Reasons to be Cheerful
What the planet’s biggest challenges look like through the eyes of a woman
The United Nations has summarised the planet’s biggest challenges and encouraged countries to adopt a set of 17 goals to transform our world. The scale of the challenges we face makes for pretty bleak reading — if and only if we use the same level of thinking that created the challenges, to solve the challenges. If, instead, we use The 2100 Pendulum as a framework, our planet’s biggest challenges will be solved (by women) much earlier than we think. Here are the reasons to be cheerful, despite the doom and gloom.
Side Note: If you’re not familiar with The 2100 Pendulum Model this post won’t make much sense — read the model for context before exploring further. Without the context it may sound as if I’m belittling the significant challenges we face.
Let’s be clear: we have passed the tipping point and we’ve proved that our puny efforts to save our planet will simply give us more of what we currently have: planetary crisis. It’s time for fearless female fomenters to shun the worldview men have worshipped since the Industrial Revolution, and to forge a new world of possibility.
Women of the world, your time is now. We need your creative, collaborative, intuitive solutions — before it’s too late.
Its my fervent hope that some of these bare-boned ideas might spark with an existing idea or two — in the hearts of empathic women rather than in the heads of analytical men — that leads to the changes we so desperately need. Our planet’s pressing problems will never be solved without wonderfully big, new ideas, pushing the boundaries of conditioning and ingrained beliefs.
The 17 Biggest Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs
These 17 opportunities are also the 17 core challenges the UN is currently addressing as part of their Sustainable Development Goals. I’ve provided a very brief overview of each opportunity, and we’ll be exploring each in much greater detail over the next few months. If you have a passion for solving any of these particular challenges at the scale the UN requires, please do consider contributing your thoughts to the Life in the 22nd Century publication on Medium — let’s keep this important conversation going.
As a reminder from The 2100 Pendulum Model, the lens through which we view these opportunities includes the following important focal points:
- The convergence of exponential technologies including: Internet of Things or Device Mesh, Ambient Device Interfaces combined with the “Quantified Self”, Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing combined with advances in Materials Science, Machine Learning, Autonomous Agents like driverless cars and drones, Virtual and Augmented Reality and Synthetic Biology;
- In parallel with technology advances, humanity’s empathy increases dramatically and technology becomes empathic — Accenture calls it “people first” technologies;
- The predominant worldview is one of abundance rather than scarcity;
- Many physical constraints imposed by our current understanding of Science and Physics are overcome;
- There is an alternative to an economic model predicated on the constant production of goods and services;
- There is an alternative to debt-based economies.
Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
There are two erroneous underlying assumptions about poverty:
- Money/income/wages/resources are scarce and they need to be distributed mindfully — the reality is that we live in an abundant world where resources are unequally distributed based on a false sense of what makes a human deserving/successful;
- An income can only be earned through the capitalistic view of production of goods and services — the reality in nature is that there is more than enough for every specie to prosper, without additional production.
The issue of poverty is not about exceeding the UN benchmark of $1.25 per day — it is how we provide a Basic Income Guarantee for every human on the planet, and there are fortunately many initiatives underway to address this challenge in a far more meaningful way than “ending poverty”.
Questions: Rather than ending poverty, how do we create wealth? How can blockchain technologies be used as a kind of “global payroll?” (One company is already doing this for their cross-border salary payments). Can exponential technologies create a zero cost society?
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Since the 1900’s we’ve made the assumption that agriculture is the primary global solution to food production. The UN wants to double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, while the reality is that soil is depleted of nutrients and fresh water is inadequate.
Question: Is physical consumption of physical goods the only way to sustain human life? Can energy be transferred into a human without the need to “consume?” Can Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) produce food at the place of consumption?
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
The underlying assumption has been that vaccines and man-made pharmaceuticals are required to increase life expectancy and that healthcare can only be offered by a trained professional. In parallel we allow industries to produce substances known to shorten lifespans: sugar, alcohol, tobacco being the biggest culprits. Often consumers of these products have little knowledge of the consequences.
Questions: How do we use technology — specifically big data — to make personalised preventative health recommendations available to everyone? Can harmful substances be outlawed, not through legislation but giving consumers the tools to make informed decisions. Can nanotechnology be deployed via the cloud to enable remote surgery? How can we include socially essential work — like caregiving, child raising and domestic work — in calculations of economic productivity such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product)?
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
The underlying assumption is that literacy, numeracy and vocational training are effective measures of a human’s worth and that our capitalistic training systems should be continued.
Questions: How do we use technology to allow everyone to tap into wisdom, rather than knowledge. How do we effectively filter the world’s information? How can we value human beings outside of their education. How do we tap into the innocent wisdom that all babies arrive with?
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
It’s my belief that as we transition from a patriarchal system to a matriarchal system, this challenge will solve itself and that women’s value to society will be revered.
