Frederic Bastiat quote - Hardly Surprising to Any Biochemist or Evolutionary Biologist, or Anthropologist

commentary by Roger Erickson

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

yada, yada

And then? Self plunder of ones own neighborhood or nation never ends well.  So, where are those with longer term views, helping us to move on, faster? That's our bigger question.

Social fraud should be routinely recognizable and B_O_R_I_N_G to every 6yr old. It is, in fact. It's just that by that point we've already started the process of distracting them with shiny baubles.

We ridicule the Lenape tribe for supposedly selling Manhatten island to some Dutch frauds, for a few glass beads ~1626.

Yet here we are, ~400 years later, selling out each & every generation of our own children to our own merchants ... for the modern day equivalent of a few glass beads.

Who are the real dumb asses here? 

The most important thing you can further teach to any person, at any time, is greater appreciation for the difference between static and dynamic value. Snails know a fair amount about hunkering down with static value, and relatively less about dynamic value. Army ants, as another example, effectively sneer at static value. They know that their dynamic values can get them as much static value as they want, whenever they want it, from whatever supposedly has it.

Humans? Well, humans are a mixed bag, always ranging from static-snail to dynamic-adventurer cultures, based on the level, distribution and distributed quality of fiat they express. We can statically plunder each other, or coordinate to dynamically plunder our expanding options.  Some people are dumb, slimy, slow and easily distracted by static metrics of success.  Others have more dynamic interests, and leave greater futures for their grandchildren.  The predominance of dynamic over static value means that what you leave to your grandchildren is a "Be or Do" question.  The answer correlates with how easily distracted, bored or interested you are with having shiny baubles vs exploring expanding options.