What is the biggest problem facing humanity?

Economic freedom is more important because most/all those other things will follow.

the polar bears are disappearing


*puts on flak jacket*

Kandahar said:

But the reason corrupt governments even worry about stealing water/food is because it's in such short supply. In this country, it doesn't even cross our minds that the government would steal our drinking water, because water is so abundant it's virtually free, so there wouldn't be any need to steal it.

Just like with democracy, I think the causal link between water and stability is far stronger in the opposite direction. Lack of clean water is frequently a CAUSE of conflict, whereas conflict itself is rarely the primary cause of lack of clean water (although it can certainly exacerbate the problem). IMO, providing people with clean water is the most important because it addresses the root cause of many of the other things: For example, 50% of the global disease burden is caused by lack of clean water; poverty and lack of education are often caused by people having to spend the majority of their day gathering water from miles away; conflicts are often fueled by water shortages (e.g. Israel/Palestine, Sudan/Chad, Somalia, Pakistan), etc.

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True, and if these people could cast aside their differences and work together....
I am asking them to scuttle their religions...yes, I know that this means more than life itself....

Kandahar said:

What, in your opinion, is the biggest problem facing humanity? Suppose that you had one wish, which you had to use altruistically to make the world a better place. Which do you think would do the most "good" (however you want to define that), and why?

- Providing everyone in the world with access to clean water
- Providing everyone in the world with enough nutritious food
- Providing everyone in the world with free, high-quality K-12 education
- Providing everyone in the world with access to Western-quality health care
- Providing everyone in the world with access to information and communication (e.g. the internet)
- Bringing peace, stability, and safety to every part of the world
- Bringing democracy and freedom to every part of the world
- Developing a 100% clean, very cheap source of energy that could be produced and distributed anywhere in the world
- Developing an effective, efficient transportation infrastructure in all parts of the world
- Other

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I would say teaching self reliance and sharing mutual love & respect with others.

I don't have a link but I am morally certain that the biggest problem facing humanity is people.

What a crock of **** most humans are. Just look around you. Sure, YOU are a fabulous human but look at the rest of these clods. It's just depressing.

We should get whats inside our own borders in order before we fantasize about how we could help the world.

Many of the poll-response options about needing to produce more make the complementary implication that we need to procreate less.

Balancing production against needs is historic from the beginning as the foundational challenge all societies face.

Deciding whether the solution is to ramp up production, decrease population, or both is not an easy decision to make.

If the decision is to ramp up production, that can have the affect of increasing procreation as well.

If the decision is to decrease population, and the chosen method is to not ramp up production, or even reduce it, that may have an impact on reducing population, but can sometimes be judged as cruel, and, considering the power of the sex drive and the current asymptotic growth of our planet's population even in the face of gross abject poverty and obscene starvation, is less effective than one might imagine.

In the next 38 years it is forecast that we will add to the planet the equivalent of the combined population of China and India.

Considering that many, many regions of the planet currently reflect horrifically overcrowded population densities far beyond what any of us would voluntarily choose to live in ourselves, and that these intollerable population densities are caused by natural planetary limitations on practical availability of sufficient natural resources prerequisite to create and manage sustainable habitats necessary for survival ..

.. I can't help but choose the need to decrease population as the most reasonable choice in the matter.

The best most humane way of decreasing the population, at this point in the problem, is to spread the truth of the urgent need to reduce population across the planet, with massive campaigns to create smaller families communicated daily on multiple media, and make safe and effective pharmaceutical birth control available to everyone at nearly next to nothing in cost.

Ontologuy said:

If the decision is to ramp up production, that can have the affect of increasing procreation as well.

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I disagree. Some of the lowest birth rates in the world occur in wealthy societies which have everything they need in terms of material wealth. And the highest birth rates typically occur in societies in abject poverty.

The biggest problem in humanity is thinking one policy would be for the good of all humans. We live in different cultures, societies, and no one policy can solve our problems.

There will always be problems around the world, and people like to think there are simple solutions. There isn't.

FreedomFromAll said:

We should get whats inside our own borders in order before we fantasize about how we could help the world.

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I question if we really know how to help the rest of the world....much less ourselves.

IMO, the first step ...at all times..,.tell the truth...

Yes ! The clean water is obvious , but there are steps before that...The Romans developed water systems thousands of year ago...why ?

