---
title: "No Gain Means Not My Job • Our Decayed Collective Ethics (BTW007)"
heading: "No Gain Means Not My Job • Our Decayed Collective Ethics (BTW007)"
subheading: ""
updated: "2025-12-21T21:37:00+00:00"
words: 555
url: https://ananda.icu/talks/by-the-way/btw007-no-gain-means-not-my-job-our-decayed-collective-ethics
description: "Someone else will take care of it. That's the attitude right? Not my problem — nothing in it for me. The collective will take care of it. Yes the collective that exist for your benefit. Shared rights and responsibilities, anyone? This short-sighted and self-centered mode of operation leads to shared decay and degradation."
...


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**Words:** 555 ⁘ **Length:** 03:00 min ⁘ **Created:** 2025-12-12 ⁘ **Updated:** 2025-12-21

 Someone else will take care of it. That's the attitude right? Not my problem — nothing in it for me. The collective will take care of it. Yes the collective that exist for your benefit. Shared rights and responsibilities, anyone?

This short-sighted and self-centered mode of operation leads to shared decay and degradation. When the system breaks a full circle and you fall into hard ways, don't cry for help then. Munch up the bitter fruits from your rotten seeds.

_#ByTheWay #NotMyProblem #SharedEthics #CollectiveCare #Responsibility #FeedbackLoops #DoTheRightThing #AnandaICU_



**By the way, someone else will take care of that.** Not a problem. For example, someone else is going to pick up this leaf, blocking the road, almost falling on the electric line. I'm walking my dog, I can't be bothered right now. Well, that's about as pretty as it gets with one handed operation, but you know, good enough, out of the way.

But this attitude of "someone else will take care of it" is so very common. We just can't be bothered. It's above us, below us, beyond us, somehow not in our field of concerns. Even with trivial things. That garbage on the road — nah — I can't be bothered bending over. Someone else will pick it up. The government will pick it up.

That actually homeless fellow in the alley should just get a job. Never mind I just blew 30 bucks on Starbucks. I will not drop a cracker from my pocket. If it doesn't directly impact me, then not my concern, right? Let the collective deal with it.

And then, you know, when that someone else who is going to handle it is someone else of someone else and someone else, it is the synonym for absolutely no one, and things will degrade, things will decay. And when this self-centered attitude of indifference prevails at the more macro-scale in the workings of our society and civilization, little wonder the world is as we see it.

The only time you're actually ever going to bother doing something about it is when you gain advantage, when your group, your party gains advantage, leverage, assets, whatever it is that you're craving for. If there is no reward, then never mind, not our problem. Really, this is such a myopic, short-sighted, narrow-minded, egotic attitude and frame of ethics. Reflective ethics, stemming from collective concern, is definitely not the mainstream of our times. 

Then, as the systemic imbalance reaches sufficient proportions, becomes directly consequential to you. You fall into shortage. You fall into trouble. The hard ways are coming. Do not go crying for daddy elephant, daddy donkey, or daddy on the throne in the sky to help you. This is the road you paved for yourself. Now, reap your fruits.

Or, you know, you could just proactively learn not to be a self-centered asshole. Find some joy and satisfaction in doing the right thing, in nurturing the collective — even if there is no reward for you. Better yet, you learn to be selfless in the process.

By the way. If we all sought to do the right thing, fixing and helping at every opportunity that presents itself, living our lives in service of the whole, the world might look very different today.