The following is an unorganized list of the most pressing world problems from my point of view.
Whose viewpoint? An upper-middle class marketing professional from a tier-1 city in India in his late twenties.
Some problems have solutions wherein we can directly participate. Others depend on the collective intelligence of society.
Here’s what I think what’s wrong with the world, and what we can do about it, if at all we can.
- The 21st century is one of the greatest times to be alive in the course of human history.
- We have more money than ever, along with an exceedingly large income inequality, not to mention poverty. Governments and economic institutions are working to fix that.
- We have fascinating medicines, but corporate greed is taking basic medicine out of middle class’ reach.
- The earth’s warming up faster than before and loads of people still refuse to believe that. A lot of good people are fighting climate change.
- We’re going to Mars and bringing global internet connectivity via satellites. And yet, some still believe the world is flat.
- The more you read, the more you realize that you know less. Idiots are woefully confident and opinionated. Remember Brexit? It’s time we combat ignorance by picking up a book.
- There’s tons of fake news everywhere. Poor and lower-middle class millennials and baby boomers from developing nations (such as India) with little or no education, can’t tell fact from fiction. To them, WhatsApp forwards are sources of news. Internet education (i.e. how to use safely use the Internet, tell fact from fiction, etc.) and investigative journalism is the need of the hour.
- We’ve stopped reading and delved into an endless dopamine cycle of updates, likes and shares. A lot of us aren’t even aware of it.
- We worry about what other people think about us, and sometimes even let their opinion dictate our life choices. If we stopped giving a f*ck, I promise you that we’ll come out happier.
- We listen less and talk more.