In many places worldwide, we’re over-utilizing rivers and other areas of fresh water, which dries them out. This can result in major problems in the coming years for us, since we depend on them for drinking water, crop irrigation and many other uses. We’re also over-utilizing arable farmland in many places as well by not rotating the crops, and not partaking in farming best practices -- in pursuit of short term gains. This depletes the nutrients from the soil, makes the land unusable for plant life, and increases the price of food; which increases the amount of people who go hungry. At its most severe levels, it can create dust storms that make an area completely uninhabitable. During the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, 2.5 million Americans were displaced, and 500,000 people became homeless.
To make matters worse, the United States -- the world’s leading producer of corn -- diverts 40% of it away from dinner plates to produce ethanol for cars and SUVs. So essentially, by simply choosing to drive an SUV rather than a car, we are contributing to driving the cost of food out of the price range of some other family’s budget. We’ve set up a system by which, knowingly or unknowingly, our desire for a slightly larger or faster automobile competes directly with our desire for food to remain affordable for a starving child in another region.
Issues like these do not only affect developing nations. If we examine the massive outbreaks of worldwide social unrest that occurred in 2008 and 2011, we can see that they correlate directly with sharp increases in the food price index. With the technology and rapid flow of information we have today, social unrest can quickly spread into neighboring countries and regions. In more severe cases, where a civil war or revolution breaks out, those who flee and become refugees often find it extremely difficult to obtain the stable conditions required to rise out of poverty. In areas where extreme poverty is widespread, and opportunities are scarce, people can become forced to choose from one of only two miserable options: Either watch their children starve to death, or accept vital food and resources from an extremist group or rebel army; in exchange for becoming servants of their political agenda. Directly or indirectly, the backlash from these occurrences ends up affecting all of us.
Here’s a startling contrast: In developing countries, many people are getting sick and dying because of a lack of food and resources. On the other hand, in developed countries, many people are getting sick and dying because of the consumption of excessive amounts of food and resources. Something is very wrong with this picture. How can this be? Even though the citizens of developed countries are lucky to have numerous conveniences at their disposal that the citizens of poorer countries do not, the challenges and social fabric problems they face remain very real.
On the internet these days, there is an ongoing joke about people who complain about seemingly insignificant problems in first world countries. Some of these may include waiting five extra minutes for food service, not getting a seat on the train, or a smartphone app that freezes too often. Though it can seem petty (to the point of being humorous) to witness people reacting so strongly to seemingly minor occurrences, it brings an important theme to light: Despite the perceived material abundance, something important is undoubtedly still missing in these people’s lives.
When you walk into chain drug stores in the United States, it doesn’t seem right that diabetes gets its own aisle next to the gift cards and cosmetics. When you also discover that these stores are selling their antidepressants and pain medications faster than winter jackets in Scandinavia, it becomes obvious that a major systematic dysfunction is going on. Too many people still remain unhappy. The abundance of physical goods has seemed to bring along with it the abundance of several other things that are unwanted: The abundance of debt, divorce, depression, stress, false friendships, isolation, addiction, disease, unhealthy foods, obesity, pollution, unsatisfying jobs, and economic inequality.
The United States of America, while considered by many to be the land of opportunity, still contains quite a large quantity of individuals who secretly or openly hate their careers, and feel trapped. And that is only speaking of those who even have a career at all. Outsourcing and automation have left many out of work. An estimated 25 million Americans still remain either unemployed or underemployed. What’s worse is that this number still does not include all of the people who have given up looking for work, or have gone back to school -- picking up more debt in the process -- and still may not have a job waiting for them on the other side. As higher education becomes exorbitantly expensive, the amount of student loan debt has skyrocketed. Students are emerging from college only to realize that in many cases, the well-paying job society convinced them would be waiting on the other side simply was an illusion.
Formerly booming cities such as Detroit have transformed into ghost towns. The middle class has begun to disappear, as the minimum wage has severely lagged behind the rate of inflation over the course of several decades. Alternatively, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker approaches 475:1, which is over twenty times the rate of many other developed nations. The effects of growing inequality and the lack of distributed opportunities that comes along with it produces conditions that are more hostile and volatile for the society as a whole. The approval rating for Congress has hit historical lows, with approximately nine out of ten people disapproving of the job the politicians are doing to lead the country. In a system by which the representatives are expected to serve the greater majority of its citizens, how is it possible that political decisions are being made that result in 90% of the citizens being unhappy?
By examining the downfall of prominent civilizations throughout human history, similarities often arise. Three primary trends that stand out are: Societies spreading themselves too thin, the depletion of food and water resources by which a society sustains itself, and the creation of systems that are so intricate that intellectual disagreements and political gridlock prevent significant changes from being made, in order to course-correct and evolve with the times. By examining the current state of world affairs, it appears that dealing with the complicated geopolitical systems we’ve created is as large a problem now as it has ever been. How did we end up here?
