The Black Box is a scientific mystery in the sense that science will label an unknown step in a specific process as a mystery, such as when the universe goes from Step 1, 2, and 3 and science can find no evidence of Step 2. This step then becomes a scientific mystery that no one can solve—at least, not according to the media or public consciousness. The Black Box therefore holds a mystery that everyone just hopes works in a specific way because otherwise science would suddenly fall flat on its face.
Within the common man, there is an underlying hope that things will work out no matter what. “People are good and kind,” we tell ourselves in an increasingly bleak universe where no one stops for a car crash when they have a very important job they cannot lose. “God is with us,” we tell ourselves when it becomes increasingly clear that man must continue on acting it’s his own self-interest or be crushed under the heels of society. “The law would stop this,” we tell ourselves when the obscenely rich walk away from rape trails with a gentle slap on the wrist in the form of three months in a special jail cell and a year of community service. “Everything will work out in the end,” we tell ourselves when we’re too busy with our day to day life and struggling with bills to notice that another scheming, lying politician has once again failed to deliver on his promises.
The reality is that nothing is going to work out on its own. We live in a society which exists only to further enrich itself and which only gets mad when the common man refuses to participate but rewords those who game the system to the detriment of everyone around them. Without a doubt, this has been going on for close to 30 years and perhaps longer, with the lowest class getting farther and farther away from the elites. Yet the general populace seems content to cling to the hope that something good will eventually happen even if they do nothing about it. Most Christians believe only an act of God will save them from themselves, and most atheists believe someone else over there will handle it just believe in the good of man. The modern generation more simply believes that everything is absolutely fucked, which to me is an honest assessment of the situation.
Everyone everywhere are suffering from Black Box Syndrome. They don’t know what will happen or when but they’re all convinced that something is going to change the world for the better. Just don’t ask them how bad it’s going to get before it happens. Most Christians believe it’ll be an act of God, but naturally the atheist disagrees. The reality might be something else entirely. I’m of the opinion that all of mankind (which includes women and even Karens) needs to get a hold of itself. We’re so lost in a sea of hopelessness that we’ve created our own hopelessness.
Did you know that you can actually win the game of capitalism if you’re selling a product? In olden days, farmers went to market and sold their produce to towns, which is how they became rich. Nowadays, farmers aren’t allowed to sell their produce directly to consumers—everyone in this chain of capitalism must take their own cut of the spoils and leave next to nothing for the farmer. Walmart already sells a pound of potatoes for 10 dollars after buying it for 10 cents. If farmers seized the means of distribution, they would no longer need to sell their product for pennies on the pound. But as we all know the system we live in wants absolute control of acquisition and distribution so they can upsell everything at ridiculous prices, disadvantaging both consumer and farmer.
Why does the farmer not distribute his own produce? While many people will say “education is the solution to everything”, it’s important to note that what is being taught isn’t necessarily needed for a farmer. In fact, many agree that most education is ultimately useless. It’s okay to learn the basics of everything, but when the classes are too focused on teaching you more than the bare bones basics just to overwhelm you with useless knowledge, it’s a detriment and not a solution to any problem. Never mind that you’re forcing children to sit still all day while absorbing absolutely nothing useful for 12 of the best years of their young and impressionable life.
If you teach a farmer how to operate a coal mine, that’s not going to be very useful for taking care of a field of potatoes. But if you teach a farmer etymology, chemistry, and biology in a greenhouse and design it expressly for future farmers then you’re going to produce some of the best farmers imaginable. That’s something they get from their parents instead of a useless school system.
So what does the farmer actually need to learn to do? Well, on top of the obvious I’ve already mentioned, they also need to be able to negotiate and run a business. A farmer needs to fight to sell their produce at higher prices to buyers and they need to understand how to create, operate, and control a business. The farmer who doesn’t is a tool big corporations can use to maximize their profit margins even if they can become self-sustaining instead.
If the farmer does, the corporation has enough capital to destroy him in court files for the next ten years. Not everyone has the stamina, drive, and moxie to survive that and any settlement made out of court would always be in the farmer’s disfavor.
The solution is obvious but everyone is hoping someone else will take on the responsibility to see the change. They turn to politicians, but politicians have turned lying into an artform—they are ultimately just actors on a stage telling us what we already know and promising to do something about it without actually explaining how or what they promise can actually solve the problem. If anything, a politician is the master of gaming the system for once he takes office he is now one of the wealthiest in the world. But don’t worry, maybe the next politician will actually do the thing he promises. Spoiler alert, he won’t.
This is the Black Box Syndrome. It’s a general belief that the system works without anyone really understanding how the system works. Something is wrong here, a mystery exists, but no one is willing to delve into the details to figure out what it is and what needs to be done about it. People are content to leave it as a mystery and let someone else solve the issue. This becomes a problem when the issue is so widespread and the system itself is actively disadvantaging more and more people. People are under the impression that the problem and solution is more complicated than it actually is, that every problem in the universe requires a genius to solve, and that until that happens nothing can be done about it.
This allows psychopaths to game the system to their advantage and push more disadvantages on everyone else in the system, which continues like a snowball rolling down a hill. Eventually, the culmination of an obvious disaster in the making is going to end up hitting someone—in this case, everyone trapped at the bottom.
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