saving the world, writing my thesis, etc.
i'm going to post this now because i want the feedback, even though it's not as complete as it could be. i may flesh it out as time goes on and if people want clarification.
note: i make some potentially broad and unsupported claims, such as that it's a myth that we're in iraq to spread democracy. because i'm only using these claims for the sake of argument, it doesn't really matter if these claims are true or not. it does matter if claims that would prove the same point exist, which i think they do. i also tend to use certain examples over and over again, such as about inhumanely-raised animals used for food. this isn't the most important issue out there, it's just one that i'm repeating for the sake of convenience. also, some topics are fleshed out more than others because writing a more comprehensive entry would take too long and none of you would read it anyway.
i've been thinking about how best to "save the world" for a while now. i keep waffling about what i think are the Best Causes or Biggest Problems out there. but now that i think about it, i've had the same opinion on what i've thought the Biggest Problem is for the past several years. i think the root problem of most evils in the US, and probably most industrialized countries, is cognitive dissonance, though ignorance and feelings of insignificance are also very significant problems.
people have too much cognitive dissonance between what they do in their day-to-day lives and the Big Problems that they indirectly contribute to. i.e., if people had to watch the way their food was grown or their clothes were made, they'd boycott them and demand more humane practices. they almost certainly wouldn't grow chickens under inhumane conditions or hire Chinese sweatshop workers themselves. but even if people intellectually know about these inhumane practices, the practices are out of sight, and therefore, out of mind.
this cognitive dissonance applies to problems that people indirectly contribute to, such as the animal cruelty and sweatshop examples i gave. but it also applies to problems that ordinary people aren't really responsible for, but that they could change if they had less cognitive dissonance. for example, when people see homeless people on the street, they try not to think about them too much. in theory, they could give the homeless people enough money to keep them housed and fed for a year, or they could pester their congressmen about building homeless shelters. but it's easier for people to just not think about the issue. same thing goes for problems with any part of the political or economic system.
i guess a similar problem that may be just as important is ignorance. because no one can fix what's wrong in the world if they don't know that anything is wrong to begin with, informing people with actual facts is vital. if everyone knew more information about the bad things they indirectly contributed to, they would be more active in fixing things they viewed as wrong. of course, most of them would still employ cognitive dissonance and would keep living their lives as they were accustomed to. but at least some of them would step up and do something.
and another similar, important problem is that people feel they are too insignificant to make a large difference in the world.
wait, this doesn't actually help me much in figuring out what i want to major in / write my thesis on / do for the rest of my life. in order to accomplish those goals, i need to figure out what is *causing* these problems in the first place, which is no easy task. mrgle. well, i have some theories, though it's unclear whether these are causes or consequences. but i think that if they were fixed, things would be better.
causes and/or consequences of cognitive dissonance:
-anomie, which is probably caused by industrialization, large population sizes (which leads to large communities, countries, and governments), technology, globalization, large bureaucracies and organizations, social/cultural forces, and consumerism (in an indirect way). ....this'll be an easy problem to fix. in addition to causing cognitive dissonance, i'm *pretty* sure isolation has other negative social implications as well, such as making people feel more unhappy, less fulfilled, and more indifferent to anything outside their immediate day-to-day life. thus, it makes them less likely to be involved in the political or economic system and less likely to work on Big Problems that don't affect them personally.
-the way information is presented. even if people know deep down that most food is raised inhumanely, it's easier for them to distance themselves from this fact when their most immediate source of information does not hint that the food was raised inhumanely. this can be done by advertising, such as through aforementioned brightly-colored packaging with neat product names. of course, this kind of phenomenon doesn't just happen in marketing. it happens when we call this country a democracy, or when we call our capitalistic system free market, or when we say we're in iraq to "spread democracy." even if people know these things aren't true, they can (at least temporarily) convince themselves otherwise when they don't feel like thinking about matters too hard.
of course, i'm assuming that if people were not isolated from each other and if information was presented differently that people would, indeed, act differently. but it's possible that people would find other reasons to do nothing, such as conformity to the norm, obedience to authority, apathy, feelings of insignificance, etc. but i think it's likely that people would become sad and angry and passionate enough about the problems in the world that at least more of them would do something.
causes of ignorance:
-the way information is spread and is made available. the news (and other spreaders of information) tend to present a biased account of what is going on in the world. however, because mainstream spreaders of information are looked upon as authoritative, most people don't question the information's validity. but even if this information was completely true, a lot of information doesn't get spread at all, either because it doesn't get enough attention or because it's kept secret. also, while a lot of blogs and independent reporters spread factual information that doesn't get spread by the mainstream sources, people probably question these bloggers and reporters more than they question the seemingly-authoritative news sources.
