The Regressive War

I've been following (and adding to) the comments beneath Rob Dunbars TED speech on climate change and ocean acidification. In those comments there is a relative war being waged between two sides who pretty much agree with each other on all but the smallest of points. We aren't talking about High school students here either, these are adults who have full careers as scientists, engineers, artists, etc, etc... and they are arguing quite intensely over the most semantic of issues. And whats more is both sides are well versed and steeped in research which backs their points, stemming from notable sources. So what is the answer? Well if we can't solve the minor arguments between likeminded forward thinkers than how do create the conversation which solves the problems which stems from idealogical disparity?

Well first I'd like to assess what this battle is:

There are seemingly two sides, those who believe that the CO2 being produced by humans and thrown into the air is affecting great climactic change and will be the harbinger of our ultimate demise, and the others who believe that climactic shifts are simply naturally occurring phenomena of planet whose temperature has seen fluctuations for more years than we can conceive of.  Both sides agree that great problems such as pollution, poverty, overpopulation, economic distresses, disease, hunger and so on, are all problems facing humans as a species.  So they agree on most points, but when it comes down to our inconclusive knowledge about what CO2 emissions is actually doing, a war is being waged. A simple difference in standpoint is enough to create a vehement rivalry between two groups who could otherwise be spending their time hashing out theories for more globally minded change. Those who don't think CO2 emissions are a problem feel that those who do are zealous "Environmentalists" who think that humans need to regress to the stone age in order to get ourselves back on track. Those who think CO2 is affecting the world, believe that the "Deniers" are selfish and close minded and cannot see beyond the immediate present. Both parties are right, and both parties are wrong. The judgements decreed about their rivals are, just as the slander of any war would be, way off. But the ideas that both groups represent are inherently correct: The "Deniers" may actually be the more forward thinkers, they see that environmental problems are last on the list of things that are facing us at the moment, they see that the exponential growth rate of our population is where our major failing lies and that any problem is symptomatic of that. The Environmentalists don't believe that we should regress back to the stone age, but rather that our advanced technology should harmonize with the world we live in, so that there is no issue regarding what exactly CO2 emissions will one day do when paired with the ever growing needs of our ever growing population.

So both groups see the need for change, but refuse to open up the proper dialogue because of how vehemently the are opposed to each others minutely different perspectives. So this again brings up our intense need for a better platform for which these well honed minds can argue, in front of a larger, more interactive audience, who can interject and add and actually come to some sort of agreement and than go from arguing about semantics to dialoguing about actual problems.

STEVE (system to engage virtually everyone)

I proposed this in my metaphorical TED speech and on TED.com in a comment beneath Chris Anderson's How web video powers global innovation. So now I want to extrapolate a little bit more as to what I believe this new network could be. 

So how does it work?

It would have to be completely powered by the users themselves, something Viacom can't come in and buy. In order to get it started we can start by recruiting like minded thinkers (drawing from the TED community and other similar sources) to become the moderators, administrators, editors, debuggers, programmers, designers and such for the creation of the new site. It would be completely open and infinitely changeable, depending on the latest and greatest idea for it. The shape of the site would be determined by user opinions. The website would be like the internets first ever global democracy.  The rating system would be crucial in determining the value of each member in the community and their sway.  

The site would have a forum, a chatroom, and sort of public domain, where videos can be uploaded and ranked by all users. There would also be a more exclusive section where only videos that are chosen by the high ranked users make it through, as well as ideas or mission statements chosen by these same respected community members. 

The whole thing is open to suggestion... Actually thats kinda the whole point.

I think the rating system would have to be very calculated. Maybe: you can give out Ten ratings per day, something like that. Every rating you give out is listed. Your ability to rate people is respective of your own actual rating. (In order to stop people from creating multiple identities and boosting themselves up).  The higher ranked you are the more freely you can rate things. 

Well it all needs tweaking. Right now it's an understructure which I hope people can use to build off of and expound upon.

Engage.

Okay so maybe I too have tried to run before I've learned to crawl. Obviously I'm not going to single handedly change the world. I only want to use this website to present ideas which could change the world, and list effective methods which we can all get behind to help effect that change. But I need response, I need feedback, I need debate, I need people to get interested. I don't care if your ideas are radical or completely diametrically opposed to my point of view, the fact is that you exist and you have an opinion and you might as well express it unabashedly. Otherwise who will know what your thinking, and the only way to enact change is by putting your ideas out there. So come one come all. Comment, rage, blaspheme, cry, laugh, whatever. Just engage.

