How Do You Save the World?

hmm,

To answer your question

"I want to change myself to be more helpful, like willing to be of use".

"I want to help the world, because its better than being idle and useless".

"I want to help people because its fun to do so"

I like getting involved with supporting bigger issues, vulnerable members of society, solving problems and to make some friends. I am not suggesting people should go into a war zone and deliver aid and water. But perhaps thinking where one might be useful, assess personal goals. My idea of a goal would be for myself to create a YouTube channel full of animations that actually made a small difference like earning money for charity.

Personally the big change I would make If I was omnipotent:

• Create a symbiosis with the planet
• Animal conservation and re-population
• Positive Propaganda in mainstream media

This website is cool Upriser Website and animation below was inspirational for me because I like Futurism:

i found it funny as all get out (i dont know what that actually means) that the "core values" thread got almost no participation but things like "sithism" and "should we lie?" get multiple pages within hours

people get carried away with causes and mislead by statistics on an every day basis

the only defense any of us have against this that i can see is to define - as precisely as possible - a set of core values and make it ones life long determination to integrate them into ones behavior

everything else is window dressing, and chopping off the heads of the hydra one at a time only to have new devils appear to replace them

Ariane wrote: hmm,

To answer your question

"I want to change myself to be more helpful, like willing to be of use".

"I want to help the world, because its better than being idle and useless".

"I want to help people because its fun to do so"

I like getting involved with supporting bigger issues, vulnerable members of society, solving problems and to make some friends. I am not suggesting people should go into a war zone and deliver aid and water. But perhaps thinking where one might be useful, assess personal goals. My idea of a goal would be for myself to create a YouTube channel full of animations that actually made a small difference like earning money for charity.

Personally the big change I would make If I was omnipotent:

• Create a symbiosis with the planet
• Animal conservation and re-population
• Positive Propaganda in mainstream media

This website is cool Upriser Website and animation below was inspirational for me because I like Futurism:

you are the media

make it a point to spread the propoganda that you feel offers the greatest benefit to the world

Now I have to find the "Core Values" thread. I think I ran into it and was going to write something up, but just wasn't in the mood at that point in time. It does tie into this though. And I think what you, Ariane, wrote is a set of values. It pretty fairly encompasses the reasons you want to do things, and even suggests an avenue. That's pretty nifty.

I agree that the starting point is finding what drives you, but I don't think that it's a static thing you just work on figuring out and incorporating into your life, just because. I mean, of course it can be! And that's really great. But I've always wanted to do something different - something I feel does touch multiple minds and lives.

Still, you have to start with the self. It's usually where most of the urges to help others stem from anyway.

EDIT:

I just realized that this is in the "Science" area though, so maybe we should be focusing on that aspect of this. In that sense I'd say one of the major things I have an interest in (aside from anything SpaceX is doing) are new theories on urban design, especially anything that incorporates a large amount of nature and natural designs, with some in-built system of high-activity social transportation to help mitigate or even remove the use of cars (for non-emergency/industrial uses).

Alos, IBM has invented a new type of solar array using a special cooling system that keeps the chips from overheating, allowing an array to draw in somewhere around 2,000 times as much power as normal. Potentially a collection of these could take the place of a coal plant, and that is REALLY cool.

While I agree with much of the positive sentiment and optimism expressed so far, I would answer your question quite simply.

How do you save the world? You don't. The world will save itself.

We tend to be extremely egotistical creatures when it comes to our place in the grand scheme of things. We are not destroying an ecosystem. We are part of it, and a part of it that can easily die out. We worry about climate change because it will make us uncomfortable. We consider certain chemicals to be "pollution" that exist in massive quantities both here and on other planets. We don't rule out Venus as a potential home because of pollution. We do because the massive amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is poisonous to us and it causes the planet to be way hotter than we can survive. The planets, including this one, are not concerned about flooding or pollution or becoming too hot.

As we watch and learn of the events unfolding in Nepal or look back on similar events like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, it is important to remember that these are catastrophes on a human level. They are normal happenings for a planet. Just as spraying a trail of ants with ant spray is a normal happening for me, the same cannot be said from the ant's perspective.

If we are to "save the world", we need to be honest about it. We see through human eyes. We are selfishly saving the world for ourselves. We can make it a better place for people now, but there will come a point when the world will no longer have a biological motivation to keep us around. It might be a meteor or we might do it to ourselves. All we can do in the meantime is try to be good to each other. It is an endeavor worth our best efforts.

dble pst

@Senan
i agree with much of what you say but my response is that i am totally ok with the idea of changing the wording of the question to "how do we save ourselves?"

the earth itself will recover, sure, and there is a perspective from which it makes absolutely no real difference if any and all of us die painful ignoble deaths - right after watching everyone we love do the same

but thats not what most of us want

so i agree lets be clear about what we mean, but i dont agree with making that distinction in such a way as to imply that conservation efforts and climate change efforts and "not dumping poison into the oceans and the mountains and releasing it into the air" efforts are in any way NOT the right kinds of efforts to make, i think its quite clear at multiple levels that they are

OB1 - it sounds like we are in agreement. I know I come off like I'm doom and gloom and don't care. It is far from that. I strongly believe in living in harmony with nature and practicing conservation. I'm always excited about new technologies that will help us do just that. As an Eagle Scout I was taught to protect what is most important to me, mainly being family and the environment my family lives in. I applaud those who make real efforts to effect positive change.

