Helping rich people be happier may be the key to saving the planet.
The root cause of the injustices in the world is not evil, it is the pursuit of happiness.
We are all living our lives trying to satisfy something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. People debate the specifics but in general these do not include suppressing other people, or destroying the environment. Those things do happen, but they are a result of poor solutions to the problem of fulfilling ones needs. People are just trying to secure their own happiness/wellbeing, and suppressing others is very effective, so it is no wonder that it has become so popular. However it has a limit, if the powerful continue to increase power by suppressing and destroying more and more, it will be to their own detriment. We need new solutions, we need them now, and we need to start helping the biggest offenders. And I have a solution that falls within the current economic theory. It actually reinforces a cornerstone of the theories, which is currently very weak.
Above is my recent submission to the Skoll Foundations 'Original Content Submission Form'. The form limits the submission to 150 words, and I had a version with the proposed solution, but I left it off hoping their curiosity would be peaked, and make them want to contact me. I wonder if they'll get back to me. The three words I left off were "w******* o* o******". Can you guess what they are? If you get it, it may seem too simple, but that is really the crux of our problem, and something we all fail at terribly.
June 11, 2014