You write, "We’re now the greatest threat to our own survival."
This is a common way of defining the threat, but it is an imprecise articulation in need of updating.
"WE" are not the greatest threat to our own survival. VIOLENT MEN are the greatest threat to our survival. The primary threat arises from a well documented, easily identified, small percent of the human race. This is very useful information as it allows us to clearly identify the source of problem and aim solutions at a specific target. We don't need to change the entire human race, we need only to change a crucial small subset of the human race.
The primary obstacle in the way of achieving what might be called "world peace" is that we don't want world peace, and we lie to ourselves about that. We may wish for world peace in the vaguest possible manner, but at the moment that anyone proposes any plan which is ambitious enough to have any hope of solving the problem, we immediately shift all our intelligence and energy in to making arguments against that plan.
That is, we want a radically different situation that could avoid calamity and preserve the modern world, but we don't want to change the status quo in any meaningful way. Put more simply, we want world peace, but we don't want to pay for it.
What I've learned is that there's really no point in discussing any specific world peace proposal until we are willing to consciously accept that whatever an effective plan for dealing with violent men might be, we're not going to like it. If there was a world peace plan that was "reasonable" and "realistic" and capable of being widely accepted by the status quo, we'd already have world peace.
This may be almost the only topic really worth talking about because if we don't meet the challenge presented by violent men, everything else we may accomplish is likely to be sooner or later swept away in a tsunami of game over chaos.
A moving and insightful essay. Thank you. Enjoy your vacation!
You write, "We’re now the greatest threat to our own survival."
This is a common way of defining the threat, but it is an imprecise articulation in need of updating.
"WE" are not the greatest threat to our own survival. VIOLENT MEN are the greatest threat to our survival. The primary threat arises from a well documented, easily identified, small percent of the human race. This is very useful information as it allows us to clearly identify the source of problem and aim solutions at a specific target. We don't need to change the entire human race, we need only to change a crucial small subset of the human race.
The primary obstacle in the way of achieving what might be called "world peace" is that we don't want world peace, and we lie to ourselves about that. We may wish for world peace in the vaguest possible manner, but at the moment that anyone proposes any plan which is ambitious enough to have any hope of solving the problem, we immediately shift all our intelligence and energy in to making arguments against that plan.
That is, we want a radically different situation that could avoid calamity and preserve the modern world, but we don't want to change the status quo in any meaningful way. Put more simply, we want world peace, but we don't want to pay for it.
What I've learned is that there's really no point in discussing any specific world peace proposal until we are willing to consciously accept that whatever an effective plan for dealing with violent men might be, we're not going to like it. If there was a world peace plan that was "reasonable" and "realistic" and capable of being widely accepted by the status quo, we'd already have world peace.
This may be almost the only topic really worth talking about because if we don't meet the challenge presented by violent men, everything else we may accomplish is likely to be sooner or later swept away in a tsunami of game over chaos.
14 more pages on this topic here:
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/world-peace-table-of-contents