I decided that I'd make an effort to be unoriginal this-morning. For the next few minutes, I'm going to do quite a lot of complaining. We're probably all pretty used to this, quality is the norm. When served a tasty meal, many of us won't send our compliments to the chef, or lavish a partner or spouse with praise, but when that meat or fish is overcooked, boy, can we let them know it.
We could use more compliments, but that's not what I want to complain about. No, my problem is that people just aren't very good at complaining. Do I want more of it? Absolutely, but not if people keep doing it the way they have been.
At the moment, I'm not doing much better, in fact, probably worse, so let's step it up a bit. There were two things that drove me to do this, the first was a seminar I went to, the other was a talk from Tony Robbins. The first guy was talking about his research into policy decisions to try and make our society more healthy, Tony was giving me content for my next points.
This researcher deserves some praise. Making society healthy is a great idea – not very original, but in this age of obesity you could wonder. There's the first point – finding something worthwhile to fix. We all know someone who can find something wrong with everything. Maybe some have a point, but thanks to our short lifespans – we have to prioritise, right?
He also hit the second nail on the head. He shared thoughts on how to fix it. Alan Kay once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. I heard more recently that the second best way is to invest in it, but anyway... This is where a lot of people fall short. We live in a society that says anyone can do anything they want, as long as they work hard – the great American Dream, right? Unfortunately, there are some people – who for all sorts of reasons – can't invent the future. There's wisdom in the old saying “Those who can't do, teach” - inspiring others can be valuable too.
But I'm supposed to be complaining, right? Where the researcher – and many others like him – fail, are their proposed solutions. We heard from Rhys a while ago how often we don't try to solve the right problems, more recently I was reminded by Jocelyn - from her talk on violence – how Walmart will happily sell automatic weapons, and at the same time ban violent video games.
It's important to mention that this isn't entirely the researcher's – or even Walmart's – fault. Researchers get their funding by following the whims of policy makers, and Walmart gets harassed more by vocal activists against violent video games than proponents of free speech or good parenting.
Ultimately, we have to blame someone. I'm going to blame everyone. We are generally pretty poor at reasoning about the future. The further into the future you go, the worse we are. People respond to this in different ways, some will follow the way of the ostrich, and bury their head in the sand, and those more out-spoken will lead others to make bad decisions.
Tony Robbins made the point that we live in a therapy culture. People react to problems when they occur, they don't try to shape situations so they won't happen. The history of medicine has mostly been 'how can we cure?,' not 'how can we prevent?' Psychiatrists quell depression, they don't promote happiness.
History has left us with more inventions than we have inventive ways to use them. The goal of science has always been to figure out cause and effect. What happens when you do this? Here we have a tool to predict the results of our actions. Sure, it won't always get the answer right, but evidence is a better bet than superstition. The more evidence we get, the more guilty we are for making poor decisions.
The more evidence we get, the more guilty those in-the-know are for not raising awareness; for not letting younger generations know their actions have consequences, and what those could be when they are old enough to take them. What happens in schools? We grade people on their ability to solve problems – we pose them a question, and supply a small box to enter an answer, when instead we should be testing their ability to ask their own questions, giving them a box to think outside of, rather than within. To develop a culture of creation, not reaction. We can appreciate our thermostats being reactive, we should expect more from our leaders.
The financial crisis is showing many of us the results of our actions – how much cheaper it can be to prevent rather than cure. The dangerous effects of the climate crisis aren't yet visible enough to give most people a sense of urgency, but unless massive changes occur soon, we could be stripped of far more than wealth.
New generations are being left with ever greater power to change the world, and all the responsibility that goes along with that. But we have a responsibility too. We have no right to decide what the future of these new generations will be, but it's up to us to ensure that they can ask the right questions, and are able to wield that power to shape a world they can be proud of. Science won't always give them the right answers, but hey, that's why we need more complaining.
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