HACKER Q&A
📣 desertraven

Are there any efforts to make our species more peaceful?


Often I think that having shared goals as a species would be an ideal trajectory.

It seems but a pipe dream when I observe the division, polarisation and greed among us (myself included).

Are there any formalised efforts to leverage our unprecedented connectivity with an eye to mass cooperation to achieve shared goals among humankind?

Or even pursuits to fix the very worst traits of our species?

Sorry if this question is a bit vague, or idealistic.

Kind regards


  👤 LinuxBender Accepted Answer ✓
None that I know of. Anything that makes such global changes would be a legal quagmire. Any move that makes one group happy, makes another unhappy. There are fundamental underlying societal, psychological, pathological and logistical issues that affect this.

I know how to make all the bird species happy in a confined area. Give them each their own feeder with an abundance of food they like, more than they could ever eat. Ensure that never ends. Ensure they have plenty of trees to nest in. That seems to change their behavior and they all get along after a few days of fighting. The fighting just simply stops.

Now, how to apply this logic to humans? How do we give everyone more money, land, food and freedom than they could ever dream to have? It can't be a program specific to one country or one continent. It has to apply to all humans, everywhere, because humans, unlike birds in a localized region, are all intertwined internationally, fiscally, economically. It can't conflict with their culture or beliefs.

Thought exercise: If you had the power of a supreme world-wide emperor, how would you make this happen?


👤 Nomentatus
Musk has called for research preliminary to making the genetic changes to remove antisocial traits (think dark triad.) Some Chinese research suggests they may be heading in the same direction. Maybe you'll see an X-Prize for the first housecat that's been genetically altered to not have any interest in killing birds as a useful first step. So, your question seems less vague by the day.

Of course, less happily perhaps, there's also this: https://www.chinafile.com/state-surveillance-china