It's known by many names:
Primordial Evil, the powers that be, the System, the Establishment, the Satan Effect.
Mostly, it's the result of too much competition.
There's too much useless crap like bureaucracy, long-term care insurance, lawyering and religionism in the world, and a critical shortage of easy opportunities.
The main reason why things don't work is simple: they're not supposed to.
Why haven't we used technology to solve all the world's problems? Everyone could have a mass-produced house, or at least a tiny apartment, but it is forbidden.
World agriculture is terribly inefficient. It could be vastly improved by buying up or renting most land, and investing in industrial farming on a massive scale. A network of small farms and suburban greenhouses could form an independent backup.
Of course this would cause many new problems, starting with another population explosion. It would also disrupt existing arrangements. The American Midwest would not be able to compete with more fertile regions near the equator.
Suppose we wanted to get rid of that pesky terrorism thing. What would logically have to be done? The question has barely been asked.
Groups function better when they have a clearly defined enemy. The Cold War was a mutual game with agreed rules.
Mankind has spent an enormous amount of effort to reject simple solutions. It's strange but not surprising: evolution works in roundabout ways. The true motivations are well hidden.
A few people have quietly concluded this is a fundamentally bad world. It usually takes a long time to get there, with many false rationalizations on the way.
The core problem is too obvious for most to accept.
- Reality Hoax!
(The world is not as it seems: why you may not even be reading this.)
There's been a slight mistake: a problem called reality.
Ever thought things don't make sense? Most people rarely do. It takes intelligence and insight to realize your understanding is fundamentally limited.
Could our world actually be a hoax, like the Matrix but more plausible?
For the record: yes it is. There is an infinite number of possible worlds in which we are mere simulations. There's also an infinite number in which we are completely real byproducts of the local laws of physics. What matters is the ratio between the two (It could be 1/10^10^20, or any other number).
Even if we're 100% real, we live in a web of lies. Like cancer, the dysfunction keeps spreading, but our leaders and pundits bow before the multiplying absurdities.
One thing becomes crystal clear the more you think about it. When everything is added up, the world will turn out to have been worse than worthless. There's no reason other than blind evolution for the suffering that has defined history. But did it really have to be so bad?
- The real reason for conflict.
History is full of irrational hate. Usually, the problem isn't the initial disagreement, but its reciprocal.
Suppose a gentleman manages to seduce a pretty lady at a bar who turns out to be a gentleman, as often happens. This Madame Butterfly situation typically ends in furious violence.
Long-simmering stress reaches a breaking point. The guy isn't mad that he's being tricked by a disguised or surgically altered man, but because he tends to be unlucky with genuine women.
The world is confusing because it's constantly changing in random ways. Thousands of specialized skills are being developed and discarded at the same time.
Education, the one thing that could help, is an elaborate mess. Knowledge is only marginally cross-referenced. Most students stop learning when they reach a state of maximum confusion. They know how to perform all necessary skills, but have no spare capacity to organize or explain their knowledge.
Self-deception is genetic, a cruel adaptation. In a game, if you don't like the cards you've been dealt, you can just stop playing. In real life that seems to be rather harder. Perhaps it shouldn't be?
Here's a list of reasons why the world sucks.
Read it and get depressed . . .
The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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