I'm not mad, I'm just big boned

Sometimes I have to stop for a second and make sure I'm not some crazy person. I mean because they exist out there (one of them jumped in front of my car and starting babbling about the CIA the other day). But I don't think I'm that. I have friends, I do normal things, I take part in my community as much as possible, I think I'm fairly standard. Sometimes I worry that I have some ideas that are strange or something like that, but then I watch TED and am constantly thinking "Thats exactly what I was hoping someone would say!" So maybe I'm not crazy after all. Or maybe I'm not even special. Maybe everyone who can take an objective look at the facts, maybe they all see these blatant truths that I see. But maybe they've also grown accustomed to the way things are and worry that trying to change it will just make them seem like another.. well... Crazy person. I mean it sounds that way: the thought of being Anti-Capitalist was about as heretical as anything only 60 years ago.  And maybe humanity is not as fast as technology. Maybe 60 years isn't long enough to recover, maybe all the wars and genocide of these last 60 years is still taking a toll on us as people.  Maybe we don't even believe in ourselves yet. We've seen too many terrible things, we know whats possible. So we assume that a global peace is just a farce; some strange concept invented by hippies, and in order to believe in it you have to drop acid and smell like patchouli. But maybe it's not such a distant crazy idea.  Africa is a whole continent of untapped potential, because it was slower to develop. But now we are so excited to see these African nations join the modern bandwagon. We used to see these people as lesser than us and take them as slaves and force them to do our dirty work.... but now we've changed. We've developed the internet. We've developed a global voice. No longer do we dehumanize a group of people simply because of race, gender, religion (not as a whole anyway).  As a whole the world is humanitarian, it is excited to be of help to those in need.  Look at the response to Haiti. So we've taken a new step, we're wholly better now than we were... It's time we realize that. It's time we see that we aren't so bad. That as a whole, for the most part, we can all be friends, Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Africans, French, etc, etc, etc.... Sure we can disagree on things, but lets not kill each other for it. Lets have a competition. Discover a new galaxy, land on planet, ( i dunno) play a soccer game, whatever! And whatever it is the rest of the nations will judge you. And then, if you win, your country will come upon great wealth or great pride (because if you saw the crowds and the after-parties for the world cup, you can bet pride is pretty damn powerful), or some other wonderful prize. So it would be worth it for you to compete, and in the end no one died and instead of instilling sadness and darkness in one group of people, you've exposed enlightenment in one.

Lets use a very simple example: The Middle East.

This is currently the worlds most taxing issue. Oil dilemmas, political agendas, death tolls, confusion! The gift that keeps on giving. And the war has been going on for a long time. I don't want to posit how I feel about the situation, I don't want to pick sides. But I think it would be a pretty simple solution for the rest of the world said "Okay listen, Jews and Arabs. Whoever builds the best lunar-probe in 5 months, gets such and such piece of land. The rest of the world will make sure that the agreement is kept, because they are following the issue streaming-live on the internet. And the Jews will agree because they think it's impossible that the arabs could beat the jews in this type of game and the Arabs will agree for the exact same reason. This will start a technological revolution in both places in a short period of time, they will both have to pool the planets resources for ways to build this machine that can explore unchartered planets and deeper reaches of space. Of course the losing team wont be happy, but thats just the way it goes, at least they will understand why they are being displaced. We, the world, will make sure they get a comfortable home somewhere and that these people will not be ostracized from the rest of the world.

So you see solutions to problems can be simpler than we've ever known. Why have casualties when we  control the rules of the game?

Building a bandwagon (a DIY project).

So I've set a groundwork for a few of the ideas which could lead to the necessary "paradigm shift" which our society is badly in need of. Bet how do we get the ball rolling? How do we get the wheels to start moving? Well before we get off the ground we need to assess the obstacles. 

First let us look to the intellectual elite, the movers and shakers, the inventors and all those people who are giving TED talks. Well as I said in my speech, most of them are trying to run before we've learned to crawl, trying to solve the hardest problems first. And even when it comes to poverty and global ignorance, the issues are the same. I am deeply concerned with the fate of countries that have yet to enter into modern society, but my concerns for them are outweighed by my worries that the people within our own "Westernized" countries are still very blind to the changes which are going on around them. So how do get the people who are already in all of our well-to-do countries to be forward thinking and globally aware? First it starts off with the people who are aware, making it their goal to spread more awareness. Okay let me be a little more concise about this, a little more direct:

Dear Smart People of the world,  I urge you, for the time being, to let your grandiose goals sit on the side for a moment. You must focus your attention on local level in the attempt to eradicate ignorance in the communities which you come from. The best way to achieve the worlds goals is to create a movement, and it must start locally first. Before spreading your hands and reaching out to the hearts and minds of nations in despair, first lets show the world that we here ( North America, Europe, et al) are not so divided in our thought.  There are an incredible amount of things wrong with the United States and yet so many of our smartest people have turned their focus to being missionaries in other countries. We need to show the world that the western world is truly something worth striving for.... because right now it's only an illusion. We need to all get behind the cause, and make the illusion transparent.

