1 January

Whether you're a member of a religion or not, we should at minimum read ancient texts as instruction manuals for life that ancient societies developed through much blood and tragedy. Take the Old Testament and its 10 commandments. Few talk about the most important commandment of all, the one that comes last. Number 10: 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙧’𝙨 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚; 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙧’𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙩, 𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙩, 𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙭, 𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙠𝙚𝙮, 𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙧’𝙨. To COVET. Why a whole commandment on that? Because it's the root of all human life. We desire what others have. But we desire not what they have, but just that they have it, and we don't. Like kids arguing over a toy. The toy is irrelevant, the fight is over one having it, and the other not having it. This is why humans imitate one another, above all else. They imitate the desire of other people. If the neighbour has a wankpanzer ute, they copy that desire and buy one too. It's not about the ute, it's about the neighbour having one, and you not having one. And this then leads to something I mention often - imitative rivalry. This is a violent process. Kids fighting over a toy are...fighting. Forget all the nonsense about fascists and Left and Right etc. What leads societies to crisis points is too much imitation. A 'mimetic crisis' (feel free to Google). Too much *equality* between people, because they become too similar, leading to more and more widespread and intense rivalry over coveted things. This was the reason humans invented Kings and Gods, to create separation between people. You can't imitate a magnificent palace or a God. It short-circuits imitative rivalry by putting those 'toys' out of reach of most people. It creates a hierarchy, which calms and stabilises societies. Social media is an imitation machine, it dramatically accelerates imitation between people. It therefore makes our societies more and more violent. It drives us to mimetic crisis.