Interactions
Are things worse then they were in the past?
Most people are inclined to agree. People point out the Global War on Terror, global warming, global dimming, the decline of the West, the ascendence of Eastern non-democracies, the extinction of species, the rise in human population, on and on. Lots of problems, with no foreseeable solutions.
So what is my answer to the question? I think things are definitely better, partially because so many people are worried about all the problems above.
Think about the last century, and all the problems faced during each decade. Think about the problems people tried to fix, then think about how we are today. You will find that most of the problems we face now are directly caused by the solution of the problems of previous generations.
Why are we having population problems? Well, because we got better at feeding ourselves, and protecting ourselves from disease, among other things. What about global warming and dimming? That is a reflection of our increased ability to defeat the ravages of climate, and the reduction of time and space in the delivery of goods, services, information, and ourselves between each other by advances in our ability to harness energy. What about the new rage of terrorism? This came about because we decided not to blow up the world during the Cold War, and freed the world from the grip of the two superpowers, which opened up new avenues to people whose radical ideas and opinions suddenly had new opportunities to express themselves violently.
What I am saying here is, we actually can and do solve the problems we often deem as insurmountable. In fact, history is full of such events. But the ones that get the most press are the utter failures, or as Jarod Diamond would say, collapses.
Here is an example of humanity recognizing a problem, and solving it in time. Remember the Y2K bug? Supposedly, enough of the world's computing infrastructure had the problem of only addressing year names with two digits (like 99 for 1999) and, because of this, at the turn on the century, lots of these computers were going to fail, because the logic in the programs running the systems couldn't handle it. When the day came, there were only sporadic problems, and most chalked it up as a false alarm.
But it wasn't a false alarm. What happened was that businesses and government agencies worldwide began requiring their vendors to be "Y2K_Compliant." Where I worked, we spent lots of money revamping and updating our systems so that we wouldn't lose customers. This occurred all over, as companies in one country required it from vendors from other countries, and the wave quickly destroyed the threat before it had a chance to come into effect. All for the price of a few new computers, and some software upgrades.
At my work, there was one computer left in house that was not Y2K compliant, and we had it phased out before 1/1/2000. We left it on to see what would actually happen. When we came back in after the holiday, it was deader than a doornail.
Lessons from this? We humans saw the problem, we openly discussed the problem, we worked as independent groups to solve the problem, and we required those who were linked to us to work on the problem too. And the problem was solved.
Do you see from this how we may develop easy-to-achieve strategies for solving all the other problems we face today? Do you see how, in history, successful cultures solved crises that killed other cultures?
Most people are inclined to agree. People point out the Global War on Terror, global warming, global dimming, the decline of the West, the ascendence of Eastern non-democracies, the extinction of species, the rise in human population, on and on. Lots of problems, with no foreseeable solutions.
So what is my answer to the question? I think things are definitely better, partially because so many people are worried about all the problems above.
Think about the last century, and all the problems faced during each decade. Think about the problems people tried to fix, then think about how we are today. You will find that most of the problems we face now are directly caused by the solution of the problems of previous generations.
Why are we having population problems? Well, because we got better at feeding ourselves, and protecting ourselves from disease, among other things. What about global warming and dimming? That is a reflection of our increased ability to defeat the ravages of climate, and the reduction of time and space in the delivery of goods, services, information, and ourselves between each other by advances in our ability to harness energy. What about the new rage of terrorism? This came about because we decided not to blow up the world during the Cold War, and freed the world from the grip of the two superpowers, which opened up new avenues to people whose radical ideas and opinions suddenly had new opportunities to express themselves violently.
What I am saying here is, we actually can and do solve the problems we often deem as insurmountable. In fact, history is full of such events. But the ones that get the most press are the utter failures, or as Jarod Diamond would say, collapses.
Here is an example of humanity recognizing a problem, and solving it in time. Remember the Y2K bug? Supposedly, enough of the world's computing infrastructure had the problem of only addressing year names with two digits (like 99 for 1999) and, because of this, at the turn on the century, lots of these computers were going to fail, because the logic in the programs running the systems couldn't handle it. When the day came, there were only sporadic problems, and most chalked it up as a false alarm.
But it wasn't a false alarm. What happened was that businesses and government agencies worldwide began requiring their vendors to be "Y2K_Compliant." Where I worked, we spent lots of money revamping and updating our systems so that we wouldn't lose customers. This occurred all over, as companies in one country required it from vendors from other countries, and the wave quickly destroyed the threat before it had a chance to come into effect. All for the price of a few new computers, and some software upgrades.
At my work, there was one computer left in house that was not Y2K compliant, and we had it phased out before 1/1/2000. We left it on to see what would actually happen. When we came back in after the holiday, it was deader than a doornail.
Lessons from this? We humans saw the problem, we openly discussed the problem, we worked as independent groups to solve the problem, and we required those who were linked to us to work on the problem too. And the problem was solved.
Do you see from this how we may develop easy-to-achieve strategies for solving all the other problems we face today? Do you see how, in history, successful cultures solved crises that killed other cultures?
posted by gemillam at
2:19 AM
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