The stupid game of power

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For thousands of years, we force ourself to play to it. When will we stop?

What is this stupid game?

We are human beings. We live in societies. We have language and writing. We have a growing knowledge of the world we live in. We understand it more and more.

And we play to the stupid game of power. Like others. Nothing more.

When a human being transmits false data to others, to obtain a gain for his position, he plays the game of power. When a human being tells to another human being how to behave, he plays it too. When a human being accepts orderds from another one, he still plays it.

Why stupid?

Stupidity is the absence of intelligence. When one says to someone to act in a certain way, with no other reason than his own will, and that the other answers positively to the order, this is stupid. When a soldier kills on command, this is stupid. When a student answers the question of a teacher, this is still stupid. When a workman does what one asks him to do, it is stupid again. Stupidity rules the world. Obedience is stupid. Power, the game of power, are stupid too.

Intelligence is hard. It is hard to refuse an order, hard to think. It is much more simple to let yourself play the stupid game of power.

Since you are a kid, everything pushes you to play it. Your parents, if you're unlucky, push you. Be the best, have good scores, dominate. To dominate, what is this? To have the best score? When I was a kid, one day we had an examination. I had a better score than was theoretically possible. Why? Because our teacher changed the scoring system, because the notes were too bad. What kind of measurement is the score?

It is said (but I don't have the sources below my hands) that a psychological experiment has been done with teachers. One asks the kids to fill a form. One pretends to analyse the forms. Then one randomly picks up six kids. One says to the teacher: «These three there are good, thoses three there are bad, according to our tests.» One comes back to the end of the year, the (arbitrary) classification is respected. What logic behind classification?

I was a good student. I am still student while writing (well translating actually) this text. I think I can affirm I am not bad in what I do, without pretending to be what I am not. And I don't like the game of power. I don't care to be the best, the strongest, to dominate. I don't care to give orders to human beings, or to be given order by someone.

I want to live in a world where we are free, a world where you are not judged by your name, your family, your studies, your supposed skills, your carrier, your economical weight, whatever.

We all are mortal. In 200 years, we all will be dead, all. All my contemporaries and myself too. The mankind will be composed of individuals who do not exist today. And in spite of that, we play the stupid game of power.

What does remain, fundamentaly? Why are we alive, in spite of our weaknesses? Is it Caesar or Napoléon who are important, is it because of them that the mankind still exist? Looking how many wars they produced, no. One can't say that. Isn't it because of the discovery of bacteria? of medicine? of physics? And we forget the name of those who worked for this knowledge, except a few of them, still because of the game of power.

Who cares about the Curie, Newton, Galileo, and other Pasteur? Human beings, like others. Who probably had the luck to be able to work on what they wanted, without caring much about their survival, having time for their research. That's all. Nothing else. No adoration to have for them. Their work was important, because it's still usefull today, and that's all. And that's what matters. This is really all what matters.

To have your face on a banknote, to be cited in history books, to become the name of a street, who cares?

We are embarked in an adventure that largely exceeds us. We master nothing, even if our knowledge increases. We can manipulate a little bit the forces of the nature, but it's not tomorrow that we'll escape the Earth. Will we do it one day? Maybe, why not, one can hope for this to happen. In some billion years, the sun will disappear, and the Earth with it. What about us? Us... As if you and I would still be there at that time. As if our actions would be meaningfull for those of that time, hypothetical grand-children of ourselves.

It scares, huh? Fearing to think that all this is useless, all these littles schemes, all these little silly things, all this stupidity. Tv programs showing fake stars, useless state honors, million of dollars on your bank account, what a pity.

What, finally, does really matter? We are alive. If I am really right to criticize the game of power, what does remain? No god, no power, nothing, but this is death! Well, no, silly boy. You like a sunset? You like to laugh with your friends? You like the love of your relatives? So. There does not remain nothing, there remains the essential. To live, because it's like that. And to try to appreciate this existence.