The types of lifestyles we are able to lead in modern Western societies were influenced strongly by the developments of the first and second industrial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Up until that point, subsistence farming was the status quo. People were versatile creators who grew their own food, traded items, and led more simple lives. Education curriculums were much less thorough than they are today, as the most important lessons for students were mainly learning basic literacy skills and practical skills for survival. Many children were taught these skills by their mothers at home, or by governesses or private tutors if they were wealthy. Kids would grow up to learn how to run a small farm, or learn the family trade. Back then, global consciousness was not even a blip on the radar. In relative terms, it was not a very good time to be alive for people with independent thoughts. Merely speaking out against racism, sexism, or rigid religious rites and rituals could get you killed.
Then, starting in the 1760’s, a shift began to occur that created a major detour in the collective path of humanity. Machine tools and efficient water wheels took the world by storm. Steam engines led to the wide-scale use of coal, which still remains one of the largest sources of fuel used for electricity generation in our modern world over 250 years later. Iron production went through the roof, and combined with the steam engine, enabled the development of railways. Mechanized spinning of wool, linen and cotton increased worker outputs by factors of up to 1,000.
Prices for clothing, cooking utensils, and other household items became affordable for a much larger percentage of the working class. Improved roads and canals lowered transportation costs, making the purchase of food more affordable as well. Urbanization increased as people flocked toward dense population hubs, eager to work in one of the modern factories that were popping up.
Health and living conditions improved, as
public health acts were implemented around issues involving hygiene and sewage. The number of doctors and lawyers increased, and the greater amount of opportunities in general gave rise to the middle class. Per capita economic growth exceeded the wildest theoretical projections of all of the great minds of the previous era. For the first time ever, a form of upward social mobility became real. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith analyzed and created the intellectual framework that led to the development of free market economics; through which he predicted that nations could become handsomely wealthy. This was the birth of capitalism.
When we read a news article, and get fully immersed into all of the current economic, environmental and political turmoil, it is very easy to forget how far we’ve come as a species. By zooming out and observing human behavior through the lens of history, with the understanding that our collective goal is often self-preservation, all of the current issues we face begin to look much more logical. When we first started burning fossil fuels to power machines, it revolutionized our quality of life so significantly that it would have been unthinkable not to use them. If a rational person is given the option to use a tool that can complete a month long task in a few hours, why on earth wouldn’t they use it to make their own life easier?
As human beings, we often follow the path of least resistance unconsciously. Sometimes, we will wait for the elevator to go up one floor instead of taking the stairs, even though the stairs would be faster and better for our health. Additionally, when we’re not consciously paying attention, our default setting is to avoid change whenever possible. Think about the types of life events that are considered to be the most stressful: Moving, losing a job, a divorce, and the death of a loved one. What do all of these events have in common? They are all situations in which we are forced to change. At a deep level, our primal instincts tell us that change is bad, because change represents a journey into the unknown. For an entity that is primarily concerned with self-preservation, the unknown could mean suffering or death. Therefore, change could mean suffering or death, and so we will often unconsciously stay away from it whenever possible.
Here’s the problem: When we started creating the systems that were to run our lives centuries ago, we could not have known about the ultra long-term consequences of our actions. We could not have known that it was possible to burn so much fuel that it would lead to breathing problems from all of the toxins in the air. We could not have known that we would become so reliant upon all of the new technology that we would forget how to do basic survival tasks like growing our own food, making our own clothes, and building our own shelters. And we certainly could not have known that relying completely on an integrated worldwide financial system based upon fiat currencies could crash, causing widespread economic turmoil, The Great Depression, and food and housing shortages due to a growing imbalance in theoretical electronic numbers on a computer screen.
We’re now in a situation where we have the technology to solve our problems, we have a massive number of people who desire to solve our problems, but we just haven’t yet been able to figure out how to utilize all of those pesky numbers on the computer screen in a collaborative way to do so within the complex political systems we’ve created to govern our lives. This is the challenge of our era, and it is a challenge that I am one hundred percent certain we have the ability to solve.
It’s important for us to realize that all of these processes in their entirety represent the grand summation of all collective human activity in the name of self-preservation since the beginning of time. We are not perfect creatures, and we have often let egotism, vanity, fear, and unconsciousness control our decision-making processes. When we don’t have our basic survival needs met, or when we don’t feel that love and acceptance we seek, we can become downright conniving and become misguided in our search to get them. This is truly the only core reason why any of us ever chooses to perform an action that intentionally hurts another living being. By being able to see through this, we can begin to understand that our perceived enemies are not really out to get us personally, but instead are actually seeking to fill a void within themselves. This is a major clue in learning how to most effectively guide our efforts to create the change we seek, and we will discuss this in more depth later in this book.
