efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
These are thoughts I've been having for a while now, accompanied by an increasing sense of urgency which has transformed over the last week into genuine fear.
Perhaps this is just me being overly pessimistic but looking at the events in the Middle East and Europe I see a microcosm of what could possibly happen on a much greater scale in the coming decades.
Unprecedented droughts and crop failures, while certainly not the exclusive cause, did play a significant role in the events that lead up to the Syrian Civil War.
The general public's dissatisfaction over waves of mass migration into Europe has provided a platform for right wing extremists promoting xenophobia and nationalism. Now, self serving politicians, aided by a shockingly irresponsible media have managed to take advantage of the emotional state of an uninformed majority in order to bring about a period of financial instability and doubt in the UK that could last decades.
Looking at it from a distance, what shocks me most of all is how much of the current situation is a result of either ignorance, negligence or downright malicious intent of certain parties. Going further back in time to the events that preceded the Syrian Civil War (the invasion of Iraq, the formation of ISIS etc) it becomes even more clear that an intelligent and future-minded western leadership could have done a far better job at managing these crises.
Given that, according to predictions, local food and water shortages are expected to become a much bigger issue as the global climate continues to destabilize, and given that there has been an observed correlation between periods of unstable climate and periods of great social upheaval, it seems almost certain that what we're seeing in the middle east and europe is just the tip of the iceberg.
Global climate change brings with it a great amount of uncertainty, but what frightens me even more is the uncertainty added on top of it by irrational or short-sighted human behavior. The need for fundamental change on a technological level has been clear, in terms of investment in alternative forms of energy production, invention of more robust agricultural crops and methods, improved capabilities in the areas of waterfood production, storage and distribution etc.
What has been far less clear is whether or not fundamental changes also need to be made in our current socio-political and economic structures, including the role of experts in government, the importance of long term political decision making, communication between government and the people, and the influence of the media on education, in order to create much better checks and balances for the future.
In my opinion, we should start looking at these human factors as sources of equal potential harm as the environmental factors, and accordingly begin to seriously explore the idea of laying down groundwork to assist the decision making process of countries and global communities, in the hopes that in the future we may become far more adaptable and responsible as a whole.
What say you GAF? Does anyone else share some of the dread I feel when looking at recent events? What do you believe can and should be done to help prepare our society for the dangerous future that awaits us? Is there a more pluralist alternative to what I am suggesting? If not, what precautions do you suggest be taken to prevent this road from leading to totalitarianism? Should we just accept that we're completely fucked?
tl;dr
What I am hoping for in this thread is a discussion about hypothetical changes to the current democratic system in order to make it more resilient against ignorance. Classically, the main three branches have been legislative, executive and judicial and I was interested in hearing ideas about how we could introduce a fourth branch (educational). Any other ideas about how to "fix" the current system are also more than welcome.
Perhaps this is just me being overly pessimistic but looking at the events in the Middle East and Europe I see a microcosm of what could possibly happen on a much greater scale in the coming decades.
Unprecedented droughts and crop failures, while certainly not the exclusive cause, did play a significant role in the events that lead up to the Syrian Civil War.
The general public's dissatisfaction over waves of mass migration into Europe has provided a platform for right wing extremists promoting xenophobia and nationalism. Now, self serving politicians, aided by a shockingly irresponsible media have managed to take advantage of the emotional state of an uninformed majority in order to bring about a period of financial instability and doubt in the UK that could last decades.
Looking at it from a distance, what shocks me most of all is how much of the current situation is a result of either ignorance, negligence or downright malicious intent of certain parties. Going further back in time to the events that preceded the Syrian Civil War (the invasion of Iraq, the formation of ISIS etc) it becomes even more clear that an intelligent and future-minded western leadership could have done a far better job at managing these crises.
Given that, according to predictions, local food and water shortages are expected to become a much bigger issue as the global climate continues to destabilize, and given that there has been an observed correlation between periods of unstable climate and periods of great social upheaval, it seems almost certain that what we're seeing in the middle east and europe is just the tip of the iceberg.
Global climate change brings with it a great amount of uncertainty, but what frightens me even more is the uncertainty added on top of it by irrational or short-sighted human behavior. The need for fundamental change on a technological level has been clear, in terms of investment in alternative forms of energy production, invention of more robust agricultural crops and methods, improved capabilities in the areas of waterfood production, storage and distribution etc.
What has been far less clear is whether or not fundamental changes also need to be made in our current socio-political and economic structures, including the role of experts in government, the importance of long term political decision making, communication between government and the people, and the influence of the media on education, in order to create much better checks and balances for the future.
In my opinion, we should start looking at these human factors as sources of equal potential harm as the environmental factors, and accordingly begin to seriously explore the idea of laying down groundwork to assist the decision making process of countries and global communities, in the hopes that in the future we may become far more adaptable and responsible as a whole.
What say you GAF? Does anyone else share some of the dread I feel when looking at recent events? What do you believe can and should be done to help prepare our society for the dangerous future that awaits us? Is there a more pluralist alternative to what I am suggesting? If not, what precautions do you suggest be taken to prevent this road from leading to totalitarianism? Should we just accept that we're completely fucked?
tl;dr
What I am hoping for in this thread is a discussion about hypothetical changes to the current democratic system in order to make it more resilient against ignorance. Classically, the main three branches have been legislative, executive and judicial and I was interested in hearing ideas about how we could introduce a fourth branch (educational). Any other ideas about how to "fix" the current system are also more than welcome.
