[12AX7]

Hi lrt125,
I agree with your philosophical sentiments. We could all be trying to improve the world.

But unlike you I *don't* have enough money sitting around to say "Geez, what would I like to do today." And that's after being a working person since I was 14 (I'm 43 now).

My empirical experience is that the world is, and has always been tilted to the rich and most normal work can really be classified as being a cog in someone else's wheel.

That's fine if you can get paid enough to eventually be wealthy and autonomous from it. However that's not generally the case.

Now, when I was a kid the old, "Go to school get a good job, work to 55-65, retire" thing still existed. That started to fall apart around '87. In Oct. 87 the market crashed. At the company I was at, a top 10 fortune 500, a plan to reduce headcount was out by Nov. 87. And that trend has continued to this day.

It's my opinion that the people at the top are quite happy to walk the line where they let out just enough wealth that we don't all revolt, and no more. They do not strike me as idealists, or utopians or whatever.

Clearly the technology exists to solve *every* massive problem of the world today. But it does not happen. Because we measure in dollars, not "universal goodness units" or whatever.

We've set the whole thing up as a competition, not a collaboration. So interestingly, poker is probably a great metaphor for many aspects of it.

So until the vast majority decide to hold a leaders feet to the fire to build the world we want, rather than being sheep, it'll probably never change.

Like most, my feeling is my life is too short, and my span of control to small to make any real impact.

Now, perhaps if I was some charismatic leader type I could change all that. But that's probably not the case.

Anyway, back to your point. Yes, I defintely have days where I find myself thinking, "Could I build a [fill in the blank, usually an airplane or something]?"

But the reason I cannot is the same old working person's dilemma.

"If I have the cash flow, I have no time. If I have the time, chances are I'm out of work and can't use the cash for a project".

Same old BS. The world hasn't changed all that much from a socio-economic structural standpoint, for a long time.

Bottom Line: Other's feel like you do. But the first level of Maslow's hierachy takes precedent of the higher levels.