Hypocrite Dad, Hypocrite Dad
I recently read a highly popular book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" just to see what the fuss was about. It currently ranks as the no.1 finance book of all time and it is best seller in many countries including USA, China and Japan. Personally, I found the book financially boring but the context of it's success and popularity quite insightful.
People who read books such as this one, are mainly concerned with making money. Now, aren't we all? Indeed when it comes to matters of personal finance, it does a great job explaining to amateurs how to trick the system — or better —learn how make money work for you instead of working for money. Pretty amazing right?
As I was I reading the book, some anthropological rather than financial insights confirmed some long held hypothesis I have formed throughout the years. Humans are not natural born thinkers, nor do they care much about each other. Most rather go after the fat, short term reward and have everyone else chasing their tales. Basically, we are all hypocrites (more or less) and like to point fingers left and a right in case we are the ones without a chair when the music finally stops (see music chairs game).
The Author of the book, basically describes how he grew up with two father figures — one of his own and another of his friend. His dad was a poor, government employee professor and the other was a rich self-made business man. More or less, the book explains how poor people like his dad invest in liabilities by working for money while rich people, like his friend's dad, concentrate on assets, having money working for them. Really, this is all what the book is all about if you are bored reading it. Economics 101.
Throughout the books a noob will find out how fucked the system is and how basically rich people get richer. For example, when poor people ask for a raise, the rich people create corporations and increase their bonuses so they can avoid taxes. As a result, wages shrink and the gap between rich and poor widens even more. In other words, the government — which poor people support, turns and fucks them over. Try to say to most people that the government is in bed with corporations and they will discredit you as a conspiracy theorist. Try to tell them in a book how to make money that this is the case and they will worship your book as best seller.
Yet, this is not the most fucked up part. The interesting part is that the book teaches you how to cheat the system using the law. Aka, the system that most people elect. Remember. This book is a best seller so more or less democracy favors it. In one hand we have people that elect a system that is designed specifically to fuck most people over and from the other you have the same folk buying the book in order to learn how to fuck everyone else except themselves.
People who fear for anarchy might be correct after all. You see, if everyone had their money working for them (aka if everyone were investors and businessmen) then essentially there would be no factory workers, no nannies, no teachers, no garbage men, no specialized workers. Everyone will be sitting in their offices, clicking away in front of screens investing in stocks, bonds and real estate. For the proponents of the book, somehow specialized wage slaves would magically emerge out of nowhere to support their status.
Earlier in life, I have worked in dishrooms for years. Later on, I enjoyed the fruits of high-end investment. Although I never owned my own mansion or slept in the street, I believe I lived (almost) in the entire spectrum of wealth and most experiences that people crave. I adhere to anarchic and capitalistic ideals and have no respect for politics or bullshit rhetorics. Nonetheless, I can assure you something rich people almost never admit: Investing and making money is the easiest thing one can do while working on the lower end of the labour spectrum is the hardest, most exhausting and most humiliating. There is no "charisma" or "brains" in investing. It is 90% luck and one success giving birth to another. This is why you hear rich people say that only the first million is the hardest. Most people that make money from owning a business have the right connections and "insiders" to keep things rolling. A 10 word tip 10 can make you more than than a small country's entire GDP. Again, this is the awesome system that we have created and what most people crave — hence the high success of the book worldwide. Human hypocrisy at it's highest. We want equality and fairness as long as we are getting fucked. If someone shows us a book how to fuck other people over then we have no problem ditching our principles.
When I see people in the business and investment world boast about their success, claiming that they are "worth" it, I pity their arrogance. The cause for this pedantic behaviour is rather simple every single time: superficial beliefs and poor understanding of statistics. They will say things like "I have worked hard for this money in the past" or "I spend hours and hours on courses". They are always few as one would expect from a normal statistical distribution. Yet finding themselves in that position appear to be a grandiose accomplishment since the entire system supports such as ridiculous system. At the end of the day I ask them this: "Haven't we all tried our best?".
