Challenge #01713-D252: A Lesson For All

"Bellringer Sale! 80% off". Then the bell began to ring. -- Anon Guest

The luckless staffmember ringing the bell was on a stone plinth that served most of its time as a display area that could also be sat upon if a shopper was desperate enough. The shoppers were not desperate for a seat, right now. What they were desperate for was a bargain.

A rolling sea of humanity, flooding the area. A surge made of pure greed.

There were no staff in the sales zone because it quickly turned into a melee. People who hadn't wanted Flangisprangers five minutes prior were fighting others for the privilege to buy one at an amazing discount. The luckless staffmember clung to the bell whilst trying to occupy the least possible physical space.

People who couldn't get to the Flangisprangers were attacking the people who had one or more of them. Children cried for mothers who would not soothe them. Infants were abandoned in their prams. If any of these people were allowed to be armed, it would have been a bloodbath.

It was almost a bloodbath, now.

Other staff worked the outskirts to get the children to a safe area. Including the ones in prams. None dared to get the others away from their bargain.

Educator Maris paused the playback. "This is a dramatisation, but it is one of the worst examples of capitalism. We have genuine footage, but it is marked as too disturbing for young viewers."

Elaise, covered in gooseflesh, could believe it. Knowing a vid was staged had lessened the impact of its content. And yet, there was a part of her that wondered what the genuine footage looked like.

On the viewer, now, there was a very safe series of graphs. One of them chilled Elaise to the bone. One one axis were pre-shattering dates. The other was labeled, Number of Deaths. It went up to the thousands.

"Greed is well known amongst human sects as a sin. We've just seen some of the destruction that it can cause. But there are indirect causes, too. The oligarchy elites in pre-shattering history literally had the power of life and death over those who were not among the elite. They would destroy anything to get more money and more power. And they almost destroyed the Earth's habitability."

Old headlines, credited to the Archivaas Collective. Cyclones. Fires. Hurricanes. Floods. Record high summers. Glaciers withering away. Rising oceans. Small island nations in peril.

And then, the headline: New Worlds For Colonisation!

"What saved Earth, ironically, is greed. New worlds with the potential for resources. The oligarchs could own all the shiny things. On a world built in their own image. Some went to claim the planets on their own, and realised that they needed workers to reap their imagined rewards. Some went with workers to reap every reward and then realised that they couldn't return to Earth with their wealth. Some went on purpose to become kings of their own planet. Only seven of those colonies are known to survive."

The Galactic Map lit up all the Greater Deregulations. The others had to be Graveworlds.

Elaise put up her hand. "How could people learn to be so horrible about everything?"

"Oligarchs isolated themselves from the community," said Educator Maris. "In isolation, they could remove themselves from any legal consequences. Without consequences, they believed they could get away with anything. And, as a direct result, they lost any morals about what they did."

Things were a lot better without oligarchies. Elaise could see that. People with power accepted the responsibilities that went with it. No one person could decide to -say- plough under an entire district's worth of homes so that that one person could have a golf course. The system that existed now wasn't perfect, no system ever was, but there were people in charge who cared, and they were working hard on all kinds of improvements.

Elaise pondered her homework, Write down five ways in which Galactic Society is flawed, and what measures might be taken to improve them. It was going to take her some time to figure out where the cracks were, simply because she'd never fallen through one.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / cienpies]

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