The West is in trouble. Trillions of dollars of debt. Polarised politics. Unimaginable wealth disparity. War in Europe. Uncontrollable illegal immigration. Riots on the streets.
And now the greatest threat of all is emerging: the vast power of artificial general super intelligence, which will fall into either the hands of the West or China, giving one unfathomable competitive economic and military advantage. And that’s a huge gamble. But I believe there’s a solution to all of this, in a place we haven’t been looking. It starts in the human endocrine system.
There are signs we’ve started to hit the same problem as every falling civilisation before ours: normal people have given up hope. They don’t care anymore. And why would they care, when their neighbourhoods are becoming unrecognisable before their eyes; their neighbours are strangers who believe they’re going to hell; and people are barely making ends meet while their bosses live far away from the squalor and conflict in paradises, with every conceivable luxury and millions die every year from preventable diseases while the braindead, anti-education masses worship TV idols who smile from screens in glittering dresses, the price of which could save a thousand dying children’s lives. And no one sees the depressing irony when pop stars and movie stars talk of how to be a good person.
Some young people care enough about the world’s problems to shout expletives from a crowd like a jeering ancient Roman mob, but not enough to sit down to do the hard work of figuring out real solutions. And why would they try to help make things better when half the country seems to think the other half are the essence of evil because they vote differently? They’d have a 50% chance of helping someone they apparently hate. And that thought is somewhere in all our minds as we walk the streets.
Apathy is the cause of our problems and helping people discover a profound reason to deeply and genuinely care again is the solution.
Like junkies, we’ve dug ourselves into a hole. We’re living in denial. To save ourselves, we must begin to face the truth.
The route to this outcome is not a system like communism that forces people to do things they don’t want to do. The answer is for us to start behaving like a team—a team of mature adults with big problems to deal with, rather than squabbling, egotistical children who blame everyone but themselves and do anything but try to understand opposing views. To do that we need to empower people by helping them discover the point at which their strongest abilities align with one or more of the worlds most important problems so we can create a global team of passion-driven individuals, each competing to create solutions that make the world a better place while getting rewarded fairly for it. This is a description of how capitalism and democracy are supposed to be.
Perseverance, secret of all triumphs ~ Victor Hugo
Every day for two years I published one piece of advice authored by history’s most successful people. I’ve studied and categorised tens of thousands of pages of advice from the people who shaped our lives. The single most prevalent theme is simply this: to succeed at anything you must never give up. That’s it. That’s the number one rule. It seems obvious, but eludes almost everyone.
Whether it’s Thomas Edison who wrote “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work”; or Steve Jobs who wrote “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance”; or any number of other great achievers; history’s most successful people were so because they never gave up. These are the people who shape our world. They make the decisions the rest of us live under. And there’s a reason they persevere against all odds. There’s a reason they’re willing to risk the ordinary happiness we all crave for years of their lives in favor of the extrordinary they dream of: They’ve found the thing that makes them feel deeply engaged with the world. The thing that matters most to them: They’ve understood exactly how they can and want to change the world — a moment in history when their abilities align with an emerging opportunity to make significant progress — and they become obsessed by it. It’s like a eureka moment has been stretched out to fill their lives. Every day is vitally important. They’re brimming with energy and enthusiasm. They’ve found their reason for being.
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds aren’t in your favor” ~ Elon Musk
This is perhaps the single most important thing an individual can do in their life to be successful, happy and fulfilled. I believe helping a significant number of people achieve this would transform the world rapidly. Imagine if it was the norm for everyone to own a business that helps solve a serious problem and to feel excited to wake up every day to be part of something bigger, something more meaningful—something they really care about. We should be helping elevate everyone to fulfill their dreams instead of using the masses to elevate a few billionaire gods while the rest of us serve as their toys. Imagine if we could all meaningfully contribute to improving the world rather than a tiny fraction of people directing how we all progress and holding the vast majority of the wealth as their reward. Imagine a world in which everyone is living for their passion; everyone is eager to make the world a better place; to help each other; to fight injustice; to fix the world’s problems; to increase the happiness and well-being of all conscious life. They see how their own goals can align with the goals of humanity and it all makes sense. I believe the greatest leverage for change is found in the passions of the people. And when those passions are methodically aligned with great needs, great things can happen. In reading the lives of ordinary people who persevered to bring about groundbreaking lasting change this becomes clear—Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther Ling jr, Rosa Parks, Erin Brochovic, Jonas Silk, and many more—are testament to the power of combining passion with well designed systems. Helping millions of people discover the thing that makes them wake up each morning to work hard and love what they’re doing because it’s both good for the world and for them would rapidly transform the world — faster than any other change. There is nothing more important than finding and applying this leverage. If we ever had it we have certainly lost it. We couldn’t be further from it. And we desperately need it. The root of the problem we face in the West is that most people are completely disenfranchised. We need to help reenfranchize the people.