Humans tend to over-amplify their impact in order to explain certain outcomes. We all do it. I saw it here on Steemit as well. Early adopters and people with some lucky connections became whales fast — with possibly a little time spent in chatting or getting involved in some projects and producing some content. The whole effort might took 2-3 months tops for them. After that most of these people shut their engines but their rewards stayed and multiplied. They will never have any idea how it takes someone to produce good content day after day for a year to reach 1/10 of what they have. The only had to endure this for a month. It became a fond memory.
The ironic part? Most of these 'lucky guys' on Steemit got probably fucked over in the real world (and without it might still do). They most likely had some other people shoving the same excuses down their throat as the ones they use now in order to explain their own position. Same exact principle as with the people enjoying "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" while getting up and voting for the same system at the end of the day. Hypocrisy at it's finest.
Through the dawn of time most humans have been aiming to take advantage of other humans while in the meantime trying to deny it. We do this by setting up systems that are strategically hypocritical. Whether those are online, offline, blockchain or no blockchain, it makes no difference. The pyramid has only one path, the top. Rest assured that no secret society, no aliens or any other superior entity has put this in place. We did. The responsible ones are our mothers, teachers, friends and neighbors. Much like the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", we are short sighted hypocrites. We will continue supporting the system because some fools will make us rich by working for money. In the meantime we will strive to find out secrets and schemes how to have the money work for us by most likely screwing others. And we are ok with this. In our mind "this is how things are" because most of us agreed that it is ok. As long as we are biological beings dictated by the laws of evolution this is the only game in town. Adapt or perish.
nice post. You must be a rich dad.
Of course im agreed
How to Get Rich
Step One: Have connections.
Step Two: Use those connections to move paper around (or digits in the stock market or blockchain).
Rinse & Repeat.
An alternate method would be to write a book, or even better, a digital info product, about how to get rich and then sell thousands of digital copies to people who like to buy digital info products about how to get rich.
The un-quantifiable thing in this is the value & satisfaction that the buyers get from buying & sometimes reading (but never actually applying) the info in the How to Get Rich books.
For the most part it's really just intellectual crack or heroine.
precisely.
My intellectual product is free, makes it that much more valuable.
I've seen quite a few (and fallen for my fair share of them) but what's odd is the ones I gained the most useful knowledge from always seemed to be the free ones.
As long as we are biological beings dictated by the laws of evolution, this is the only game in town. Adapt or perish.
As much as I would like to deny it, @kyriacos is right. Each and every one of us is just another incident (hopefully not an accident) in the genetical pool. From the first moment we are equipped with egoistic genes, trying to ensure our survival and the species succesful reproduction. In other words, we are programmed to be selfish and egoistic - some more than others, as you can clearly observe around you. But the story doesnt end there, it would be great just to blame everything on our biological urges and simply think that this is how things work.
What defines humans from the rest of the animals are their cognition and their evolved conscience. Its what has enabled us to achieve all these extraordinary goals and dominate the planet. (More information on Sapiens from Yuval Harari) But this is exactly where the irony lies. We are able to do all these amazing things (cooperation, art, societies etc) simply because some of us understand the fundamental factor that leads to progress: resources. And what resources might be? Coal, wood, water, stone, uranium, oil etc. Noticed something common on the above? Yeap, they are all objective realities, connected with the physical world around us.Now lets try to think as an individual with quite effective egoistic genes, allowing him to think smarter than anyone else. From a evolutionery POV he/she/it (yolo) would try to do the least amount of physical work while getting the majority of the produced goods over the average "stupid" worker. But how can we manage to convince all the others to work for us and still get less? How can we make human labour just another resource available? Damn, if only there was a way to somehow invent series of imaginery stories so they could believe in and make them obey, work, bleed and even die for us, while we are thinking of better ways to keep them caged in their so easily manipulated cognition...
Welcome to the real world. Run by a small club, but you are not in. So the real question is: you consciously choose to join or not?
Not the case by far, Research the following Altruism in animals.
