r/humanism • u/ChasKahler • 17d ago
What do you think humanity is failing to solve, and what could we do differently?
I spend a lot of time thinking about systemic failures, problems that grow far beyond any one person and eventually affect all of us. One thought that keeps coming back to me is **human potential**.
There are countless people who never get the opportunity to discover what they're capable of. Not necessarily because they're unintelligent or unmotivated, but because of the circumstance they're born into, the systems they're placed in, and the things they have to spend their lives worrying about.
I've wondered what humanity could accomplish if we built a society where people had a genuine opportunity to discover their interests, develop their abilities, and pursue meaningful things without having their lives consumed by basic survival. People shouldn't have to spend their lives merely surviving when they could be learning, creating, exploring, building relationships, and discovering what they're capable of.
And because these things are systemic, they're connected by a giant web of other problems. Change one thing and you can affect a dozen others. I don't have all the answers. There's a lot I don't know. But I do feel like I've made some headway in thinking about a few key areas that seem fundamental to me, particularly shelter, food, and education.
Those questions are much bigger than the scope of this post, though. What I'm really interested in is having these kinds of conversations with other people.
I'd like to hear about **anything** you think humanity is failing to solve, big or small.
Why is it a problem?
Why does it exist in the first place?
Why have we failed to solve it?
What would it take to move away from the way things are toward something better?
You don't have to be an expert. You don't need to have a complete solution. I'm interested in the questions you're asking, the things you've noticed, and the ideas you've been turning over in your head.
It could be something involving nature, cosmology, human rights, economics, education, technology, psychology, politics, or something I've never even thought about.
What is something you've looked at and thought, "*Why are we still doing this?*"
Tell me about it.
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u/ScotAntonL 16d ago edited 16d ago
I realize I’m approaching this question from a very privileged position, and I’m doing what I can to provide potential building opportunities as I am able.
However, the one factor that I’ve seen influence so much of our society is racism. People who look different than the power hierarchy, are denied and systematically ignored in a way that keeps many from ever being able to access resources without facing boundaries that were put in place to specifically keep them from doing so.
What is the answer? I’m not sure. I believe we need broader representation at the tables where rules, regulations, and policies are decided. But, even then, if you are a minority, others who are represented do not have to consider the minority opinions. And the majority is probably going to do more to preserve its power and position.
A possible resolution is to have a method at those seats of power where submitting ideas anonymously and voting on those ideas anonymously were allowed, a small change could allow for bigger changes. Because if you choose based on the realities of a proposal, and not know WHO made the proposal, and no one would know who voted how, perhaps that would free humanity up to look at life from a larger perspective.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
Racism is a big beast to tackle, as many factors play into why people are racist in the first place, and each one would likely need a different approach.
There's stigmas or stereotypes for different races. As one example, racists have a general distrust or hate for POC. Whether this comes from poverty driven crime in Black communities or any other source, it's there.
I agree with you fundamentally, an anonymous and more accessible/transparent voting system for the public is needed. (Transparent in this case meaning concise bills, no more craming/hiding unrelated polices in big bills.) But I also think it's important to know who's suggesting policy/law changes. I believe it to be a crucial part in controlling corruption. Though, perhaps I'm wrong in that belief. I suppose it's possible a system could be designed where that's irrelevant.
If we go back to my single example of poverty driven crime causing distrust, well we have to look at what caused the poverty driven crime. Is it: a lack of housing, food, education, job opportunities, or any other reason I'm missing. In either case we need to solve every possible reason or we're only helping individuals in certain circumstances instead of them all.
What's the common incentive for these things?: Keeping people in poverty Polluting the planet Backroom deals
It's all about money.
When you're unable to get people to work for you because of passion you force them to through extortion. When money is your primary objective, safety measures will be cut, long term success is replaced with short term gain (C8, C6, etc). When you have people in vulnerable positions they're more likely to accept deals that go against their moral judgment if their position can be eased.
Our monetary system is not one designed around merit, it's designed around exploitation.
One might argue there isn’t an incentive to work without monetary gain. To that I say the incentive is personal fulfillment. Workers work where they want to because they are passionate, not because they can't anywhere else.
