Why be good when evil drives the economy ?

Abhishek Pal
Nov 7 · 6 min read
Lucifer Morningstar from netflix

I think of myself as a pessimist. I am pessimistic about the present and that allows me to see the flaws in the present, which I can then find out ways to correct and thus move towards a better future. In that sense, I am pessimistic about the present but optimistic about the future. And, of course, a psychotic perfectionist (pun intended for people in my inner circle).

A couple days ago I had a strange epiphany wherein I realized in a dream, as sages often do, that most of big tech that has been a hit in the market is because of their relation to the primal psychology of humans, more specifically, the seven cardinal sins. This revelation demanded from me a scripture which I therefore pass on to you. Let’s find out how big tech capitalized on the seven cardinal sins and has continued to be at the front seat of driving our economy.

  • Sin #1: Envy

All of us have felt the stinging pain, restlessness often known as jealousy. Envy is the first of the cardinal sins when sorted alphabetically. If one thinks about it carefully then envy is a feeling we feel quite frequently when we are scrolling our feeds on social networking sites like Instagram, Quora, Facebook, Twitter and so on. We feel envious of someone’s vacation, or the shoes they bought, or how flawless their skin appears in a tan. It is a familiar feeling when we are watching travel and living shows on YouTube or other online sites. Envy is the reason why people often lash out online and put stupid stuff there…like this one:

source: blazepress.com

I know the image above probably has nothing to do with envy, would be fascinating if it did, but I had to put it up once I saw it (lol).

  • Sin #2: Lust

Well this one doesn’t need a whole lot of words for explaining how lust has led to the development of huge industries and I don’t just mean the obvious : digital pornography, virtual reality in pornography and other super techy ideas; I am also referring to the medical industry it has led to as a result. Lust truly deserves a medal; maybe also a standing ovation :/…maybe not, from the society for its contribution to the development of modern science, technology and the society. Besides giving us porn: some good, some unrealistic, some with wholesome stories, and so on, it is also an excellent resource for math problems and cooking tips:

  • Sin #3: Gluttony

Needless to say even if millions on earth can’t get three adequate meals a day, for those that do, gluttony is not a new feeling. Huge tech companies that deal with hunger have swarmed te market and capitalized on this sin. On a scale starting from shitty to really good we have McDonalds, Burger King(sorry but that’s the order I am going for :P. I like coleslaw on my burger) to (put medium level restaurants here)…fine dining…even several high end restaurants have online presence and big tech like Grubhub, Swiggy, Zomato and so on, backing them. Bring in a mix of pride and you have photos of food on Instagram, Facebook. There’s fine dining and then there’s senseless, mind-fucking food

source: dailymail.co.uk
  • Sin #4: Greed

Greed is the fourth sin we are dealing with next and this one too doesn’t need a whole lot of words to show how it has led to the creation of huge businesses like Groupon, Amazon, Flipkart, other coupon websites, online shopping and so on.

source: timeline.com
  • Sin #5: Sloth

Sloth is a feeling which could be seen as a necessity from one perspective and as just pure laziness from the other. Services rendered that make our life easier, do they count as services to us because we are just lazy, or is it because they were actually needed ? Car rentals, online transportation services such as Uber, Ola, Lyft; online grocery stores like bigbasket, shopping websites, audio books, videos on YouTube and so many other resources are available to us that from one perspective satisfy a need that we have: the need for transportation, easy shopping and so on but often/mostly serve our sloth. The following e-book is a good resource at being lazy.

source: amazon.com

However, I haven’t read it. I tried looking for an audio-book but could not. Is that a need I sense or is that me just being lazy ??

  • Sin #6: Pride

Pride is the elated feeling that often follows after something we consider as an achievement. Think about all those posts on social media and other networking sites that show off pictures of themselves or the food they just had, or the things they bought. People are really creative and can show off almost anything. But pride is a stronger quality than just the state of being proud. It includes within itself, hubris and what better way to show hubris than the website Quora. All those times when we are too proud to accept our mistakes — that’s hubris vis a vis pride. Several sites like stackexchange or stackoverflow, are places where a pride of pride-ridden users are often encountered.

A pride of proud lions staring at the camera is a close enough approximation of the hubris amongst users online.

  • Sin #7: Wrath

Last but not the least in any sense of the word we have wrath. One might be tempted to wonder : How can wrath be capitalized ? Think for one about all the online games that make you angry because you couldn’t go to the next level or when one of your huge downloads fail

source: onsizzle.com

Wrath or better known as anger is often followed by other sins. However, wrath by itself has an industry behind it. The industry of gore (a disturbing genre I recently found out about). Really, its time we asked ourselves the question: Are my tastes normal/typical ? Wrath is expressed on online platforms like Youtube where very often some violent video become viral ( a terms that was coined for designating infectious videos). Any kind of networking site becomes a platform for expressing wrath and huge tech infrastructure supports such platforms. Someone’s wrath is someone else’s entertainment. Facebook even has a dedicated emoji for it. There’s even an entire game based on angry characters:

source: new-hdwallpaperz.blogspot.com

Well, it seems to me that several big techs capitalize on the seven cardinal sins that I have listed above. Maybe its just the pessimist inside me that sees the world like this ? What do you think ? Let me know.

Cheers,

Have a swell day. :|

Abhishek Pal

Written by

I am a student of logic first, and a theoretical high energy physicist, second; passionate about structured thinking and impactful ideas.

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