Economy of the Gun
Guns = Jobs
Domestically, the industries dependent on weapons manufacturing are diverse. From resources, to manufacturing, the military, and even tourism. Essentially every facet of our culture is touched by the military industrial complex and the subsidies our government provides those entities. Inversely, politicians are beholden to corporate backers such as the NRA and their constituencies, which are employed by these entities.
Ask: who are you willing to see unemployed?
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”
Great mantra folks but it’s time to be far more constructive than cliches will allow. What is the difference between a soldier with PTSD or a kid with a chip on his shoulder because of XYZ-issue? Well, training...information. The understanding that what they have learned is a responsibility regarding the knowledge about weaponry and its place in civilization.
As funny as the idea might be, folks in Texas have legalized open-carry swords. That’s right, you read it correctly. A strong society is one in which that isn’t necessary, not where it’s an option. This Wild West mentality will eventually make everyone blind in anger or injury.
People will latch onto their talking points like the 2nd Amendment and not realize that there are issues about the militia component. Or else they make uninformed statements about AR-15s while having no concept of how to compare it to other guns. Information is critical...
Economics & Education
Primarily, as I observe the state of inequality through our society, the imbalance we have is a result of education and the distribution of wealth amongst the citizens. These two factors are certainly observed to correlate but also the stratification we have these days is resulting in a massive disconnect. It’s everywhere now.
A massive swelling divide produced by money. From a poor neighborhood? Your kid’s children will never get into an Ivy League college - those are the breaks because the time necessary to build that trajectory isn’t available to those institutions given the demands on people in tight socioeconomic positions. It always comes down to the money, doesn’t it?
There’s not enough of it or else it’s not going to the right places. Observing the pendulum swing of the divisive positions people are lead to choosing it becomes clear that their is an education problem.
Ok, so wait information and money are linked? Yeah, everything costs something you can spend money if you have it or time if you don’t. Let’s get off this back-and-forth train ride though because it isn’t helping.
Banks have become a dictators. The whole sector has corrupted its place in society. Very little money is allowed to flow out toward that communities are literally dying for a drink of clean water. Infrastructure, local business, community institutions are drying up, breaking down, and closing their doors.
The relationship between finance and governance is intricately woven with very little thread available to alter the tapestries design significantly. Most of us are lucky to have a loose thread we can work with that is dangling from the fringe on the edges.
You’re probably thinking “Hold on a second, I thought this was about guns?” It is! I strongly believe that if education is improved then employment options will improve and we’ll experience a perceptible decrease in gun violence. But not just that one metric will change, there can be a ripple effect across the surface of our culture at-large.
Power Unbanked
Everything seems as if it’ll last forever, until it doesn’t. Power structures morph, they crumble. Our longest lasting empires in history no longer stand, only the remnants of their culture remain. If they have been forward thinking enough they carved their most important messages into stone to last against the effects of weathering.
If we are to last beyond the conflicted age our society has found itself, it means reducing some parts of it to ash. At the least, massively reducing their proximity to power. Perhaps even changing how power is distributed all together to help ensure that our culture can heal itself and last beyond the predatory machinations that have preyed upon it.
As long as guns and bombs are profitable, those industries and their financiers will continue to push the agenda. Guns are cheap, bullets are cheap. Where I live, with an approved background check it is possible to acquire one in under an hour.
Research, development, manufacturing, and sales of weapons is a vastly profitable sector that turns many other gears in the global economy. If we want to see a change to gun violence at home, I’ve laid out a domestic course to take. If we want to alter the course of power and access to opportunity, then a more thorough effort will have to be put forward to unseat the relationship between money and political control.
Luckily, there exists today a tool to unseat the power of banks and their relationship with business and government. Finance requires high levels of security integrity, it desires speed for transactions, and ubiquity across its market to make negotiations easy. If we exist in a time of a global economy, then why not a global currency?
Why not a digital currency that can move at the speed of light across the Internet wherever it’s necessary to facilitate trade of goods and services? Bitcoin is that tool.
Do some research on the topic. Learn about the ledger and how transactions are monitored. If you're into mantras, journalists have one: “Always follow the money”.
Let's refocus the economy off the arms trade and towards sustainable industries that will revitalize communities that feel they are being left behind by global trade. It's going to take some time to envision how that works but the time to start was yesterday.
Additional Reading
https://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/econ-hunting.html
https://www.statista.com/.../revenue-hunting-and.../
https://www.ibisworld.com/.../trapping/hunting-trapping.html
You have some interesting thoughts.
If I have read this right - and you cover a lot of ground quickly - you are suggesting that we need to break the cycle of power and money that has led to gross inequities in our societies, and that the way to do this is with bitcoin?
Is that it, in a nutshell?
🎯
It's me, the grumpy fecker with the flu. Expect more grumpiness! This is all done in the spirit of meaningful discourse though. I enjoy a grown-up debate. I think you might too.
I didn't respond because I am not fluent in emoji! Was your answer supposed to indicate that my answer was bang on target? In the absence of another interpretation, I'll make that assumption.
I absolutely, completely, totally, utterly agree that western societies are becoming ridiculously unequal, and that those that control the money also control the power (and we often have no idea who they are), and that they set the agenda (and we don't know what that is either) and in doing so, they sacrifice the proletariat (for want of a better word).
We are on the same page there.
