A Suggestion For Environmentalists

Today I had an amazing insight about environmentalism (and other such causes). Environmental groups often talk about why Exxon or Dow Chemical or Philip Morris are bad. Of course if any such group begins to pose a real threat, the companies under attack will retaliate, working to discredit or otherwise neutralise the environmental group, just like the group is working to neutralise them. So it's a kind of mini-war.

What if we looked at it another way. Let's say the people in charge of Exxon are not bad people, they are just doing what to them seems the most fun and profitable thing they can think of, given their situation. They have many options, and they have chosen what they think is the best one for them, at the moment.

Now, what if we could present to them something better, I mean something THEY perceive as more fun and more profitable to do, rather than what they are doing. This involves a strange reversal, instead of trying to hurt them, we are trying to make them even more successful and happy (not just from our point of view, but from theirs). Once it became clear this was our agenda, they might even invite us into their office and tell us some of their challenges. Suddenly it would be in their obvious self-interest to work closely with us.

It seems like there is already critical mass in the environmental movement to make big things happen. The problem seems to be the individuals in the movement can't agree on what to accomplish, what is step 1. Otherwise I can't imagine we would still be watching fuel efficiency drop, deforestation accelerate, and air & water pollution continue to increase.

I suggest this as step 1, a very big victory we could all go for and win. List all the people who are directly causing the most environmental harm. Then try to figure out why, from THEIR point of view, are they doing that. What problem does that solve for them? Next, brainstorm alternative solutions to THEIR problem, and present those ideas to these people in a spirit of friendly cooperation. Open a dialogue, with the goal being to come up with something more fun and profitable than what those people are now doing.

Note that this step doesn't cost anything at all. It will have been worth it, even if it fails.

Solving Poverty

I think differently than (most) other people. The solution to poverty which I have developed is a paradigm shift, and most people do not believe it is possible when they first hear about it. I know it works because I have done it over and over and over again (and I am a skeptical guy).

It was a hypothesis but now it's a law, based on the same concept as Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point", the same methodology behind "Guns, Germs, and Steel", or "Think & Grow Rich". None of those things make sense under the "normal" paradigm. (Who would've thought sleeping with animals was a good strategy for ultimately conquering the world?) My methodology is like a microscope, it allows you to see things that are otherwise invisible, and because they were invisible, people don't believe they exist.

What if poverty were really easy to solve? That poses the bizarre problem of why haven't we done it. You've heard conspiracy theories, you've heard Democrats blame corporations, Republicans blame immigrants, Greens blame capitalism, Christians blame Muslims, Whites blame Blacks, Rich blame Poor, and on and on. Those were the kinds of explanations people had of smallpox before the microscope.

The answer that appears under the microscope is -- brace yourself -- that we don't care. Sometimes we do care, and some people care a whole lot, but the amount of time we spend caring about people we don't know is way less, on average, than the amount of time we spend caring about hub caps, or spiders.

This might sound like a criticism of humanity, but it really isn't. The microscope was not a criticism of the germ world, just a tool for describing it. Once we saw those little microbes we began coming up with ways of manipulating them for our benefit.

So, in a nutshell, the trick is coming up with ways to make it easier and more fun to care about people you don't know. That is what I have been working on for the past 15 years. And, by George, I think I've got it. :)

Suggestion for Wikipedia

It seems to me Wikipedia ought to be able to handle multiple points of view.

There shouldn't just be one entry on George Bush, for instance, there should be one Republican version, one Democrat version, a Libertarian version, a Green version, a Muslim version, a Jewish version, etc.

Users should be able to select which version of history they want to read, including fictional ones. There isn't, after all, any "true, unbiased" version. The one you have now sounds like a high school teacher wrote it. Why present that one as official? Other people's points of view are just as valid.

Offering multiple versions of the same article would make the resource vastly more useful, and would limit vandalism to posing as a member of an opinion group when in fact you belonged to an opposing group, which would be easy to nip in the bud if posters had to identify themselves with at least a screen name, because authentic members of the group would see through it immediately and expose that screen name's dastardly schemes.