Can you elaborate on that?
David
I'll try. I will post some links to back up why I believe this, but it's taken years for me to see and understand this is almost certainly 100% the case. To post everything would be thoroughly exhaustive, but I'll do what I can.
It's common knowledge that the amount of food produced by the western world is massive. Over 3800 calories of food is produced for each American, every day. Japan has massive storage warehouses chock full of rotting rice piles (rotting because it cannot all be consumed).
http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf
Americans at the beginning of the 21st century are consuming more food and several hundred more calories per per- son per day than did their counterparts in the late 1950s (when per capita calorie consumption was at the lowest level in the last century), or even in the 1970s. The aggregate food supply in 2000 pro- vided 3,800 calories per person per day, 500 calories above the 1970 level and 800 calories above the record low in 1957 and 1958 (fig. 2-1).
Of that 3,800 calories, USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates that roughly 1,100 calories were lost to spoilage, plate waste, and cooking and other losses, putting dietary intake of calories in 2000 at just under 2,700 calo- ries per person per day
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ile-jumps-to-15-year-high-as-consumption-ebbs
Japan raised the forecast for its domestic rice stockpile to a 15-year high as consumption wanes and farmers harvest a bigger crop.
The government approved a plan on Nov. 26 to end a 40-year policy that pays producers to reduce crops by the end of March 2019.
And that is just rice. The morons in power who decided to start using corn to produce ethanol, caused the price of corn to be jacked up to the point that the WHO estimated their efforts at eradicating world hunger were set back by over 100 years. All in the name of politics and profits.
See, we have the supply and we have the means to eradicate world hunger. Yet, we can't even eradicate it in the wealthiest countries on Earth! Why is that?
As far as energy goes, the theory of peak oil just keeps on moving the goal post, so while they stop short of saying it's been proven to be a myth, they just keep finding more oil and new ways to extract it,
http://m.livescience.com/38869-peak-oil.html
Not to mention the possibility of renewable "green" oil and natural gas production methods
http://m.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/12/forget-what-youve-heard-oil-and-gas-are-actually-r
This also doesn't take into account that alternative energy is available. We are aware of other technologies, but for obvious reasons, oil rules the day.
And money, well, that's easy. What most of the world believe to be "money" is nothing more than an idea. It is a faith based belief system. A government prints up little pieces of paper with fancy inks and writing, a few numbers and seals it all with a kiss. It's inherently meaningless and worthless. Even monetary systems based on metals or precious metals (which come to find out, aren't so precious after all, much like it's overrated twin, the diamond) are only worth what we believe it is worth. Sure, you can make stuff out of metals, but even then it's utilization as a monetary system is limited. You might as well go back to the days of the barter system.
The United States dollar only has value as long as we believe it does. It's quite eye opening to realize that our entire system, and way of life, is all so flimsily built upon an idea as fragile as a baby's breath.
Time. Again, what is time? It's arbitrary, right? Our perception of "not enough time in the day" is built around this idea that our days must revolve around the rising and setting of the sun, and each revolution the earth makes. But truth be told, we could define a "day" in any way we choose. There are no cosmic rules that say our lives must revolve around a 24 "hour" time system. Again, this is all completely made up. And if science is wrong and spiritual traditions are correct, we have eons of time. Oodles and oodles of it. An eternity to be exact.
I would add one more here, that people often mistakenly believe to be a finite resource. And that is love. Far too often people believe that if you love one, you cannot love another. You hear it all the time "you love _____ more than me". As though you must choose. I couldn't possibly love my husband, my children, my friends and extended family and STILL have enough left over for the rest of humanity!
Love is inarguably the number one resource we have available to us that is literally, by all definitions of the word, infinite. Too many believe this to be in short supply and that leads to a great deal of the suffering we see every day.
These perceived shortfalls bring about so much unnecessary pain, suffering and cruelty.
Granted, there will always be those who will game the system. There will always be those who take without giving. But I truly believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good. That given the basics: food, shelter, warmth, love and dignity, to survive and thrive, there is no reason for crime. Perhaps this sounds utopian, but it's what I believe. How do we go from here- a hopeless pit of hell where all believe there is never enough, to the utopia of each having all they need? I don't know. I wish I did.