That being said, I also struggle everyday trying to reconcile these selfish needs with a desire to be more selfless. My ego allows for self preservation, and I don't want to die. I also don't want my ego to drive all of my actions. I want to save the planet, but I don't want to be the guy who says "I can save the planet". I guess you can say I'm walking a tight rope between being one with the universe and still enjoying the convenience of driving my giant gas guzzling truck. These are my conflicting feelings and I know that. :laugh:

ah - my interpreive schema is jaded by my social exposure
ive spent my entire life in what you could call "the religious south" and i have heard all sorts of angles used to try and counter environmental initiatives - imo mostly because the perception is that they are "liberal" causes (as if cancer cares who someone votes for) and therefore are satans evil lies inflicted on the holy by the godless heathen dirt worshippers

seriously, thats the argument lol just not as poetic as i make it sound here of course

yeah i agree with everything you just said
including the tightrope angle

In the spirit of antithesis could I be so bold as to ask the following questions: why do you think the world needs saving? what would you try and save it from?

If your answers are along the lines of the world needs saving from us, because we're destroying it I would argue that's fair enough, but we need to be extremely careful with that line of argument. It has led many to advocate enforced birth control, constraints on civil rights and to argue for immediate deindustrialisation - amongst other things. This is a terrifying example from just a few days ago: here

As H.L. Mencken is quoted as having said "“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” (Ironically - I understand he wasn't actually a great fan of liberal democracy either). When we contemplate saving the world, or saving humanity are we actually contemplating how to save ourselves, or our way of life?

Once again in the spirit of playing devil's advocate this is thought provoking and mostly very amusing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

the way you protect yourself from being carried away by ideology and masked dictator ploys is by defining your core principles and constantly applying them to your day to day experience

for instance a person who makes a deliberate commitment to being truthful and unselfish will recognize eventually that their actions are going too far

even if it has to be pointed out to them by those who see it happening, which they would because the person is being truthful about what theyre doing and is unselfish enough to hear others points of view fairly

add the values of courage and responsibility, accountability, and long term comitment to high output/effort (willing to work hard) and the result is what you would call a person of character

such people do not get carried away for long
as a general rule
and are always at the core of movements and organizations which make great differences in functional ways

in other words; jedi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVSEmwY2u0I


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvhnGeXiuq0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLwwLrn2ncI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBoCoJfDXM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

Ob1 so sorry for the delay, to change ones self is as simple as seeing what you want to be like... and acting accordingly. to easy, it's our programming at times that gets in the way. Case in point, u wanna learn to speak a language... learn it. you want to know on certain subjects, learn em. Educating your self has never been illegal and now that we have the Internet, holy-moley... we can learn...everything. free, kinda lol. If u like pm me any time

Ok, I hear you, but lets cut straight to the chase. I think we would agree that there is no such thing as “saving the world.” I am now of the belief that it’s not the world that needs saving, but it’s each of us that must focus on saving ourselves first. Saving ourselves happens when we take the time to become the most aware versions of ourselves, so that we are able to live a purposeful life.

It is when we make conscious decisions and create things and experiences that leave a legacy and positively impacts others. When you get clear on who you are and heed your inner calling of how to serve others, you ultimately achieve your greater goal of “saving the world.”

The human race has a problem in its relationship with the environment. That problem is an intrinsic consequence of running a technological civilisation on the surface of a planet and it's one we were destined to face since long before perceiving it. Now that we do perceive it, and everybody's talking about it, we should start being more realistic about the historical context of those discussions.

All life forms exploit their surroundings to get what they need to survive. Daisies need sunlight, squirrels need acorns, whales need krill. We humans, however, have always been rather more ambitious about what constitutes our needs and, for 100,000 years, those ambitions and their side effects have been inexorably increasing.

HUMANS are not the centre of life. Nor is any other single species. Life has existed at the planetary level for at least 3,000 million years. To me, the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable. The planet takes care of us, not the other way around.

Our self-inflated moral imperative to guide a wayward Earth, or heal our sick planet, is evidence of our immense capacity for self delusion. Rather, we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.

