Our HOME is out of balance,

the only world we have!

Will we draw the crucial consequences or go on as before? Potentially even worse – concentrating more power in the hands of very few, whether state or global giants despite knowing and sensing that this is the wrong direction?

I like to reflect now, in time with you, to create and exchange ideas, to set-up projects to rebalance our HOME - our societies, ecosystems, business and economies - in a more sustainable way. How can we best use, activate and accelerate our common swarm intelligence for a positive future in freedom and peace for most (all?) of us?

Where do we stay at the moment?  -A personal perspective.

WE, the scientific community, health & tech industry, knowledgeable citizen, leading governmental agencies and our own politician – highly educated, skilled people - are responsible for the crises, but we are the ones who suffer the least. Opposite, more work to do than before, more money to come then could ever be imagined. The once who failed are well paid for it. Is this fair? 

The interim results: 20 % unemployment in the US, 10 Mio in short time work in Germany, unofficially 20% unemployment in China; France, Spain, Italy still in Lock down and Switzerland? Many more are starving and dying silently – not covered at the front page or the top news like SARS –CoV2/ Covid-19 deaths. The difference - many of them are kids and working age people making it harder for the regions to recover. We had that before -  35 years back when HIV/AIDS came along. Just to remind us – now 35 years later - a vaccine for HIV is finely at the horizon.

WE have no excuse. Many did know about it in advance. We were very well aware of the risk for about 20 years, even if we did not know how exactly the bug would look like. We do know about other man - made risks which are around and might still come, leaving a lab by accident or being the unintended result of weather engineering or…. Not talking about the real big issue: climate & environmental change. In comparison to these risks, wars can easily be limited. 

WE had sufficient information to prepare. We even have/had already developed scientific approaches and tools which would have made us able to act immediately- even preliminary vaccines for SARS in phase1. But the ROI for our financial short-sightedness was not attractive enough – cancer and rare disease offer better, secure profits, other political issues like brexit were more important. Priority setting did not work.  

WE failed all together. Pandemic plans were written even before ?the Great Gates” gave a TED talk. Do we really need “someone” to tell us? Aren’t we not clever, well-educated individuals to know what is right in time?  The times to rely on “brands” - names, products and highly ranked institutions - are over. They all failed. Why?

Was that all an accident, shielding off the likelihood despite “knowing” it, was it our well trained short-sightedness hoping agility will make up for it, or the dominating behaviour not to expose ourselves to avoid being expelled from our peer groups, the misguiding incentive systems in place, our established habit to delegate to others or did it even happen for purpose?

Were we too bussy to gain new scientific insights? But for what, if we do not apply them when critical?  All options are possible; indications exist for all of them, some supported by major global interests of different origins and goals behind.

Will we learn something from it - in time? Starting now - immediately? What do we need to learn and change to manage other known risks?

 The critical risks coming either from interesting but dangerous science approaches and experiments, from our narrow minded believe in (AI) technology as solver and manager, or from applying overcome (frequently implicit) models as well as the well - known topic of climate change are man-made. We can change it - still!

 Even more critical, the most dangerous risk is our missing confidence in ourselves, in the human ability to develop, sense and understand, to decide and adapt. But without us it will not work!

 The risks foreseeable today can only be managed in time, by well-thought man – made decisions. Many of them demand a global perspective and cooperation. Technology can and will help us, deliver broader connected perspectives (if we allow it). Technology will be the enabler for better and timelier decisions – if we become bold to set it up and use it in this way!

 We can make it happen – together, but it needs new roles, responsibilities, a new respect culture and more differentiated considerations than in our past.

Here are some of my questions. Would you share your view and ideas how to adress them? Add these ones which are missing?

How can we assure that insights are resulting in decisions in time? How do we ensure that respective deciders will take this task seriously, by being hold responsible for it?  How do we routinely broaden the perspectives of peer groups in power?

How could processes and organizations look like which foster joint decision making responsibility between citizen and elected politicians? How can citizien be trained to share responsibilty again?

How do we ensure information quality and breadth instead of enforcing further conformity across global media channels and science communities? Are scientists prepared to transfer insights to “normal people” external to their peer groups?

 How do we – re-integrate expert insights, build trustful systemic knowledge from it and understand the assumptions behind leading to the results? How to adapt incentive systems in science, health and tech industry to accelerate breadth of insights no longer neglecting relevant needs?

How do we create a new awareness for the criticality of wording?  How can we communicate it in a way that most of the citizens can draw reasonable conclusions from it to form their own opinion and build self-efficacy and trust in themselves as well as in the others again?