Opt Out: Is Society So Rotten?

Many people blame the modern “consumer society” for a lot of problems. Well, let's figure out whether everything is so bad and whether “people are people.” Let's try to figure out who is really to blame for the fact that the quality of goods is falling, the ecology is getting worse, we are living poorer and poorer, the development of science is getting slower, and it even seems that we ourselves are getting greedier, dumber, more cynical and think only about money. Let's look at the example of IT companies and more.

What Do These People Are Trying to Convey?

I will briefly recount the essence if you haven't read such articles. They tell us:

• How bad modern society is
• How all of us have turned into “consumers”, thinking only about buying something unnecessary and expensive
• How modern production is not developing (new generations of technology are almost no different from previous generations)
• How goods are becoming less and less qualitative (including even food)
• How “effective managers” are infiltrating companies, airplanes falling down, and everything like that

Well, actually, I might agree with 90% of these statements. Yes, reader, if you were expecting this to be a riposte - I've allowed myself to mislead you a bit. Even if you are a good, honest, highly spiritual person, but try to:

• Look at your surroundings
• Evaluate the way of life and thinking of most people
• Look at what is happening in the world with ecology, hunger
• Try to count how often you had to change your refrigerator or washing machine because it broke

Just look at how much you could buy with your savings a year ago and now, dear reader. And if you want to go further - find any more or less large enterprise in your city and search for its owners, I'm sure you will come across another multinational company.

Are Greedy Entrepreneurs to Blame?

In those articles, the idea that human nature is to blame is our inborn greed, cruelty, and other vices. They say that becoming a better person will somehow work out. In general, everything is the fault of greedy entrepreneurs.

Are “greedy entrepreneurs” really to blame? Maybe yes, but the right question would be, “Why are greedy entrepreneurs the owners of the largest companies?” The answer is simple and on the surface, though many ignore it. Look, our system, our society, is all built on free competition.

In theory, it should work well: the most efficient company survives, and the entrepreneur will be at its helm who conducts business most efficiently. Does that make sense? Logical. But what is efficiency measured by? Not by the convenience of services, quality of life, care for the environment, and generally the customer's happiness - all this is secondary. Efficiency is measured by profit.

The one with more profit will win, absorb other companies, and buy out competitors' business.

Have you ever wondered why EA is squeezing all the juices out of its employees and its titles, chasing super profits? If they make a game of higher quality and not so much donated, it will still be profitable, even if not so much. The answer in the same EA - look at how many smaller companies bought up, you can say “subjugated” this company. EA could be “subjugated” by another company if it didn't have so much money.

There is a great temptation to say that bad, greedy people simply run EA. That may be true, but labeling it that way misses the point. The point is that it happens in every big company; every such company becomes a soulless machine or dies at the formation stage. It happens systematically, although there are exceptions, but they are temporary. As an example, your favorite CD Projekt Red.

It is still quite “popular”, but compare the quality and attitude to the audience in its previous major title “The Witcher 3” and in “Cyberpunk.” The second project can still be considered quality, but it's clearly worse than the previous one. This trend will continue, maybe not in the near future, but in 20 years, I'm sure CDPR projects will be indistinguishable from EA projects. Or CDPR will disappear.

So Who's to Blame?

At least not human nature, not 100% at least. We can argue about this for a long time, but I will only say that many hundreds of years ago, it was the norm in principle to kill a man, slaughter a neighboring tribe, rape, and pillage. The norm was “he who is stronger is right.” It was the norm to burn witches and to kill for religion. But now, we (most of us) have abandoned such norms. And they were the same people, the same nature. So maybe that's not it?

The economic model we live in is to blame. The rules of the game. This system is built on competition, which may be good initially but eventually, degenerates into something terrible. The system itself gives an advantage to those who play unfairly, both companies and individuals. The advantage will always go to those who are not limited by morality and concern for people and the environment. Here, we get a whole series of problems.

On a more global level, companies and already countries are still competing for resources, markets, and so on. They also live in this system. And I emphasize that companies and states that are ready to use any means for their goals win in the end. Including violence and wars in the bloodiest form imaginable if the end justifies the means. Yes, this is the world we live in. Yes, it's scary. Yes, we're feeling the consequences right now.

Honestly, I'd even accept the flaws in the system if it didn't have this point if it didn't involve war.

Can Web3 Innovations and Decentralization Change This Situation?

Decentralized Ownership and Governance. Technologies such as blockchain, in the context of Web3, can make possible alternative models of ownership and governance. Stakeholders, whether consumers, employees, or smaller entrepreneurs, might have a much more direct say in decision-making. This could reduce the dominance of large, profit-driven corporations by stimulating more ethical business practices, transparency, and accountability.

Incentivized participation and value distribution. Value creation and distribution became more equitably provided through tokenization and DeFi. For instance, instead of going to a few top executives or shareholders, profits can be shared more equitably with all participants in the network. This can help build a sense of community and shared responsibility for the quality of goods and services, environmental impact, and social well-being.

Decentralized markets and competition. Further, decentralized platforms may displace some of the traditional forms of market organization by directly allowing peer-to-peer transactions, reducing barriers to entry, and enhancing competitiveness and diversity in market participation. The potential impact here could be enabling smaller players to thrive without necessarily being taken over by the big corporations and could improve innovative performance and reduce monopolistic practices.

Transparency and trust. Blockchains could bring inherent transparency to companies operating unethically and, hence, contribute towards better environmental and social governance. Inherent smart contracts would enforce fair trade practices and ethical standards by operation and leave little need for intervention by outside regulators.

Localized and sustainable production. Decentralization may encourage local production networks and micro-economies to be dependent less upon global supply chains, which seriously damages the environment and creates social exploitation. Localized models of production may create sustainable means tuned to community needs and resources.

What Should We Do?

We must start with ourselves and say, live honestly, and you will make the world a better place. I used to think and do that, but no. We have already analyzed that all this is a systemic phenomenon, so starting with yourself, playing fair, you will not achieve anything, except that you will become a victim.

I would advise you to go into politics to make reforms that will change the rules of the game to those that will encourage honest business. But I realize that this is a dangerous and difficult task that can be done by one in a thousand. Including me.

The only thing that remains is to try to open other people's eyes, which is why this article was written on HackerNoon, hoping that someone will be able to solve these problems someday. All that remains is to educate others.

Afterword

My answer to the question “Whose fault is it?” is - capitalism. I purposely avoided this word until the end so as not to get another label around my neck. HackerNoon is not a place for politics, so please do not categorize me as being on any political side. I am not in favor of socialism (as the article might have led you to believe), I don't think it would work.

But I cannot deny that modern capitalist society has problems, and serious ones, globally. I don't know what to do about them and whether anyone can do it at all. But there are problems, problems of a systemic nature. And I can't close my eyes without thinking about it anymore.