"Earth's economy
glorifies waste.
Its economists
rejoice when a product is disposed as waste and replaced with a
new product. This waste is perversely labeled 'growth.'
Aimless wandering that consumes fossil fuels is likewise
rejoiced as 'growth.'
The stripping of the planet's oceans for a few favored species
of edible fish is also considered 'growth' as the process of
destroying the ocean ecosystem generates sales of the desired
seafood.
Even more perversely, the resulting shortages are also causes of
rejoicing by
the planet's elites, as their
ability to purchase the now-scarce resources boosts their social
status and grandiose sense of self-worth.
This glorification of waste is the same dynamic that destroyed
the civilization on
Zork.
Earth's economy also glorifies exploitation, as this maximizes
profits, which appears to be the planetary equivalent of a
secular religion that everyone believes as a Natural Law.
Thus slavery and monopoly are highly valued as the most reliable
sources of profits. If ethical concerns limit the actual
ownership of humans, Earth's economy incentivizes feudal
arrangements that share characteristics of servitude and
bondage.
In the current era,
the favored mechanisms are over-indebtedness
(debt-serfdom) and taxation by the state, which extracts
approximately 40% of all labor via threat of imprisonment.
Earth's elites exhibit a pathological preference for
micro-managing the commoners via criminalizing much of everyday
life and imposing extremely harsh punishments for any dissent or
resistance to elite domination.
This is the same dynamic that doomed planetary civilizations in
the Blug system.
Earth's economy is currently dependent on depleting fossil fuels
and borrowing from the future to fund consumption in the
present, i.e. debt.
Rather than face the
reality that this is not sustainable and pursue
other arrangements, Earth's elites have chosen expediency,
responding to the inevitable crises caused by depletion and
dependence on debt with expedient but ultimately destructive
policies that paper over the crises but at the cost of
generating greater crises in the next iteration.
Humanity appears to default to magical thinking when faced with
untenable situations that demand systemic change. This is eerily
parallel to the now-lost civilization of Frum.
It seems Earth's dominant species has selected the most
destructive policies and mindsets to glorify and worship.
Earth's current civilization is doomed, with near-zero prospects
for the necessary transition to a more sustainable, less
exploitive arrangement.
Earth's decline is a
tragi-comedy, much like the one on Ononon that
entertained our home planet audiences for a time."