There were studies done in the 50's/60's on RATS, the rats were put one to a full metal wire cage, and one of the two rats would have a lever that once pressed it would release food but also electrocute the other rat. The rats would starve rather than cause harm. So much for "we are selfish", there's plenty of evidence of empathy in all kinds of creatures, this is natural, this is reality, the whole bullshit argument that we are selfish flies in the face of what most people exemplify, completely.
I will try to look for that experiment if you think it is a good example. But also try to think about some points!
-How was it possible that some partially civilized evovled apes are putting RATS into cages just to check their altruism ?.
-In 1974 a really interesting book was published Egoistic Gene by Richard Dawkins. I would advise you read it if you have the time, it explains a lot about altruism and our species.
-I think you missed the point of my comment, which I believe lies in the last lines of it
Have a good day!
That's the thing, I didn't respond to your entire comment, or it's "this is the way it is because some stories" conclusion, but only to
" In other words, we are programmed to be selfish and egoistic - some more than others, as you can clearly observe around you. But the story doesnt end there, it would be great just to blame everything on our biological urges and simply think that this is how things work."
So the "programmed to be selfish and egoistic" is the premise, the underlying premise of your story which you refer to as such.
Rats in cages is exactly what humans did, but the study was in the 50-60's (I think early 60's) and biological urges is exactly what anything animal or nature was marginalize into. When they studied the rats it wasn't for altruism but just to see what would happen kinda thing. They didn't conclude altruism, obviously it was inconceivable for them that it was altruism.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/12/09/empathic-rats-spring-each-other-from-jail/#.VTxJTPnF9XE
That isn't the actual study but it talks about it, I haven't checked the links, if you research this you will be hard pressed to say that nature is selfish, or even deny the obvious implications of consciousness.
It only goes even further, if you research the cruelty of man and the benevolence and care you wouldn't consider us "selfish".
As for the comment about
"From a evolutionery POV he/she/it (yolo) would try to do the least amount of physical work while getting the majority of the produced goods over the average "stupid" worker. But how can we manage to convince all the others to work for us and still get less? How can we make human labour just another resource available? Damn, if only there was a way to somehow invent series of imaginery stories so they could believe in and make them obey, work, bleed and even die for us, while we are thinking of better ways to keep them caged in their so easily manipulated cognition...
Welcome to the real world. Run by a small club, but you are not in. So the real question is: you consciously choose to join or not?"
All I can say is that I have stated my stance and reasoning in replies to kyriacos and others here, in short:
What happened in the west and elsewhere is legal slavery, it wasn't "stupid workers" that created the legal slavery or are to blame for any of it, desperate people aren't stupid people. The wealth wasn't gained off "tricking" people but ACTUAL slavery, which is now legal slavery, all working to EXERT as much wealth from the average man in material goods or actual labor, and this is prima facie evidence, not conjecture or baseless story.
There are numerous wars being waged, not a "this is the way it is, because some are smarter than others/stupid workers". No, that is wrong, you can be as smart as you want but without resources you cannot even commit one thing to reality, even as so much as transferring your knowledge for others if they lock you in a room and throw away the key, if you are poor you being smart is tantamount to how to survive, being smart means how to act under desperation, these are the ways truth is exterminated systemically and not simply how to make stupid workers work. War is what, how and why, war is not an exaggeration the least, and not metaphorically like claw and tooth war, but actual as in disinformation, misinformation, indoctrination, incredible fraud and identity theft, our very birthright stolen, actual slavery, peonage by any other name, legal peonage, excusing this or saying anything else other than "somebody needs to ask for forgiveness(remember iceland)" about the current state of affairs is tantamount to waging war against people of all creed and birthplace.
It's all back to the "making money" things. People - desperately - would do anything to be more successful, in one way or another.
Few days ago I had financial literacy training, they taught us how to manage our income and outcome.. and investing..in many form of saving. For the sake of money, you would follow that - all of that eventually, but when things are little bit not on the track of what you believe.. then what you gonna do??
In my experience people will try to fuck other people up by using the system's loopholes and defend their morality by saying that they did nothing wrong. In other words, we have created a corrupt system which we fuck each other up and when the time comes we wouldn't like others do to us.
