Solution

What is the solution to the present day world's problem

What is the solution to the problems of the world?

In the earlier article titled 'solution' - I concluded that the main problem of the present day world is only: "man's ignorance and stupidity"

To begin with, first of all we need to understand the nature of reality.
While there have always been very good people like Gandhi and Buddha, willing to even sacrifice their lives for the greater good of others, there also have been people like Hitler and the terrorists. Keen to inflict maximum carnage.
Unfortunately, this will continue to happen.
That’s just how nature works. Nature loves wars - the living fight and the best who survive, live on
Interestingly we have already reached the pinnacle of this - a war now almost means total annihilation
Now nature, needs us to not fight but cooperate.

Due to the expanse of knowledge and technology and the consequential equalization of more and more of the population in terms of economy, human rights and education the 'amount of evil' has been and will be forever diminishing.
But recalling "Murphy's Law": "Whatever can happen, will", we need to structure our systems such that the wrongs cannot happen.
History teaches this. Before and during WWII the media was completely controlled by the Nazis and used to mobilize their destructive ideas en masse.
Thus now it is widely understood and thus practiced at least in the modern societies, to never allow a totalitarian control of the media by any one party.

Darkness does not equal light. Darkness is nothing but just the mere absence of light. And so ‘evil’ and ‘good’ are not equal.
No matter how hard darkness tries its gonna die out in the presence of light.
But man is a special kind of fool - even though the knowledge has been found and presented to him he refuses to accept it.
This has to do with his 'selfishness'. His reluctance to change his old ways, to put in that 'extra effort'. In fact man is so foolish that he has even been fooled to do both: 'evil and good' against his own personal interests and likings. Like in the exploitations by 'religious leaders' and 'offer peddlers of capitalism'
This stupidity of man has in the past and continues to this day - to devastate the world.

Since the system itself comprises of people and the people are dependent on the system, the solution boils down to two inter-dependent factors that need to be addressed simultaneously:

• Improving the system: Putting in place a strong lawfully humane yet agile system that does not allow evil and gradually gets the world onboard the ship of knowledge, compassion and selflessness.
• Improving the people: Spiritually educating everyone (who can) to care about everyone and be committed towards and even willing to sacrifice for the welfare of the others and the entire planet.

Such that a 'global brotherhood' be realized, where there is love everywhere.

As stated earlier, there will always be pathologically insane and evil human beings, but they are not 'problems' per se but issues to be managed that the 'system' should be well prepared to deal with.

On the peoples' level it is needed, that first and foremost the meaning of life be understood:

• The value of life, all lives; that what wonderful 'gift' it is
• Our personal existence's significance and insignificance
• Gratefulness for all that is good
• How we are all connected, by what we share, even our sufferings and life and death
• That alone you are nothing, it is with the world, the others, that you have any meaning whatsoever
• The separation of the conceptual (not physical or supernatural) soul and the body
• That we could be in any one of those bodies, looking through any of those eyes
• To not do onto others what we do not want to be done to ourselves
• Our responsibility
• Our power
• The problem with selfishness
• Significance of compassion and empathy and that: benevolence, at times even at ones own cost, is the 'right' thing to do
• That in the service of others, happiness is to be found
• What is truth and what is not, and how important truth is
• What god is and is not; Only a symbol and not a personality
• That we all are equal and alone we are nothing; And only together we might just be able to solve our most endangering problems
• That we are but only a part of nature; And securing it is one of our highest causes
• To progress is one of the fundamental characteristics of nature, and mankind's duty is to accelerate it and not try to regress it

Previous attempts by the many ideologies and theisms have had partial success.
But while their is constant improvement, it is also under continuous threat and is impaired by a range of factors: like wars, terrorism, environmental destruction.
In the present state of matters, our efforts as a civilization of the conscious beings is far below than what is needed.
And there is a real possibility that we may very well end up, not making through. Evil lives on 'war scales' and hence, we must concentrate and significantly ramp up our effort.

How do we go about it?

