[POPTECH] The Future of Peace
Scott Hunt says we need to make compassion our guiding light. He wants us to be hopeful. He thinks the media focus on the negative. Since we’ve been at PopTech, 105,000 kids have died of malnutrition. 4.3B live on less than $2/day.
The says the Dali Lama (with whom he has spent a lot of time) suggests we list all the bad news on one side and all the good acts on the other. Be sure to add all the acts of decency and restraint. After Scott traveled the world’s battlefields, he came back and wrote the first line of his book: “Kindness is alive and well and we have good reason to be hopeful about the future.”
Here’s how technology is helping to move towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. A web cam dialogue between a Palestinian and Israelis turned a would-be suicide bomber away from that path. “Hello Peace” puts people on opposite sides into telephone contact.
He’s going to give us a structured plan for peace. The first step is to recognize “something I call human dignity.” We will afford all people pursue happiness no matter how different they are. Everyone wants to be happy. [I’m finding this very well-intentioned but jejeune.]
Second, we need to take action. The weapons in our heart are greed, ignorance and anger. We need an eBay-like market system for humanitarian aid. It has a web site with projects that can be sponsored. You can chat with the people who are constructing it. [Good idea, IMO.]
Third, we need persistence.
Ok, peace and prosperity through action are good things. On another dimension though are thousands losing their jobs (people with technical masters degrees also) to the off-shoring of technical work. Do American companies have the right to force their workers to train the off-shores and eliminate the higher paying jobs here?
Ok, the next new wave in tech will be becoming a consultant to facilitate communications between offshores and American companies, because the workers ain’t gonna train their replacements for long.
Be sure to read the entire book “DARK STAR SAFARI” by Paul Theroux before creating that “eBay-like market system for humanitarian aid.”
I for one don’t believe “humanitarian aid” is the solution. Part of the problem. The solution lies somewhere in the corrupt governments of these poor countries, and the wealthy governments and multinational corporations who find it strategically beneficial to keep these corrupt governments in power.