We saw recently on Netflix Ken Burns’ documentary, The West.
Between the Spanish conquistadors and the Jeffersonian Americans, with some contribution from the British and the French, the American Indians and twenty one million buffalos were wiped off the American West.
Mythical stories of places with riches and treasures up North circulated in Mexico in the early to mid eighteen hundreds. The Spanish conquistadors rode up, looked around, found nothing, and gratuitously massacred village after village. Tribe after tribe.
Until, in 1848, gold was discovered in California.
And then, greed brought people from everywhere. From the South, from the East, from China.
In a few short years, the gold rush was over.
In just over 200 years, America has built a powerful country with incessant talk of democracy and freedom.
But its origin story is one of Darwinian overpowering of a Peoples who had caused no harm to anyone.
Greed.
America’s history can be summarized in one simple word.
Please watch The West on Netflix.
And as you do, please also ponder the fate of the human civilization as Greed continues to drive our so-called ‘leaders’ to self-serving acts that render the planet unsustainable.
Facebook is rapidly destroying democracy.
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly destroying jobs, one of the key foundations of society.
The combination of smartphones and social media is turning billions of people into addicts.
Where to from here?