While until now we have been absolutely incredibly 'lucky' to have every single variable of the world in our favor to support our lives like the distance from the Sun, there is no certainty that this luck never runs in the future.
Dinosaurs went extinct and similarly all our lives could end too. Worst of all - we ourselves could end up bring that upon us with the unimaginable destructive power that we now posses.
While there may be many paths that may lead to the pleasant future we so seek, there are many more that will get us nowhere. And then there is one that is the best and it might not be the one that we will actually end up treading.

The best that we can do is identify what that best path is and to that, try to walk as close as we can. The result anyways, is beyond our control.
The changes in nature usually are very gradual. But we may be required to make substantial changes very rapidly.
Though it will certainly not be easy, we must be ready to adapt and update our ideas; If we are to have a fighting chance.

Following is a representation of components and their relationships, of the structure of the human world:

While people and their system are bound by the unmovable reality, their ideas are not. And 'god' is such an idea that is outside the realm.
It must be remarked that even an unreal idea can have real power within the realm. In god's case some constructive but mostly destructive; Primarily because it is misunderstood as a reality instead of an ideology.

System

It is crucially important that access to basic necessities like: 'nutrition', 'shelter', 'security' to all its people is ensured; because without these, all else eventually simply fail.
The system needs to be humane and based on morally just principals, basic human rights like freedom of expression must be safeguarded and upheld.

It must be constantly improved, for:

• greater equality and opportunity
• greater accountability
• more transparency
• better safety measures - keeping in mind the 'Murphy's law'
• modernity

Technology adoption can bring about the most rapid and significant improvements.

While human beings are the most capable part of the system, paradoxically they also continue to be the weakest link in the chain.
Hence while better safety measures need to be put in place to limit the damage men can do, it is important that all be done in order to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Man

Man is a thinking machine that is conscious and intelligent.
Machines are predictable, and hence its behavior can be guided - if 'how it works' is understood.

First, we need to understand:

• Why do people do what they do? What makes them decide?
• What makes people understand? And change decisions?

Despite man being a rational creature, he is often driven by "feelings" even in the light of contradicting rational thoughts.
"Smoking" is one such example
Often he feels and believes first and the reasons come only later; chosen specifically to reinforce what he already believes and that is often based on the limited and probably adulterated information he has.
Also, if how he feels about something changes, his connected decisions are likely to change too. Though his memory and thus the habit can continue to hold it back.

That in turn, requires us to understand 'feelings':

People

The dynamics of a group of people is generally driven by its majority. It differs from that of an individual in many ways.
And the majority is driven either by popular ideas or otherwise enforced ideas commanded by the ruling class.
Neither of them need to be 'correct' in order to be 'accepted' and prevalent ones.

Following are the issues in case of the popular idea:

• Group conformity:

  Instead of thinking and reasoning independently, an individual is inclined to conform to the popular idea. Which can often even be the absurd ones.
• Group momentum:

  The loud noise of a crowd's ideas drown down an individual's voice and reasoning.
• Self validation:

  Individuals are deluded into believing the popular idea as the correct idea solely based on its local popularity.
• Entitlement:

  Owing to the mass resonance of an idea, people may end up believing not only they are right but also entitled to it, without requiring any valid justification or reasoning.

Because of these following consequences arise:

• People become blind protectors of the ideas
• Individuals who voice their opinion against the popular idea face the possibility of being shunned off and outcast and even violence
• Consequently it becomes increasingly difficult to change course in to a direction different from the consensus of the group
• Reduced sense of individual responsibility of reasoning and consequences
• Validation of selfishness
• Individual selflessness can even be exploited for the group's selfishness
• Promulgation of propaganda is easy and can quickly turn into mass hysteria

Following are the issues in case of the enforced idea:

• Forced conformity:

  Under pressure, instead of thinking and reasoning independently, individuals conform to the enforced idea irrespective of its implications.
• No validation:

  The ruling class is free to decide the fate of the population without even requiring any validation of the ideas it enforces.
• Momentum:

  An individual's reasoning and voice drown down. Not questioning the 'orders' becomes the norm, and can also trickle down to all levels of the society.

