Recently, I finished reading the novel El Contrato by Lars Kepler and I acutally had to cry where it states as the last paragraph of the epilogue:
So I'm thinking about what that figure means. Half a dollar a day goes into killing other people. Well and protecting myself from being killed. Isn't that weird? I'm thinking about why I would kill somebody. And the only thing I can think of is to protect me from being killed myself. So what came first? Protecting or killing?
And when I say "protect myself", does that refer to my life? Or to the lifestyle I have? Because in theory, in order to cover my basic needs, I need food and shelter. On my stove, I have a pot of vegetables boiling. These vegetables are definitely not from my area. So am I depriving somebody of the possibility to still one of his basic needs (food and shelter) and thus causing the need to protect himself, thus starting to kill? I know I'm oversimplifying, but it helps me so find out if I can change something in the world. Because a logic conclusion out of this would be to buy my food somewhere else (fair trade) or simply not at all. Buying local, ecological and fair trade leads to a significantly higher spending in food. Which means that I will need more time to save enough money to afford my own place, a bycicle or a Thermomix - things I have on my shopping list this year. And here, being "good" leads to that awkward situation where my own needs are more important than those of others and a priority shift is out of the question.
But anyway, going back to what I read: The nine major countries to export conventional weapons are the USA, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain, the Neatherlands, Italy, Sweden and China. What's that all about? These countries are supposed to be developped and educated. How education can lead to war really is a mistery to me. But then I think about what kind of education we receive and it somehow makes sense again. The really useful things - like how to communicate successfully - are not there. And if communication is not considered important enough to be taught in schools, why am I even surprised that instead, everybody gets $0.46 a day to spend on military actions.
Diariamente se fabrican treinta y nueve millones de balas destinadas a diferentes armas de fuego. Contando a la baja, las cifras militares de todo el planeta giran en torno a los mil doscientos veintiséis billones de dólares anuales. A pesar de que se fabrican sin cesar cantidades ingentes de material bélico, sigue resultando imposible satisfacer la demanda. Los nueve mayores exportadores de armas convencionales del mundo son: Estados Unidos, Rusia, Alemania, Francia, Gran Bretaña, Países Bajos, Italia, Suecia y China.A daily production of 39,000,000 bullets for various fire arms. $1226000000000 per year are spent globally in military. That's $3358904110 a day. Usually, we write numbers this big in short form, because we cannot grasp the concept of such an amount of money. Because this number is freakishly high, I'll try to break it down on an individual: 7,286,619,777 persons lived on the Earth a few minutes ago. If I use that figure, we have a military spending of $0.46 per person on the Earth per day. Now, I could start to argue that there are many countries that are not involved in any military actions or babies that have just opened their eyes, but I just want to do a rough calculation.
So I'm thinking about what that figure means. Half a dollar a day goes into killing other people. Well and protecting myself from being killed. Isn't that weird? I'm thinking about why I would kill somebody. And the only thing I can think of is to protect me from being killed myself. So what came first? Protecting or killing?
And when I say "protect myself", does that refer to my life? Or to the lifestyle I have? Because in theory, in order to cover my basic needs, I need food and shelter. On my stove, I have a pot of vegetables boiling. These vegetables are definitely not from my area. So am I depriving somebody of the possibility to still one of his basic needs (food and shelter) and thus causing the need to protect himself, thus starting to kill? I know I'm oversimplifying, but it helps me so find out if I can change something in the world. Because a logic conclusion out of this would be to buy my food somewhere else (fair trade) or simply not at all. Buying local, ecological and fair trade leads to a significantly higher spending in food. Which means that I will need more time to save enough money to afford my own place, a bycicle or a Thermomix - things I have on my shopping list this year. And here, being "good" leads to that awkward situation where my own needs are more important than those of others and a priority shift is out of the question.
But anyway, going back to what I read: The nine major countries to export conventional weapons are the USA, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain, the Neatherlands, Italy, Sweden and China. What's that all about? These countries are supposed to be developped and educated. How education can lead to war really is a mistery to me. But then I think about what kind of education we receive and it somehow makes sense again. The really useful things - like how to communicate successfully - are not there. And if communication is not considered important enough to be taught in schools, why am I even surprised that instead, everybody gets $0.46 a day to spend on military actions.
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