Once the masse are aligned real change can occur. But than there is one more obstacle, and this is probably the single most difficult obstacle facing the world today: The disparity of wealth. The masses do not hold the majority of the worlds capital, that goes primarily to the top 1%, the billionaires.  The fact is that people who have earned this much money, (largely due to the fact that capitalism is a broken system) do not want to lose their stature and their place. So we have to change the game a little. Capitalism needs to be regulated, capped. If you hit a certain level, it's as if you won the game.  A monument at a location of your choosing is erected and built by the worlds top craftsmen, you're lifestyle is preserved for a minimum of two generations, your bills and expenses are all covered, but the majority of your money gets put back into the system to be divvied out among new entrepreneurial minds in a very open, though still regulated fashion (which I've outlined in a different piece of writing). So maybe you go from having 60 billion to have 500 million (which if you don't want to, you don't have to ever use, because all your expenses are taken care of). But get this, you also get one of those black-card-type-things where you can buy pretty much any material possession you want, and the money is covered by (and here we have to create a new entity) such and such foundation which is the very same one that is in charge of divvying out that money which, up until recently, was just sitting dormant in a bank somewhere. And what if you don't agree? Well lets put it this way... if the masses are in charge, and you refuse to join in... well than we, the people, boycott you. We refuse to work for your massive enterprises and such, we refuse to go to your corporate chains and and buy your products. It's as simple as that. When the people make the decisions the answers become much more clear cut. 

TEDx Thisblog

This blog is definitely a bi-product of watching TED videos and other inspirational videos (in fact the following speech was written before I came up with this blog). So here is what I might say If I had the opportunity to speak at a TED conference (but that would kill my anonymity):

Well, 18 minutes, isn't much time, so I'll have to get to the key points pretty quickly. But now I have to ask myself, what are the key points? Well I guess if I were to be concise, to be a bit preachy and direct, I would say the main point, and it's a sort of one-two combo, is change and imminence.  

I have spent the last month watching TED talks constantly, being inspired (to the point where I was so inspired I wasn't being all that productive). So the ideas following are not just the product of someone sitting in a room with a pen and paper and saying "Where has the world gone wrong!?" Surely I can see extremely obvious examples of whats wrong, but I cannot concisely explain all of them. However, other people can, and have. And they've done it eloquently, magnificently, beautifully, statistically,  and they've done it in ways which have taken them hundreds upon hundreds of hours of research. Sure I can say "it feels like something is about to shift, or I feel like the climate is being effected (because everywhere I go the weather is ridiculous and I saw that video Al Gore made 5 years ago)" , or that "My goodness! My standardized education was a waste of my time!" But I could never prove these things, I just felt they were there. Now theres a huge bank, a cache, of incredibly honed knowledge and it paints a very clear picture. Which brings me back to my main issue: Imminence and Change. Well what is imminent, you ask. As Johan Rockstrom will succinctly tell you, our climate is being pressured into an incredible change, it's about to step over a very delicate precipice. But that is just one of the imminent things, what about our lopsided economy and over population, well there's Slavoj Zizeks RSA Speech about the misgivings of charity and how it's undermined our economy, and Hans Roslings TED talk on population growth. So you see the facts are clearly stated,  you need not go any further than TED.com to realize something is imminent. Let us take the example of the frog and the pot of water: if you bring a pot of  water to a boil and drop the frog in, he will jump out, he will be hurt, but he will be very much alive. But if you put the frog in cold water, and raise the temperature slowly, he will sit there and await his doom until it's all but too late and he hasn't the energy to jump out. Well right now the water is getting quite warm. So let us not sit idly by and watch our own demise.