Questions: Rather than aiming for equality (women and men will never be equal), how can we accelerate Alice Paul’s belief that an empathic, nurturing, collaborative, intuitive women-led society will naturally solve the problems created by a competitive, command-and-control men-led society? How can we celebrate feminine energy rather than making this a gender issue?
Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
The underlying assumption is that the collection, distribution and treatment of water in its physical form is the most efficient.
Questions: Can water be extracted from air? Can water be created using bits and atoms?
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
The underlying assumption is that a carbon-based energy system is the most efficient.
Questions: If electricity really is the most efficient modern energy source, is the current distribution method the most efficient? To what extent can energy be transferred from one system to another without a conversion process? i.e. rather than go from sun to coal to oil to combustion engine to movement, can’t we go direct from sun to movement? If we remove physical limitations imposed by our current understanding of science and physics, are our energy requirements as high as they are now?
Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
It’s interesting that the supporting image the UN have chosen to introduce the goal of decent work is one of menial work:
There are a number of erroneous assumptions with this goal:
- The nature of work in a command-and-control, hierarchical society must continue as it has;
- Work is a struggle to make ends meet rather than fulfil a meaningful purpose;
- Economic growth must continue ad infinitum.
Questions: What are the alternatives to a location-based, 40-hour work week? Are there different ways of evaluating and rewarding a human’s contribution to society? Can the retail industry’s concept of “loyalty points” be applied on a planetary basis?
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
This is the most dangerous goal of all, because it is based on the erroneous assumption that further industrialisation (the biggest cause of the planet’s challenges) is the only option we have. It also assumes that future progress precludes significant advances in dematerialisation.
Questions: What is the next step in the trend to de-couple the need for human presence in transportation (drones, driverless cars, autonomous transport)? Is teleportation of physical products achievable before 2100? Teleportation of humans? What will the impact be on climate change if we removed all transportation requirements (space exploration, shipping, trains, planes and automobiles)? Can all products be built on-demand, at the location they will be used?
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
The dangerous assumption with this goal is that the man-made fiction of national borders is conducive to our planetary survival.
Questions: What will it take to instil a sense of global pride rather than national pride in every inhabitant of planet earth? Are national governments required? Is government required?
Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
The assumption that urbanisation is the best form of habitation is based on the erroneous assumptions that production is our only hope (Goal 8) and physical laws can’t be superseded (Goal 9).
Questions: What will it take to make our urban areas more personal, more connected, more communal? Can rural living and zero commuting be achieved?
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
The assumption in this goal is that the average consumer takes full accountability of their consumption — the reality is the manipulation of the advertising and FMCG industries.
Questions: What will it take to shift advertising from demand-generation to (real) problem solving? How can empathy in business be improved?
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
This goal is arguably the most convincing evidence that we’re suffering under a linear analysis, cause-and-effect, male-dominated society. Climate change is merely a symptom of systemic failure and investing any effort in addressing the symptom will have the same effect as treating cancer with chemotherapy: the patient will die.
Question: How can climate change be celebrated as part of the natural cycle of life, rather than be viewed as a man-made catastrophe?
Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
The clue to the underlying assumption in this goal lies in a biblical verse:
Genesis 1:26–28: And God said, Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth… Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.
This simple biblical message has been interpreted in a male-dominated world as “command-and-control.” In a female-dominated world, this message would have been interpreted as “stewardship:” how do we best collaborate with fish, fowl and every creeping thing?
The oceans, seas and marine resources are not ours to “use” — they are there for collaboration.
Question: How do we shift our world view to one of collaboration with natural resources? How can the extent of our collaboration be adequately measured and reported?
Goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
See Goal 14.
Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
The erroneous assumption in this goal is that humanity is inherently evil and requires policing and control. It ignores the evidence that the vast majority of crimes are committed because many of these goals have not yet been met, and when they are the need for comman-and-control systems will disappear.
Question: How can blockchain technologies be used for effective self-regulation? Could a supercomputer replace national governments with all planetary citizens connected and peer-regulated?
Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
See Goal 10.
A Note to Men
This article will no doubt have appeared hopelessly idealistic and naive to you. That’s simply because it doesn’t fit within your sense of what is “normal.” Embrace the discomfort. We’re in a period of transition. Buckle your seatbelt and get ready for the ride of your life.
Or cling to the status quo — the choice is yours.
A Note to Women
You’ve no doubt intuitively resonated with everything said here that doesn’t make “logical” sense. That’s simply because logic is overrated. It served us well since the Industrial Revolution, but it’s no longer serving us. Logic needs to be replaced with intuition. Embrace the shift. We’re in a period of transition. Buckle your seatbelt and get ready to fearlessly show men how things can be done.
Or cling to the status quo — the choice is yours.
You made it to the end! Have you come across Postcards from 2035? It’s a series of profoundly simple interlinking ideas describing life in a highly desirable society, where everything and everyone is advanced, happy, intelligent and problem-free. It’s a blueprint of the world we need to co-create. Check it out!