I can't agree that "we" have created a corrupt system. It is "they" who are/were in a position to corrupt and be corrupted that has skewed the system in their favor.
Sh*t always runs downhill and now even the low level bureaucrats feel they have the right to do as they see and not as they should. The very oath to "serve" has been corrupted to a personal oath to "serve themselves".
This may be seen as a pessimistic view of the way things are but, imho, it doesn't change the reality that this tendency towards self service is the root of most of the problems in this world.
We elect the system. Politicians represent the average perception and serve the average wish. This is how and why they get elected.
No we do not "elect the system", nor have we done that for a long time. Politicians don't represent any kind of average, they work for a bankrupt uncharted corporation, they are pirates on land. There is nothing else to discuss, and elected officials aren't elected officials the moment that they go to war against their people or act outside their capacity, since no person would willingly enslave themselves it's the politicians that carry all the blame. They are the ones that are in lack of forgiveness and in need of it.
Yeah but those people are a small margin of the population, you are aware that most people that utilize the system to fuck other people over are those that have the means and resources to do such a thing, not the impoverished or lame.
If you look at class statistics and studies on their psychology you find that upper class is much more HARSH, or CRITICAL of others, but not as harsh or critical of themselves. Other studies have demonstrated that high end or luxury cars follow the law of cutting off pedestrians in intersections, while crappy beater cars are almost exclusively courteous and considerate giving the pedestrians the right of way. Another one showed that merely pretending to be upper class influences how people judge others and what they think is fair (lying and cheating to achieve means) and will excuse and not feel guilty for their behavior. The Stanford Prison Study is famous for this simple aspect of demonstrating that it's the system itself that is to blame, and individuals are powerless to the setting.
The setting here is that government is legitimate and we have lawful courts, but we have an impostor pretending to be government when it's nothing more than a for profit corporation of the bankers, which control it, were more people aware of this, the pretense of lawful order wouldn't be nearly as effective. Poor people aren't flocking to the bookstores to read something that is critically acclaimed by the ones who actually can utilize the system to fuck others over, and those that have the time would probably be here on the internet.
Those studies really are fascinating. Follows with the saying;
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Someone explained it with science:
The administrator, the boss, the authority position releases dopamine when they "execute" their authority, so that the boss won't get his dopamine and serotonin feel-good that literally drives all behavior, from their peers, from their fellow men, and instead they derive a higher more potent "high" from exerting power and control through their positions of authority. The only problem is when these positions of authority are REWARDED and their behavior is EXCUSED. This post is excursive of bad behaviors with "everyone is shit". That kind of mentality is undermining to the majority, or the reality of the poor, the destitute, which, very much like the studies show, dependent on the community and on people-skills, where-as the rich are very independent in both thought and act, yet their people skills aren't lacking but arguably inverse, where they don't feel guilt for wrong acts and are much more dependent on manipulation/dishonesty.
If the positions of power carry individual responsibility, so that the person in charge is liable for all acts by eliminating the chance for collusion then power corrupts won't be a rule, but an exception.
The people are given immunity and they rule with impunity, the safeguards for collusion are ineffective at best since these people are by default forever innocent. This is effectively so because the population perceives them as such but in reality they are both liable and very much without innocence, even though they are told "checks and balances".
There is only one law, the singular rule that everything respects, mankind included, the golden rule. The impunity comes with the safeguard born from a long series of fraud and theft and amassing to the largest conspiracy against mankind, effectively not just "legally" enslaving us. The people that act as such do so because they are legally (military) immune, and because they inherently benefit from this slavery. If you look at where this slavery is most complete, I hardly find a case for "people are shit". There's exceptions like most things but the rule is by far "golden" among the most enslaved and "ratchet" is the norm among the power seated. When I see "people are shit" I always have a need to shout "FUCK NO", which I find the most unapologetic objection to that narrative. If we are the People, then we must to take that position, we are powerful, and we aren't all shit, the perpetrators of this fraud upon the world aren't examples for humanity or people as a whole, people gambling with "financial intelligence" aren't examples of the majority by far, Tolstoy understood this, that's why his greatest work is hardly acknowledged, Awakening.
