Monday, May 30, 2011

Competition in The Golden Age

I think when it comes to human consciousness, competition, as a prime principle of human evolution, is hugely overrated. This mantra might be true for semi-conscious forms of life like animals for example, but could be quite detrimental for a more advanced beings like humans.
According to this paradigm mantra - if you don't compete, you don't survive. And to survive one needs power and money. So, most people go to work to survive.

As we evolve towards a more enlightened paradigm of being (The Golden Age) this 'compete-or-no-respect' ideology  is steadily crumbling away.  I believe that in the near future the prime motivation to go to work will not be money or power over other human beings, but opportunity for self-realization and earned respect from others.

I believe that people don't have to compete in order to better themselves or come up with great ideas. In fact, it has been proven already that competition doesn't automatically facilitate more creativity or lead to better ideas.

Science journalist Jonah Lehrer, referencing a landmark neuroscience study on brain activity during innovation, writes:

“The relaxation phase is crucial. That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers. … One of the surprising lessons of this research is that trying to force an insight can actually prevent the insight.”

In fact the greatest discoveries in human history were not motivated by monetary rewards, but for the love of doing the 'job'. (Gutenberg, Einstein, Eddison, young Bill Gates, founders of Youtube,....... On the other hand Mark Zuckerberg, who apparently stole the great idea , had different motivations ( read here )

So, it's not the competition that drives people to have great ideas, but loving what you do and self-respect. These are the real value currencies, not money and power. (In the Golden Age the idea of having power over other human being would seem as abhorring as cannibalism in today's society.)

To sum up, the nature of competition is to produce quantity, but not necessarily quality. In The Golden age quality is everything.

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