Protest the system vs. Removing oneself from it

[pezar]

Ok, I just was over at The Multitude, which is the kinder, gentler Occupy Wall Street forum, and I said something that is likely gonna get me kicked off there. One guy was raving about how "communal subsistence living" is gonna save us all, and I wrote that the difference between this poster and myself is that he believes the problems are solvable, and I don't. He believes that human nature is fundamentally altruistic, while I believe it is fundamentally selfish and sadistic.

I've said this before on the ITW forum, the problems are likely not fixable. I mentioned that I plan to go live in the woods, and that my ultimate plan is to die and remove myself from the corruption entirely. If I end up like Chris, a bag of bones in a rusted out car in the woods, I'm fine with that. Youth always think they can change the system. Most of the OWS protesters are young, 18, 19, 20 years old, and full of idealism.

The problem is, it's too big of a boulder to move, to change the system with some kids camping out in the town square. No matter how much you try to change the system, the system always wins. The boomers tried to change the system in the 60s, and the system won. The boomers evolved into yuppies. Chris was right, the only way to escape is to remove yourself from the system.

"Instead of changing the system, change yourself." -Robert Kiyosaki The thing to do is just to escape, go live in the woods, away from the failing civilization. You may die, but if you stay in the city you WILL die.

[bones]

You may be right that some things are unfixable, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing. There are good and bad people in the world, so we shouldn't ignore the good just because it seems like the bad will are "winning." Even if evil people are controlling humanity in the material realm, people who are good win in the end. The good side of humanity transcends materialistic selfishness.

There will probably always be greedy and evil people, and people who do not wish to change themselves or their surroundings. And the kinds of people who are greedy AND powerful will always bring humanity down. So I think the best thing we can do is try to find the good in society, and work to improve that. Running away from problems and pretending they don't exist never fixes them, it only makes things worse.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)