A New Way Of Thinking Because The Old Way Is Killing Us

November 2020 Chris Heron and Wim Froon - Vivagogy

For the first time, many of us are not certain any more.

Mortality is staring us in the face. We are seeing close friends and work colleagues taken sick and in some cases, dying. This forced pause-button on the world economy and our own lives has given us an uncomfortable space to reflect in.

Who are we?

Do we like what we see?

How do we treat our friends and relatives?

Can we improve that?

And, on a macro scale, what is happening? We thought life was predictable, and, we had control of the world - or, we would be all right in the end.

Somebody would invent something to solve the problem, we always have, haven’t we?

As we start to see vaccines being developed, we may still think that we are right and that they are the solution to this crisis? But vaccines will only be a short term solution to the pandemic. It will mutate or, there will be others coming along soon.

There are even darker ideas about how the world is being eroded by the way we are behaving. We have seen great acts of self endurance and courage during the Covid crisis but we have also seen the senseless and disregard that a large sector of our society has for the whole.

For many people view this situation as a simple balancing act between what they must give up and what they might lose.

We have created a society based on a simple carrot or stick approach. We have seen from the attitudes of many people during the pandemic that a more sophisticated model is needed today. If you work hard whilst you are at school, you get a good job and a secure future.

If you are young, there is a feeling that I will not get this so I can break curfews to have social time with my friends because I will not suffer. Even if others are endangered, I don’t care. The same thoughts are correct opinions relating to the larger environmental problems. Some say it is not happening others that the world will be OK anyway.

Even if it is correct it will not affect my life, it will be sometime in the future.

This is what the carrot and stick approach teaches. Some have said that between the carrot and the stick is an ass! Sadly neither is true. Those who are aware and understand the problems try to consider what this means on an individual basis and act as they can with conscience and consideration. 

For all the environmental schemes to collect plastic from the ocean. 

Create new powers sources or, harvest carbon dioxide as a fuel, there is a more fundamental problem which we have to solve. 

We have to change the way we and all our friends, think.

If we could do this one thing, we would probably we able to have dramatic effects on all the other issues. You see its more complicated than not using plastic or driving electric cars instead of those powered with fossil fuel. In nature, everything is related and interconnected, each problem has a relationship with all the others. At the core of all these problems are human beings.

We are the only species that have to bend the environment to our will rather than fitting in with it - and that is destructive. We are not in control anymore, and, the system is fighting back. There are pandemics, floods, droughts, violence and extreme behaviours. 

We need to stake a step back and think.

Think about the speed of change that we are forcing on the earth.

In a piece of research a few years ago, McKinsey said that the progress of this technological 4th industrial revolution is moving at ten times the speed and having 300 times the impact.If you translate that into a time- related equation. You might give the first industrial revolution a value of hundred years during, which we made vast progress, you will understand the nature of the problem.

It took us about a hundred years to move from a rural economy to an urban industrial one. To invent mechanisation, new sources of power, forms of transport, economic systems and social models.

How many days would it take us to make the same progress, if McKinsey is right? 100 x 365 days x 36,500 / 3000 = 12.1 days. That is our problem. Hyper-change. We do not have time to react to change, let alone understand it. We need to change the way we think. Tomorrow is no longer certain to be like yesterday. It is certain to be different. Uncertainty is a difficult concept for human beings who dislike certainty.

We refer to history and historic economic, legal, moral and social models but is that wise any more? We need new ways of thinking based on the future, not yesterday. All our systems and ideas need to be fluid. 

Economics, fiscal law, politics, transport systems, fuel sources, business models……it is all out of date. 

We need to think differently and confront those old concepts we are so comfortable with.

Our personal lives and economic and business models are based on the idea of constant and unlimited growth. But now it appears this is not possible.

What do we replace this with? Will there always be work? How do we reward people when it is not by measuring their productivity in monetary terms? Do you?

If you cannot convince the younger generations that this is true, what will happen? They will not join in, because they cannot see the reward. After all, that is what we have been taught and what we teach them.

Complicated - is it not!? 

So what do we do? 

We need to think about consequences and relationship of events. 

This is not a binary process! But there are some simple rules. We cannot continue as we are, can we? We need to think in a new way of forgetting the past and thinking of the future. Think about new ways of measuring intangible things, not just tangible things.

Someone who is a nurse performing vital duties and risking their lives is just as important and valuable as a city financial broker who invests billions for his clients. 

But how do we do this?

We need to measure people, businesses and society as a whole in a much more sophisticated way based on a new scale of measurement. These new scales will give us valuable data for new models which will be fluid and considerate and human. They will enable us to create value where it does not exist.

With a more egalitarian business model, we can create new values based on sharing and redistributing the wealth as part of a business model. These 21-century models and technology can create the changes we need by providing all the stakeholders with short and mid-term gains.

They will correct and teach behavioural change and thinking by peer pressure.

So a better system can evolve changing peoples thinking. 

There are many new ideas out there but, all we hear is the status quo shooting them down as unproven or threatening. Technologies like blockchain, AI, Edge Computing, Quantum Theory, BioEngineering and the fusing and cross-fertilisation of ideas is creating lots of challenging concepts.

Furthermore, consumer demand and market forces are acting.

People are concerned and trying to exercise their choice in buying and voting. But they are lost - they need better information to help them. Penicillin was not created it was discovered by accident!

Can these new ideas really be more dangerous than the position the old models have put us in?