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"Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"
I'll be giving a TED U Talk in Longbeach at the end of the month. I'll be asking "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?" I think that blithe optimism about technology’s powers has evaporated as big problems that people had imagined technology would solve, such as hunger, poverty, malaria, climate change, cancer, and the diseases of old age, have come to seem intractably hard.
I'd love to know what the TED Community thinks our difficulties are - or, even if the idea is true at all.
Here's a URL to the story I wrote in MIT Technology Review on the subject: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429690/why-we-cant-solve-big-problems/
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Cory Davenport
Jason Pontin 100+
Casey Christofaris 10+
Jason Pontin 100+
Casey Christofaris 10+
Because I am able to run my business in a free market, my plan is to limit my employee’s salary, as well as my own, to an amount no greater than $100,000 per year for life. I already have 3 business ventures that I am currently working to get off the ground. These businesses are as follows; One in Marketing, one in 3D printing, and one that can be best described somewhat as a Jiffy Lube for nail salons. As I’ve previously stated, my employee’s and I will never make more than $100,000 a year in income. Furthermore, I plan to automate the jobs completed by my employees and create machines that will complete the work for them. However, I will still pay them their annual salary. I will be able to accomplish this with the capital received from the automated services my businesses will provide. As an employer, I don’t really care who or what does the work as long as it gets done. With the future IT companies I plan to establish, I will be able to spread Wi-Fi coverage to everyone in the country, cheaper than it’s already being done. In addition, I will also have the ability to offer more coverage in more places. I will show those employees how they can outsource their job to 3rd world workers, where they can basically double that person’s income by only paying them a tenth of what I plan to pay my employees. This will allow my employees to semi-retire and still complete all the necessary job requirements. Essentially, this method will enable me to rescue my employees as well as the 3rd world workers from a life of poverty. This can be seen as a trickledown effect, which current businesses like to pretend they already accomplish.
Casey Christofaris 10+
Once I educate my employees on how money actually works, they will realize it is a juggling act and my enterprise will be the ultimate juggler. This will also allow the removal of government welfare programs, thus lowering everyone’s tax rates. This will be effective simply because I will be paying people for doing nothing. From then on they can volunteer or spend their time completing more hospitable and fulfilling activities while having job security.
If 25% of the world companies and charities used this model instead of our current model how fast do you think we can end poverty?
Matt Smith
Casey Christofaris 10+
What do you think it will take for us to apply this method? Do you think we really want to end poverty or is it just talk?
natasha nikulina 50+
Good question !
Maybe people want to end poverty but not for the sake of their own prosperity.
If we solve a little problem with our big ego, big problems will become little :)
Casey Christofaris 10+
natasha nikulina 50+
Government as an institution is meant to protect interests of the country. Its strategy is to keep poverty at a distance. As an implication, the prosperity becomes ours and poverty theirs.
And it doesn't want to end their poverty at the expense of our prosperity.