There has been a lot going on in the world. Today, I made a statement about it on Bluesky. I'm going to copy the thread below as a series of paragraphs.
Much of what's going on is based on selling people a huge lie: that they can only do better if other people do worse. This is not true. We do better when others do better as well. We have strong scientific evidence of this, moral evidence, and trivial evidence, every time someone shares a cat photo.
Zero sum is a lie. Yes, the second law of thermodynamics states that energy can never be created or destroyed, but we live on a planet where the sun pours energy onto us and we will do so for another 3 billion years. That's plenty of time to play positive sum games.
The sum total of human knowledge has gone up, and there is no proportional cost to this.
More people are more prosperous now than there have ever been before. More people live longer than they ever have before.
We have amazing inventions. Not too long ago, I saw Hank Green saying that the meaning of life was to become more complex. It took me a while to understand, but this is truth: life is becoming more advanced and more interesting. That's two more places where zero sum is a lie.
In economics, the more people produce, the more there is to go around. When someone tries to tell you that other people's work is stealing yours, they are very likely aiming your attention away from themselves so they can grab more than their fair share while you look in a different direction.
We have distribution problems, not production problems. There is enough to go around, and we still need to create systems that assure that everyone has what they need. Capitalism and Democracy have been the best systems we have found so far. Like life, systems can evolve to something better.
I'm feeling spicy today, and the best thing we can do is keep making things better. We can include people of other colors and sexualities. We can include animals, the atmosphere, and the ecosystem. Don't insult us by claiming we can only have wealth at the cost of people and planet.
We are more capable and magnificent than that. Our enemies are those who push divisiveness and hatred, who distract and steal, and who sell the lie that this is a zero sum world. We can make a better world, and it will be inclusive.