pushing each other in every direction at once

somebody once told me that if every person in china could be coordinated to jump at exactly the same time, they would produce enough force to permanently alter the earth's orbit.

i've never heard any definitive proof on the matter, but inside i always believed it. the society we've built for ourselves promises us so much--stability, security, entertainment. all of these things are made possible through the application of order on a massive scale. society provides certain structures or constructs to achieve certain desirable conditions.

just who the conditions are desired by depends on a lot of things, most notably the motives and understanding of those creating and imposing the social limitations.

in an ideal world, the only social limitations in effect would be those whose pros outweighed their cons. in other words, the only laws would be laws which provided a maximum benefit to the maximum amount of people at a minimum cost to a minimum amount of people. that should be the ultimate goal of any law--fixing whatever required the enactment of a new law in the first place, with as small an amount of harm done as possible. minimum force required. make the most people happy. needs of the many....golden rule--whatever you wanna call it.

in reality, it is not always (or some would say frequently) the goal of the individuals and bodies responsible for governing these social impositions which are supposed to be for the betterment of all mankind, but are all to often invoked (and sadly enforced) for the betterment of only a small part of mankind.

my point in beginning this post was that we all seem to be pushing and pulling in our own selfish directions a lot of the time, but if we could somehow coordinate our efforts to push together for some of the more useful goals, we would be able to accomplish more.

a thought.....

--cid