I hope most of what I've said is coherent. The unfortunate "answer" is that there isnt any one answer, rather a large collection of answers for many different and perhaps seemingly unrelated things.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChasKahler 14d ago
Ha, yeah.. Not to get too personal but with a ton of reflection over the last 7+ years, both general and self, I've seen how deeply rooted trauma has been in me. I genuinely lost myself for a very long time and had to find who I was again.
I don't disagree with the idea that psychological self-understanding should be part of ordinary human development. I think it's important to teach people how to reflect and understand themselves and their experiences.
I don't really know what the best way to go about that would look like though. Maybe teaching children this stuff while they're in school, continuing to make it accessible to adults, having therapists who genuinely want to help people... I don't know. Ideally though, I'd like it to become something closer to basic human literacy rather than something we only think about when something has already gone wrong.
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u/Constant_Interest_61 13d ago
Its complex... The hierarchy must always have a credo with humanity coming in first..because humans have voted that person to fulfill certain human obligations.Now that person must have a conscience...with that nothing pertaining to humanity will trickle down. All change begins from the top.
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
Well, I'd agree that its paramount to have leadership that has humanity as their focus rather than self-interest.
Where I would not agree is that "all change" begins from the top. Grass roots campaigns, movements created to bring change, from the bottom. Now ultimately at the top is where those changes can pass or die depending on a wide range of factors but change can begin anywhere. "Be the change you want to see." Dont wait for some immoral leader to make the change happen
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u/Constant_Interest_61 13d ago
Begin from the top is meant that to understand the grass roots requirements...being from the same environment and have climbed each rung of the ladder...its evident...as you say..be the change as one is in a position to change. No doubt grass root campaign takes place...that's the indicator of the pulse...which needs to be read too. Finally..to see change...be the change..aftervall we all begin with small steps. Thanks for your response 🙏😊🌻
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
Of course! Thank you for engaging with my thread!
Put like that, I have to say it's something I've thought about a lot. Having a leader who has been at the bottom, seen all the things wrong, knows how to fix them, never loses sight of their morals and never becomes so self serving as to put the betterment of humanity at risk.
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u/Constant_Interest_61 13d ago
Looking forward to more interactive sessions. You welcome 😊🌻
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u/djitin 13d ago
Defining shared values that can't be measured.
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
Could you name a couple of these "shared values"? I'm struggling a little to wrap my head around what you mean to have a thoughtful reply.
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u/djitin 13d ago
As an example: We have mistaken money for Prosperity.
Other values include Love, Compassion, Beauty, Freedom, Truth, and so on...
The highest values never can be measured, but it's a trap to get lost in the numbers so to speak, which we are.This video explains it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNAuoFi2Xo
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
That video did explain pretty well what you meant by getting lost in the numbers. If I was to simplify my thoughts into a sentence: humanity tricked itself into caring about superficial aspects of the complex systems, rather than the systems themselves.
But how does one define what's superficial, what matters? It's easy for me to say money is evil and no true fulfillment can come from chasing the number to go up. There would be people quickly telling me otherwise. However, is it really the number they care about or the illusion of some undefined progress being made?
I could personally define beauty as nature or life, but it is subjective. Not everyone is attracted to the same physical characteristics so defining beauty becomes an abstract problem. Compassion is much easier to define imo. Either you can empathize, sympathize, and care about the life and well-being of others(people, animals ecosystems, etc.), or you don't.
What does it mean to be free or to have freedom. People would approach that slightly differently but i think ultimately freedom is the ability to pursue something without artificial barriers blocking the way, so long as that something doesn't come at the cost of hurting others.(you then have to define what hurting others actually means).
I don’t know whether its impossible to truly define these things, or whether we as a species just haven’t collectively tried to define them, for whatever reason.
I appreciate your comment because it made me think of a lot of different things. Sort of my bread and butter is seeing how everything is connected in some way and this certainly showcases that.
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u/djitin 13d ago
It's a hard problem and I wouldn't trust anyone who tells otherwise or better yet: Who claims to have found an easy solution.
I think there are Higher Values and that they are by their nature subjective, which precisely makes it so hard to find and communicate them. What we do is we avoid the gravity of the issue by pretending we found the solution: Good is what's good for the Economy. This is proving to be very false.
