Money or Survival Skills
Would you rather:
A) be given enough money for it to not be an issue in your life
or
B) be magically granted expert wilderness survival skills for any climate?
It's kind of difficult to really choose the latter since it's limited just to having extreme skills into adapting to any climate. And even though that sounds like an enticing set of skills to have, with how things are now in society, I doubt we need to rely on raw instincts as more important to sustain ourselves. The question itself also is a bit more vague, seeing how any climate can extend into other possibilities. So I guess I'll break down the two parts of the question with my own opinions.
I'll start with the latter part of the question.
If I were given expert wilderness survival skills for any climate, I can only see it being truly useful if society just magically could create teleporters and transfer every component of our genetic and biological structure with deadly accuracy, and here's why:
- Even with all the wealth in the world, or just having enough money in your life to get by with anything, when it comes to uncertainty with potential resources and other factors when exploring new planets, the latter option of OP's question would be more suitable. Simply because if those same deus ex machina wilderness skills can truly apply to other planets than Earth, the potential for the individual to gain new resources could presumably help them gain money.
- And with that logic, being able to have the skills to survive in any climate, and theoretically any scenario, it means people on Earth would see you as a reliable asset in bettering society since you can gain more resources and knowledge of the conditions of other planets. You would be the conduit towards expanding society. A traveler that has this ability to progressively evolve biologically, genetically, and much more (seeing how you automatically defy theories behind Darwinism and Natural selection with those survival skills).
- And with that, you'd obviously have more opportunity to get more wealth because people will see your skills very essential to the overall good of society. But not only that, larger corporations are going to salivate over you, and everyone might end up having a system of deception and persuasion JUST to get you in their company for explorations into other worlds (presuming this is possible in society of course).
Of course, there's more possibilities I could get into, but unless society reaches to the point where we can expand through space more than just the Moon or Mars, and being able to put ourselves in planets that have similar living conditions of earth, the ability to survive seems "less important" in my opinion.
So to answer the first part of the question, I would prefer having money that will help me get by with most or all things in life as more important, and here's why:
- I personally feel that as much as I would like to be striving for more knowledge and knowing how to survive in any climate conditions in a given environment, that ability would only be as useful as my faith in just wanting to expand and wanting to know more at a faster pace than people usually want in this life. Being able to have money to get by with most things in life, I could be able to use that money to collect as many resources in learning things through books, e-books, videos, etc. that would be hard to get for free. Because I have this wealth of information (but not necessarily being able to apply practice into making them skills), I have more to work around with. And because I have more time for myself, seeing how money is much easier to obtain, I would become more motivated to just research a bit more and apply myself productively.
- Even though using money for learning skills or have simulation courses to gain them seems like a cop-out, it feels more realistic to have money in order to reach that. It's more practical to have money, something that can be as strong depending on how you use it, compared to having a deus ex machina skill of survival. The money is more tangible, and although it can create predispositions for one to become attached to it, it doesn't mean the individual can't find ways to train themselves out of that.
- I often have to compare how money would be more important when I compare it to Batman (even though he's clearly fiction), seeing how he's the epitome of someone with large sums of wealth that helped him learn how to become an escape artist, skilled in certain degrees of fighting, and much more. Because when you have an ability to survive in any climate, it means you'll defy our limits of being human. And like Batman, he's mortal, he's no superhero, the only real power that makes him unique is just his trained ability to never give up, which leads him to do things beyond the spectrum of what people would be willing to do; he takes risks, he has wealth as a supplement to his own goals, and isn't even greedy because of it.
I know the analogy is a bit out there, but I feel how you think the first part of the question is flawed is because learning how to control ourselves and our greed of money is difficult, but it can be accomplished. I feel if a person learns how to moderate their urges with money, they can develop skills from gathering insight from the best in certain cases, be it:
the best escape artist
the best long ranged, short range, medium range, overall hunter
the best marksman, ranger, and much more
The money itself and being able to use it for survival training courses and much more may be a cop-out in your perspective, but the deux ex machina set of traits you get from the second option is MORE of a cop-out and less tangible with this reality. If someone just magically gets the ability to survive like that, it's implied that they have a progressive strive to naturally improve and adapt in given situations. Being able to constantly "evolve" like that defies practical theories with evolution, natural selection, and just how we as humans beings are limited with.
Also, people will start wondering where you got those abilities in the first place, and in the worst case scenarios, they might start digging deep into your body and going through hell just to figure out the origins of your ability. That wouldn't be a nice situation to get yourself into honestly.
So for me, the first option is what I would go after.
|
|
Bookmarks