The Way I See It - The Elephant in the Room
The Way I See It - The Elephant in the Room
Healthcare and other socio-political dueling monologues are beginning to wear thin. Not because the topics aren’t worthy of our consideration. Far from it. What is discouraging is how
Healthcare and other socio-political dueling monologues are beginning to wear thin. Not because the topics aren’t worthy of our consideration. Far from it. What is discouraging is how demeaning our collective words and actions have become toward those who hold differing opinions; an amazing self attack! Most of us agree potentially significant changes and transformations are swirling about us. Often, we seem to be in the midst of a glut of information, although not necessarily facts. Simultaneously, the significance and meaning of that information is held hostage by opinion, and economic and political power. I, frankly, flounder trying to follow the differing threads put forth in the media. What is fact? Are all the facts presented? Is opinion more important than fact? My daily information flow is clogged with questions: how many channels to watch, how many (disappearing) newspapers to read, how many blogs to follow, and how to cut through to the nuggets of truth.
And while we are focused so intently on our national concerns, there is a good chance we are ignoring the most important fact of our time. We know there have been important downward shifts in regional and world population throughout history. These downward shifts were due in part to plagues and pestilence, and there were dire social, cultural and economic consequences as a result. We, however, are seeing just the opposite: an explosive growth in world population. The world has never seen such growth, and one of the amazing aspects is it seems to really have accelerated after World War II, mostly during our lifetime. I would wager a large part of the world’s current economic and political theories and practices were developed prior to 1950. I wonder if any of them are really adaptable enough to handle a 4-fold increase of population in 100 years. Perhaps the prophesied apocalypse will be like the proverbial teenager’s chomping sounds as we eat ourselves out of house and home. Where will the fresh water and arable land to feed the next 3 billion souls (in just 40 more years) come from? How will we maintain a healthy and balanced planet?
I think there is another problem we have to deal with as well. In this country, and I suspect elsewhere, the integrity of those we choose to be our leaders seems to be slipping away. Our confidence in them, and government in general, is slipping away as well. And we have it good here. There are many countries where governments rule with guns or other forms of power, and those entrenched power structures are difficult, if not impossible, to remove. There may still be some countries where citizens envision the government serves rather than rules. But as the world population continues to grow, and the complex tug and pull for increasingly scarce resources continues, expect to see “rule” prevail over “service.”
It is possible for us to be more aware. It is interesting the explosion in population has paralleled the expansion of communication and computing. They are possibly related. Since the 1950s, our electronics revolution has aided the dispersal of information and knowledge about health care and farming practices around the world. We have also seen a revolution in productivity, driven by technology, that has spread widely as well. This increase in food supply, decrease in disease, and increase in production are likely to have made the population growth possible. At the same time, we now have an increased knowledge of what is happening in our world, if not why. But what we need are new models and systems to protect our access while we meaningfully and accurately process that information. The organizations, governments, and other institutions that control the collection, access and interpretation of this information and knowledge will control the future, to our detriment. We already see how this works with China’s internal control of their internet. Expect more countries to follow suit, especially where disaffection with government grows and crises, real or imagined, develop.
We do have choices. While we struggle with important but local (i.e. national) issues such as healthcare, are we not called on to face these large-scale issues of historical magnitude we are ignoring: world population growth, the growth of government control in a resource-depleted world, and the control of ideas and information? Any one of these issues would be bad enough, but we seem to be headed for all three occurring together. For the first time in history, we are capable of viewing events simultaneously around the world in real time. It is up to us to make sure that access continues. Our personal choice is to bring more awareness to these issues; either that, or ignore them. In this country at least, we can still create dialogs that are important to us.
And while we are focused so intently on our national concerns, there is a good chance we are ignoring the most important fact of our time. We know there have been important downward shifts in regional and world population throughout history. These downward shifts were due in part to plagues and pestilence, and there were dire social, cultural and economic consequences as a result. We, however, are seeing just the opposite: an explosive growth in world population. The world has never seen such growth, and one of the amazing aspects is it seems to really have accelerated after World War II, mostly during our lifetime. I would wager a large part of the world’s current economic and political theories and practices were developed prior to 1950. I wonder if any of them are really adaptable enough to handle a 4-fold increase of population in 100 years. Perhaps the prophesied apocalypse will be like the proverbial teenager’s chomping sounds as we eat ourselves out of house and home. Where will the fresh water and arable land to feed the next 3 billion souls (in just 40 more years) come from? How will we maintain a healthy and balanced planet?
I think there is another problem we have to deal with as well. In this country, and I suspect elsewhere, the integrity of those we choose to be our leaders seems to be slipping away. Our confidence in them, and government in general, is slipping away as well. And we have it good here. There are many countries where governments rule with guns or other forms of power, and those entrenched power structures are difficult, if not impossible, to remove. There may still be some countries where citizens envision the government serves rather than rules. But as the world population continues to grow, and the complex tug and pull for increasingly scarce resources continues, expect to see “rule” prevail over “service.”
It is possible for us to be more aware. It is interesting the explosion in population has paralleled the expansion of communication and computing. They are possibly related. Since the 1950s, our electronics revolution has aided the dispersal of information and knowledge about health care and farming practices around the world. We have also seen a revolution in productivity, driven by technology, that has spread widely as well. This increase in food supply, decrease in disease, and increase in production are likely to have made the population growth possible. At the same time, we now have an increased knowledge of what is happening in our world, if not why. But what we need are new models and systems to protect our access while we meaningfully and accurately process that information. The organizations, governments, and other institutions that control the collection, access and interpretation of this information and knowledge will control the future, to our detriment. We already see how this works with China’s internal control of their internet. Expect more countries to follow suit, especially where disaffection with government grows and crises, real or imagined, develop.
We do have choices. While we struggle with important but local (i.e. national) issues such as healthcare, are we not called on to face these large-scale issues of historical magnitude we are ignoring: world population growth, the growth of government control in a resource-depleted world, and the control of ideas and information? Any one of these issues would be bad enough, but we seem to be headed for all three occurring together. For the first time in history, we are capable of viewing events simultaneously around the world in real time. It is up to us to make sure that access continues. Our personal choice is to bring more awareness to these issues; either that, or ignore them. In this country at least, we can still create dialogs that are important to us.
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