Posts Tagged ‘optimism’
A Question about World Peace
Sunday, July 18th, 2021World Peace Still Entirely Possible
Monday, August 4th, 2014World peace isn’t just possible, it is highly probable. And we could see it come to fruition within the next decade.
Even after many years since I came to the conclusion that world peace can actually happen right now, I still haven’t been dissuaded one bit.
Here’s why:
1 – Technology is getting better and cheaper faster than ever before. This will help eliminate global poverty, which will greatly decrease the drives to war.
2 – With this technology comes the Internet, and this is letting a global world connect on a local level, something never before possible. As we unite as a species, we see there are no enemies left for our armies to fight.
3 – This unification will also reveal the mostly unspoken truth behind wars, which is that a handle of companies are making billions of dollars a year on this bloodshed. Once we work together on a multi-national level, we can hold the defense industry accountable to us – the world’s people.
The goal is to take the financial incentives out of war, and it starts with the arms industry itself. We can implement 100% taxes on the profits of weapons manufacturing. We can issue fines and demand repayments for death and suffering cause by defense contractors’ products. We can sue and win huge settlements in class action suits against the key corporations involved in equipping the world’s militaries.
The idea of taxing, fining, or even suing the biggest industry on earth may seem absurd, but that’s only because we haven’t tried it yet. And why the hell shouldn’t some businesses be held accountable. We don’t need their weapons of war in our world anymore!
Once hundreds of millions of people around the world see it as possible, we will have the leverage to make it happen. The trick will be to reach these hundreds of millions of people in time.
The Internet: Ending War and Poverty One Mind at a Time
Wednesday, March 19th, 2014Wars and wealth inequality are both social constructs. They exist and persist because we are used to them. We accept them as normal, and can even believe them to be everlasting – an extension of the animal nature of humanity’s greed and violence.
But every single human on earth would be better off if they didn’t have to worry about war or have to contribute to the billions spent every year on armed conflict. And almost every single person on this planet would be experience a higher quality of life if humankind’s wealth were distributed more equitably.
So it’s not a matter of peace and prosperity being an impossibility – because once we have those things we will only wonder why we waited so long to make them happen. Instead, it’s a matter of getting from our old world and our old-world mindset into the new future that awaits.
We will see that wars are being manufactured by for-profit entities and we can stop them as soon as we choose to. We will see that wealth disparity persists because we haven’t yet done anything about it. We will see that we’ve had the power to fix our world all along, and that all it took is for enough of us to coordinate and mobilize on a global scale.
And there is no better tool for this than the Internet. Our glorious Internet, as long as it remains free from censorship and government overreach, will keep connecting and informing us. Within the coming few years, enough of us see and believe that change is not only possible, it is inevitable. And as we speak out in unison with the power of billions of people, our dreams of peace and ending poverty will be real.
More Hope Than Ever
Friday, January 17th, 2014When I first started crafting this blog and producing videos, it was because of a deep rooted obligation I felt. The system was broken and there were ways to fix it. If only more people saw what I saw, then the world would actually get better.
Now, things have changed.
I don’t know if it’s that people have awakened, or that they have always been there, feeling disconnected and isolated like I was. But now I see there are millions upon millions of people just like you and me everywhere around us – people who see the grotesque flaws of an establishment that can actively perpetuate such injustice and inequality for the sole purpose of keeping control in the hands of a tiny group of insatiable people – and know that we can clearly do better than this!
If only the world’s electoral systems weren’t such utter shit. As democracy stands today – voting alone would never be enough to generate the change we need. Fortunately, that’s not our only political channel any more, thanks to the Internet.
The key is transparency. Putting it all up on the web in an easy to understand format. Budgets – let us track every single tax dollar coming in and going out. Cameras – put them on cops and soldiers while they work so we can judge what they do in our name. Politicians – put their private lives in the public, and hold them accountable to the masses, not the money.
Just imagine what would happen if the powers of the NSA were put under control of the public, and all that spying ability was used to keep our billionaires and top leaders in check. Finally, the system would work for us!
We already have the tools for this happen, it is just a matter of applying them correctly. It’s really not that much to ask, and it is the direction we are heading. By continually leveraging our numbers and voices through an unfettered internet against the established powers of old wealth and big business, we will shape the world and our future to where it ought to be.
So that’s why I am so optimistic. More than ever before. We are on the cusp of what could be the most remarkable transformation our species has ever undertaken – a mass redistribution of wealth and power culminating in a world of peace – and we draw closer with every new day.
LifeBox : a 3D printed basic provider of life
Sunday, May 12th, 2013If you are looking for a great reason to feel optimistic – another truly legitimate rationale for believing our world is undergoing remarkable and rapid transformations for the better – then consider the LifeBox.
The LifeBox is a deployable mini-building that provides the basic necessities of modern life: water, food, electricity, internet and a 3D printer. This single self-contained building, the size of a garden shed, can sustain and improve the lives of everyone nearby.
