"humans don't care what somebody or some thing thinks they should

be doing. They'll do whatever they please."

I WISH that were true! If so, we'd be totally functional. Instead humans are easily brainwashed by governments/corporations/media to behave in ways that go against their very nature, making them do self-harming behavior, and turning them into miserable, anxious, depressed physically ill folks who don't understand why they are so sick!

Which is why I totally agree with you that "We have a social problem, not a technological one. "

Once we start a social trend of focusing on taking good care of ourselves, and following our own dreams for doing what we feel most inspired to do in life, and attaining what we most value in the world (doing what we please) we'll finally start to see humans getting out of their own way, and actually being the forward-thinking, pro-social, intelligent, creative beings that we're genetically programmed to be, rather than the wage-slave, anti-social, vengeful, paranoid beings that we've been convinced we're "supposed" to be.

To me, as a teacher and counselor, the only real solution I've ever found is to create an environment where individuals feel supported, get their basic needs met (with honestly high quality food, water, air, warmth, light, information, and outlets for expressing their body's excess matter and energy), and are encouraged to follow their dreams for doing whatever they find most meaningful in life. Gamification, while amusing and currently very hip, is likely to fail for the same reasons that our current monetary system has failed, because it adds an artificial, kludgy system of over-complexity and unscientific/subjective valuation to things that are already naturally understood and simple (homo-sapiens' natural pro-social, creative, playful exploration and mastery of the world).

However, I do totally agree that we need to make information readily accessible to everyone, because ignorance does no one any good! The more information an individual has access to, the better they are able to make decisions based on reality, rather than fantasy. We need to provide unconditional access to high quality communication tools for anyone who wants them.

I also like your idea of priority maps. That's similar to my own proposal in my essay. Sharing our goals, wants, and offers is crucial to bringing the stuff that is out there to the people who need it to do their best work. I envision a matchmaking system that works like a personal dating service, only for everything. And I mean everything! You want X, I have X to offer. That's the nervous system of the world. Then we just need an efficient circulatory system for the world to move X from me to you, and we're all set.

    What if people, instead of the zero-sum idea of barter/money, started to work with the larger world the way they work normally in their day to day lives with their families and friends? Families and friends don't use a zero-sum/competitive system for resource allocation, instead they use a system of (freely) giving what is available to give and using whatever is freely available to improve their lives. In other words, normal, healthy relationships where we take care of ourselves using what's available.

    The barter/competition/money/zero-sum system is artificial, and gets in the way of healthy relationships, and makes it more likely that we'll get sick, because resources are hoarded, rather than freely circulating. And most humans instinctively understand this, but simply don't know what else to do, since they feel trapped by the brainwashing that they've been raised with.

    Which means it's up to the more intelligent, creative thinkers who can see how insane/sick the zero-sum/competition system is, and instead promote, use, and celebrate the healthy, natural, normal system of choosing to do what we love and offer what we have in excess, independently of the mainstream corporate/government silliness.

    Human nature is creative, intelligent, pro-social, and curious, and all we have to do to ensure that these traits are expressed is to stop letting stupid ideas like competition/monetization get in the way!

    Sabine,

    Yes, the nature of finance does need the best minds studying it and not just for their own profit.

    Actually there has been a number of studies, both historically and of aboriginal societies and the medium for barter comes late in the game, after systems of social and civil contracts and obligations are established and then they become another traded good. Such as a token for grain in the community storage, gold certificates from a goldsmith etc, which then become goods in themselves. What this has since morphed into is that as the economies grow larger, there develops a need for these tokens far greater than their creation, so then it starts to take on a life of its own, so then the idea of futures comes into play. That I will give you some value that I don't yet actually have. Then forms of insurance, etc. Then there get to be situations where there are far more of these promises than can possibly be fulfilled and it collapses. When it gets to this stage, it really does become a giant ponzi scheme, as ever more promises have to be made, just to roll over the ones already due. My point is that if people learned from grade school economics, that these are contracts, not actual commodities, then, hopefully, the bubble will be understood as a bubble much earlier in the process and so it can unravel a little quicker and not use so many resources to support it. As it is, people tend to think of 'their money' as property, rather than promises from the larger community, so they lose sight of the connection between the value of their money and the health of the community. What if your heart, or your brain, or your muscles each thought of the blood as their own and tried to hold onto it as much as possible? Now economists understand why the circulation of money is important, yet when everyone wants to hold as much of this 'property' as possible, flow slows. Yet you will not find much in the way of popular descriptions of economics explaining this.

    An interesting essay on Modern Monetary Theory in this month's New Inquiry.

    Regards,

    John M

    Thank you Bee.

    Yes, I think that the idea is too simple, but an arxiv with (a possible) vote after reading could work, with a different impact factor (so that there is a double impact factor to compare).

