We all dream of saving the world. Some of us do more than just dream (Daniel, for one), but I think most of us, enmeshed with family, career and trying to enjoy life don't get much beyond just dreaming. It's probably just as well, too, because if we all got energetic with shovels and ambition we'd do more stepping on toes than any actual saving of the planet. Our ideas about what's wrong and what should take priority are as numerous as the atoms in kettle of boiling water, and about as chaotic. Still, it's fun to dream. Acknowledging that the problems that beset mankind number more than one, they can be arranged by degree of importance. If there were a magic switch which if thrown would rectify ONE problem, and only one, what difficulty do you think it should overcome? Two problems loom as most threatening to my eye, and both are already diminishing. They are ignorance and tribalism, and of the two ignorance is by far the most dangerous. I'd set the switch, not to banish ignorance (technically impossible because that'd mean we know all there is to know), but to make education compulsory globally across our lifetime. No one would ever be totally out of school. That doesn't mean physical attendance in every venue nor full time, but it would mean formal structures regulated by government that everyone would have to participate in, from age 3 to age 123. Subject matter isn't as important as just sheer continuous exposure to and comprehension of an increasing range of ideas and natural phenomena. Nothing is as powerful toward being able to see our way clear of difficulties as being able to see, the wider and deeper our vision the better. What would your switch change?
At first I wanted to say "end the apathy" because I get so annoyed with people who don't seem to care for anything important. Then it occurred to me that what they believe to be important might differ from my beliefs. That's when it occurred to me that wars are not waged by the apathetic. So I need new switch. Stay tuned...
I'd flip the magic switch on pricing, so that the price of everything at least covered all its costs, including environmental and social. Doing so might create a few new short-term problems, but many other big picture, long term problems would be solved.
Ah, the old Martha / Mary conundrum reduced to a switch. The death star had such a switch. Flip it and all the planet's problems would disappear... along with the planet. But I digress... I would make humans capable of bearing only one child each (a male couldn't have 20 children, unless he had 19 wives, for example.) Discuss. I would remind you, however, that all of us here seem to live to the old maxim "Think globally, act locally," which you seem to eschew in your op. We are all doing something just driving a Prius (I am not sure if that includes the "total cost".)
There'd have to be some allowance for mortality before child bearing age or we'd go extinct (not that that would be a bad thing, in the eyes of some). 1 and a tenth might do it. In practical terms that'd mean that 1 out of 5 couples would get to have three kids instead of two. How that would get administered & enforced would of course be all dealt with by the magic in the switch. And the crisis of population growth could indeed pose more of a problem than ignorance: what good does it do to know why you're starving to death but are powerless to do anything about it.
I say feel free to rescind the rule when our numbers are once again sustainable. (and max two per person regardless of partners, or you get some seriously ugly social outcomes).
At 7 billion and climbing rapidly, there's no danger of the race going extinct anytime soon - other than through disaster scenarios. So, even one each is probably too many. This kind of edict has some ugly ramifications, like in China where boys are preferred to girls, and the female children are killed to meet the quota. And not every parent is equally qualified - some should raise many children to responsible adulthood, while some people are simply not qualified. I'm not sure how we get around that social issue. No, neither the purchase price nor the gas cost are anywhere near total cost. At the risk of being blasphemous, a Prius is more 'less bad' than truly beneficial. It's not like it runs on polluted air and exhausts only wildflowers.
What would you do if your brother or sister were evicted from their home and had nowhere to go? You'd invite them into your home. Family are the people who can't turn you away when you need a place to go. The switch I'd throw is to make every person regard every other person as family. People would not always get along with each other. There'd be quarrels. But there would be no more wars, and no more homelessness, no racism or homophobia. There'd be no discrimination in hiring and everyone who hires someone would see to it that they got a living wage, because that's how you treat family. We'd still have to solve the problems of overpopulation and energy and pollution and climate change. But we'd share the resources of the world far more equitably, because you don't let your own family starve. This idea is not new: Jesus was saying the same thing when he said "Love your neighbor as yourself." People like Dorothy Day and her followers have taken this idea to heart, but most people, of whatever religion or no religion, reject it. It would probably take a magic switch to accomplish it.
My switch would prevent wars against anyone people or nation. Imagine the good we could all do together if there were no wars
Good question. Let's see how this worked so far. Early 90s. War in Iraq. Economy: In the toilet Rest of 90s: No war. Economy: Smoking hot. 00s: Two wars. Economy: Even worse than in the early 90s. I know correlation does not mean causation. But sometimes it does.
I'd flip the switch and John Boener and Eric Kantor would slowly melt like the wicked witch of the west.
Now that I got that out of my system, why can't we just have the Star Trek world now? They seemed to have solved most of our problems.
Yeah, they had a kind of democratic socialism, and made tough decisions for the good of everyone. I say don't allow reproduction to anyone with an IQ lower than 100. and make most crimes punishable by death. destroying the scum of society is easier than trying to introduce them to social responsibility.