how to do it
The big problem with the way the Western system of organisation has become is its now geared toward encouraging laziness and stupidity among the masses. We simply need to shift the gearing—to modify some elements of the system—to significantly improve the outcomes.
Education
Education is of course vitally important. The big problem is that most braindead kids don’t understand this. They don’t take school as seriously as they should and they end up wasting the greatest opportunity of their lives —to become a master during the one time in their life that they have the most energy and the most spare time. And as a result they waste their youth and then one day years later, when they’re working a job they hate, they’re stressed, have no money or spare time, it hits them like a brick: they’ve wasted their lives.
Education should be firstly the teaching of fundamental knowledge and skills (as it is now) and then a robust, methodical system for discovering each students greatest skill — the thing they want to do with their lives—so they can master it quickly and dedicate themselves to it. And then, crucially, it should be a time to expose students to the world’s biggest problems so they can begin to innovate solutions and form small teams. If a student is leaving education and still doesn’t know what they want to do with their life, education has failed them horribly. Every student should be working in full time employment, either for a business, or in their own real, registered business before they finish their course. Businesses, governments and charities should be able to hire students by advertising tasks inside digital course literature, which is matched to curriculums. Students should be able to search and see tasks that match their current course topics and apply to complete real paid work for real organisations as part of their studies. Every student should have real experience on their CVs before they finish their courses. If they don’t, the colleges and universities have failed them dismally.
There are millions of passionate, skilled young people accross the country whose energy is going to waste or being misdirected. There are huge problems in the world that need solutions. Education is a great opportunity for young people to be exposed to problems and develop real solutions, which generate income and which they can continue to work on when their educations are complete.
We’ve seen how passionate students seem to be during their Israel protests. We should be systematically directing that passion into real world solutions that help the people they say they care about.
politics
Western political systems have failed miserably. They’ve produced an outcome that 50% of the country don’t want. But there’s a simple solution: accountability and transparency.
We all know that politicians are liars. It’s sad that O can write that without an ounce of doubt that it’s true. They’ve lied so much now that I one believes a word they say. But we can change that by changing our laws. Expecting our politicians to be honest seems like such a humble request and yet we all know in reality it’s extordinary. So we need to fix this. We need harsh penalties for politicians and parties that break promises and tell lies. This is how to do it:
Every party should have to publish SMART objectives for each of their policies. SMART objectives are objectives that must be completed within a specific timeframe. If a party or politician fails, they must face consequences. For example, if in the run up to an election a party promotes itself with a policy of reducing illegal immigration by a specific percentage and they fail to do it, that party should not be able to stand for election for another ten years. This might sound tough, but at least it might make politicians start to behave with a speck of integrity for the first time in their lives.
next, we should stop voting for parties and instead vote for policies. Politics has become a popularity contest, which is completely wrong. Parties should not be allowed to spend any money campaigning. It’s utterly rediculous that a party can pay its way into power. They should rely only on the truth. Each party should publish their SMART objectives. The people should vote on the objectives they want achieved. If the party fails, they face consequences.
now we’ve removed the bullshit.
finally, people should have to pass a test that proves they understand what they’re voting for. It will be an easy test, which won’t discriminate against unintelligent people. Why is this needed? Imagine letting a jury who knows nothing about a case decide on the fate of an accused murder. That would be insanity. So too is letting people vote on policies they know nothing about, nor do they understand the consequences of the policies. Therefore only people who know what they’re voting for can vote.
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