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A vision of the future...
Nov. 5th, 2003 09:54 pm(Inspired by a sad conversation recently with one of the drivers where I work...)
It is 100 years hence. Your children's children are grown and starting families of their own. You and your children are long since dead from cancers caused by pollutants and the by-products of human society. Your new generation will all be born with breathing difficulties, asthma, other birth defects for the same reason. Your grandchildren all work for the Umbrella Corporation, in its many and various divisions. Their clothes are the same, not through the need to wear a uniform, but because there is no longer any diversity - all the shops belong to Umbrella. All produce is cheap but everyone is still starving. This is partly because Umbrella only caters to the highest demand, and the highest demand is for cheap, quick, easy to make food - ready meals and fast food with their poor nutritional value are the order of the day. But it is also for a deeper, more sinister reason. The people are poor _because_ the produce is as cheap as they have demanded. The cheaper they want it, the cheaper Umbrella tries to buy it in. The poorer the populace becomes, the more fear the fat cats at the top have of becoming like that, and the more cream they skim off the top, thus making the demand for cheap produce even greater. Farmers, industries, creators (those not already swallowed by Umbrella of course) in our own country cannot compete with those of countries with weaker currency (ie. all those not in the USA or Eurasian conglomerates.) The producers of these other countries are also starving, forced to work in tiny sweatshops, long hours for less than a living wage, even in their own poor homelands. Our producers sell their produce at a loss just to get _something_ back. The government pours money into the producers to keep some illusion of a successful industry going, but the money has to come from somewhere. All the public services have been sold off to Umbrella, which has squeezed them for every drop of worth, until they are dry and dessicated. the government has absolute power over the groups supposed to bring Umbrella into line - after all, Umbrella pays the top ministers millions of Euros every year to do as it wishes. So the public services all fall into decay.
( Read more... )
All this because you don't care what happens to the world. All because you want everything you desire to be available to you - all the same - right at your doorstep, cheap and easy. As long as you get your fix, you're alright? I feel so so sorry for your progeny...
It is 100 years hence. Your children's children are grown and starting families of their own. You and your children are long since dead from cancers caused by pollutants and the by-products of human society. Your new generation will all be born with breathing difficulties, asthma, other birth defects for the same reason. Your grandchildren all work for the Umbrella Corporation, in its many and various divisions. Their clothes are the same, not through the need to wear a uniform, but because there is no longer any diversity - all the shops belong to Umbrella. All produce is cheap but everyone is still starving. This is partly because Umbrella only caters to the highest demand, and the highest demand is for cheap, quick, easy to make food - ready meals and fast food with their poor nutritional value are the order of the day. But it is also for a deeper, more sinister reason. The people are poor _because_ the produce is as cheap as they have demanded. The cheaper they want it, the cheaper Umbrella tries to buy it in. The poorer the populace becomes, the more fear the fat cats at the top have of becoming like that, and the more cream they skim off the top, thus making the demand for cheap produce even greater. Farmers, industries, creators (those not already swallowed by Umbrella of course) in our own country cannot compete with those of countries with weaker currency (ie. all those not in the USA or Eurasian conglomerates.) The producers of these other countries are also starving, forced to work in tiny sweatshops, long hours for less than a living wage, even in their own poor homelands. Our producers sell their produce at a loss just to get _something_ back. The government pours money into the producers to keep some illusion of a successful industry going, but the money has to come from somewhere. All the public services have been sold off to Umbrella, which has squeezed them for every drop of worth, until they are dry and dessicated. the government has absolute power over the groups supposed to bring Umbrella into line - after all, Umbrella pays the top ministers millions of Euros every year to do as it wishes. So the public services all fall into decay.
( Read more... )
All this because you don't care what happens to the world. All because you want everything you desire to be available to you - all the same - right at your doorstep, cheap and easy. As long as you get your fix, you're alright? I feel so so sorry for your progeny...