Each of us was born into this world in a random circumstantial position that we did not necessarily choose, and we’ve all fought very hard to do whatever was necessary to preserve ourselves and our perceived identities. No matter if your skin color is black, white, brown, yellow, or red; no matter your gender; no matter if you’re rich, poor, or somewhere in between; no matter what country you grew up in; we are all equals, and we have all chosen to play our cards in the way we thought was best; using all of the best information we had at each particular moment in time. The great news is that with conscious effort, we are capable of improving all of the time. By the simple act of searching for ideas and other people to create a better world with, you are expanding your mind and evolving to a higher level of consciousness. As I write these words, thinking carefully about how they will impact you as you read them, and all of the actions that will radiate from this, I can feel myself ascending to a level higher than I’ve ever been before.
In a globalized, interconnected world in which economic and environmental factors in one region can have a giant influence on the other side of the planet, it becomes absolutely vital that we understand that we’re all on the same team here. Though it used to be a popular trend to primarily view the world through the lens of nationalistic pride, where everyone else was inferior, and it was considered acceptable to not care about how our actions impacted those who lived outside of our own little bubble, it has become obvious that this flawed way of thinking only comes back to hurt us all in the end.
Though we may not have decided to be born into this place and time, and we may not fully agree with the perspectives other have accumulated through their varied life experiences, our destinies have become intertwined now more than ever before, and our cooperation has become essential to the survival of our species. We need to be willing to do what’s uncomfortable, and break down the illusory psychological barriers that make us think that we are different from one another. In the same manner that developing a bad habit early in life can create poor results when repeated thousands of times (even though we may not have known it was bad when we started it), we as a species need to reexamine many of our collective habits in order to shift into a more harmonious and sustainable way of existence. At the core, we all really want the same essential things out of life, and it is completely possible for us all to get what we need -- if we are willing to face the monumental challenge of leaving the past behind, wiping the slate clean, and learning how to work together.
Though we may not be able to become best friends with everyone, and we may still get upset at others’ philosophical positions at times, we can still try our absolute best to learn how to understand and respect them in order to make progress and rise above. We cannot wait for them to first try to respect and understand us, because then they will do the same thing, and no improvements will be made. We must take the lead and do it first. This one practice of dropping judgmental labels and empathizing with those who seem different than us might just be the most important one for all of us to get better at. It’s time to become global citizens, and think through the lens of the world outside of our imaginary borders, where every life is sacred.
4
When Systems Go Bad
(The White Shoes Theory)
There are three minutes and twenty four seconds left in the fourth quarter. It’s third down. Peyton Manning, widely considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, is in the process of driving his favored Indianapolis Colts down the field for the potential game-tying touchdown in Super Bowl XLIV.
Manning stands back in the shotgun formation, and running back Joseph Addai stands nearby to his right. On the other side of the line, the New Orleans Saints are showing
a heavy blitz package. Manning sends wide receiver Austin Collie in motion, and signals to the center to snap the football. Six Saints defenders immediately charge right at him, ready to drive him into the ground. Colts wide receiver Reggie Wayne runs straight ahead, directly towards Saints cornerback Tracy Porter. Porter senses that he has seen this configuration before. Within 1.9 seconds, Manning looks to his left, and prepares to fire a pass towards Wayne; at the exact synchronistic moment that Wayne has begun slowing his pace to turn around at the first down marker. Porter is not fooled.
As soon as Manning cocks his arm back to throw, Porter knows exactly what is about to happen. He sprints forward to step in front of the receiver, and snags the pass out of the air for an interception. As the crowd comes alive with a deafening roar, Porter is running in full stride with several blockers up ahead of him. All that stands between him and eternal Super Bowl glory are Manning and one big offensive lineman, who are no match for his blazing (4.37 second 40 yard dash) speed. He follows his blockers past the last two Colts, and high steps into the endzone; joined immediately by teammates hugging and celebrating wildly. With a two touchdown lead, the game is essentially over. For the first time in history, the Saints are Super Bowl champions.
In postgame interviews, Porter was asked to discuss the play that every serious NFL fan will likely remember for the rest of their lives. He told reporters that he knew exactly what was about to happen due to his extensive film study of the Colts’ season during the week leading up to the big game. Porter observed Manning’s tendencies, and noticed that the Colts loved running that exact same play over and over again to convert on third downs. Even though the mighty Peyton Manning was given free reign by his coaches to call his own plays at the line, and was one of the hardest players to stop, Porter used his fluent knowledge of the Colts’ system to his advantage, and was able to fully exploit a major weakness at the most critical time in order to cause their system to fail.
It's All My Fault: How I Messed Up the World, and Why I Need Your Help to Fix It Page 3