Solving World Problems

 Politicians, or governing bosses by whatever name, have been claiming that they will solve problems like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, inequity across the world. Not only have these remained unsolved, there are new problems now, like schools becoming shooting ranges, ethnic conflicts, empire-mongering (for want of a better word), and in general, unethical behaviour among many sections of people- not just politicos.

So nature shows its middle finger, once in a while, with climate change, earthquakes, and tornadoes or hurricanes. Major man-made disasters like COVID- no matter WHO is to blame (pun unintended) add to the misery of the hardest hit.

Corporates were thought to be the panacea, because many of them create wealth. But no longer are we sure that this wealth is shared with society, the way it was envisaged. So we compel them to through a gamut of laws including CSR and Sustainability standards etc.

The short point of this piece, is that we have a long way to go in solving problems. And tech is not the answer, all by itself. Human evolution might be. But looking at history, your guess is as good as mine, on when that is likely to happen.

Problems Around the World

Of course, climate change and global warming are the big ones, despite denial by some of the bigwigs in world governments. (Venice going under water has not convinced them yet). But there are other serious questions that need to be asked.

For example, in the U.S. (since we think they are the greatest invention known to mankind), there are shootings galore. Don't know the stats, but seems like an average of one per week. Random killings, mostly because someone has easy access to a gun. The victims, usually school or college kids who did no wrong. Taliban, anyone?

Migration at any cost..Vietnamese in a container, boat people, or others fleeing what they see as a despondent state back home, for some reason. What makes people migrate with such fervour, without a care for the risks involved? War is an obvious answer. Abject poverty or hopelessness is the other (Venezuela is a recent case).

We are no better, as the unending stories of rape have shown us for many years. What is it that makes people sick enough to do this? Deterrence is of course a part of the solution, but what are the root causes and how do we remove those, if possible?

Hopefully, we will not get de-sensitised because of an overdose of these shootings, wars and rapes. Hopefully, we will find ways of preventing them.