What The World Needs Now 🌎
Ideas on how we might begin creating the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible
Recently I sat down and did a bit of visioning about various projects on my radar that could begin building the more beautiful worlds that our hearts know is possible.
Navigating Life’s Complexity Thinktanks
As the world is becoming more and more complex, the need for tools and processes to help us navigate this chaos are more needed than ever. It seems like the world is becoming more and more difficult to navigate. The sheer amount of information being shared online every minute is a testament.
It seems to me that what the world needs at this particular point in time are groups of people collaborating in thinktank format on how we can better relate to the information age.
With the boom of AI this past year there’s ripe opportunity to learn how to utilize artificial intelligence to sort through the chaos of the internet and to engage with only that which is most important to us at any time. With tools like OpenAI (aka GPT-3) this has become a possibility for the average internet Joe. You no longer need to be an engineer or computer scientist to leverage the information processing power of AI.
On the other hand, these think tanks could provide the perfect space to explore the values that future technology should be built from.
“Instead of assuming technology is either good or bad by definition, technology should be understood as intrinsically value laden and value creating. All technologies are created with the actualization of certain values as a goal; they are embedded with values from the start.” — Daniel Schmactenberger
Some technologies seem to be corrosive to the soul. You know that shitty feeling that follows binge-scrolling twitter/tik tok/instagram? That feeling is an externality of the values that these social platforms have instilled in their platforms. The value of profit and growth at all costs and never-ending optimization to increase time on site. These apps were built to be as sticky as possible.
Understanding this, the next question becomes how can we instill better values into these tech platforms that have such a profound impact on our lives to ensure that they’re contributing to the more beautiful worlds our hearts know is possible? How could technology support the future evolution of humanity rather than deter it?
The world needs collaborative efforts engaged in reshaping technology to support the human spirit.
Create Quality of Life Societal Metrics
Our national metrics for healthy nations are pretty reductionistic. It’s GDP above all else. Which leads to growth, growth, growth all the way down, despite any of the negative effects this growth could have on the well-being of it’s citizens.
There must be better metrics to judge quality of life and the success of nations. What are the metrics that we use to judge whether our personal lives are successful? Can we scale better metrics up to larger collectives?
The Nordic countries seem to be ahead of us Americans on this front.
“No matter whether we look at the state of democracy and political rights, lack of corruption, trust between citizens, felt safety, social cohesion, gender equality, equal distribution of incomes, Human Development Index, or many other global comparisons, one tends to find the Nordic countries in the global top spots.” — World Happiness Report
Architecting Environments for Human Flourishing
Lastly, we need more aesthetically awe-inspiring common spaces. Looking back in History we see magnificent examples of cathedrals and insanely beautiful architecture. Fast forward to today and we’re surrounded by concrete jungles with not much more than basic cube and rectangular buildings. Where is the beauty in that?
“We shape our buildings and afterward our buildings shape us.” — Winston Churchill
It’s no doubt that our worlds shape us in profound ways. Our family dynamics, the particular milieu we grew up in, social media, smartphones, and physical locations all shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us.
If you don’t believe then just take a look at how social bonds were formed in the 1980s vs. 2020s. Contrary to earlier decades, the line between IRL friendships and digital friendships is growing finer and finer. Now, things you say in the digital can profoundly change your social bonds in the real world and vice versa. Smartphones are the primary means of communication (to the disgust of many older generations), yet this is the changing world context that we find ourselves in.
We can shrink away and fall into cynicism at all the atrocities happening in the world or we can begin architecting more optimal digital-IRL mixed environments that support human flourishing.
Furthermore, I imagine there’s going to be some massive disruptions in the ways that people live in the coming decades. When you had to work in an office and all the offices were located in downtown cities these became the places to be. Now digital work is increasingly accessible and the necessity to live in expensive cities is waning.
On a more fundamental level the inquiry is
❓ How do we incorporate art into more aspects of our lives? ❓
Furthering the Religion 2.0 spiel, I believe it’s possible to transform our living and working spaces to be just as sacred as the cathedrals and temples are.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading :) Ultimately I choose to write because I feel that it’s a protest against nihilism. I’m driven to work with and reshape the narratives of our culture to elicit meaning, purpose and sovereignty in a world where the meta-crisis is taking a toll on us all.
P.S: The title of this piece was inspired by the Will Young song What The World Needs Now Is Love
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