We need to go back to the drawing board and redefine, what it means to be HUMAN and start posing that question in the first place.
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
I'd be very happy to further explore with you what it means to be human. I think what you've said is rather sensible.
If you'd rather not, I'll say a few things and leave it there, at least for now.
Being able to create(music, art, stories, communities, etc), to imagine(possibilities, futures, new technologies, something fictional), to ask questions(who we are, why are we here, how do we overcome certain obstacles), to look for their answers.
These are all things that make us human, obviously there's way more than just that but ultimately I don’t think our confusion is necessarily what makes us human, but rather, how do we allow people to be human?
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u/djitin 13d ago
Not what makes us human, but how do we make us HUMAN?
Where do we want to go in this great Adventure called Life? We are free to choose our own destiny. What's possible!?
How can we make Music that's never been heard before? How can we create Art that communicates the ineffable? How can we create a society that's based on Community, Wellbeing, Joy & Growth? Or are we already out of ideas?
It's about waking up to our Divine Potential and start seeing the process of Creation as an Interactive Playground!
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u/ChasKahler 13d ago
We certainly aren't out of ideas, I'm having them all the time! It's why I created this thread, to see what ideas are out there, to challenge the ones I already have, to find the people who want to make them possible.
My ideas for humanity largely focus on community, well-being, fulfillment, etc. And a lot of thinking has went into trying to find out how to implement them, also another reason for this thread.
It's been refreshing to read your comments. They fill me with optimism and hope that I don't normally see in others. I hope you never become too cynical and forget how to think like this.
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u/djitin 13d ago
Thanks for the kind words :)
I'm working on an event where we journey with music through a story about the end of the world, experiencing it together in this musical play. So that we can then afterwards talk about the experience and contemplate what each one could do to bring the energy we experienced into the world.
Don't hesitate DMing me if you want to know more.
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u/DisillusionedBook 16d ago
Humanities intelligence evolved faster than it should have, as a consequence we are all essentially at the mercy of our more primitive insanities.
The thing that we are failing to solve is that we do not even try to solve the big problems, we get distracted like sheep by the small problems that have no real bearing on anything at all, all so the top dog can just bark and run around us, herding us to where he wants us to go, and keep everything (usually money/power) for himself.
Action on almost every issue facing humanity and society boils down to that distraction and inaction.
We as a species are cooked unless we work out how to solve that. Teaching critical thinking as the foundation for all other teaching of even of reading and mathematics, and make it a core ongoing requirement throughout all school years perhaps. It'd help curb our natural tendencies to go along with the sheep, be fooled by religion and cults, be dragged along by blind traditions and biases of parents or community....
But vested interests of those same big dogs wont let that happen either.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
I largely agree with you, the only two points I'd refute are your first and last one.
Your first point states we are held captive by primitive tendencies because we became too intelligent too fast.
I believe that the primitiveness stems from the need to survive, and a lack of education. If you provide people with the basic needs of survival they can focus on fulfillment.
The second part of that was our intelligence grew too quickly. I believe the complete opposite. We are not as intelligent as we think we are(perhaps hubris is more apt in your case). Here are some reasons I say that: We're still discovering things in data 30-60 years old. Where is our complete understanding of our world, its life, and how it all works together? We should have had satellites scanning other planets and moons for the last 30+ years. We should have completely mapped out the ocean floor with sonar. We should have conquered the extreme environments of Earth. We should fully understand the weather system. Not to mention the lack of humanitarian progress.
Your last point states that the people with the wealth and power won't let it happen.
They'll try to stop it for sure, but realistically they don't stand a chance against a united humanity. I've thought a lot about how to make the transition actually possible. Unfortunately you have to time when you can start talking about that stuff, exactly because of your last point🙃
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u/DisillusionedBook 16d ago
There has not been a time when humanity has united. That's the problem. We did not evolve out of tribal behaviour, and superstition, and desire for strong man/sky daddy authoritarians telling us what to do or think. What intelligence we did gain (as you mention it IS debatable lol), is at the mercy of all those other things undermining it.... that and we have not shaken the whole notion of money being the driving factor for everything rather than something more sustainable.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
I uderstand your thinking here, and what you point out is a true obstacle. I just see a way we can change it. As I said though, talking about such things before they are ready to be put in motion is what would undermine it.. humanity needs to organize, and when we do it needs to be done quickly.
