to mr dave: i don't agree that fairness is a concept or a framework created by humans within which we can chose to or chose not to participate in. i think rather that it is there all the time, and we can chose to ignore it or not.
this can be exemplified by a physical law (not sure what it's called) stating that for every action there is a reaction, and vice versa. we, for the sake of ease of conversation, could call that "physical fairness." now, in my mind, in a world where instead of agenda-minded politicians making decisions ON OUR BEHALF we have pure information setting the rules, physical fairness would be simply maintaining this crazy ideal where instead of feeding fat americans everything they can get their hands on, we even it out so the people in haiti and the people in ethiopia and all these third world countries get to eat.
if the earth itself were in charge, these people that are surrounded by deserts would probably figure out how to survive... either via migration or the integration of new technologies... things that are currently HINDERED BY US, by the people that get to pick and choose what we want out of life... as though it were f**cking entitled to us.
i suppose you could say that fairness is man-made. you COULD. but what you can DEFINITELY say is that our lack of attention to the creation of a possible fairness is far more worthy of praise as a major player in the way WE LET THE WORLD WORK, as it is THIS that sets in motion the gears which create suffering.
in essence all this is to me very much like basic math. it just doesn't add up that i should be able to have a whole crapload of stuff and someone else is denied the opportunity to acquire even a tenth of it over the course of their entire life. not to say that life is about stuff, of course.
and you're right. nowhere does it say that life should be fair. but regardless of what the media and our curriculums teach us, it doesn't say anywhere that we can't use our brains for anything we want. of course, they advise against it... but they can't stop it.
it is from this type of thought that we can generate moral code. and from moral code (which i am well aware you can argue is a choice, is subjective) comes fairness... if they're not one and the same thing.
my question is, why the hell not?
and to lucifer sam: you're right. but there were less people back then and the idea of money thusly made a little more sense as far as accurately distributing goods and services. the only way to acquire money was/is to work for it. the problem now is that we don't even need as many services as we have, they've mostly just been invented so as people can get their hands on some cash. namely in food and beverage ventures... which i do believe has it's first fully automated installation somewhere in germany. that's right. a fully-automated restaurant.
so back then you're right. there was huge incentive for scientists and engineers and all those specialists to create new things. but what a selfish driver. einstein didn't do what he did for money. he did what he did cuz he couldn't stop thinking about it.
and we now have enormous advantages in our creative tool set: computers. you can program these babies to do anything... even get them working on the next generation of computers (and PLEASE don't start about computers becoming self-aware with motives and aspirations. that's for the movies.).
it's likely that we're all so attached to the idea of competition because of two things. one being that if we can manage to make it in this world that otherwise makes us feel anonymous, then we can achieve some sort of identity. the second being that it is ingrained in us. not just by the media and schools, but also and largely by the fact that WE HAVE NEVER UP UNTIL NOW HAD THE MEANS TO OVERCOME IT.
it's like the world being flat versus the world being round. people speculated that it might be round, and were ridiculed and ostracized, because no one could wrap their head around the idea... no one could imagine it. only to be proved quite wrong of course. was it the tool going by the name of the 'telescope' that allowed the people on the shore to first see the mast and sails of a ship coming over the horizon and minutes later see the hull? that's a tool.
now we have better tools, and we can start imagining better things.
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