| I am commenting in support of optimism and to counterweight pessimistic outlook. Humanity indeed faces a lot of problems. Each of them have many possible solutions (The only one unsolvable is a heat death of the universe). Thing is, the solutions usually may be divided into two categories: technical and societal. For example, for the horse manure problem in big cities there were two possible solutions: invent a car, or limit the number of horses in the city. The thing is: technical solutions are always cool. They open up new possibilities, the one which could not be foreseen. Technical solution also creates new problems, that require solutions of their own. Societal solutions always suck. Societal solution is to make people do less of the thing that causes trouble. The problem therefore kind of resolves, but the life become more boring and less free. Such solution does not bring new possibilities, does not advance life, but there is no risks of unforeseen new problems. Examples of the problems and possible solutions: Global worming: limit consumption and consumerism - or - perform climate engineering (spray high albedo particles in stratosphere, send controllable aluminum foil mirrors to the orbit, install more solar cells and wind turbines Cancer, Alzheimers, heart diseases, obesity, etc.: live "healthy life", eat boring non-tasty grass, die 5 times a week at the gym, don't eat most awesome sugar, don't dring amazing coke, don't smoke, don't enjoy, don't ... - OR - Concentrate on solving the cause of those illnesses, that is the ageing. Treat ageing as a disease and fund anti-ageing research. "Overpopulation": Make people believe that earth is dying and they shouldn't have children - OR - Build habitat (O'Neil cylinders) on the orbit thus opening virtually endless living space Nuclear war: Pacify a horrible dictator, leave him "ways to retreat" - OR - build habitats on the orbit; atomic explosions in space won't do much damage at all (there is a constant atomic explosion already there, called Sun). Hunger: Not a problem, earth agriculture is overproducing; the real problem is horrible dictators and the lack of new land that people can escape to from that dictator. |
Where would you place something like efforts to increase a population literacy rates? It's not a new technical advantage, but it doesn't suck or limit possibilities. If anything, it creates them, since a literate population is one you can teach to drive, where employers can assume literacy for training purposes, where governments can give information to their people in writing, where people can read their own religious texts without intermediaries, etc.