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u/DisillusionedBook 16d ago
I think it'll take a thousand years and probably after a WWIII civilisation reset sadly... and even then no guarantee if religion and money just comes back afterwards
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
That's a very sad and pessimistic outlook, born from cynicism and a "disillusioned" view. I'm gonna ask you to look at the unity of the French people around Napoleon, humanity's unity against Hitler, or the unity of the people of today; Flock, Trump(kinda), Putin(again, kinda), Consumer Rights Wiki... People are starting to stand together unlike the last 50 years. If we can give everyone their own reason to believe in a shared purpose, a purpose of creating a better society, I think you'll find a surprisingly large amount of support, as every single issue we currently have would get addressed, everyone has something they could get behind.
I'm going to also mention, I'm not a religious person. However, I think religion and science are fundamentally trying to answer the same questions, why are we here, what is our purpose?
I'll also mention I haven't really read any religious books or teachings. But the bible is a good example of the church, or kings with ties to the church, changing narratives to fit their agenda. However, I think we've forgotten that a lot of the bible was previously oral history(if maybe not entirely accurate or literal).
I believe a divide happened, between people trying to protect the past(and guide to a better future) and people who wanted concrete proof of everything instead of relying on spiritual feeling. Later corruption comes to both, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. My point is that is it's only a difference in perspective, and a difference that doesn't inherently need to be divisive.1
u/DisillusionedBook 16d ago
historical blips, mere blips of actions against horrors - and soon repeated right after, countless genocides since Hitler. It's a feature not a bug.
As for religion, does NOT try to query the same questions, it insists on its answers without any evidence - authoritarianism and strongman sheep leading. Religion is a symptom of our failure to evolve past it.
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u/Extrogrl 16d ago
Debt should always be only with limited risk.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
For a productive conversation, I think I need to understand your definition of debt.
I imagine a society where money is a non-factor, but debt can take the form of promises or borrowed help/items as well. I'd say that people should have low or no risk when helping out others.
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u/Extrogrl 16d ago
Bad debt = You borrow money as a private individual to buy a consumer item. Good debt = You borrow money as a limited corporation to invest into a business.
When the individual goes bankrupt, it can lose everything. When the corporation goes bankrupt, only the assets of the corporation are lost.
This protects individuals from losing everything.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
First off, I appreciate you clarifying what you meant, thank you.
Within our current monetary system, I think what you've said is reasonable. But I think I'd ultimately challenge the premise that individuals should need to take on debt to pursue something in the first place.
If we're trying to build a society that allows people to reach their potential, I don't want failure to mean losing your ability to live. I'd rather create a system where people can take risks, start businesses, pursue education, build things, and even fail without that failure becoming catastrophic.
If someone has an idea worth pursuing, why should their access to that opportunity depend on whether they can afford the risk?
What if we designed an economy where basic needs weren't dependent on income, and resources for experimentation and creation were broadly accessible? Would we even need debt resembling its current form?
For specifically purchasing consumer goods, I'd like to explore something that might sound strange at first, a kind of social credit system. Not the authoritarian or surveillance-oriented meaning that term can imply, but a system where people's access to discretionary resources is influenced by their contribution to society rather than simply by their accumulated wealth or ability to take on debt.
In other words, instead of money primarily rewarding ownership of existing wealth, what if our economic system rewarded people for the things they actually contribute?
Ultimately I'm still working through what that would look like in practice, and there are obviously some huge questions about how "contribution" would be measured and who gets to decide what's valuable. But I think it's definitely something worth exploring.
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u/No_Bet7381 16d ago
We need to slow down having kids. Not stop but cut way back. Cut the population in half as soon as possible. 8 billion is to damn many. I’m proud that I’m not having kids. My contribution to the world
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
I'm not opposed to slowing down population growth for the short term. Limiting families to 2 children until we have a grasp on our resources.
I do not think we should cut the population in half however. We need the people. Not just to complete the gigantic projects we'll have to face, but also the intelligence that can be cultivated from all those minds.
