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<p>Literally speaking the answer is yes. But otherwise? I had an interesting discussion yesterday about troubleshooting problems (from Sysadmin perspective), and general attitude of some people who... don't troubleshoot. Don't like it. Are not good at it. Presented with a problem they withdraw, shutdown, ask others for help (preferably for taking over the task entirely). And in some (maybe most) cases it's not as much about lack of mental capacity, but lack of will and curiosity about the nature of the problem. It can't be taught. However, I do believe that everyone has at least some curiosity, but sometimes it needs prodding, digging out, helping... Or if one is bored to tears with his or hers job, maybe it's time to change. It's better to make a transition than get stuck at a place where our precious minutes of precious lives are wasted.</p>
<p>Of course our current system does not care whether we are happy cogwheels or not. Curious cogwheels tend to be happier but less productive. And system that sees people as parts of a machine requires productivity... But not necessarily good, creative productivity that wold push the world forward. Instead, in endless loop of earning and spending, we are supposed to be just busy. It does not matter much whether anyone benefits from what we do or not, we need to be busy. Because if we have time to stop our hamster wheels and think for a moment, we could discover that the system does not make sense. What needs to be done? I mean, really, what does humanity need? Food, shelter, internet. And going to the Space of course. And yet we have create meaningless jobs like corporate lawyers, bankers, politicians and priests. And advertisement people... Oh gods.</p>
<p>So the question is, can we teach ourselves new tricks? Like, say, going beyond mental models of the world that see everything as either means of production, production, profit and everything to do with "to have" instead of "to be"? Question of all times is not "to be or not to be". The question is "how not to replace being with having", and it is as simple as it is revolutionary and unthinkable to many. Being is not the same thing as having, although many attributes of being are quite marketable - psychological needs can be mitigated by another sugar bar of fake chocolate, or new car, or something. Mitigated, never satisfied. It's time to go beyond religions of socialism, communism and capitalism. All stem from the same part of the tree, of the material. All are afraid of the spiritual, and have different methods of dealing with it - blunt communist atheism, or fake religious substitutes. "To be" is the other part of the tree, but it's neither marketable nor profitable, and even worse, it is perceived as threat by the "to have" branch, so it is actively ignored or perverted to become parodies of spiritual, like for example some New Age'y fountains of quasi-spiritual BS.</p>
<p>The first trick to learn is that the world is not only matter, and "to have", along with associated chains of production and distribution, is just one side of existence coin. It's not all that there is.</p>
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