If you had a virus that if given to a patient, cured them, and once cured, would give that patient the ability to infect other sick people with that virus, hence curing them and so on until all sick people were cured; Would you start the ball rolling by giving that virus to the first willing patient?
What would your answer be if only patients with the capacity for compassion were cured and patients without this capacity for compassion died as a result of becoming infected?
“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile Universe.” ~ Albert Einstein
Having just written about a Crisis of Trust I must recognise that, as a society, we still trust.
The following TED talk I found reassuring. His observations provide partial reason for why my Plan to “Save the World” may just work.
Like every world changing idea now-a-days, mine too involves the internet to a very limited degree. More importantly it involves some aspects of Human behaviour Jonathan touches on.
A famous visionary Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller , as he neared the end of his life, suggested that perhaps the world had seen a turning point. He saw the event of man-powered flight across the English channel in 1979 as an inspirational example of “Doing more with Less” and that if, as a global people, we can continue to follow this principle in every thing we do the world is on a path of recovery.
Since his death in 1983 have we continued on that path? Perhaps we have. Have we bottomed out as far as negatively impacting on our planet and humanity? Perhaps the natural momentum of doing more with less will carry us to a peaceful, prosperous world where poverty has been eliminated. I don’t know. We certainly seem to have the technology, the tools, one would suspect the individual will to continue on the recovery path. Perhaps there is nothing to worry about.
Just in case this isn’t so, I feel it is my responsibility to create an action plan to ensure a path Bucky saw as having started, continues yielding the results he envisioned.
The following is an amusing Talk by Robert Wright doing his best to convince us that we are indeed on the right track. His brand of Optimism is best listened to with distance between you and razorblades. 🙂
If you are running short of time, skip to 14:40 minutes into the talk the last 3 or so minutes, and listen to what he has to say about “Launching a Moral Revolution”. Personally I am more optimistic than he is on this process. I guess that’s because I think I have invented a mechanism to make it happen. Pay special attention to what he has to say about the Intelligent pursuit of self-interest as this is somewhat related to how I intend to “save the world”.