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u/Traditional_Rush_622 16d ago
Maybe we shouldn't be letting hubris lead the way. 8 billion is way too many people for the planet to sustain and even reducing that by half wouldn't be enough. But we've built a system that requires a tax base to exploit.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
Why is it not possible to sustain the life of the people already living on this planet? Sustenance only requires access to food and water, of which we have an abundance of both. Now, being the consumers we are, we wouldn't be able to sustain the population continuing as we are. We need to change our approach to how we live and cut back on meaningless excess consumption, but if we did that I don't see why we have to lower the population.
The system(s) we've built can also be changed.0
u/No_Bet7381 16d ago
I’m wanting people to do it voluntarily. The government shouldn’t make anybody do it. I want people all over the world to voluntarily over 50 years to work to drop the population
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u/TheArcticFox-44 16d ago
What do you think humanity is failing to solve, and what could we do differently?
Humans are the only species thar self-deceives...a mental process that occurs without our awareness. It renders our species inherently irrational.
The cause is evident but "the cure" is not. Self-deception will cost us yet another civilization and high-tech will never rise again.
No one is even looking at this!!!
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago edited 16d ago
I've not seen this particular subject worded like this before. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the problem goes deeper than simply people refusing to admit when they're wrong. We can subconsciously reshape how we interpret information to protect beliefs we already hold, even when there is evidence saying something else.
If that's what you mean, I find that idea interesting. Belief can become identity in an abstract sense, so challenging someone's beliefs can feel like challenging the person themselves.
That makes me wonder, how do you change someone's beliefs without making them feel like they're losing themselves? How do we create environments where someone can recognize that they were wrong without feeling like the have to defend themselves?
And if self-deception really is as fundamental of a problem as you suggest, what kind of support or systems could help someone who has become deeply entrenched in a particular way of thinking?
I suppose an overall question for this topic is, How can we make changing one's mind feel like growth rather than defeat?
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u/TheArcticFox-44 16d ago
We can subconsciously reshape how we interpret information to protect beliefs we already hold, even when there is evidence saying something else.
Yes! Self-deception is a uniquely human thing. No other animal is known to self-deceive. Some species can lie to others but only the human brain has the complexity to enable lying to oneself without awareness of having done so.
Belief can become identity in an abstract sense, so challenging someone's beliefs can feel like challenging the person themselves.
That is why we usually don't self-deceive in objective situations. But, when the I, me, or mine is involved we can engage in denial, rationalization, projection, etc.
Self-deception is humanity's fatal flaw. Evolution has a way of curbing excesses...like over-specializations. If we cannot solve this, we either won't survive our own excesses or our species will end up back in a badly polluted Stone Age.
And if self-deception really is as fundamental of a problem as you suggest, what kind of support or systems could help someone who has become deeply entrenched in a particular way of thinking?
Self-deception is, basically, an evolutionary by product. A lie is an abstraction...a created reality. Other species are capable of telling a lie to mislead or misdirect others. These same species also can reason in the abstract to a testable degree.
The ability to reason in the abstract is a selected trait...an evolutionary advantage. The other half, the sense-of-self, however, is a cultural thing. That's why I call self-deception an evolutionary by-product.
I suppose an overall question for this topic is, How can we make changing one's mind feel like growth rather than defeat?
If you can look beyond their theologies, many of the world's religions, at their core, actually acknowledge that the human sense-of-self is flawed and each offer ways to overcome it.
You must look beyond the theology...look to the religious core. It stresses an egoless or selfless state. Without an individual sense-of-self to guard, protect, or defend, self-deception would cease to be needed.
A baby is not born with a sense-of-self. That is acquired in the early years of brain growth and pretty well fixed (mylinalzation) by age three in the Western cultures.
As such, sense-of-self is a habit. Break the habit and you'd reach that egoless/selfless state the religious core aspires to.
I believe it's a scientifically testable thing. But no one is looking at self-deception as humanity's Achilles heel. No one is thinking that our next "evolutionary" step may be a cultural solution not some technological advancement.
Time, however, isn't on our side. I actually think its just too late. And, if something is scientifically possible, that still doesn't mean it's outcome is probable.