-the inability for people to understand information. even if all facts were stored in a public database somewhere, no one would have the time to read them all nor the expertise to draw correct conclusions from all of them. information needs to be made more easily accessible to the public, or the public needs to be trained to more easily understand complex information. not sure how to fix this, either. the public can only be so well-trained; they will never be able to correctly interpret all the information they should know. similarly, there will always be the chance that experts could give the public false interpretations of information or withhold interpretations altogether, whether intentionally or not. who can keep the experts and data-gatherers accountable, and how?
-apathy and indifference. learning about Big Problems both takes work and is depressing. it's much easier to sit back and live in ignorant bliss. though apathy is probably at least culturally determined; it may be the norm to be apathetic now, but it was the norm to be politically active in the 60s. so there's hope for change, but i'm not sure how it could come about. i guess i should research what was different during times of social movements.
causes of feelings of insignificance:
-anomie
-large population sizes. it's a large world out there, and it's difficult for individuals to make a large impact. people may be able to make largish changes in a small community of people, but most individuals cannot create large changes on a national or international level.
-large bureaucracies. institutions are inflexible, hierarchical, and compartmentalized, which make social change more difficult. i could go into detail about this -- i basically took an entire class on it.
-power hierarchies, with most people at the bottom. i.e., in large organizations, such as corporations or the government, but also in society in general.
-people's lack of time, energy, or expertise, or the appearance of such. if people don't feel empowered, they won't do anything.
while i tried to identify the root of most problems above, there are other Big Problems in the world. these may or may not be causing the root problems i identified above -- they may just be symptoms of these root problems or other problems -- but they are still very important, and i think i would be okay with working on them. (though some of the problems may intersect with the root problems identified above; i'm not too rigorous about the way this is organized.)
some of these lesser problems include:
-negative social and environmental implications of technology. i.e., anomie.
-negative social and environmental implications of industrialization. i.e., anomie.
-negative social and environmental implications of corporations and other large (usually bureaucratic) organizations.
-negative social and environmental implications of deregulation / free market economies. i.e., human rights violations, animal cruelty, environmental degredation, depletion of natural resources, global warming. though there isn't an obvious solution to this -- massive regulation isn't necessarily better, and deregulation arguably decreases innovation and development in a way that is an overall loss.
-negative social and environmental implications of globalization
-increasingly large populations and overpopulation. i think that this leads to anomie, apathy, feelings of insignificance, and political systems that don't function as well. but if nothing else, if we get many more people on this planet, they will require more raw resources than the earth can continue to sustain. and eventually, it'll lead to everyone being crammed together unhappily, wars over land/resources, killing off whomever can't fit on the available land, etc. and no, i don't want to hear about the singularity and space travel because we're not sure that will actually happen in time.
-large bureaucracies and the implications for decision-making.
-industrialization, and its social and environmental implications.
-environmental ills
-social ills
more specific lesser problems that i could potentially work on, stolen from Ping's list:
-energy
-poverty and education
-governance and democracy
-media and journalism
-decision-making and collective intelligence
ending comments
the real trick, if i decide to work on one of these Lesser Causes, is to figure out which are symptoms of diseases and which are diseases. because while symptoms can be important to treat, it's more important to treat the diseases unless the symptoms interfere with our ability to do so. for example, HIV/AIDS is a serious and fatal disease that, sadly, kills millions of people, especially in the developing world. but i think that, in the long-term, addressing root problems would be a more effective way of preventing deaths from HIV/AIDS than throwing money at vaccines and treatments. which is why i think that these people are wrong. if people were less anomic, they'd be more involved in HIV/AIDS education programs and prevention programs. for example, homosexuals with AIDS would cease to be those sinners or unlucky promiscuous people over there; they'd be friends and neighbors that people cared about. of course, sometimes the symptoms can interfere with our ability to deal with the disease. for example, global warming or nuclear wars may wipe us out or cause irreversible damage before we can address the serious diseases of the world. but it is imperative that people work on the diseases in addition to working on these symptoms.
man. i should read the big philosophical and social theorists to get better ideas about this. or at least the big bloggers. or at least the copies of Foucault and Aristotle for Everybody sitting on my desk. oh, uh, look, it's lunchtime.
