COMPETITION

Education, credibility, relevance and value improve when explicit knowledge is distilled from tacit instinct, awareness and talent. The challenge is to define the topics that can be refined to accomplish the objective.

Competition distracts from a focus on knowledge until research is established as a separate endeavor. I composed a few paragraphs in rebuttal to the financial contention that competition is adaptation and it occurred to me that you might find it useful.

COMPETITION

We adapt to survive competition. When the principle is reversed, competition within the family of man becomes predation based on deception disguised by ethics. Adaptation requires anticipation. It can be obscured by the dust of competition.

A culture that glorifies athletic competition glorifies deception until it becomes a cultural tradition. The look-away pass in basketball and the double reverse in football are examples of deception in this competitive context.

The next time you hear or proclaim that “winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing”, consider the implications when athletic reality is adopted by cultural opinion.

Darwin meant that a species adapted to survive an unstable natural environment. This morphed into phrases like the one above and others like "only the strong survive" to justify predatory behavior within and beyond our species. We have created many unnatural parallels to Darwin's unstable natural environment. The economic system is one example that thrives on instability to justify predatory behavior in an artificial environment. We are deluding ourselves if we believe that growth, consumption and competition represent adaptation on a planet that does not compromise with ignorance when responding to universal forces beyond our comprehension.