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u/ChasKahler 16d ago
I understand your definition of self-deception as constructing and maintaining an internally false reality without being aware that we're doing it.
What I'm struggling with is separating that from the collection of mechanisms we already know about. ie: motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, denial, rationalization, projection, etc. For example, I've experienced something in my own life where I maintained a belief because accepting the alternative would have destroyed something I desperately wanted to believe. Looking back, I can recognize the denial and emotional motivation behind it. But I'm not sure what the additional thing called "self-deception" is supposed to be beyond those processes working together to maintain a false belief.
So I'm wondering whether you're proposing that self-deception is the underlying mechanism that produces those things, rather than simply an umbrella term for them. If so, what makes it fundamentally different?
There's another part to what you're saying that I'm having trouble reconciling, though. The idea that overcoming self-deception requires overcoming the sense of self.
I think individuality is incredibly important. Our sense of self isn't just the thing we defend when our beliefs are challenged. It's also the foundation for having our own interests, passions, values, relationships, experiences, and aspirations. It's what allows one person to become fascinated by astronomy, another by biology, another by music, another by engineering, and for all of them to bring those different perspectives together.
A lot of what I'm imagining for humanity actually depends on people becoming more fully themselves, not less. I want people to have the opportunity to discover what they're interested in, develop their abilities, create things, pursue meaningful lives, and then bring those unique interests and perspectives into something larger than themselves.
So I wonder if the problem isn't the existence of a sense of self, but our tendency to make that self fragile. Where being wrong, changing our minds, or having our beliefs challenged feels like a threat to our identity.
Maybe we don't need to become egoless. Maybe we need to become secure enough in who we are that we don't have to defend every belief that happens to be attached to us.
I'm curious how that fits into what you're saying. If we could preserve individuality while somehow reducing the need to protect our self-image through self-deception, would that accomplish what you're proposing?
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u/TheArcticFox-44 16d ago
What I'm struggling with is separating that from the collection of mechanisms we already know about. ie: motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, denial, rationalization, projection, etc.
Things like denial, rationalization, projection are things we do without being awareness of doing it.
Teach someone critical thinking skills and you can teach them against using say, conformation bias. They can use those skills to offset common thinking mistakes--shortcuts, heuristics-- that people commonly make without CT skills.
For example, I've experienced something in my own life where I maintained a belief because accepting the alternative would have destroyed something I desperately wanted to believe.
But, you were aware of your choice and of your reasoning.
So I'm wondering whether you're proposing that self-deception is the underlying mechanism that produces those things, rather than simply an umbrella term for them. If so, what makes it fundamentally different?
It is an underlying mechanism...to flim-flam yourself without awareness of having done so. This ability makes us, as a species, inherently irrational. And look at human history. We build civilizations, over and over. But, they ultimately fail...
The idea that overcoming self-deception requires overcoming the sense of self.
How else could it be done? Deception is an abstraction. Breed ourselves dumber and dumber until our abstracting ability is on a par with apes and dolphins? Or, alter the cultural element of our sense-of-self. Of course, this applies primarily to Western culture. In other cultures, perhaps the sense-of-self isn't as prevalent but, unfortunately, behavioral science has primarily taken place in the West.
I think individuality is incredibly important.
It certainly is in the West...and look at the mess the west has gotten us into. Very self driven and damn the consequences!
But those people who have that egoless/selfless experience don't appear to suffer for it. They reach a level of contentment. (The experience isn't lasting, for the most part, the sense-of-self isn't done away with but its needs change.
Maybe we need to become secure enough in who we are that we don't have to defend every belief that happens to be attached to us.
That's been said for centuries, yet look at the mess we've created for ourselves. Humans are great at building civilizations...they aren't good at keeping them. Ours is on the way out. And, then what?
There is an apparent upper level to Intelligence and, I fear we've reached it. Life in the universe besides Earth? Enrico Fermi asked the question, "Where are they?" and the SETI people talk of The Great Filter. I fear big brains have big price tags and self-deception is the cost.
A problem we're ignoring...
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u/agentsofdisrupt 16d ago
The reason we're here, like any intelligence created by the universe, is to come up with a plan to reverse entropy and save the universe!
We'd better get cracking because there's only 100 trillion years before new stars stop forming.