I haven't read Awakening, but it sounds interesting. Odd that I haven't heard of it.
With regards to the abuse of authority, I agree. I honestly think many of the founding fathers would agree as well and is why the system is set up like it is. Now we have a problem with those in authoirty flaunting the system and lemmings endorsing their lawlessness - but that is a rabbit hole.
I'll add that I agree that most people are not "shit" but good people. I think the number ends up being about 94% good and 6% bad. That 6% number corresponds with the estimated number of sociopaths and narcissists in our midst.
And it corresponds to the system that harbors them as well, those which act with impunity and their secret oaths is what manifests that percent of sociopaths, though they are simply psychopaths as socio implies they abuse through some "societal" basis but it's actually all from PSYCHE or fear, manipulation, illusion, they ultimately have no legitimacy, no standing and no right, that they get away with it speaks solely on the fact that their collusion and deceit is thus grand, not on "this is the way it is, this is how it's been for ever, millions have voted".
here you go:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17352/17352-h/17352-h.htm
from here
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17352
It's listed under Forgiveness, aptly so. This book is his last novel.
The democratic will elects politicians which represent the average behaviour. The masses are responsible all the way. Not the representatives that grant their wishes.
Explain the Electoral College. Explain Money being an IOU, those two were the DEMOCRATIC WILL (masses). Explain the fact that 2/3 of the "DEMONCRATIC-WILL" doesn't vote. Blaming the DEMOCRATIC-WILL for the lack of responsibility and or outright effort to wage war against the democratic will, while the democratic will is hardly democratic and hardly a majority as it's implied. The masses are responsible for the bought and paid for corporation that has been bankrupt numerous times, and is now operating without a corporate charter and counter to the decree of the highest recognizable law, the pope. That's the democratic will of the people right? It's the people that fund war, fund the media and fund the system that oppresses people because we are given a choice between bought and paid for actors that have to act on behalf of the company and outside their oaths of office. The people.
Generation after generation of millions of people have slowly crafter the ethics of the system by the representatives they choose to elect.
Remember. They are the 99.9%. Even if 25% vote is still enough.
No they haven't, millions of people aren't responsible for the acts of a few, regardles of what they have vested, those that act outside their vested authority are guilty, not the people that vested that power in those people, once you don't act in your seat, you're not acting in the name of the people.
Cool story though, generation after generation, I don't know what that has to do with the fact that it wasn't any democratic will that vested the people as collateral, unless you want to argue that it was democratic among the "even if 0.000000001% vote, is still enough".
The average behavior is represented by these scumbags, well almost exclusively rank with scumbaggery of the highest kind? That's a cool story bro, and the same for "the representatives granting their wishes".
The people "elected" by the democratic will are immune to how they act and somehow that is supposed to represent average behavior, getting away with fraud, impersonating public officials, pretending to still operate lawfully even though the government is flying the flag of war as opposed to the civil flag of peace. Cool story.
This is what happens. You are disagree against reality but reality doesn't go away.
If people did not like the current character, system and distribution they would elect people that would address those issues.
There are two kinds of people. Those who dream of the top and those who deny this fact.
Bullshit again, This is not average behavior, unless you want to Average Behavior of The 0.00001%. It's reality that they are immune more or less, and it's not denying anything when I say they are impersonating public officials, as that is reality as well. The flag is still reality, it's you who disagrees with it, and the insufferable thought that you think that electing people to a position of power means they can act with impunity and work outside the vested power.
All you are talking about is voting for what the electoral college might consider, regardless of the fact that by default the democratic will is clearly NOT TO VOTE, except that reality and move on, because next what the electoral college votes for and the people voted to these positions act on behalf of a corporation chartered under the IMF charter, which has been revoked by the pope, the corporations are bankrupt, their IOU monopoly is over, there is no more legitimate corporation, and the united States Congress hasn't reconvened since the start of the Civil War.
