Ben's Blog

October ’24

We don’t need yet another gold mine. We have a thousand times more gold than we will ever need in a thousand lifetimes.

Gold is practically useless. We have amassed over 2,000,000 tonnes of the stuff throughout history, Since gold is virtually indestructible, this means almost all it is still around in one form or another. It has almost no practical use what-so-ever. It is used in mobile phones, but they are very little, so very little is used.

Some is made into glittering adornments for the purposes of vanity and status. The rest of it is melted down into bars and stashed away in vaults under the ground. Which is where it originally came from, ironically.

We already posses way more gold than we will ever need. So why do we inflict mercury poisoning on vast numbers of people all over the world, indigenous cultural heritage and trash the environment to dig up stuff that is essentially useless.

Because it is ‘good for the economy,’ and ‘it provides jobs,’ so they keep saying, over and over again, ad infinitum. Well maybe it is high time we thought about ditching this insatiable economy, and replacing it with an economy that employs people to provide us with our basic needs like housing and health care and a decent life, rather than showering the wealthy in luxury.

An economy that has no use for goldmines what-so-ever!

Why do we always need more of everything. We always feel like  what we have is never enough. No matter how much we have, and let’s face it, we have an awful lot of stuff, yet we feel inadequate. We always want a bigger house, and a bigger car, and a bigger salary. Why must everything keep getting bigger? Why are we so dissatisfied with our generous share of the world’s finite wealth?