Kandahar said:

I disagree. Some of the lowest birth rates in the world occur in wealthy societies which have everything they need in terms of material wealth. And the highest birth rates typically occur in societies in abject poverty.

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Indeed, this is true.

Those living in wealthy enclaves have a tendency to be more mentally oriented and abstractly intelligent, proclivities prerequisite for achieving and maintaining such wealth for the enjoyment such provides, and the desire for children is from a more concrete motivation, not to mention that children tend to interfere with the wealthy enjoying the great freedom their wealth provides, and that these people can easily afford birth control, some even participating in alternative sexual lifestyles outside the home.

And yes, considering there's not a whole heck of a lot for the abjectly impoverished to do on a Saturday evening, "let's have sex" is their default alternative to the latest movie or the hottest band .. and, of course, unprotected sex is all they can afford.

For the most part, however, and in general, the more you feed a population, the more it will grow.

The notion that stability and peace would help the most to me, is bad. It's what all the dicators and ruling tyranical single party government say. Yeah, yeah, we're corrupt, we stifle all individual freedom, but hey, we bring peace and stability! Trying to "fix" peace or stability seems a lot like trying to treat symptoms rather than the underlying illness.

I would prefer a culture of freedom. Economic, political, along with sufficient education to allow a majority of people to understand that freedom, and act on it.

Peace and stability was the obvious choice. Following that, you could work to bringing the other choices into reality. Can't get a quality education if there's a war waging a few miles away.

If I were to throw all the major problems into one big basket, I'd say that the biggest problem is the normalization/acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of resolving conflict.

People are starving...NOT because they won't or can't work, but because they are forced to live under systems in which most of the worth and application of what they produce is stolen from them, and then (due to purchase-based access) we end up with people who work full time (more hours than they would as hunter-gatherers), and yet still end up in poverty.

People are ignorant...NOT because the won't or can't learn, but because elite interests who benefit from people having a grossly distorted impression of of the world maintain such a system.

People are sick, and dying in huge numbers to preventable disease...NOT because we lack the resources or knowledge to prevent or cure such illness, but because the coercive economic system places private profit above need, and so wherever the two collide (which is often), profit tends to prevail at the expense of life.

and so on...

The key challenge with the acceptance of violence is that there is a massive double-standard involved...street-level violence is widely condemned or recognized as unethical...but SYSTEMIC violence is given largely a free pass or (in the case of military actions) even lionized.

earthworm said:

I question if we really know how to help the rest of the world....much less ourselves.

IMO, the first step ...at all times..,.tell the truth...

Yes ! The clean water is obvious , but there are steps before that...The Romans developed water systems thousands of year ago...why ?

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My point is that we are a country not the keepers of the world. But I do agree that clean water is important.

Other.
It's called LDD (Love Deficit Disorder).

Navy Pride said:

No matter what you can not let Hussein Obama cut our military funding any more then he has..........We have to maintain a strong military as a deterrent.............It is to the bare bone already........

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Are you familiar with the concept of first name, middle name, last name?

Becuase Hussein Obama, is not his name, and the fact you write it like that shows your lack of intelligence, and your ability to show you hate muslims with a passion. SO you are a racist, religious fanatic idiot I assume?

The biggest problem facing humanity is that Capitalism, as presently practiced, has reached the end of its age. An economic system that is essentially based upon scarcity has been usurped by the very child it has sired, namely mass production, which has now matured into the phenomenon of Superabundance.

Superabundance is the antithesis of scarcity. Therefore, it has become necessary to artificially maintain scarcity, particularly of that most essential of all commodities: energy, just to keep the present system from crashing. We are reminded of the Catholic Church in the age of Galileo, deliberately stifling the advancement of science once it began to challenge the established social paradigm of that age. However, there was no such thing as nuclear weapons in Galileo's day, and there does not appear to be any viable socioeconomic system on the horizon into which our present system can comfortably morph.

Sig said:

The biggest problem facing humanity is that Capitalism, as presently practiced, has reached the end of its age. An economic system that is essentially based upon scarcity has been usurped by the very child it has sired, namely mass production, which has now matured into the phenomenon of Superabundance.

Superabundance is the antithesis of scarcity. Therefore, it has become necessary to artificially maintain scarcity, particularly of that most essential of all commodities: energy, just to keep the present system from crashing. We are reminded of the Catholic Church in the age of Galileo, deliberately stifling the advancement of science once it began to challenge the established social paradigm of that age. However, there was no such thing as nuclear weapons in Galileo's day, and there does not appear to be any viable socioeconomic system on the horizon into which our present system can comfortably morph.

