I am very privileged to be invited back by TEDx as a delegate this year. I love TED’s mission statement and their democratic approach to sharing information. I am and will remain a faithful TED audience and delegate. I will strive to become a TED speaker in the near future.

First and foremost, I want to say I thoroughly enjoyed Bruce Taylor‘s talk on Sustainable Charity and David Swart‘s talk on Art Expression Through Math. Hamid Tizhoosh‘s talk on Psychological Violence was also quite impactful.  Check out their profiles on www.tedxuw.com

This year, however I am a little disappointed by some of the speakers. This is why: Too Much Problems, Not Enough Innovative Solutions.

There are the usual issues such as untrained police force dealing with mental patients; lack of medical resources; loss of privacy in the days of social media. We come to TED to ask the brightest minds of our time what can people do about it? And specifically what CAN I do about it?

To that end too many speakers offered the same old approach we heard millions of times: ELECT people who care about these issues into office. Failing that, you can WRITE to your MP’s to express your concerns. Failing that, you can WAIT for a new technology to mature which will take care of the problem. I call this the E.W.W. approach. Ewwww… It does not work!

Let us face it. Democracy is broken. Capitalism is broken. Communism does not work. Religion can be crazy. The Environment is F’ed. Sharks are dying. God is not here. The only way out is by ourselves.

We cannot rely on politicians to care about important social issues because their job number one is to get into office. Their job number two is to stay in office. Dealing with real issues that affect people’s lives is way down the to do list. It has little chance of ever becoming a priority. If you are still naive about the idealism of the so called democracy just look at our neighbours down south. That pot of ideology diarrhea will get much worse before it gets any better. Other places are not much better. Mexico, EU, India are all examples of democracies failing to solve fundamental problems of equality, security and unity.

Can technology be our saviour then? I do not believe that for a second. Did wheels prevent people from getting to work late? Did cell phones and street lamps prevent rape at night? Did internet prevent dictatorship buried in secrets? Technology follows people’s actions, not the other way around. Only WE can solve problems that we created. Make no mistake, Every Problem is a PEOPLE Problem.

The answer is not in our political system and is not in technology. As AWAYS, the answer lies in the organization of humans who behave in a certain way.

In a previous post I discussed the concept of Humans 2.0. The solution is a radical evolution where we transform, enmass, an entire generation of humans into Humans 2.0. This generation of new and improved human will be able to shake things up at its core. New ways of accomplishing goals can be found and implemented.

Imagine a world where the education system teaches useful life skills rather than drilling children on stringent formulas that does not work; where the health care system takes care of the needs of the patients rather than the wants of drug companies; where the tax dollars are not wasted on perpetual construction projects in order to create jobs; where political broken promises are a thing of the past because ballot casting is continuous. And you have a take a pop quiz before you cast your vote.

This brave new world is not something out of a fantasy novel. It is your divine right! You only have to claim it to make it happen! Whether this happens in your lifetime or your children’s is up to you.

If you decide to act then you must take the first step! Start on becoming a Human 2.0 today because tomorrow you may be distracted by what Trump is tweeting and forget what you had for breakfast.

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Published by ZEN WANG

Nuclear Project Engineer turned Filmmaker. View all posts by ZEN WANG