But at the same time, lets not worry so much about Mother Earth just yet. We have such great aspirations; like trying to build green cars which convert crude oil into energy and burp out flowers instead of producing noxious gas. Wonderful ideas, but what value do they have immediately. Pretty much nothing. No matter how many hybrid cars or photovoltaic cells we put out there it's not going to change anything, not right now. You see we're trying to run before we learn to crawl. These things will happen naturally. But first we have to solve our own problems. Humans can't continue on like this. Lets look to another TED speaker, Seth McCandless who showed us visually what percentage of each economy's budget is put towards military: it's obscene! It's like all we as humans care about is killing other humans or stopping other humans from killing us. Let's stop and think about that for a second. According to our budgets, our focus, as an entire species, is about killing other members of our species or preventing other members of our species from killing us. WHAT!? Has the world gone mad? Well, I guess thats a bit much of a reaction. Killing each other has been a favorite past time of human beings since our inception (can i still use this word without Leonardo DiCaprio planting himself in your head?). I mean look at all the terrible leaders we've seen,  Genghis Kahn, Vlad The Impaler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, the list goes on. Killing's been pretty popular throughout history. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I personally feel like killing is wrong. Whether you do it for religion or for your girlfriend or for your dog, it's bad any way you slice it. Those dictators are all figures of the past, and the phrase "history repeats itself" is bullshit.  Humans are in their absolute youth, who is to say what will and will not repeat itself. Lets learn our lesson as well. We are all connected, anything important that happens, happens everywhere. There are no more boundaries and borders, so why kill over them. Don't drop bombs on Iraq, drop iPhones on them. Let the kids rebel. And as Sam Harris said in his incredibly inspiring TED talk, lets not delude ourselves into believing that we have no moral compass. We can tell whats wrong and whats right, and if something seems off it's our job (and I don't mean grand ol' USA), it's humanities job, to step in and say something about it.  Lets shake hands with our neighbors. So stop killing would be my step one. Thats not to say we shouldn't have militaries and protect ourselves, we cannot all of a sudden become weak and defenseless. But we don't have to make it the focus of everything we do. If enough countries are enlightened, than an unenlightened attacker is going to meet with a heavy hand from many different directions. So where do we put all the money allocated to war. Science, exploration, education. SEE! See how quickly technology is advancing, every single day something new comes out. Thats because we are currently in the middle of an incredible technological revolution. Give it a kick! Boost that revolution to the next level, and go one better. Take it into orbit. Put as much money as we can into technology and exploration of the universe. Send probes and satellites and everything we got to as many planets as we can get them to. Send people to other planets, how hard is that? The amount of material used in a Ford production plant in a single day is probably more than enough to build a fully functioning space shuttle. Reform education: follow the guidelines of Sir Ken Robinson and that indian guy who did the Self Teaching video. Kids are the future, so make sure it's a good one. What if we don't exist but once and your born again, here, on this planet, as soon as you die. Do you want to be born into the terrible future we're currently designing, one with Walmarts and Mcdonalds as the worlds primary employer? I don't think so. The changes need to be made on every level. Limit capitalism, multi-billionaires exist. There are people who don't have food in this world at the same time as people who have multiple billions of dollars.  The disparity of wealth should only go so far. Capitalism has run it's course. It's time for some big changes there. The change that is constantly spoken of is not just an idea, it's a necessary. It has to happen. Every one of these inspirational videos ends with an emphatic: You are the ones we are looking for to help. But none of them say exactly how. What is it that you  can do? You who is sitting at your computer watching inspirational videos and coming up with your own brand of brilliant ideas…. Change. Show the world who you are. Explain your ideas, write them down, post them online, somewhere, anywhere. Maybe there should be another sight, a cousin of TED (we could call it STEVE - System To Engage Virtually Everyone) Maybe your idea exists, that doesn't mean its worthless or redundant, rather the opposite, it means it's resonating in the minds of others. It's time we take stock, it's time we figure out where we are all at. It's time we preempt the "soft-apoclypse" as Slavoj Zizek called it. Let's not wait and find out what is imminently awaiting us, and lets do something about it, let's change. I personally don't have all the answers, but I have some, and you do too, so bring on the revolution.

Hello I'm The Internet.

I speak pretty much every language, but I can barely translate any of them.

Actually I'm just a regular person, though it is my goal to remain completely anonymous. Now talking through the voice of the internet seems like a good time, and I assure you I will get around to it, but right now I will just say that I've already written a nice long blog, I was only two days into it and maybe 4 posts deep, not a huge investment... but I was still quite sad to see that it has so quickly been taken down off the internet. So I quickly whipped up this new little blog, and to be honest I think the title is a bit more catchy. The last one was eyeandsee.blogspot.com which was a play on Imminence and Change (I and C), but as clever as that was, it really had a terrible sound to it. So I'm kind of happy with this new one, I think it's a bit cheekier, but in being so it's much more welcoming, and I'm happy to call it home. So without further ado, I'll be reposting a couple of the posts I had saved, and of course I'll get around to writing new ones.