“The world can be a better place”; a thought that crosses every person’s mind. In the shape of a fleeting thought, a whim, an obsession that takes hold or even a mighty mission.
For many it doesn’t amount to much. They want to make the world better by bettering themselves. Their own lives are the centerpiece of ‘betterment’.
For others it is the betterment of others. And here too are two types of people: those who genuinely care and those who want to look good caring.
But here is the queer thing- everyone has given the world some thought. They do believe in improvement. They want to see change. But the collective effort seems to reflect a different story.
As AI advances the climate becomes hotter. And if we think of scaling on climate efforts human advance has to take a back seat. Think about food for a second. The distribution makes it difficult for the current production to reach places effectively. And if we scale on food tech the food itself becomes inedible.
Conflicting ideas don’t make the world a better place. And we certainly don’t have a shortage of brilliant minds. Maybe the tragedy is that we are trying to optimize for everything without really trying to trade-off. We want infinite tech, food, systems, perfection while the canvas, the earth we inhabit, is finite in every way.
In short, we are trying to save the world, only if it adapts to our terms without any sacrifice.