...well, that was a good exercise. now what? even if i only examine the root problems i identified, these root problems have many causes, none of which have trivial solutions. i guess i'm back where i started.
note: i make some potentially broad and unsupported claims, such as that it's a myth that we're in iraq to spread democracy. because i'm only using these claims for the sake of argument, it doesn't really matter if these claims are true or not. it does matter if claims that would prove the same point exist, which i think they do. i also tend to use certain examples over and over again, such as about inhumanely-raised animals used for food. this isn't the most important issue out there, it's just one that i'm repeating for the sake of convenience. also, some topics are fleshed out more than others because writing a more comprehensive entry would take too long and none of you would read it anyway.
i've been thinking about how best to "save the world" for a while now. i keep waffling about what i think are the Best Causes or Biggest Problems out there. but now that i think about it, i've had the same opinion on what i've thought the Biggest Problem is for the past several years. i think the root problem of most evils in the US, and probably most industrialized countries, is cognitive dissonance, though ignorance and feelings of insignificance are also very significant problems.
people have too much cognitive dissonance between what they do in their day-to-day lives and the Big Problems that they indirectly contribute to. i.e., if people had to watch the way their food was grown or their clothes were made, they'd boycott them and demand more humane practices. they almost certainly wouldn't grow chickens under inhumane conditions or hire Chinese sweatshop workers themselves. but even if people intellectually know about these inhumane practices, the practices are out of sight, and therefore, out of mind.
this cognitive dissonance applies to problems that people indirectly contribute to, such as the animal cruelty and sweatshop examples i gave. but it also applies to problems that ordinary people aren't really responsible for, but that they could change if they had less cognitive dissonance. for example, when people see homeless people on the street, they try not to think about them too much. in theory, they could give the homeless people enough money to keep them housed and fed for a year, or they could pester their congressmen about building homeless shelters. but it's easier for people to just not think about the issue. same thing goes for problems with any part of the political or economic system.
i guess a similar problem that may be just as important is ignorance. because no one can fix what's wrong in the world if they don't know that anything is wrong to begin with, informing people with actual facts is vital. if everyone knew more information about the bad things they indirectly contributed to, they would be more active in fixing things they viewed as wrong. of course, most of them would still employ cognitive dissonance and would keep living their lives as they were accustomed to. but at least some of them would step up and do something.
and another similar, important problem is that people feel they are too insignificant to make a large difference in the world.
wait, this doesn't actually help me much in figuring out what i want to major in / write my thesis on / do for the rest of my life. in order to accomplish those goals, i need to figure out what is *causing* these problems in the first place, which is no easy task. mrgle. well, i have some theories, though it's unclear whether these are causes or consequences. but i think that if they were fixed, things would be better.
causes and/or consequences of cognitive dissonance:
-anomie, which is probably caused by industrialization, large population sizes (which leads to large communities, countries, and governments), technology, globalization, large bureaucracies and organizations, social/cultural forces, and consumerism (in an indirect way). ....this'll be an easy problem to fix. in addition to causing cognitive dissonance, i'm *pretty* sure isolation has other negative social implications as well, such as making people feel more unhappy, less fulfilled, and more indifferent to anything outside their immediate day-to-day life. thus, it makes them less likely to be involved in the political or economic system and less likely to work on Big Problems that don't affect them personally.
-the way information is presented. even if people know deep down that most food is raised inhumanely, it's easier for them to distance themselves from this fact when their most immediate source of information does not hint that the food was raised inhumanely. this can be done by advertising, such as through aforementioned brightly-colored packaging with neat product names. of course, this kind of phenomenon doesn't just happen in marketing. it happens when we call this country a democracy, or when we call our capitalistic system free market, or when we say we're in iraq to "spread democracy." even if people know these things aren't true, they can (at least temporarily) convince themselves otherwise when they don't feel like thinking about matters too hard.
of course, i'm assuming that if people were not isolated from each other and if information was presented differently that people would, indeed, act differently. but it's possible that people would find other reasons to do nothing, such as conformity to the norm, obedience to authority, apathy, feelings of insignificance, etc. but i think it's likely that people would become sad and angry and passionate enough about the problems in the world that at least more of them would do something.
causes of ignorance:
-the way information is spread and is made available. the news (and other spreaders of information) tend to present a biased account of what is going on in the world. however, because mainstream spreaders of information are looked upon as authoritative, most people don't question the information's validity. but even if this information was completely true, a lot of information doesn't get spread at all, either because it doesn't get enough attention or because it's kept secret. also, while a lot of blogs and independent reporters spread factual information that doesn't get spread by the mainstream sources, people probably question these bloggers and reporters more than they question the seemingly-authoritative news sources.
