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INTRODUCTION
Some
of the world’s problems impact you directly. Others you only hear about in the news. But what are the underlying problems?
And what are some lasting solutions?
This is a candid message about underlying problems and lasting solutions. It's written in simple English
and was first published in 2004. Since then, it's proven to be very accurate.
If
anything isn't true, please contact me — and I will correct it. If you like the solutions, please
share them. Public dialogue is the first step in moving forward.
Solutions
self-improvement
wisely spend money
improve democracy
Problems
ignorance
overpopulation
corporate greed
war
These problems won't go away on their own.
And in many places they’re getting worse, especially with globalization. So let's better understand the problems
— and let's look at some lasting solutions.
How bad will things have to get before you
take healthy action?
SOLUTIONS
First and most importantly, use only legal and peaceful ways
to improve things.
Practice the Golden Rule.
WISELY
SPEND MONEY Don’t spend your money on things that harm you or others. If you don’t like businesses and governments
that harm people, don’t buy from them or invest in them.
Spend tax money more effectively. Spend more on education, communication and transportation.
Make all kinds of education free
— or at very low cost — for all. At the very least, make 16 years of free, basic education available to people
around the world. If there isn’t enough money for this, give women this basic education before men, because mothers
are the first teachers of children.
Make access to the Internet free — or at very low cost — for all.
Make traveling and exchanging thoughts faster and
less expensive. Transportation and communication should be more affordable and available to all.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT The world has
many problems. And many of them are getting worse. We can solve some of them by doing things like improving democracy. Doing
things like this will be much more successful when we also improve ourselves — because societies and governments are
made of individuals.
The simple truth is that improving yourself and our world begins with your thoughts.
The power of thought is very great, and there are effective ways to use it — such as by making and using affirmations.
IMPROVE DEMOCRACY Continuously conduct new experiments with democracy. Invent better ways to choose government officials. And
see which ones work best. First try them in a few cities. Then try the best of these at higher levels of government. Residents
of places trying the new ways can vote on the results, with their vote becoming public record.
In today’s democracies, people use only voting to choose
their officials. This leaves democracy wide open to corruption by extreme wealth and influence by mass media. In the
first democracies, people used mainly lotteries as the best way to protect democracy from corruption.
PROBLEMS
IGNORANCE
More
than 80% of adults in the world can read. But many are ignorant. They don't use their freedoms to question, reason,
invent, speak out, think for themselves, and act on their own healthy ideas to make things better. Some are so ignorant they
harm themselves and others.
Some leaders want people to be ignorant, so they can gain more money and power. At
times, some religious groups, schools, and families want people to be ignorant — so they are submissive. They fool
people into doing the following: giving unearned trust, being afraid, being weak inside, being filled with false pride, and
blindly obeying.
We must pay to fix problems made by the ignorant. We pay with taxes, and we pay in other ways.
When enough are ignorant, it’s easy for others to take away an entire society's freedoms. Many are still
learning that societies can’t be ignorant and free at the same time.
When people are free from ignorance,
they make their sense of right and wrong stronger — and they govern themselves better. They make their lives better.
And society needs fewer government workers to help them, and to make and enforce laws.
Solutions
Self-improvement.
Effectively use the power of thought.
Wisely spend money. Spend more tax money on education and Internet
access for all.
OVERPOPULATION Overpopulation happens when a population exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment. The number of
people in poor countries is growing the fastest. And in most countries, the poor are having more children than any other group.
Many of them have more children than they're able to care for.
As populations grow, and as more people in
industrializing countries can afford to consume more, earth's limited resources are consumed faster. China and India are
industrializing, and they have more than one third of the world’s population. In industrialized countries, many can
still afford lifestyles that consume at very high rates. As resources are consumed, it gets more difficult and expensive to
find and take what remains.
As overpopulation worsens, the following things happen around the world. Wages remain
low. Prices rise for almost everything. In countries losing jobs to places paying lower wages, unemployment increases, more
lose their homes and go bankrupt, and more fall into poverty. Taxes rise to make up for lost income tax, property tax and
business tax.
As poverty grows in rich and poor countries, more go hungry. More get ill and spread disease. More
abuse alcohol and drugs. More commit crimes, and crimes become more violent. People with assets spend more protecting themselves
and their property. More lose respect for laws and police. Public protests grow and become violent. The gap between rich and
everyone else becomes more visible. Taxes increase as the number of poor needing help grows, as public services get overloaded,
as more tax breaks are used to attract businesses for jobs, and as government operating costs increase. There's more war
and border fighting over resources, which usually enlists the poor and distracts the rest.
Solutions Have accountability. Keep religions, cultures and governments accountable for approving and promoting overpopulation.
Wisely spend money
- Boycott products made in countries with the
fastest growing populations. You will likely pay more for products made elsewhere. So, people on limited budgets should
be willing to consume less.
- Spend more tax money on education for all; some overpopulation is due to ignorance.
Reform democracies to enable the passage of laws to: - reduce trade with overpopulated countries until they reduce their birth rates. - have a global
minimum wage of $5 per hour for people employed by companies based in nations having an equal or greater minimum wage —
to discourage companies from moving jobs to overpopulated countries with lower wages. As a result, prices of goods and
services will rise. So, people on limited budgets should be willing to consume less.
CORPORATE GREED
People need healthy concern about themselves
to survive. Having too much of this is greed. Having too much of anything usually harms the person having it, and it harms
others.
Since the early 1900s, ignorance, weak governments, and inventions enabled corporate greed to grow —
from city to world levels. It harms more people and things every day. In a selfish and often reckless
way, it makes as much money as fast as it can. And it makes the following lasting problems as it does this. It consumes earth’s
resources without having things to replace them. It uses them in ways that pollute and, water, and air. It treats animals
with cruelty. It makes unsafe working conditions. And in some places, it treats people worse than animals. It starts wars
and mass murders. It sells weapons to dangerous rulers and groups. And it uses money and mass media to take away people’s
power to govern and protect themselves.
Solutions
Wisely spend money. Boycott the greediest
corporations.
Reform democracies to enable the passage of laws to require corporations to rewrite
priorities in their corporate charters, so that the public interest is placed ahead of profit — as it was
in the first charters made in the 1800s.
WAR Today there are wars over oil. Next there may be war over clean water and farm land. And as the gap between
rich and poor widens, there may be outright class war within nations. Currently, a low grade "class war" is starting
in some nations, with increasing crime by some of the poor against people with assets. Some wars are
needed. For example, World War II was needed to stop mass murder and the violent spread of fascism. But many wars are fought
to make a few people richer and more powerful. Each year, governments of the world spend a total of more than $1.3
trillion on military forces. Many say they must spend so much because they must prepare to fight each other. But at the same
time, they do much business with each other. Most governments get their military money by taxing and borrowing. Some also
get it by stealing resources from other countries as well as selling weapons and illegal drugs. In wars
during the past two centuries, more than 100 million people died and hundreds of millions more were hurt and impoverished.
In every war, the many pay and the few profit.
Solutions Reform
democracies to enable people to have a greater voice in preventing illegal wars.
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