I also agree that that the anarchic nature of cryptocurrencies (not solely bitcoin) are anti-establishment, and that they offer an interesting set of possibilities. But I have to say I cannot see a scenario where they challenge the establishment sufficiently to make a significant socio-economic impact. My feeling is that they will merely establish another set of rich people, should they continue to rise.
And rich people don't tend to care about poor people. Money changes people, and I cannot see that big players in the crypto-world will become latter day Robin Hoods.
I think it is fair to say that I am sceptical that this offers the planet a viable alternative. I am open to your thoughts, though...
I'm not willing to cross the divide of "rich people are bad" with you. Greed is bad. Not all rich people got that way via greed. While I'm not an advocate of many global non-profits because of their cost structures, that doesn't mean the rich aren't paying out or sharing in a capacity. Is it enough? Probably not.
However, legally here the baseline for charitable giving is 0%.
If you don't believe that Bitcoin can become a force for positive change, I would say that is cynicism. How did a tool such as it even come into being in the first place?
If you are a socialist, then you advocate for the transfer of wealth - yes? If wealth or the more broadly financial mechanisms are changing hands and creating new wealthy people, where exactly does your position put you?
Here is some further writing I have done on this topic https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@mdf-365/give-your-self-away-turning-nothing-into-savings-for-a-rainy-day
Finding ourselves within improved financial positions can occur on both sides: Making more money and reducing costs
Yes, the bullseye meant you nailed the point
You are making a few assumptions about my position.
I am not saying all rich people are bad. That would be ridiculous.
I am not sure if you are aware of the recently cited statistic that the world's richest eight people have the same wealth as the bottom 3.5bn people. I don't know who these 8 people are, but I do know that they are getting obscenely richer as the years go by, and I do not accept that this is happening by chance or accident.
20000 children die of malnutrition every day, so I would challenge your use of the word "probably" up there.
I hate the very notion of charity, btw. People are driving around in gold-plated Rolls Royces, and there are charities asking us to cough up a few pennies to stop children going blind or dying of hunger. That is fucking obscene.
I never said that Bitcoin cannot be a force for positive change, but I am certainly sceptical. I doubt that it will become powerful enough, and I doubt that those getting rich from it will prioritorise the well being of starving children.
I think that is a huge leap.
I am not sure I am a socialist. I am not sure what that label means. I am certainly very left wing, and I certainly advocate the forcible redistribution of wealth from the obscenely rich. But what I advocate is completely irrelevant, because I am a nobody.
In that scenario, most rich people would be unaffected. It seems I could target a handful of people and eradicate the gross inequities that shame us all.
Which I think negates the question you just asked.
I'll read your other blog, thanks.
Again, the divide is too great. One point I'll make: politics are not left vs right. It is holographic, as we are. Perhaps we can talk again at some point.
Maybe. We both seem to be reading from different books at the moment.
Correct, I don't read books that pit us on a left-right spectrum anymore. It's a construct. A pendulum we don't control and a fallacy.
@originalworks
Except of course your basic premise is flawed, the American small arms industry is very small as industries go, also their margins are very tight because there is a lot of competition in that small industry. Gun makers are usually just above bankruptcy. They don't have the money to influence anyone. The power of the gun lobby comes from most Americans agreeing with them.
I don't think we agree on what my basic premise is and that is ok. If you'd like to revisit what I'm actually saying that'd be fine...
Clearly, I support guns in some capacity: the one pictured is mine.
I am saying that if we "follow the money" in this case it will not lead back to the small arms industry.
Alright, we're getting somewhere. I would add that I never mentioned the "small arms industry" - that's something you are superimposing onto this writing. I added a few links onto the bottom of the piece.
But... you wrote many things that imply you're against easy access to weapons by individuals, and that easy access is directly because of the small arms industry. I've given up enough of my rights when it comes to defense of life with a deadly weapon as a last resort. We don't need more limitations. There are plenty enough already.
Gun laws, like all other prohibitions, do not work. Even if you outlaw them like in a place like Brazil, only the cops and criminals will have them. They will have them too. In Brazil people have to scream, "I'm not a cop" when being robbed at gun point now too. Why? If the robber thinks you're a cop, you get executed on the spot. How's that prohibition working out there for the cops then? I'd say not too well.
This isn't a problem of guns. It is a problem of mental instability. There's also a problem with people expecting agents of the government to protect them. The FBI knew about the latest school shooter. The local police has been warned something like 39 times?! Nothing was done.
That's a "let it happen" in my opinion therefore. They have a lot to gain when they do let things happen also. It plays into their ultimate solution of more power and control over people, larger budgets, and less individual liberty. The goal is to turn this place into the next Brazil. No... thanks. I'll keep my guns.
You mentioned militia. Militia as in Virginia's Section 13 of the Declaration of Rights? A document written well before 2A? Please look that up, for it explains the true meaning behind 2A. I am a strong supporter of a militia made up of the whole body of people, and that is how it should be. There should be no standing armies in times of peace. More countries should be like Costa Rica and not have a standing army.
Sorry it took so long for me to reply. Just remembered I left this comment hanging...
In short, we are in agreement - I believe you are seeking to find the implications you mentioned in your first paragraph. However, my position is more akin to the things you note in your last. Glad we can explore these different ideas together. I'll definitely take a look at the piece from Virginia at some point soon.
Thanks for leaving a comment and sharing your thoughts.