From TED: Rethink Normal- comment by Alex Blanes

Alex Blanes 10+

Oct 18 2011: I'm aware I'll be placing myself in the line of fire for this comment, but I believe this video gives full cogency to the argument that our current neoliberal, corporate-capitalist economic system/ideology is in need of radical reform. As a millennial—and that may be the only credential I have, aside from blatant idealist—the idea of profit maximization just doesn't make sense anymore. It never did, not when it comes literally at the (non-monetary, infinitely more valuable) expense of other human beings' welfare, or even other beings' welfare in general. As Roger Martin said on BigThink (http://bigthink.com/ideas/40248), my generation cannot make sense of "maximizing shareholder value". Not only is it uninspiring, it simply doesn't make sense in a world where everything is so obviously connected to everything else.

The idea of profit-over-others is an abject poverty of the human imagination, discrediting our natural compassion and ignoring our interdependent relationship with and within ecology. This truth is made all the more obvious by our current normative economic ethics; externalities don't exist, and those who believe they do are blind to the system of interconnection surrounding them.

I'm not a communist, nor a socialist, nor any such label. I'm a human being, and I care enough about humanity and this world to realize that profit is an elaborate mendacity carved out of an entrenched philosophy about human nature established in an era prior to globalization. As Jeremy Rifkin noted in his RSA speech, our empathy now extends to the human race writ large in a single biosphere, and because of that, justifying profit-at-others'-expense in our day and age translates to willful blindness.

It is time we rethought "normal", as Mr. Hall-Tapping suggests. Elsewise we are tyrants, and we steal the future from our children, and our promise from ourselves.