LifeBox uses both wind and solar energy to drive the entire unit along with public power outlets. Inside an atmospheric extractor and purifier creates several gallons of drinking water a day. As well, tanks housed within automated greenhouses grow Spirulina, a protein-rich, highly nutritious whole food. Of course, the entire unit doubles as a wifi-hotspot, connecting to the Internet as well as all nearby LifeBoxes.
The best part of the LifeBox concept is how the entire life-saving building can be constructed using nothing but local materials and a 3D printer, anywhere in the world. All it takes are the plans (which get updated from free sites on the web), access to a 3D printer, and the gumption to build your own.
Just imagine the impacts on global poverty and instability when, on every street corner in the worst slums or in even the most remote, despondent villages, these seemingly magic boxes – day in and day out – churn out the tools needed by those on the bottom rung to rise out of their dire circumstances.
This is exactly what our world craves! So much of the world’s conflict stems from societies living in desperate conditions, where people are at risk of starving to death every day. This desperation fuels the feelings that lead to violence, and it breeds the soldiers to carry it out.
When we could create a world where every single human has access to the most basic means of life – which will exist when everyone can get the things provided by a LifeBox, then we are set to see a world where wars get exposed as the unnecessary and unwanted travesty that they are. Peace can finally take hold of our world.
All the pieces are falling into place. Affordable, consumer-level 3D-printers are already on the market and producing incredible objects. Solar and wind generators are getting cheaper by the day. The Internet is forever expanding. And the need for a LifeBox on every corner is as urgent as ever.
The end goal is in sight. How long it takes to get the basic necessities of life to each person on earth really depends on us. 5 years? 10 years? If we pushed hard it could happen. But no matter what, the day when every single human can get access to what’s in a LifeBox is clearly within our future.
Bill Maher Speaks Out Against War Machine
Sunday, April 14th, 2013Hooray! A prominent voice from the US mainstream media finally spoke out against their Military Industrial Complex. And it was none other than the illustrious Bill Maher, someone who I once disparaged on this very blog.
Maher pleaded with the American people to do some well needed self-reflection on their own warmongering. After two centuries of perpetual war, it’s time Americans realized “We’re the gun country. Come on, we’re the war people.”
After breaking down the history and concluding the problem lies with America itself, Maher went on to say “America needs to start defining peace as strength. Do you know who the role model for every president should be? Jimmy Carter. He was the one out of all of them who figured out how to sit in office for four years and never fire a shot. And every president’s negative example,” he concluded, “should be Dick Cheney, who even shot his friends in the face.”
I cannot express how thrilled I was to hear these words on an influential US show. When a population of 313 million people – most of whom are surrounded by strife and a crumbling infrastructure – look to their sputtering economy, more and more people need to actively point out the giant elephant in the room.
Right now, America’s military industrial complex devours half of its government’s spending. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see that drastic cuts in military spending would likely yield equally drastic improvements for American families across the land.
But, for the most part, politicians and mainstream media sources remain chillingly silent. This is, as you may well know, due to the entrenched talons of the Military Industrial Complex itself. With billions of dollars to throw around, the war machine can buy both political parties and align all the major news channels, effectively keeping enough anti-war rhetoric from the ears (and off the lips) of the American public.
So, as with all great movements, the struggle to rid our world of war falls on the shoulders of those outside the established seats of power. While it’s great when the Bill Maher’s and John Stewart’s of the world finally vocalize some anti-war sentiments, until there are millions and millions of us doing this every single day, the war machine will keep on rolling.
Fortunately, uniting against war is exactly what we are doing. All it will take is the right spark, the right catalyst, and a Occupy-esque movement can rise against the Military Industrial Complex, and the struggle towards peace will become the latest trendy battle for the masses, maybe even earning the privilege of being trivialized by the mainstream media.
Epidemic of Silence
Sunday, March 31st, 2013Why does it seem like people in positions of power are too scared to speak their minds? Is it the same reason the vast majority of us don’t always stand up for what is right? There are these tremendous tasks ready to be accomplished, yet no one seizes the reigns. Reigns which are just waiting there idle, well within anyone and everyone’s willing grasp.
I speak to these blights on our world which, if we had our shit together as a species, would have been eradicated decades ago. Extreme poverty. Mass starvation. A behemoth industry that profits off the very war it creates. This faux-democracy perpetuated by businesses and their puppets within the political system.
We cannot afford to wait.
Especially when millions of lives are hanging in the balance daily, and the only ingredient missing is enough people willing to take action. We have the resources. We have the know how. But we don’t yet have the get-off-our-assedness enough to breach the threshold.
Take modern warfare, as an example. It is completely unnecessary It serves no purpose, other than charging entire nations billions of dollars to kill a high percentage of our fellow global citizens. We don’t need it in our world to survive. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of what our world needs. Yet war, as so often is the case, remains absent from mind and mouths of the mainstream media, politicians, and most importantly – we the people. We know it’s wrong but we haven’t risen to the occasion and stopped it.
