Unifying in a divided world.

I often think about the reasons why we've become so divisive as a species. I have my own hypothesis about "why", but "why's" tend to not be solutions. You don't need to be some great psychologist or philosophical pioneer to see that we are indeed inherently very selfish creatures. Especially people in modernized countries with access to unlimited information, education, and opportunities. It's almost as if the more modern we have become, the more selfish we have also become. These thoughts have led me to track down ways in which we can actually unify. To unify, we must find ways to invigorate connection & mitigate common issues that hold people back from connecting.

Some of the biggest issues we face today in my opinion that are halting this connection are food, water & energy. Basic things that we all need as humans to thrive in the world today, that many people still don't have access to. Unfortunately, this is a reality and most common people don't have the awareness that this is a problem. Nor the skills or the funds to really solve it. This leaves us with billionaires and governments that obviously still haven't solved the problem. The question is if we have technology, money, and time to solve them, why are they left unsolved? I think it's simpler than we think, and from my short life, it seems to me that we care more about choosing sides and our differences than working together and our alikeness.

Now there is nothing easy about getting people on the same page, but we totally make it harder than it is. It may be for nefarious reasons or our own blind stupidity, but regardless of it, it's the truth. We spend more time arguing about BS than solving problems, utilities spend more money lobbying to maintain control of their nest egg vs. inviting in competition and innovation. Massive food conglomerates maintain control of food supplies and the food quality is getting worse and quite honestly we care more about vaccinating people in third world countries than helping them build a supply chain for food and clean water. It all seems quite dismal, well because it is. Who's to blame? You and I, because we haven't held our "selected" leaders accountable and we spend more time designing our own lives than building a community where we all get to thrive.

Unifying in a divided world will be one of the most challenging things we face as a species, but it's absolutely imperative to our survival. We've spent far too much time making dollars and cents at the cost of long-term damage, so now we have to backtrack and do "damage control" because we didn't think about the repercussions of our choices at scale. Maybe one day we'll see it, or maybe we won't. Either way, I think it would be wise for the entrepreneurs of the world to begin designing a new system, instead of sucking up to the old one because it's broken.

We have two choices, invest time, energy, and money into the places that need it OR play it safe and do what we've always done which will inevitably lead us to our own downfall.

It's just my two cents.

-Skylar Lysaker