We are at the point of a very big crisis indeed in global biodiversity. Over 40 per cent of the land mass of the earth is now devoted to human agriculture. The cities are eating up the open spaces with their garbage and concrete. The forests are being taken over by agriculture. There is simply no way that this can be allowed to double in the next generation, which is the rate at which we are going.

Over 70% of our Earth's surface is covered by water. Although water is seemingly abundant, the real issue is the amount of fresh water available. 97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use. Only ~1% of the world's fresh water is accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. California has been in a state of emergency since 2003 because of lack of water every year since then has been the worst drought than in 50 years. California has been using water from aquifers that are reserved for our children for the year 2050 and has shoved the water shortage problem onto the later generations.

The truth is Gaia will recover from humans, but will humans be around to see that happen. Can we 'change ourselves' before its too late? How do we change ourselves?

Either we change ourselves, change each other or change are lifestyles. We could live less technological dependant lives or engineer solutions to make the best out of our technological innovations. Technology should improve ones life and its our personal choices when using technology that make technology a negative impact.

Technology can have positive impacts, and we should learn how to be effective consumerists. Such as we can buy organic, fair trade hot chocolate or spend more money on quality products like shoes, clothing, and food. Because the apparel and food industry that sell cheap clothing or food usually do so buy creating sweat shops. Make your products last longer! Make do or mend! And in other circumstances like using solar power in your home or making good decisions on what you buy.

A few more thoughts:

Firstly we didn't choose to be here. The long chain of technological innovations that brought us to this point was not premeditated. No one sat down and planned the invention of agriculture or the Industrial Revolution.

However, now we're here there can be no turning back. We don't have the option of returning to our pre-agricultural days of hunting, gathering and living off nature's rhythms. Population densities far exceed levels that can be nourished through such practices.

Hunter-gatherer peoples live at average population densities of less than one person per square kilometre. Population densities in the heavily populated regions of the world are now well over 100 people per square kilometre something our natural environment cannot sustain without globalisation.

With this is mind, some have suggested the Earth has more humans than she can sustain and that a population crash is both inevitable and necessary. As one with an optimistic view of the problem-solving for humankind, I think we can come up with a more creative way forward than that... It would be a failure for people to die, because i am of the view we should try to win the game. And part of it, is that it is better to live than to die.

In essence we've naively constructed a civilisation that is not environmentally sustainable. Now we have to re-craft it into one that is.

My question is what type of technology could help save the world. For most of us saving ourselves will be making correct decisions on what/when to buy technology and our meaningful purposes and goals in life. However for business and entrepreneurs consumerism is even more important and what they choose to spend their money on.

For example: I bought myself a pottery wheel and now can go into my back garden and dig up clay and make my own pots and cups and make statues. I am investing in solar power and aquaponics equipment. I already grow a large amount of vegetables in the garden. My home is extremely energy efficient and give a small amount of money to charity. However this is all I possibly can do and would like advice on how else to improve.

How do you save the world?

a well meaning place to start...perhaps

https://www.crowdrise.com/

I have to ask myself, is my view of the world the correct view for me to change the world to?

I don't know.

I have to ask myself, is my view of the world the correct view for me to change my part of the world?

I don't know.

I have to ask myself, is what I do in my part of the world a postive example for others to positivly change their part of their world?

I hope so.

I hope when our views of the world overlap we are compatable. I think/feel that could change the world.

Those are my views on why we should save the world:

A Conclusion:

Even once we've re-crafted our civilisation to work in harmony with Earth's ecosphere, we will stand only at the threshold of yet further challenges. For this is a world on which solar cycles, ice ages and moving coastlines are an implicit part of life. CO2-induced climate change is not our only great collective environmental challenge - it's the first in a long line of complicated learning experiences.

Would like to hear your views Rickie. I am off to the Cinema to Watch Age of Ultron: Avengers assemble

Would like to hear your views Rickie

I thought I did?

It's all about balance and harmony with nature. I believe and feel that is how we perserve and save the world but can I be certain I'm correct. I don't know... but have hope. There have been civilizations that simple disappeared in the past. Is history repeating itself? Is this a cycle we have no control over? I don't know.

On global warming. It appears humans are the cause and I agree. As responsible humans we need to do the bast we can to stop those things we know cause global warming. On the flip side, economics make it expensive or incovient. Which I think is poor irresponsible judgment. Finally humans tend to do the easy thing until a disaster strikes and then we are all over fixing things. We usually do.

How Do "I" Save the World. I vote people out of office if I can. I'm not silent on critical issue. I live a modest life style, minimizing my consumption of resources. Walk, garden, bike ride, grow fruit and veggies in my back yard. Drive no more than I have to, turn off lights, lower the thermostat etc.

Lots of small things and I hope I'm a good, though flawed, example to others.

I know I don't know a lot of stuff but do know change is for certain.