I know it’s a cliché to say things were simpler when you were young, but boy following the news can be exhausting these days. We have wars and rumours of wars to come, political radicalisation and social isolation, technological revolution that just might wipe out humanity or leave us in poverty, and an encroaching environmental collapse brought on by over-consumption and the pillaging of the planet. Maybe the world has always been like this, but it feels like there’s a lot going on right now.
When I feel down about the news, I try to remind myself that the end of something is the beginning of something else. I remember that these crises are the external signs of a great internal rot in the way we live and work, the end results of a world built around dehumanisation and exploitation. Evil justifies itself not by claiming to be good, but by claiming to be necessary or inevitable, a bitter pill we have to swallow or a force of nature that can’t be changed. The people who want to hurt, exploit, or abuse others know that if they were open about it, we’d oppose them; that’s why they’re so determined to sell us the narratives of cynicism and necessity. It’s easy to be so caught in the immediate reality of what’s happening around us, that we lose sight of the horrors just out of sight, the injustice and exploitation made essential and natural.
We are in crisis because the way we organise our world is breaking our planet, breaking our relationships to ourselves and each other, and doing us harm. Even if we resolve the problems before us, if we don’t take action against the larger forces that hurt us we’ll just stumble into new crises in a decade or two.
It often goes unnoticed amongst the other crises we face, but pollution from mass consumption is causing continued havoc not just to the environment, but to people too. Source.
If Artificial Intelligence is a genuine threat against our existence, it should be regulated and constrained. At one point, Nuclear Bombs and Chemical Weapons were new, innovative technologies. We’ve successfully limited their use and access, and prevented dire outcomes they made possible. There’s no reason we can’t do the same again. We created articles to protect human rights, we can create them to protect digital rights too. And of course, the reason an AI revolution is so concerning is deeply tied into our social structures. If we had systems to ensure everyone was healthy and happy, it wouldn’t matter if people lost their jobs. That threat only exists because for many, access to work is how they stave off poverty. If we must have the new technology, we might as well use it as the opportunity to create a more equal, less exploitative society.
Our global and national economies are under so much stress due to war, and the wars themselves are killing tens of thousands of people (if not more). It will be decades before the full accounting of this violence is done, before we can say with confidence just how many lives were ended prematurely to satisfy political ends or to continue an old feud. Why do we allow this? These crises are not inevitable realities, they are embedded in the unequal international political structures we continue to do nothing about. The world’s largest powers, and the countries they support, have leverage to do whatever they want, even if most of the world opposes their expansionist aims and brutal actions. War is always a choice, a decision made in the halls of power by people who will almost certainly not face the consequences of their actions. We shouldn’t just accept this state of affairs, shrug our shoulders like nothing can be done about it. Even if it were true that we couldn’t stop war and violence, the moment we start telling ourselves that is the moment we accept defeat, that the evil of the world is something only to mitigated, not to be stopped. I don’t want to believe that.
I often hear of people speak about polarisation and extremism as if they’re natural forces like gravity and magnetism, as though nothing could be done about them. Nothing is further from the truth. Our isolation and polarisation are driven by algorithms and by political forces that are harnessed towards particular outcomes, most commonly that which makes the most money. It is profitable for us to be alone and afraid and angry, which should tell you all you need to know about why profit alone is not desirable as a guiding light for any society or community. Empathy, gentleness, and mercy are not dirty words or signs of some personal weakness; on the contrary, choosing vengeance and retribution, or bitter resentment, is almost always easier than choosing forgiveness and love. Sometimes, I find myself too comfortable at home, with my machines and the people I already know and agree with. It’s good for me to get out, to meet people and listen, rather than to shout them down about their lives and beliefs. Isolation and extremism go hand in hand, and both are regularly employed as tools by those who want to use other people as tools for their own gain. I’m shocked that anyone who’d speak of faith and Christ could ever renounce empathy and love.
And behind all these crises is the big crisis of the twenty-first century, the one most of the world seems intent on ignoring for as long as possible. If the Climate Crisis could be contained to CO2 emissions, maybe it wouldn’t be such a concern, but of course that’s only one facet of the emergency in how we treat our planet. Pollution is poisoning rivers and ecosystems; forests are torn down to make room for Data Centres and cash crops; industrial waste and particulate from car tyres are poisoning our bodies. Overconsumption and overproduction might be making some people a awful lot of money, but it’s making most of our lives worse, and in the long-term will likely lock in extreme weather, food and water shortages, and the degradation of our global trade systems. And for what? How many lives are modern comforts worth? How much misery or extinction is a Yacht or Private Jet valued at? Most of us don’t even see the wealth this system generates, we just breathe in fumes and hope that when solutions start being drawn up, we don’t get left out in the storms and the floods.
It’s disturbing to see how the accumulation of wealth and power has affected countries around the world; remember, the world as it is benefits billionaires far more than it does everyone else. Source.
I don’t want to make you feel disheartened, or suggest that things are hopeless: rather, I want to affirm that you’re not going mad, that these crises are all real and that the climate one especially hasn’t gone anywhere, even if political leadership keep pretending it has.
The frightening reality is that we do seem to be living in an era of crisis, a time where the systems around us are straining and breaking apart. But that doesn’t have to mean everything’s going to be worse forever. For all its wonders, our modern age has had plenty of horror, evil, and injustice, and there’s no reason we can’t build a better world out of the remains of this one, whenever and however it falls apart. I’ve no doubt that some would love to use this time of crisis as an opportunity to build an even more unequal world, one where human rights and freedoms are rolled back and where oppression and violence rule; let’s not allow that to come to pass either.
I believe in the Teaspoon Brigade because I genuinely, earnestly believe that even though we can’t do much alone, there’s so much we can do together. It will take time, years of sustained effort, maybe my whole life – but that doesn’t make it impossible. The thing about seesaws is that when they move, it’s often all at once. We won’t see the results of our efforts today or tomorrow, and maybe we’ll never see the day it happens. But nobody is going to follow us tomorrow and years from now if we don’t start carrying our teaspoons of sand today. We can, we can make a world without poverty and exploitation, without war and violence, a world where everyone genuinely gets to be safe, happy, and comfortable. All the crises around us are just the proofs that the systems and structures we have today won’t create that world. Every Empire falls eventually, and we won’t be able to keep damaging our planet and each other like this forever.
The time to start building a better world starts today. And one day, a long time from now, it will have been worth it.
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