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Coercive systems (including, but not limited, to capitalism) don't comfortably morph into anything else. They have to be actively dismantled and supplanted, or they (very) uncomfortably and (very) bloodily morph into yet another variation of coercive system.

Me....................

"peace and stability to every part of the world" .... but it is an utter pipe dream, and not really worth a vote.


collapsing birth rates in the first world.

My vote would go to the same problem that has been our major problem throughout the entirety of our existence, both as individuals and as species. There is a question at the center of the human soul. Ultimately, that question cannot be articulated, though it is reflected in many of the "big" questions that we can ask. I think it is most clearly reflected in the question "Who or what are we?" Finding the answer to that question is our greatest problem, and the foundation of practically all our other problems.

ashurbanipal said:

My vote would go to the same problem that has been our major problem throughout the entirety of our existence, both as individuals and as species. There is a question at the center of the human soul. Ultimately, that question cannot be articulated, though it is reflected in many of the "big" questions that we can ask. I think it is most clearly reflected in the question "Who or what are we?" Finding the answer to that question is our greatest problem, and the foundation of practically all our other problems.

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Perhaps when you get older you will realize that the question is irrelevant?

Kandahar said:

I disagree. I think that peace, stability, democracy, freedom, etc are the RESULT of having the material items, rather than the cause of them. Granted, having stability and freedom makes it a lot easier to produce the other items...but I think the causal link is much stronger in the opposite direction. There are far more unstable/unfree societies that can nevertheless provide people with a minimal standard of living, than there are societies in dire poverty which are nevertheless able to maintain stability and freedom (India and Ghana are the only two that come to mind).

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First of all, India is not entirely stable or peaceful, there are pockets where there's periodic violence. In fact, given it's societal structure, a lot of people in the lower class and women are subjected to abuse, meaning a large section of society do not have security. Ghana is not a good example given its successive military coupes.

Question: Do you think these countries would have been worse or better if there had been a full fledged war or armed struggle?

I think that's why when we ask questions like "How can we achieve peace in Country X?", at the root level it always comes down to something like a lack of education, lack of communication, or a resource struggle. Instability and authoritarianism are largely problems of poverty, and eliminating the root sources of poverty is usually the best way to promote lasting peace and democracy. To put it succinctly, I think that getting people access to water will eliminate conflict, more than eliminating conflict will get people access to water.

Personally I think water, food, and energy are the most important items on my list, because they provide the building blocks from which the others can form. Whereas getting an education is difficult/ineffective without water and food, getting water and food are still worthwhile even without an education. So I think they are the most important. Ultimately, I think clean water is a bit more important than food, for the simple reason that 50% of the global disease burden is caused by unclean water consumption.

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If material well-being leads to peace and stability then one would surmise that when a society's standard of living rise, it's trajectory will continue upward, and yet, almost every society is the past has fallen after reaching greatness - why is that?

A lot of Asian African nations were actually on a path to doing well right after WWII with improving infrastructures, and yet many of them fell apart during the cold war - why is that?

I have experienced countries after wars, and in my personal experience, you need peace and some semblance of security in order to build a life, and then the rest will follow. Infrastructure like water, energy, even housing, needs to be maintained, in a war or armed conflict, people think about getting to safety first, the water plant breaking down is the least of their worries. In a war, you can't build water purification plants, highway to deliver food, or power plant and so on, but assuming you can, since there's no law and order, those resources will be controlled by the people with the most gun power, and if there are rival armed groups, the violence become destructive pretty quickly. Either way, the majority of people suffers.

You might think education is key, but people care about safety before education. Dead people don't learn. Furthermore, people who are educated are sometimes the worse perpetrators of war crimes - a lot of the Communist leaders in 20th century were well educated. Look at the US, with all the educated people in the government, with the resources for intelligence gathering and so on, they decided to start 2 wars that costs hundred of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and still leave millions miserable.

If water, food and energy will bring peace, then you have an easy formula for Afghanistan and Iraq - but that wasn't the case, often wars beget wars, until one group of eventual winners arise or they learn to share the what's left.

cpwill said:

"peace and stability to every part of the world" .... but it is an utter pipe dream, and not really worth a vote.


collapsing birth rates in the first world.

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Why? Are they the only "humanity"? What's wrong with people from other "worlds" carrying on the human race?