    The problem is that now if there is a good research line, then each search to publish in this research topics, because there are citations on the topics, so that it is interest in the Universities to product the same research (with no diversification and no velocity in the adaptation); so that I think that if someone work in a field, and someone has the possibility to indicating that some research is interesting, with a different method, with a different line of research, with a different impact factor (this is the nonsense, to focus the research in winning political strategies), then there is a better use of the resource.

    Sabine,

    You wrote "we still build on the new ground discovered by physicists a century ago", "There MUST be more to find than we have found so far", "occurrence of singularities in unquantized gravity", "I don't believe in the non-deterministic part of " [quantum mechanics], "all the rest ... is perfectly fine", "We know the theory MUST exist", "Causality depends on the metric structure of space-time", "A superposition is a state in the Hilbert space like any other state", "It evolves unitary and causally like everything else". Did I get the essence? Good luck.

    Being much older, I need no complaining about rejected research proposals. I am merely collecting arguments that may question some of the basics your hopes are built on. Sharing some of your doubts, my approach is more basic. I question any singularities and absolute infinities in physics. I enjoy how Roger Schlafly destroyed spacetime: Time is what distinguishes the past from the future.

    Eckard

    Good meta-point, Sabine. My own submission, I hope in the pipeline, also deals with the framing issues rather than specific suggestions. Yes indeed, the human mind and will is flawed. I offer some insights and possible avenues regarding those problems, as well as grounds for optimism that our minds are capable of more than we have thought possible. In particular, in regards to "will power" to get things done (although being able to "stop doing" - and resume - is the key to understanding that the faculty exists.)

    Neil Bates

      Hi Neil,

      Glad to hear you like my essay, I have put yours on the reading list :) Best,

      Sabine

      Turil,

      You have it upside down. You can't make people behave 'against their very nature' - that's an oxymoron. Yes, governments and corporations (via the media mostly) exploit human nature to their own advantage. That too, is human nature... You write:

      "Once we start a social trend of focusing on taking good care of ourselves..."

      How do you want to start such a 'trend'? See, that's what I mean. There are plenty ideas of what we should do or could do, but in practice nothing happens because you don't generate 'social trends' by telling people it would be good if they did xyz. That's exactly the problem my essay latches on. Best,

      Sabine

      Hi Roger,

      They would know how to best dispose of garbage so it does not end up in the ocean, if they care about this. The information that I mean that people need is not the amount of plastic in the ocean - that's pretty useless. I mean, what's that number good for? People have a 'priority' about how relevant it is for them to keep the ocean clean, prevent birds from dying, keep trash of the beaches, etc etc. The question is how do they know how well their own behavior contributes to the problem? That's what you need the feedback loop for. It would contain, for example, information about where a wrapping or empty bottle is likely to be shipped and how likely it is to end up in the ocean on its course etc. Keep in mind though that this is not to convince people that they should buy this or separate their garbage like that - it simply tells them what will happen if (with a certain probability). It's up to them to decide how much it matters to them.

      Best,

      Sabine

      I decided to respond to your reply above here.

      The argument by those in economic power is that we must grow the economy further in order to have the economic capacity to work on environmental problems. "Tomorrow we will address the environment," and of course tomorrow we will be saying the same. The climate issue as a social debate, propped up to look like a scientific debate, will transition into a political and policy issue of whether the economic cost warrants solutions to the problem. It will again be "Tomorrow we will ...," and there is always tomorrow where the problems of today, debts, pollution, population and so forth, can be swept into. Largely if you think about it, the big problems of the 1960s such as drug addition, pollution, nuclear weapons and so forth, are still with us. We have in fact over the years solved very little with respect to these types of problems.

      As I say in my essay the MWI of quantum mechanics tells us there are a myriad number of worlds with various outcomes. In our past there are worlds where Napoleon won, Hitler won, General Lee got the better of Meade at Gettysburg and so forth. The same holds for the future. I thought about writing an essay on whether we actually steer anything, or whether our conscious decisions alter either the probability distributions in the MWI branching of the world, or by some means weight the selection of these worlds. Maybe consciousness is just an illusion whereby we observe a certain eigenbranching of the world. Of course then again MWI as an interpretation may not be testable and all of this amounts to metaphysics.

      Everything is easy to predict except the future --- Yogi Berra

      LC

      Dear Sabine,

      I found several of the ideas expressed in your text quite interesting and original.

      We humans are smart in changing the rules of adaptation: we quickly adapt the environment to ourselves, rather than waiting for darwinian evolution to slowly adapt us to the environment, as it did with the rest of the biosphere. But now our adaptation as a species has fallen behind the changes we have induced ourselves.

      So your solution to this problem concentrates on the way the scattered, distant, costly information about the consequences of individual actions (or, more generally, information about how to solve big societal problems) should be turned into close, easily grasped, intuitive, possibly visual messages, thus wiring back into the circuits that our brain is used to work with.

      But packing that information in an effective, intuitive way, and moving it close to the individual, or to the initiators of change, is only half of the problem: before converting that information, one has to build it, i.e., to find or compute a correct solution to the addressed problem.

