Basic Premise
Basic Premise:
We have solutions to all of our world wide problems, we just aren't using them. So rather than focus on new solutions, lets figure out why we aren't using the ones we've got, and fix that problem.
You probably don't believe me, why would you?
If we had the solution to all of our problems we would just use them, wouldn't we?
Apparently not. Most people have seen stats that show how much it would cost to give every person in the world clean drinking water, adequate shelter or sufficient food. And those values are usually less than North Americans spend on ice cream or pet food annually.
Do You See What I'm Saying!
We've got the disposable income, and we'd all like to help, but the coordination isn't there, we're seeking joy in simpler more immediate activities.
Supplying everyone food/water is one thing, but to really sustain a planet where everyone has a high standard of living is another. This is what Buckminster Fuller committed his life to figuring out, and he thought he'd figured it out. In the 1980's he said that based on his research, we had the technology to make the world work for 100% of humanity without ecological offense or disadvantage to anyone in 10 years time.
It might be hard to believe Bucky's claims that we have the technology to do this, but once you see some of his designs and ideas you will see that this guy wasn't just a dreamer, he knew what he was talking about. Check out this book of his inventions, Bucky Works. And even if you don't believe his claims, I think we can all agree that we have the tech to do a better job than we are currently doing, and that we will only get to having all the tech we need if we focus on it. What we are doing now is not focusing on it, we're focusing on tech that leads to profit.
So you're probably wondering what's the hold up if it is not technology?
Not to over simplify it, but it seems to come down to fear, greed, and ignorance. In Bucky's book Cosmography, he points out that Thomas Malthus proclaimed in 1803, that humanity's population was growing at a geometrical rate while its life-support productivity was increasing only at an arithmetical rate. Concluding that there is not enough for everyone, and this has been affecting how we live ever since. Malthus wasn't wrong at the time, but since then we've made these technological advances that do not seem to be taken into consideration. We still think there isn't enough for everyone, so we do all we can to protect what we have and ensure prosperity for those close to us. We fear that we won't have enough to live well if others take it all, so we get greedy by taking as much as we can for ourselves, and this is all because we are ignorant to the fact that there is enough for everyone if we would use the latest technology to build things more efficiently.
What I didn't mention above when I said this could be done in a10 year time frame was that Bucky said it would require Spontaneous Cooperation. Basically it would take a whole lot of people working together towards common goals in order for this to happen. When I think of Spontaneous Cooperation I think of the people working together in a disaster area. All they care about is helping each other out, they aren't worried about making money off each other. So we know it is possible, but considering we are all under the impression that there isn't enough for everyone, and the fact that we don't really see it happening without a disaster preceding it, I think Bucky's hope that it would just happen spontaneously is unrealistic. It could happen if some disaster affected a large percentage of the world population, and cooperation was their only foreseeable way out of it. But in an effort to avoid such a disaster I think we need to put some effort into designing a system that promotes and fosters cooperation. So rather than designing new technologies for specific problems, we need to design a new business model that works within our current systems, but has the goal of promoting cooperation.
To wrap it up, to go from where we are today to a situation where 'the world works for 100% of humanity without ecological offence or disadvantage to anyone" we don't need any new technology, we need to figure out how to get people working together for a common goal. And how to make this more appealing than what they are doing now. As Bucky would say, "you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model which makes the old model obsolete."
We have solutions to all of our world wide problems, we just aren't using them. So rather than focus on new solutions, lets figure out why we aren't using the ones we've got, and fix that problem.
You probably don't believe me, why would you?
If we had the solution to all of our problems we would just use them, wouldn't we?
Apparently not. Most people have seen stats that show how much it would cost to give every person in the world clean drinking water, adequate shelter or sufficient food. And those values are usually less than North Americans spend on ice cream or pet food annually.
Do You See What I'm Saying!
We've got the disposable income, and we'd all like to help, but the coordination isn't there, we're seeking joy in simpler more immediate activities.
Supplying everyone food/water is one thing, but to really sustain a planet where everyone has a high standard of living is another. This is what Buckminster Fuller committed his life to figuring out, and he thought he'd figured it out. In the 1980's he said that based on his research, we had the technology to make the world work for 100% of humanity without ecological offense or disadvantage to anyone in 10 years time.
It might be hard to believe Bucky's claims that we have the technology to do this, but once you see some of his designs and ideas you will see that this guy wasn't just a dreamer, he knew what he was talking about. Check out this book of his inventions, Bucky Works. And even if you don't believe his claims, I think we can all agree that we have the tech to do a better job than we are currently doing, and that we will only get to having all the tech we need if we focus on it. What we are doing now is not focusing on it, we're focusing on tech that leads to profit.
So you're probably wondering what's the hold up if it is not technology?
Not to over simplify it, but it seems to come down to fear, greed, and ignorance. In Bucky's book Cosmography, he points out that Thomas Malthus proclaimed in 1803, that humanity's population was growing at a geometrical rate while its life-support productivity was increasing only at an arithmetical rate. Concluding that there is not enough for everyone, and this has been affecting how we live ever since. Malthus wasn't wrong at the time, but since then we've made these technological advances that do not seem to be taken into consideration. We still think there isn't enough for everyone, so we do all we can to protect what we have and ensure prosperity for those close to us. We fear that we won't have enough to live well if others take it all, so we get greedy by taking as much as we can for ourselves, and this is all because we are ignorant to the fact that there is enough for everyone if we would use the latest technology to build things more efficiently.
What I didn't mention above when I said this could be done in a10 year time frame was that Bucky said it would require Spontaneous Cooperation. Basically it would take a whole lot of people working together towards common goals in order for this to happen. When I think of Spontaneous Cooperation I think of the people working together in a disaster area. All they care about is helping each other out, they aren't worried about making money off each other. So we know it is possible, but considering we are all under the impression that there isn't enough for everyone, and the fact that we don't really see it happening without a disaster preceding it, I think Bucky's hope that it would just happen spontaneously is unrealistic. It could happen if some disaster affected a large percentage of the world population, and cooperation was their only foreseeable way out of it. But in an effort to avoid such a disaster I think we need to put some effort into designing a system that promotes and fosters cooperation. So rather than designing new technologies for specific problems, we need to design a new business model that works within our current systems, but has the goal of promoting cooperation.
To wrap it up, to go from where we are today to a situation where 'the world works for 100% of humanity without ecological offence or disadvantage to anyone" we don't need any new technology, we need to figure out how to get people working together for a common goal. And how to make this more appealing than what they are doing now. As Bucky would say, "you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model which makes the old model obsolete."