Win32, OpenGL and ODE Physics

To the children of the modern age and beyond

By Alan Baylis

What does it mean to achieve? A person who produces something that is practical and needed is achieving. A person who profits by the work of others is not.

Billions of people in third world countries produce goods that are brought by companies who then sell these goods to the richer countries for a large profit. Not only are the companies living by the sweat of these people, they mislead them into producing the most useless goods and the richer countries into believing that that they need these goods to be happy. If the consumers had to visit the places where these cute or momentarily interesting goods are made, or the homes of the workers, the goods would not seem so cute or important anymore.

In this age of patents and intellectual property it is easy to turn what would have been an achievement into something that harms society. For example a software company might make a program that cost a million to produce but sells a million copies at a $100 apiece. This is a 10000% profit for their work. The profit for the software company comes to $99000000 and they can continue to sell their product for a $100 when it only costs about $3 to reproduce. The companies might like to add the cost of advertising to the cost of the product but I don't agree with having to pay for my own brainwashing.

Sometimes a product will be made with the most honorable intentions, such as a dress, but when the price of the dress is increased just because it is made by someone famous then the consumer is no longer getting equity. Instead, the consumer is lied to that the dress is superior to another of similar design and material but made by a relatively unknown manufacturer. The consumers are made to feel that they have to buy these clothes to be important or accepted by their peers. Remember that, if a bank robber spends stolen money to buy expensive clothes, he is still a bank robber.

We have our family, society and our ancestors to thank for our lives and we should plan for the future generations of our families by conserving the resources of this planet. By buying or keeping a second hand item instead of purchasing a new product, or simply recycling, this in itself is achieving.

The Bible states that we should not be impressed by a persons clothes or by their fame. Rather that we should give honor to those who create and do an equitable trade.