease. Now an important note about biomedical laboratories in her society, they are treated akin to individuals in that they compete with each other to produce timely quality results. Labs that produce results are rewarded with essential resources necessary to maintain operation. Very often these necessary resources are provided by individuals who themselves, or someone dear to them, are suffering from the specific disease that the lab is working on. Labs in this society have come to understand that, no promising results, no essential resources. Science takes time, and unfortunately these generous individuals are very often elderly, ailing, and desperate. A drip of difficult to verify minor breakthroughs keep the lights on, and the resource providers hopeful. This mother understands this but refuses to misrepresent results for her lab's or her own personal gain. Self motivated, with a burning passion for helping mankind, she views the competition her society subjects her to as an unnecessary burden. As if to add extra fuel to her fire, her own mother who raised her and her siblings single handedly, gradually begins to suffer from the exact disease she is working to treat. It becomes personal as this disease is genetic. Her lab begins to run trials on a new medication. In her initial experiments, she finds little to no benefit. However, a coworker's experiments yield promising results. She double checks her coworkers results and still finds little to no benefit. The lab disregarded her findings, sided with the coworker, and when future funding dried up, the mother was let go. As a result, the mothers burning desire to help humanity was extinguished.

This child is a boy, and he wanted to follow in his mothers footsteps, become a scientist, and help humanity. However, watching his mothers experience forces him to question the rationale of this desire. His grandmother, now living in hospice care, succumbs to her disease, and he watches his mother give up. She attempts to take her own life, but he steps in, assumes her financial responsibilities and attempts to work with her toward building her a new future. However, his old mother is gone, in her place, someone who only lives for themselves and the moment at hand.
They had been living in the same rented residence when his mother gave up. She was far behind on rent, so he offered to pay. Though he was not on the renters lease, his paying rent allowed the landlord to include him in the ensuing civil lawsuit. Facing legal ramifications, the rented house must be vacated within three months. However it is stuffed with the mothers possessions. He rents a storage unit and attempts to clear the space while his mother is in the hospital. Upon her return, she stops him because she insists on being involved in the removal. Being a scientist, a single mother, and having a disability has made her someone who is hyper focused on controlling her environment to better increase her chances of success in her society. Her son understands this, surrenders full control to her in an attempt to provide her some comfort. Now working two full time jobs, he has no time to organize her possessions anyway. As the weeks turn to months, it becomes clear she's going to fail. The mother is evicted, but because she never removed her stuff, a court date is set in another three months to resolve the back rent the landlord is after. The mother is living in her car for a few extreme weeks before she quite randomly and frankly, near miraculously receives a lump sum of cash from a prior disability claim that nobody expected anything from. She tells her son that he can quit his second job, as she now has the money to settle the impending civil lawsuit. He does, meets his future partner and feels happiness for the first time in his life.
The son has been giving his mother space since her traumatic experience being homeless, and he's happy to focus on his life. When the day comes to settle the civil lawsuit, the son picks his mother up to go to the court. On the drive to the court, the son asks if she is ready and has the necessary money. The mother lost it all at a local casino. The son has to pay all of the money he has in his bank account, and agree to pay a monthly sum for the next year. However, the mother is receiving monthly disability income that she promises to use to pay the required sum. A few months later, the son receives a call from his mother. She wasn't aware that her disability income was temporary, and now it's over. The son is now responsible for all of the back rent, he never trusts his mother again, and has to actively work on trusting what anybody says.

Time goes on, the boy is now a man. His mother now existing on top of a temporary bedrock of stability provided through social programs. But the man has watched the floor fall out from beneath her too many times to believe that it's permanent. He learns to build, and builds her a home next to his. When the time comes to move her into this stable environment, she refuses. She understands completely how this lack of closure will cause him damage, but she is comfortable, and exclusively focused on herself at this point.
He still only wants to help humanity, but his experiences have shown him what his society does to people like him. He believes a society in which individuals have empathy for each other's perspective is inevitable, and wants to make this a reality. This story does not yet have an ending.

December 17, 2019

Would this work?

Hey there DU, this is my first post!

(So, wrong place to post this? I debated posting in the DU Lounge but the content seemed too political. Happy to be corrected.)

Something to know about me:

I was raised by a single mother. She was a scientist, working in a lab seeking a cure to a well known disease. She began testing a new medication the lab perceived as promising, only to find minimal returns. A coworker found the medication to be promising, which was enough for the lab. My mother checked the coworkers work and found what she found the first time. The lab didn’t care...they often rely on grant money from wealthy donors who expect quick returns on their investment. A lab producing “promising breakthroughs” and the resulting positive press tend to receive more funding. You can’t rush science, and you can’t force facts where they don’t belong… Our economic system requires profit above all else, even facts.

Being selfless in a selfish system is difficult.

This broke my mother, and made me cynical.

I like solving problems, and we have a few burdening our species today that I feel visitors of this site are more aware of, or open to discussing civilly, than your average slice of the population...


Intro's aside, please tell me why this won’t work, or suggest your own solution.


Problem:

Our economic system encourages self serving interests...

(Don’t believe me?

)




Our elected government officials ought to be selfless channels of their respective constituents will.

This seems to be a fundamental conflict of interest.


Proposed solution:

Operation: “Adults In The Room.”

Implementation of a fourth branch of government consisting of peer approved academic intellectuals providing oversight on the other three branches.

Individuals with great knowledge of the universal laws (science/math) will be voted upon by faculty and select students at noteworthy universities.

There is no payment for being voted into this branch of government, and the position can be declined.

This “Academic Council” would provide guidance on the writing of legislature currently being considered, and would ultimately have the final say on legislature being passed into law.

Hopefully this would hold our elected officials to a higher intellectual standard.

*This suggestion only works if we invest in and take seriously the education of our population. Seems like this is obviously important, after all, I and many believe that the human brain is the most valuable tool/resource yet discovered or created. We must invest far more in our public education institutions. Universities should be free to anyone legitimately seeking education. Accommodations should be provided without hassle to anyone unable to receive a conventional education due to any financial, physical or other limitation of any kind. Everyone benefits from everyone being educated. The only losers are the ones who (currently) use ignorance as a means of control.

Supporting Ramblings

*There are “Human” laws and there are universal laws.
“Human” laws are what we say they are, because they exist within systems that are entirely constructed by humans.
“Human” laws are universally subjective, being determined by which humans with the most control (historically, humans in control of large populations, but more recently, humans in control of large amounts of capital) at any significant point or place in history determined was “fair” or “moral”.
The definition of what is morally correct differs between cultures and changes over time. (slavery, war crimes, etc.)

Universal laws exist independently from human will or morality. (But can be interpreted differently by individuals.)
Understanding these laws provides humans with greater control over their environment and lives.

Hopefully, we collectively share the notion that keeping this humanity thing going is a good “general goal” to have as a species. Nothing has helped prolong our existence more than our growing understanding of the universal laws around us. The individuals who truly dedicate their lives to helping our species thrive should have more control to see that it happens.