And speaking of war, the war on drugs is a proven failure which – thanks to conservative governance – we continue to pursue with greater ferocity than ever. What the hell, people? It’s like in the movies where a boulder or car is barrelling down from behind, and our only inclination is to run faster in the same direction when a step to either side would see our problems end.
The evidence is overwhelming. Making drugs illegal has done nothing to stem the harm they can cause society. If, on the other hand, drug prohibition is a means to institutionalize racism, reinforce poverty, and bolster a militarized domestic police force, then the war on drugs has been a resounding success.
But I digress. My point is that all of these institutionalized mistakes can be readily fixed, if only enough of us were to speak our minds. Just look at Women’s rights and minority rights. It works for them. And right now LGBT rights are at the crux of their struggle for same rights on Facebook and elsewhere. Plus, marijuana legalization is making some great headway. All this happens because a big enough collective of people found ways to share their voice.
It’s not that these injustices went unnoticed for generations. It’s that we regular people have been too scared to campaign against them with enough determination to make change. Only now, when for years just a handful of brave souls would dare to make noise, does the majority hop on board and then make what’s right become integrated into society as a whole.
Still, we have yet to reign in the banks, gain way more accountability over global corporations, clean up the collusion and corruption in the news media, end the war on drugs and then dismantle the whole war machine for good. And… oh yea, I’m gonna need us to go ahead and end world hunger while offering every human, at the very least, the most basic necessities for life. That’d be great.
These goals are quite clear. The sooner we get them done, the better. So what the hell are we waiting for?
Doomsday Averted
Friday, December 21st, 2012So it appears we wily humans managed to skirt disaster once again. Truly fortunate, seeing as how existing – as opposed to not – is pretty sweet.
For thousands of years humans have been predicting the end of the world. And you know what? None of them ever come true.
Well, it is a fact that all those people did eventually die. But life itself always finds a way to go on.
So even though at any given moment the world and every single one of us could be wiped out of existence in a flash – a reality of being alive as we know it – this persistent potential demise needn’t be feared.
Instead, embrace the impermanence of life so that every second alive is one cherished as precious. This way you’ll be ensured of getting the most out of your time here.
The Spark Project
Sunday, November 11th, 2012In early 2013 a tool by The Spark Project will help concentrate people power into a force so powerful that it can counterbalance giant institutions like corporations and bad governments, even rivalling the biggest scourge of the earth – the military industrial complex.
The Spark Project was started 1 year ago by a group of Redditors who were inspired by the site’s amazing ability to filter through nonsense while bringing the best and brightest ideas to the top. They thought, ‘why not take this effective formula of crowdsourcing and use it to foster a true democracy?’. And so they did.
While still looking for funds and volunteers, the team have made tremendous headway and will likely release their tools early in 2013. Read more about the project at thespark.org.
It is tools like these which, once refined and widely adapted, can truly reshape the world. By channelling the voices of millions (and billions) of people into practical political clout, we’ll finally be able to enact real changes to the global establishment. We can finally make our world what we want it to be.
No more gross inequality where billionaires can hoard more for themselves while billions of people are left to starve. No more rampant exploitation of weaker nations by the more powerful in what is no less that modern-day slavery. No more politically or corporately organized armed conflict, meaning world peace will finally be upon us.
All this, and more, can and will be ours once we truly start working together as one people. Awesome!
Automated Greenhouses – Soon to be a Reality!
Friday, October 12th, 2012
Picture a greenhouse that continually produces food all by itself, with little to no human interaction. This autonomous mechanical marvel – built from low cost materials and powered by renewable energy – could truly mean a sustainable source of fresh food all year round.
Sound too good to be true? Well, it is right now. But not for much longer. Automated greenhouses are fast becoming a reality, and these seemingly magic structures will give humankind a permanent solution to world hunger.
Consider the Horto Domi project, which aims to take the labor out of running a garden at home. Their working prototype can regulate soil and atmosphere conditions, runs on the economical Arduino micro-computer, and can be monitored remotely via web App.
So it’s not yet a magical box. But over the coming years, teams will hash out the remaining pieces of the puzzle. Atmospheric water collectors will provide all the fresh water needed to irrigate the crops. Wind and solar will provide the necessary energy to heat and run the system. The structure itself will be built from some kind of abundant material, shaped into whatever form works best. And all that will be left is to figure out how to mechanize the entire crop cycle safely and effectively.
The implications of this will be astounding! No one will be starving anywhere on the planet. Incredible, right?
If you think about all the wars and chaos in our world, so much of it is rooted directly in poverty. People in desperate situations are willing to do desperate things. When no mouth goes hungry, when everyone’s needs are met, there won’t be this fundamental drive towards violent conflict.
Automated greenhouses – and the incredible boon they’ll offer- give us one more reason to believe that world peace is just around the corner.