Of course, we must try to understand the world. To live better, for yourself first, and then for those that will come after us. We emerged in this universe, we started manipulating it. Good. That's just the way it is. We made wonderful things, sensational discoveries. So, we'll keep going.

Let's get rid of the stupid game of power. This game is against us. It slows us down, it pushes us to concentrate on the useless. How many very intelligent human beings wasting their time calculating stock exchange prices? spying on others? finding a way to seize the richnesses to enjoy it exclusively?

I won't make any futurology, I don't care. This text won't pretend to convince anyone. I am not the priest of any religion. Love each other, blablabla.

I just want to express myself, in my own way, for those who want to listen to.

If you fall here, on this webpage, it's because you clicked here and there, and there you are. You will probably think: «What's all this bullshit?» Well, just some bullshit from a bored guy, bored by the humans' world and the humans' stupidity.

When I see the news judged good enough to be reported, I die of disgust and shame for us all. What do I care about a dictator found in a hole, somewhere in an almost desert area of this planet? What do I care about a policitian visiting another country? When I travel to Italy, is it important? No. So what? So, the stupid game of power. That's all. You have the ones who believe they have the power, and the ones who think that by showing them, you gain a little of this power. You catch the attention of others, you attract a lot of people in front of your show, and the commercials will cost higher. And so on, and so on.

We live in a time where knowledge is confiscated. There are patents all around. As soon as you want to use a technique, just because it's good regarding to what you know about the world, you may fail using it, because this technique belongs to someone else, a person who is the only one to have the right to use it. And there is a whole system that will forbid you to use it, by strength and constraint if necessary. What a horror, what a monstruosity. Is it that, the humanity? Is it that, intelligence? Bullshit. That, it is the game of power. «This belongs to me, I keep it for myself, don't touch it.» But this is not a part of a tomato, this is technical knowledge. Forbidden knowledge. What a deadly assholeness.

I am bored with all that shit, really. Since I am a little kid, I see this game. I see those who were supposed to be my friends, but who used me, for good score. They played this game, this rotted game. I see those teachers treating you as a respectable person if you answer as you have to to their questions and not even listening to you otherwise. And those students accepting this game, thinking what? to eat a part of the cake? Bullshit. And now, all those boring parties, drinking to death, trying to seduce everyone around, to feel alive. We mimic it. We don't even play it anymore, there is no real interest in game, there is no power to take here, but even during those supposed feasty times, we play it, we mimic it. To vomit.

Yes, I am bored. Really. At least, there are some crazy people not playing it, who don't want to play it, who do their stuff, and don't care about this crap. At least.

Anyway, it will end. It has to. It will end, or everything will disappear, so in the end, it will have ended, anyway.

Sure we come from far. A bacterium, to survive, has to eat. If it lets the food to others, it dies. That's simple. We come from there. So, thinking we can share and live good is an idea that will require time to impose itself. But it will. With the help of our intelligence. Maybe an external event will force us to help each other, a cosmical disaster like a meteorite or the death of the sun, that will force us to help each other if we don't want to disappear. Or maybe we will realize it without the need of such a disaster.

Our knowledge evolved very fast these last times. The conceptual change to take them into account is not so fast. It's hard to ask someone who plays the game of power to stop playing it. You can explain to him that he is no more no less than any other human being, that his rights or duties have no meaning, that there is no judging god, nothing helps, he remains in his delirium. And it's understandable. If we always had to change our way to think the world, we would spend our time doing it, and we would not act anymore. We would think to ourselves: «But do I think the world the right way?» and we would lay, motionless, with this question in our mind. To act is to decide, using the available data, to do this or that. You can be wrong, if you don't have the right data.

But today, we have data. We know that to share is better. We know that to decide using scientifical data is better than thinking about your re-election or the keeping of your power.

Anyway, why do I write this crap? Let's go back to our vain despair. Sorry to have eaten up some of your time. Keep on going with your little game, if you play it. You'll still die, and will you finally have been happy? Not more than me, I fear it. But who cares...