Because of these following consequences arise:

• Individuals who voice their opinion against the enforced idea face severe persecution. And ideas that are against the establishment's interests are squashed easily.
• The people in power are at greater liberty to exploit their positions as information is tightly controlled. This paves way for oppression
• In a totalitarian system while it is much easier to implement changes from top to bottom, changes from bottom seldom make it to the top
• Consequently it becomes increasingly difficult to change course in to a direction different from the ideas of the ruling class

Thus in order to change the ideas of a group of people, the prevailing idea has to be made unpopular and new idea has to be first made popular.
In case of enforced ideas, much more robust mechanisms are required to ensure transparency and accountability so as to prevent abuse of power and flexibility in order to allow the right ideas to be incorporated and implemented.

With that, we need to figure out:

• How to make people aware?

  • How to make people truthful?

    • How to make people seek the truth, and more information?

      • Emphasizing the importance and benefits of truth and its pursuit; And reminding of the consequences of lies
      • A feedback loop, that rewards people and thus makes them feel good about knowing more
      • Disincentivize and strongly discourage relay of misinformation
    • Be OK with not having an answer instead of an incorrect answer.
      

      • Thus be OK to say "I do not know" and "I am willing to find out"
    • How to make people be OK with being proven wrong and face ridicule and humiliation for it; And also, not do the same to others?

      • Emphasizing the importance of truth over the littleness of momentary personal ridicule and humiliation which has no place and is simply meant to be swallowed with a deep breath
    • How to make people distinguish right from wrong and make them not gullible?

      • Make people aware that what they know and believe to be true can be wrong
      • Make people take the scientific approach to deduce the truth from verifiable facts
      • Make people aware that credential alone does not accredit the truth
      • Make people aware of how an incorrect postulate can lead to undetectable error and incorrect "truth"
      • Make people aware of the weaknesses of the human personality and mind that make it vulnerable into being gullible
  • How to make good information more accessible?

    • Digitization of information and free publication on the internet
    • Educating and facilitating people to be able to access and read information, by making the devices and networks cheaper
    • Localizing information by translation and adaptation
• How to make people more selfless?

  • How to make an individual feel good about being selfless and doing good?

    • Facilitate goodness; Make it easier to do good.

      E.g. placing first aid kits at places where they might be needed so that it is accessible and used to help someone in need
    • Incentivize goodness

      • Glorify to popularize goodness

        E.g. publicizing honest citizens who return lost valuables
      • Reward goodness

        E.g. awarding cash incentives to people that admit strangers who have been in an accident to hospitals.
  • How to make him feel bad about being selfish and doing bad?

    • Disincentivize selfishness

      • Un-popularize selfishness

        E.g. calling out on people who ignore and do not help fellow commuters who have been in an accident.
• How to make individuals more responsible and accountable for their choices and actions?

  • Personal moral standards have to be set high, such that a person is accountable to himself first
• How to protect an individual's opinion and its expression that differs from the majority?

  • "Freedom of thought and expression" should be recognized not only as fundamental rights but also as one of the most fundamental tenets of a progressive civilization; And should be endorsed and protected and endorsed all levels
• How to make people embrace good ideas regardless of what old ideas they obsolesce and from where they come?

  • Making people understand that an idea's merit lies only in the progress it can effect; Everything else is secondary and often futile
• How to make people not conform to a group blindly and follow through into mass hysteria?

  • Awareness of our inherent propensity towards tribalism
  • Building a strong character - that can stand alone and relies on truth and is not dependent on the validation of the crowd
• How to promulgate and reinforce these 'feelings' to perpetuate goodness

  • The arts and literature, broadcasting through various channels have always had a major role. The focus though needs to be more coherent so that more and more people experience these feelings and learn its connections
  • The people, especially those who command an audience, have to be the conduits of the good change. They must also be aware of their responsibility of not igniting and amplifying the regressions
  • People in competition, like the politicians or sportsmen should not harbor and thus also not display personal animosity. This chivalry of respecting the 'enemy' helps propel the right feelings and values and curbs the bad ones