Wow, well put. I enjoyed reading this.
The power of ideas is really unrivaled. If 100 people believe *anything* and share a common purpose, they can really change the world. If 100 people all agree that they fear the same thing, I agree that is a bad sign that a war might be imminent.
on the other hand, I tend to think that the next 20 years will witness the breakdown of large nation states into smaller political entities. The problems of resource depletion, overpopulation, and climate change will simply be too much to bear for these large entities. Simple greed has already caused Great Depression 2.0 (which I expect will last well into 2010). People are losing faith in government all over the world. I think there will be a lot of violence in the future, but I think it will be small scale. Lots of little conflicts, and not one really big one.
but who knows!! this is all prediction, and predictions go wrong all the time.
Thanks
Ideas are very powerful. I'll further state that fundamentally, ideas are value. In economic terms, people are confused about what values are. dictionary has a definition but falls short when applying it to a certain context. But if you think about it long and hard, people ultimately pay for ideas.
The problems of resource depletion, overpopulation, climate change and others are all brought about because of intervention of the free market. In economics, it's ideas that make things better. gov usually halts these ideas instead of letting them flourish. We have the ideas and the ability to solve all of these problems. We don't deliver it because something is blocking the path. And it's usually fear based.
The solution to these global problems lies in the creation and delivery of value. More generally, the creation and delivery of ideas. If you want a sample of the best ideas in the modern world, goto ted.org. The best minds in the world speak their ideas. And 3 winners every year gets to make a wish. The other best minds gets together to make that wish happen. Check it out, it's better than hot chocolate.
Ghandi stopped civil war and oppression with an idea, then delivered that idea personally. Compassion and truth was involved and he said it. "The ways of truth and love always wins. remember it always"
There's also danger in ideas becoming ideals. Fundamentally, ideas are memes. And if you recognize memes as units of information, and that they have a life of their own, then ideas have their own hero's journey/monomyth; a destiny of their own. The trouble is when the hero saves the day and sticks around. The hero turns into the tyrant if he's allowed to become the king. This is why the hero must be killed or exiled, otherwise it'll enslave the very people he saved.
Let's say when a meme is an idea, it's the hero. When the meme becomes an ideal, it becomes the tyrant, and thus enslaving the very people it saved. The lifespan of a meme has its own destiny. This is why I'm careful about institutions. Institutions are the thrones that morph the idea into the ideal. Think about the institution of marriage. Does it help or hurt people? Think about public education, does it help or hurt people?
[now going really abstract]
I look upon the world, and I see every human, and every human has ideas, and every idea is a meme. Then I attach memes to each body. Then I remove the bodies so that only memes exist in our world. memes are slow to propagate and have their own rules of reproduction and mutation. (books, movies, human perception, story telling, telephone game, internet).
If a new meme is born, it is not copied or spread in the world instantly. It takes time to propagate. When an old meme dies, another new meme must take it's place.
Death of a meme is quicker than the spread of a better meme. The gap is filled with fear.
1. 'God will protect me' meme is believed
2. Car accident killed everyone you know except you
3. 'God will protect me' meme dies.
4. Brain cannot cope, and fear sets in
5. Brain is in fear until the next meme (not necessarily better) comes about
I just pulled this from my ass, but ask yourself, is this true or truth?
In my thoughts and my readings, I've come to realize that there are 2 types of people, beyond S/N of MBTI. Those that copy memes, and those that create their own memes. Humans have a limited perception, but it is this that which gave us absolutely wonderful things and absolutely evil things.
Since memes have a life of their own, we have to be careful of which memes we carry. Some memes are there to help us. Some of them hijack our minds. There are parasitic memes in our heads that we never knew was there.
Institutions always spread and resonate memes that supports the institution. Which country is the best in the world? Our country of course. Is marriage a good idea? of course because everyone does it. Why do you drink vitawater instead of regular water? because it has electrolytes and stuff. Is education a good idea? of course! because that's what we were taught. In other words, it's indoctrination. Tricky isn't it? I find that reasoning helps best fight off parasitic memes. This is also called being self aware.
side note: in nature, there is a parasite that hijacks the ant's brain. This parasite can only live in the stomach of a sheep. So the parasite makes the ant climb to the top of the grass continuously, regardless of the ant's health in hopes to be eaten by a sheep and thus grow in the stomach. The parasite used the ant to get to its home. If the ant knew how to reason, maybe things would be different.
What can I do to stop WW3 ?
Start cleaning your head. Discover and remove the parasitic memes poised to hijack your mind. Face your fears head on and find better memes to fill its place. Hopefully, this will stave off the nuke showers.
Just my meme. Don't just accept it, question it. every question is an evaluation.