It's the democratic will of the electorate college, which is voting officers to the Corporation UNITED STATES CONGRESS, which is impersonating a government service business, which has been bankrupt with the First and Second Bank and with The Federal Reserve, and THE FEDERAL RESERVE, and most recently by the pope himself. Arguing that these fraudsters and war criminals are the Average is flying in the face of reality, why didn't you rebut my argument about how your post only applies to the very very few, and hardly to the majority, and also why chose to make the argument here, half-cocked while positing my position as dreamy without even rebutting one point, not with specificity or context. This is what happens is exactly how someone would start a narrative, thus far what happened is that you fed me the good old one liner "if you don't like it elect those that address those issues" when electing would not do anything like that and it's not the will of anyone to defraud and enslave themselves, insert constructive remark on someone eliciting that the majority are to blame ad nausem.
explain the democratic will when approval ratings occasional hit single digits for the UNITED STATES CONGRESS (inc). Explain the democratic will when the country is ran by the IMF, every one of the 19 government services that were chartered under the Constitution for the United States is an INCORPORATED franchise of the IMF, acting under constructive fraud and operating without any legitimacy, and having impersonated elected officials with corporate officers through similar sounding offices STATE OF TEXAS, vs the state of Texas.
apathy. much the same thing. Nobody cares because the system is "ok" for them
The system isn't Ok, did you miss that first part, EXPLAIN-THE SINGULAR-DIGIT-APPROVAL-RATINGS
if "nobody cares because the system is ok for them".
The fact that the system is illegitimate and your narrative relies on the legitimacy of it, both by average and by charter, or either, isn't a point that is contended in your "apathy, much the same thing", its only more of the shifting the blame onto the populace for their own peonage and slavery.
Everyone know that the purse strings to those that pretend to be the government are not in the hands of the people, especially since the impostor government holds the purse strings to an overwhelming majority.
It's the democratic will to claim the population as surety in a bankruptcy that had nothing to do with the people, because the people elected those that plead them as collateral to UNITED STATES (inc) debts.
The holographic argument of democratic will is nothing but circular logic, and it blames the people for the acts of the few, even though the people don't regard the few as legitimate by and large and the few that do clearly see that the few that act in the name of the people, don't act in the name of the people, you're delusional and full of it if you think otherwise, this is evidenced by the approval ratings, the fact that a large majority chooses not to vote, and if you were to demonstrate the legitimacy of government on paper you would be left with a blank page.
The point being is that you are both talking about something you don't fully grasp and what you do grasp is grossly incomplete, there is an endless amount of presumptions and suppositions that flow out of this assault on rational thinking, especially since at the heart of it you excuse the most unlawful and illegitimate, slavery.
Rich dad poor dad is a poor reflection of the economy. Seems to suggest that the cunning and scheming capitalist wins in the end of the day. I have seen many honest and hardworking people who do well in life because of the values they carry. But such a makeup or story line does not make for a bestseller.
Nice, we are all hypocritical hypocrites, but I tend to like to the distinction between sucker and non-sucker. Be the non-sucker:) I love the books by Nassim Taleb, btw, Fooled by randomness and Antifragile is very in line with your own conclusion in this amazing post:)
i often say that there are two kinds of people. Those who fuck and those who get fucked.
"The fault, my dear Brutus, is not on our stars, but in ourselves." (Shakespeare)
Nice post.
I think many low wages and middle class "regular jobs" will disappear in the forthcoming decade due to automation, robotics, machine learning and other techniques. For more and more fields, such kind of jobs will become commodities: rich will become richer. It is already a reality in many manufacturing fields.
I think the only way to not be too poor is being a kind of entrepreneur. The forthcoming problem will be to have funds to start: less wages for the same job (and less demand from the market), and on the other side more market pressure on VCs (less money and/or less deals), and finally to bootstrap and to generate enough money to get assets.
Nice review. Thank you for sharing.
This was a damn good post! I read that book several years ago and I've always had a problem with it's message. It heavily favored towards people who already have a slight advantage in life. And to be honest, having discussed this book recently, I don't even think it holds up to where we're at in society right now when it comes to economics!
yeap. that too