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How to build our future without destroying the Earth ?
I want to talk with the members of TED community about our future and our children's future because it is important to us, how to develop without destroying.
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David Fuchs
2 - We need to stop governments around the world from prevent competition and innovation.
3 - We need to produce products with no planned obsolescence, with ease of recycling as a design criteria.
4 - We need to create the cheapest possible renewable energy we can in the $5-$10 / Mwh range.
5 - We need to look at the fact that we have been using the same horrible design for car engines for 100 years, and replace the design with something more efficient.
6- etc
7- etc
I could go on for hours.
David
James Ginther
I agree, this is our largest impact, the billions of humans. Even with energy efficiency, better farming practices, and densification, population will continue to be the biggest factor in the stress we put on our environment. If we do not find a way to make our population growth sustainable it will correct itself. I don't like Malthusiasm, but it is a hard argument to refute.
It looks as though education, prosperity, and good healthcare slow down population growth. That can seem a little counter intuitive. Some projections for population growth suggest we will plateau at 10 billion people.
Suggested Ted Talks on this subject: 1) Bill Gates: Mosquitos, malaria and education 2) Hans Rosling: Religions and babies. There are others, but these two are quite insightful.
James Ginther
I had to read this a couple of times. I think I know what David means. Maybe not. It touches on quite a few important topics, governments, competition and innovation. It may be a question of terms but I may be disagreeing with David on this one. Again, maybe not. First the terms.
Government - I think government is doing a much better job than we give it credit for in protecting ideas, and regulating the marketplace. Government is an improvised invention and varies from state to state, country to country and by level, levels being city, state, federal and world levels. For comparison consider China and the USA. China does not protect patents, USA does. China has a tradition of decision making with a timeline measured in generations, USA's decision making (at the Federal level) of the first 100 days of a presidential term and the next sound bite. Both are doing much better than my sound bite comparison can account for.
Competition: This is a hot word. Most of what is created in this world is the result of cooperation, not competition. Companies may compete with other companies, but most of the effective delivery of products and services is the result of finely tuned cooperation within the company. Competition adds juice to the creative process, but the creative process is 90% cooperative through the free flow of ideas, the synergy between individuals and the lattice of cooperative mechanisms we have built; roads, schools, telecommunications, shared laws, monetary systems, etc, all of which are usually glossed over in the discussion of competition. Competition is best when it gets us to do our best.
Innovation; My favorite fantasy, write a book, invent a product, write a song, get it patented/trademarked/copyrighted and become a millionaire from the fees. My best ideas come from wanting to solve problems, not from mucho monero.
I ran out of ...
David Fuchs
With the way we currently structure and run businesses, every business is driven to monopoly. After companies reach the end of their growth cycle and fill a given space, they tend to push for laws and regulation at the local, state, federal, and international levels to prevent competition.
As an example, the telecom provides have gotten zoning codes, laws, and regulations enacted that stifle any competition in their given markets. We have local laws that prevent the installation of new cables on telephone pole, underground, and in apartment complexes. We have state laws that prevent towns and counties from installing competing systems. At the federal-national level we have a push to close down super WiFi (US) and Skype (Ethiopia, Russia, etc).
You also see this with Pharma (All of them), Content (RIAA, MPAA), Software (Microsoft), etc.
"Competition adds juice to the creative process, but the creative process is 90% cooperative... "
One thing to say to that ... Agreed.