We’ve been over the idea that there are many ways to define success. Whereas some define success as having loads of cash, big houses, and fast cars, others define success as having a fair income, a good family life, and a sustainable lifestyle. And of course, there’s a lot of middle ground. But no matter how you define success, I’d argue that greed will always reap failure.
Why Greed Leads to Failure
My last post discussed the recent Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. Shortly after posting that article on my Facebook Page, I received a comment suggesting that the documentary is actually promoting Marxism, communism, and is Luddite in nature. The commenter suggested that the documentary was created to promote regulations to keep people from making money using targeted advertising on social media.
I have no qualms with capitalism and free enterprise. I’m 100% okay with people using targeted advertising on social media in order to promote their businesses. Within reason.
What I do take issue with is the idea that making money is the ultimate goal, even at the cost of people’s well-being and mental health. When cashflow overrides the safety of the environment in which the money is made, it’s a recipe for disaster, and in the end, failure.
F*ck Short-Term Selfish Gain
If you believe that money is king at the expense of everyone and everything else, you’re part of the problem of a crony capitalist system spinning out of control. There needs to checks and balances. One only need look as far as our current administration to see that greed leads to failure. How many close associates of Trump have been arrested and charged with crimes?
We used to regulate ads targeted toward children. Now kids are sucked into the social-media circus as much as anyone else. They’re being targeted. They’re human products, walking advertisements. For what purpose? To make social-media companies multi-billion dollar enterprises?
But just as oil slowly mines our Earth’s natural resources and pollutes the world’s environment, so will unregulated technology mine our psyches and leave more humans mentally ill and void of individualism. And for what?
Money.
Greed.
Who’s More Important: the Individual or the Masses?
Putting our own wealth ahead of the best interest of others may make one rich as fuck in the short run. But once we’ve drilled the last drop of oil and mined the last chunk of coal, where does that leave the human race? When our air is no longer safe to breathe and our water causes cancer, how is that success? When marketing leads to billions of dollars in sales by turning people into products and addicts, how is that success?
It’s not. It’s failure.
If we truly can’t help others, and be good stewards of the environment in the process of making money, we fail. When our quest to get rich overrides others’ well-being, it’s greed. It’s that simple.
de