      There are certainly cases (e.g. that of a person throwing an empty plastic bottle in a river) in which it is quite simple to figure out what is the information to be made available to the guy (e.g., showing him a big island of plastic bottles in the ocean). But in many cases the correct action to be taken for solving a societal problem is not knowable, because we are dealing with a complex, layered system, in which emergent phenomena occur.

      You write:

      We reached this gridlock because the human brain did not evolve to understand the consequences of individual actions in networks of billions of people.

      Your reaction to this correct observation is essentially: let us reformulate the information about those consequences so that the human brain can better grasp them.

      My reaction would rather be: in general, the human brain cannot understand those consequences because we are talking about two distinct levels in an architecture of emergence. Networks of billions of people create emergent phenomena that follow their own dynamics, and cannot be under the control of individuals, by the very definition of emergent phenomenon.

      The political, economic, social systems that govern our present day world represent the emergent entities at the next level above that of individual humans. Metaphorically, we are the ants, they are the upper level functions of the anthill. What is the effective power that an individual ant has to steer those upper level functions? Can there be effective interaction and mutual influence between the consciousness and creativity of the super-organism at the upper level, and the supposedly smaller consciousness and creativity of the lower level entities (us)?

      If we believe in the beauty and strong explicative power of the notion of emergence (I certainly do), and we rule out the idea of an anthropocentric universe, then shouldn t we conclude that something is happening above our heads that does not care too much about us as individuals?

      For example, when you write that these political, economic and social systems are too slow to adapt to our needs as individuals, I occurred to me that one can reverse the reasoning and take the point of view, and time scales, of these upper level entities: maybe the problem (our problem, not their problem) is that we humans are too fast in appearing and passing away.

      I would be curious to know whether you share some healthy and moderate skepticism about the possibility for us to take the elevator and go talk to the super-organisms at the upper floor.

      Best regards

      Tommaso

      As I said, I WISH it were true that you can't make people behave against their nature. But that's just not the way humans work. We have the ability to consciously choose to not breathe, or eat, for example, and that's just the very beginning of what we tend to do that is unnatural and against our body's needs.

      Though I understand that you might want to include everything we choose to do as "natural". (Which is reasonable in a certain way, but sort of meaningless from a discussion point of view!) My point is that people are often given terrible information about what they should do to be happy and healthy, and it makes them make poor choices that harm everyone. The quality of information needs to change if we are to attain a healthy system that moves us forward in evolution (more adaptability).

      And how to start a movement? Well, as with all movements, it starts with a small group of committed folks! As my essay suggests, we can start by telling people that they have a right to invest the time and energy in coming to some understanding about what is truly meaningful in their lives, and asking them what they believe they need, in order to be able to reach their highest goals of what they want to contribute to the world (and beyond!).

      Also, of course, change always starts within, so asking ourselves what we find most meaningful in our lives, and looking to understand what we need, in order to accomplish our ideals of what we want to contribute to our lives, is where it all really starts. I've done that for myself (and it is the basis for much of my work already, including my blogs and books and artwork and workshops). Perhaps you also have explored what you most want to contribute to the world, and what you are most in need of, for that to happen most effectively?

      Dear Prof,

      I observe you have not commented on my post. I will be glad you comments and also try to read my article and possibly leave a comment- Perhaps some statement were not clearly stated in my previous post. There was electricity failure (power cut) in my area and the PC battery was almost empty and so the post was sent in hurry!

      In my article, the hypothesis is hinged on "No natural disaster" which appears to be constant since humanity cannot interfere with this. As you know, certain assumptions could be made while conducting academic research; should we therefore put the "side criticisms and restrictions" on gamification has explained in my previous post as variables to be kept constant? I am a little familiar with your model of gamification that is why I have raised this point. Could you also check up with the researchers at the University of Hamburg Germany if possible? Thank you.

      You wrote about human's action matching his reaction. Likewise his "intuitive feeling matches with decision". This is similar to some of my outlooks in my article and really be glad if you can read it. I based my philosophy of human's actions on Newton laws. Please kindly find time to read it and leave a comment behind.

      Thank you.

      Gbenga

      Sabine<

      Your 5 step plan is like a science-aided process. Processes are something common in our corporate world, something that doesn't require thought, only action. Fortunately your steps don't involve just external actions but engaged brains as well.

      Your "gamification" is a recognition of the short-term gratification enhancing long-term goals. Certainly it is a recognition of how short-term solutions run rampant in government and corporations, something contributing to long-term needs like climate change being ignored.

      Great ideas for a daunting problem

      Jim

        Sabine,

        A really well written essay which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. One question I have which I would appreciate your response to: you seem to be more focused on individual or social decision making, but don't really get into political decisionmaking. Isn't it in some sense the job of political institutions to take the long term view and structure society and incentives with that in mind? Of course, in many places they are failing miserably at this long view- is the reason for this the same as with the rest of us?

        I would love your feedback and vote on my own essay- even if it might be negative Such is the only way we learn anything. Thanks again for your enjoyable piece.

        Rick Searle