-the inability for people to understand information. even if all facts were stored in a public database somewhere, no one would have the time to read them all nor the expertise to draw correct conclusions from all of them. information needs to be made more easily accessible to the public, or the public needs to be trained to more easily understand complex information. not sure how to fix this, either. the public can only be so well-trained; they will never be able to correctly interpret all the information they should know. similarly, there will always be the chance that experts could give the public false interpretations of information or withhold interpretations altogether, whether intentionally or not. who can keep the experts and data-gatherers accountable, and how?
-apathy and indifference. learning about Big Problems both takes work and is depressing. it's much easier to sit back and live in ignorant bliss. though apathy is probably at least culturally determined; it may be the norm to be apathetic now, but it was the norm to be politically active in the 60s. so there's hope for change, but i'm not sure how it could come about. i guess i should research what was different during times of social movements.
causes of feelings of insignificance:
-anomie
-large population sizes. it's a large world out there, and it's difficult for individuals to make a large impact. people may be able to make largish changes in a small community of people, but most individuals cannot create large changes on a national or international level.
-large bureaucracies. institutions are inflexible, hierarchical, and compartmentalized, which make social change more difficult. i could go into detail about this -- i basically took an entire class on it.
-power hierarchies, with most people at the bottom. i.e., in large organizations, such as corporations or the government, but also in society in general.
-people's lack of time, energy, or expertise, or the appearance of such. if people don't feel empowered, they won't do anything.
while i tried to identify the root of most problems above, there are other Big Problems in the world. these may or may not be causing the root problems i identified above -- they may just be symptoms of these root problems or other problems -- but they are still very important, and i think i would be okay with working on them. (though some of the problems may intersect with the root problems identified above; i'm not too rigorous about the way this is organized.)
some of these lesser problems include:
-negative social and environmental implications of technology. i.e., anomie.
-negative social and environmental implications of industrialization. i.e., anomie.
-negative social and environmental implications of corporations and other large (usually bureaucratic) organizations.
-negative social and environmental implications of deregulation / free market economies. i.e., human rights violations, animal cruelty, environmental degredation, depletion of natural resources, global warming. though there isn't an obvious solution to this -- massive regulation isn't necessarily better, and deregulation arguably decreases innovation and development in a way that is an overall loss.
-negative social and environmental implications of globalization
-increasingly large populations and overpopulation. i think that this leads to anomie, apathy, feelings of insignificance, and political systems that don't function as well. but if nothing else, if we get many more people on this planet, they will require more raw resources than the earth can continue to sustain. and eventually, it'll lead to everyone being crammed together unhappily, wars over land/resources, killing off whomever can't fit on the available land, etc. and no, i don't want to hear about the singularity and space travel because we're not sure that will actually happen in time.
-large bureaucracies and the implications for decision-making.
-industrialization, and its social and environmental implications.
-environmental ills
-social ills
more specific lesser problems that i could potentially work on, stolen from Ping's list:
-energy
-poverty and education
-governance and democracy
-media and journalism
-decision-making and collective intelligence
ending comments
the real trick, if i decide to work on one of these Lesser Causes, is to figure out which are symptoms of diseases and which are diseases. because while symptoms can be important to treat, it's more important to treat the diseases unless the symptoms interfere with our ability to do so. for example, HIV/AIDS is a serious and fatal disease that, sadly, kills millions of people, especially in the developing world. but i think that, in the long-term, addressing root problems would be a more effective way of preventing deaths from HIV/AIDS than throwing money at vaccines and treatments. which is why i think that these people are wrong. if people were less anomic, they'd be more involved in HIV/AIDS education programs and prevention programs. for example, homosexuals with AIDS would cease to be those sinners or unlucky promiscuous people over there; they'd be friends and neighbors that people cared about. of course, sometimes the symptoms can interfere with our ability to deal with the disease. for example, global warming or nuclear wars may wipe us out or cause irreversible damage before we can address the serious diseases of the world. but it is imperative that people work on the diseases in addition to working on these symptoms.
man. i should read the big philosophical and social theorists to get better ideas about this. or at least the big bloggers. or at least the copies of Foucault and Aristotle for Everybody sitting on my desk. oh, uh, look, it's lunchtime.
...well, that was a good exercise. now what? even if i only examine the root problems i identified, these root problems have many causes, none of which have trivial solutions. i guess i'm back where i started.