There are many problems that the Human Race are facing today.
I would like to know what you think is our greatest problem is, and if you have an idea for a solution to that problem?
I will share my idea later
In my birth year of 1952, the population was slightly over 2.6 billion, and today the the population is 7.5 billion. The I used to watch TV, and particularly on the subject of energy, or food the answer was always we have to produce MORE. So science develops GMO foods, and solar energy. Oceans are being deleted of marine life because the population demands MORE, the oceans are polluted with oil spills, because the population demands MORE.
The population has more than doubled in my life time! I am pretty sure that is unprecedented. The 900 pound gorilla in the room is OVER POPULATION. Growing up in the Bay area Ca. I somehow picked up on an idea of Zero population growth (probably happened on an acid trip). Fundamentally that means: have only one child to replace your self.
We are living out side of the natural laws. We have modern medicine which has weakened us overall mainly because of antibiotics. Our food we must carefully choose because it is not all healthy. Famers plant GMO food because even though the seed costs more the yields are much higher, and that reflects in the prophet margin. Food is abundant for most so the level of starvation is down.
The bottom line is, we don't die at the same rate that the other species do. We have no natural predators, other than man on man, or the occasional shark attack We can store food for the lean times. We have shelter to protect us, and reservoirs to store water. Can you imagine if there were 7 billion elephants? Even W/O man's greed there could never be 7 billion elephants. There just isn't enough habitat to support them. Nature keeps balance on all creators but man. However I believe that someday nature might turn us.
We must regulate the birth rate, and the whole human race must work TOGETHER, so down with WAR, and up with COOPERATION.
The solution: not easy (thats an understatement) but possible. The collective conscience must come together and mandate a program to limit population growth. Education is the first tool. A required class: grade 1 through college: "How to live WELL on the planet earth." I am not a teacher but I am sure they would be more than capable of developing the curriculum for all the different cultures of the world. We must allocate WAR $ to especially fund the poor areas to provide sex education, contraception in its various forms, and women's health care.
Now that I have written this I realize how difficult it will be to implement this, but every movement starts with an idea. Cautiously optimistic, but you first have to "imagine the world with no religion".
Overpopulation is and will continue to be the driving force behind all our problems. No species can continue to grow without check and if we can't do it ourselves nature will (and is) do it for us.
We need to get beyond the 2 basic drives, survival and procreation, and see what continued growth is bringing on this finite planet. The only solution, at this time, is to hit bottom, as most addicts must do before they become clean and sober. We cannot tackle "Gloom and Doom" with "Smile and Denial"; we must use "Know and Grow".
Really well said
@Leutrelle Thanks for your comment. The basic question we never seem to ask ourselves is: WHY?
Lack of Understanding. Too many people know and too few understand.
We cannot change IT until we understand IT. Condemnation will not liberate, merely oppress and fuel IT. Understand that IT is what IT is, you cannot force change upon IT, but you can change the world by understanding IT. The change due understanding the IT will be as simple as peace of mind at home and as complex as peace on earth. Horrible ITs will always exist so long as no one cares to understand the ITs behind them.
We look upon IT with disdain and desire IT gone, but we cannot force IT gone. IT is a natural occurrence, brought about due to a lack of understanding, on all sides. Genocide is an IT that a majority disdain, but few understand. Adolph Hitler, a prominent poster child of genocide, had the same consideration towards the holocaust victims as many do to ants, mosquitoes, and spiders. There are some who consider ants, mosquitoes, and spiders the way many others do each other, as equal. No one would claim that the latterly mentioned person is of any harm or threat to anyone, but that person would view an exterminator such as the decedents of holocaust survivors do Hitler.
Neither understands that the one they hold disdain for have their own bias that allow for such different views. Knowing your own IT is the best method for dealing with the ITs of others. Through understanding IT as IT is, without force others too will be willing to understand ITs of their own, and soon the ITs like genocide will disappear through the understanding of all the ITs behind genocide. Hitler's fault was not in his disdain, but in not understanding the IT of others that caused his disdain. He tried forcing IT away the IT he held in disdain was a cultural difference of opinion.
That lack of understanding lead to violent hasty actions, when a simple "IT is what IT is'' would have saved lives. To simplify, I am saying live and let live no matter what you do you can't satisfy everyone and everyone will not satisfy you. You do not need to like or integrate others' ways into your way but understand IT through their terms. So long as there are no unwilling physical or psychological harm in peoples' acts, directed to others, there is no loss. Everyone has different views, opinions and act different from each other. Understanding is all we need to get along, work together, and solve our problems as a species.
In Case it was not obvious or added more confusion, IT is my way of generalizing the many problems humanity faces.
Heavy: I had to read it out loud to finally understand. We have try to understand even the people who haves idea that repulse us. Understanding is the beginning of conflict resolution.
@Leutrelle, "Understanding is the beginning of conflict resolution" sums it nicely. Because some problems we blame on something, and it may be the source of the problem, but there's a deeper reason that we fail to understand. We knew enough to identify the cause but we don't usually bother to understand why, sometimes because we think we know why and stop looking.
Talking to children proves that in the sense that they ask us 'why' until we've exhausted what we understand and resort to things like 'because I said so' but that's when we should realize we didn't understand as well as we thought we did.
@DreadlySmart I like the way you use analogies to make your point.
our greatest problem is way too many human beings taking what they want without a second thought. the easy solution would be to all do what China did for a couple of generations till there are only 2 billion people but we all know that will never happen. the hard brutal way it is it seems. mother nature will address it if we don't.
I think HATE is our biggest problem. What trump and the Pubs are doing is using hate of black, brown, Muslim, LGBTQ community and liberals to mold their electorate. They will develop social and economic policies that will affect the respect of the States throughout the world. The lack of respect will lead to miscommunication among our allies which will lead to conflict and war. The solution is to vote Pubs out in November so we can impeach trump and pence.
I cannot think of a better answer or way to state it than she does in this video. The title doesn't really reflect the whole message. This is a very western-centric answer, but I think western civilization is the biggest threat to the human race. It's about 23 minutes long, but very well put together.
That is scary. But she concludes with a solution which leaves me with hope. I love Ted Talk.
Emprison Centro bankers and bring debt back to zero. One way or another, it must happen .
Hard to pinpoint correctly the greatest. Individual and location will vary. War will always comes to mind. Also those that try to sell us "overpopulation", there is plenty of land on earth for everyone to live on and food to feed everyone. We have the technology available to produce more. Money also comes to mind. War and Money. Money for War and War for Money. Always found funny that there is not enough money made on earth to pay all the debts on earth yet they keep lending more. My final answer.
We keep killing each other. So one country had an asshole president so another country went to that country to make peace, but at the same time killed a whole of lot of innocent people, so those innocent people families get angry and want to kill the other people and so on.
Also over land, fighting and killing over land of two people who happened to be different religions, They want the land so they kill some people then the family and brothers of those dead people get angry and go and kill the first people and so it goes on and on and on and on.... So much hate