In the United States we have a culture of winning, and we believe that success and achievement in all aspects of our lives; work, family, school, and all of our various endeavors to be a positive set of attributes. We also believe in competition and that it is important to be the best. However, many people don’t think this way, and some of that has to do with their upbringing, and/or the cultures they come from.
Often, people are against competition, merely because they can’t compete. Whenever I hear someone complain about our competitive society, business world, or even academia and sports, I ask myself; are they complaining because they can’t compete, or because they have a philosophical problem with it all?
Not long ago, an acquaintance from the UK, Mark who is quite capable in all regards, explained to me that one of the challenges with human societies is that; “For too long we have strived to “one up” our fellow humans “being the best” is not the attitude we should take to the stars we need to break the cycle”
In other words, if we are to build space colonies, or send men (and women) off into space to tour the galaxy and beyond, we must dump the competitive nature or their will be severe repercussions, leading to perhaps a collapse of the space colony. So, does this mean, we need to emasculate the “Alpha Males” before we head off to Alpha Centari?
Hmm, okay but competition has derived much abundance, and to better one’s self having benchmarks, or other human notables to compete against or work towards is okay. You know being the best isn’t all that bad, it’s kind of fun actually, kind of gives one an “earned ego” – which then becomes a humbling experience, it’s funny that way.
Shouldn’t we have the best of breed be the ones who colonize future human habitats off world?
The reason I ask this is because these will be harsh environments, and it will take strong-willed people to survive. Those who are weak or meek may inherit the Earth, but they probably won’t inherit a space colony.
Now then, there is something to be said with infighting, survival of the fittest, and brute force competitiveness between the colonists, however, I have often found that adversity brings people together, and those who are of a high caliber, competitive nature and possessing the most strength of character have the greatest chances of survival against the challenges they will face in space. Please consider all this and think on.
