What is wrong with it.

[Tootbsb]

If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to see what is wrong with it. When humans exhibit this same behavior, we put them on the cover of Forbes magazine.

[harumph]

1. monkeys are smarter than people - and they'd take care of the problem.

[erronis]

3. Yup. Read some Frans de Waal to find out how they treat a fellow who cheats them.

It ain't pretty. Even Mussolini fared better.

[Iggo]

8. They're smarter at being monkeys than people are at being people.

That’s for sure.

[MiHale]

2. Wetiko...the virus of selfishness...

https://exploringyourmind.com/wetiko-virus-selfishness-native-americans/#google_vignette

According to Native Americans, Wetiko is an evil spirit that invades human minds. It’s a “virus” of selfishness. A physic pathogen forcing the victim to feed their insatiable needs as if they were starving. It makes humanity become its own worst enemy…

***snip

Jack Forbes is a historian who explained something very interesting in his book Colombus and Other Cannibals. When indigenous communities came into contact with the first European pilgrims, the Native Americans said they were infected by Wetiko. It was a tribe of the Cree in Canada who used this concept for the first time. However the Ojiwa, for example, already were using the well-known term “windigo”.
Whatever the case, the mental concept they had of the white or “civilized” man was that of an individual affected by the “virus” of selfishness. The virus led them to desire the force of nature and its resources as their own. In turn, Paul Levy explains that this idea is the very same one Carl Jung used to explain the concept of Shadow. Shadow is the archetype of the unconscious that we all share.
Thus, common things like jealousy, greed, thirst for power, and selfishness are actually products of our collective unconscious. Our darkest shadows and a “self” which has become dissociated from the conscience. A being that lets itself get carried away by despicable acts.

….More at link …

[WestMichRad]

9. Thank you for the informative post!

…

[SCantiGOP]

4. They wouldn't just study that one monkey

They would be looking to see if this could cause the extinction of the whole group, or even the whole species.
When there are people counting their wealth in billions of dollars while other people live on the street with shopping carts, something is seriously wrong.

[Picaro]

5. Excellent point!

[Moostache]

6. The answer is in ownership...

Who covers the stories now?
Who owns them?
Who has final editorial say - the board or an assclown like Bezos?

What is wrong is that we are living at the end of capitalism and the dawn of a massive war to replace it. The facts are that capitalism remains a massive wealth and power accumulator machine and that its sole purpose is NOT competition and fair markets (it is laughably naive to believe that and imminently evil to spew it) - the sole purpose of capitalism is concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, period.

If the purpose was to generate the most beneficial results for society or to make the rewards of being a citizen in a particular country have ACTUAL, TANGIBLE benefits...then maybe there would be something to build on and fight to save. But protecting property rights and providing for the top 0.01% to buy the rule of law while young people are made debt slaves and priced out of even a possible escape hatch (when the ability to buy a home is made unattainable, society is nothing more than a fancy debt prison) and simultaneously gutting the very things like our university system and science research capabilities to ensure no one thinks too much or questions the suicide path we are set on is inherently evil to the core.

I wish it were as simple as banana distribution that could save us, but we have insane banana distribution coupled to an evil head monkey cabal using propaganda and influence to convince the squeaking by monkeys that the REAL problem is not that 1 monkey has 800,000 times more bananas than one could eat in 10 lifetimes...no, the REAL problem is that poor monkey in the corner suckiing the rotted brown goop out of discarded peels...THAT is the problem.

Unless the youth of the planet rise up and overthrow the status quo, there are people alive today that will be part of the final generation of humans not born into a dystopian hell hole of death, privation and extinction. No, I don't believe that comment is hyberolic overkill...I sincerely believe that humanity is seeding its own demise one mindless scroll at a time.

[Tootbsb]

7. "When they own the information, they can bend it all they want"

[drmeow]

10. We do it with other things

There's even a DSM diagnosis for it.

Partly it is because we've been socialized to worship money over the greater good. But partly it is also be cause hoarding of money does not interfere with everyday life. If the hyper wealthy had to physically keep all their wealth with them in small bills (or if they had to carry all of their wealth with them from property to property) they would quickly be like those hoarders who can only get through their houses via a narrow path because of piles of newspapers, etc. But because hoarded wealth is housed in a bank or in investments or is otherwise invisible, the consequences of that hoarding to the hoarders is also invisible.

[rickyhall]

11. When you're raised by a narcissist you learn how damaging selfishness is.

[Tootbsb]

12. In so many brutal ways.