Apparently, modern civilization ‘is all about the money’.
Fundamentally, it’s still about trust.
Drivers trust their follow drivers that each will stay on their side of the road, stop at the red light and yield at the famous yellow triangle.
Each of us trusts that the elevators we use daily won’t fall under their own weight, that our daily bread contains exclusively what’s mentioned on the label and that tap water has been adequately filtered before being pumped into our homes through proper pipes.
We trust, and follow their advice, ‘higher authorities’. Science people, teachers, government ‘agents’…
Modern ‘consumers’ order a lot of stuff online, food included. From people they’ve never met, trusting they’ll get what they’ve read about in an add they never asked for.
We keep a lot of data online. Mails, tweets, pictures, more or less intimate thoughts shared on our FB walls. That’s the ‘free’ part. We also pay increasingly handsome amounts of money to ‘upload’ for safekeeping ‘in the cloud’ a lot of sensitive commercial and personal data.
Where ‘apparently’ meets ‘fundamentally’, in our individual/personal lives, we are flabbergasted when cars become weapons and are used to kill innocent bystanders. Our friends and relatives.
When manufacturers implement planned obsolescence, artificially increase nicotine contents in cigarettes and replace sugar with corn syrup in ‘soft drinks’.
When piped water is dirty and the authorities shrug their shoulders.
When we discover that animal fat is not as bad for us as we’ve been told for the last 50 years or so. When we realize that our children are saddled with huge debts simply because they wanted a good education. When we realize that some of the people involved with ‘government’ become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
When our personal data becomes a merchandise.
Traded to be transformed into a manipulative tool.
Used to influence us into buying certain things.
Used to influence us into making certain political decisions.
Trust will, probably, survive for a while.
But I fear the day when too many people will have lost it.
nicichiarasa 