Things I Shouldn’t Worry About and Things I Should in the 21st Century

March 31, 2020 – I find myself in two states of mind these days.

I worry about:

• The COVID-19 pandemic
• The increasing threat of climate change
• The world economy and globalism
• Overpopulation and food security
• Developing and Developed World poverty and the gap between the rich and poor
• The rise of right-wing populism and the re-emergence of dangerous nationalism
• The results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election

That’s a lot of things to worry about. Surprisingly, not on this list is the threat of nuclear war which is an astonishment to me since I read and follow those scientists who keep the Doomsday Clock. I cannot say nuclear war was never on my worry list. I was twelve years old during the Cuban Missile Crisis and I remember the fallout shelter salesperson who visited our home to try and sell us one.

Putting worry aside, I also have my other state of mind, the one that is hopeful because I’m a believer in our human ingenuity that has led to:

• Global ubiquitous telecommunications
• The sharing of knowledge using aggregation tools on the Internet
• The crowdsourcing of new ideas, concepts, and global problem solving
• The crowdfunding of innovative and disruptive new services and technologies
• The XPrize for driving innovation to address some of the greatest challenges we face
• Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs and inventors driven by visions of the future and committed to achieving them despite obstacles that get in the way

Can the list of hopeful things help assuage my worries?

Bill Gates describes the state of mind as being relativistic. For example, it appears that populism and the rise of xenophobic nationalism represent just a few steps backward in a world that has achieved thousands of steps forward over the last hundred years. The 20th century saw two global wars, the Holocaust, the Cold War with nuclear brinksmanship. But it also saw the Green Revolution in which global food supply expanded geometrically. It saw the end of colonialism, medical advances that extended average lifespans by more than 40 years, and the emergence of global organizations aimed at addressing inequality and conflict around the planet.

All of these steps forward happened before we took our first step on the first day of the 21st century.

In 2017, Future Now published a list of the grand challenges facing humanity and the planet in this century. Experts were asked to identify the top 50. As I read through the various comments made by researchers, teachers, CEOs, CTOs, entrepreneurs, and others, it struck me that humans collectively have what it takes to put my 21st-century worries and fears to rest; that we can crowdsource from the brightest and most creative, the ability to address everything on the list that appears at the top of this page.

And yes, we still have to face the pandemic emerging before us in COVID-19, and the enduring threat of global warming, but we have the collective knowledge and wisdom to address both. Wrapping our heads around these two of our greatest challenges, one short-term, and the other far longer in its impact will help us achieve positive outcomes for much of the remainder on my worry list. Yes, even the outcome of the U.S. presidential election this coming November.

For the immediate challenge of COVID-19, the policy of social distancing is our greatest tool in getting the pandemic under control. Think of it this way. An infected person in close proximity to others will pass along the infection on average to three others. Those three will then infect nine, and those nine, 27. That is why keeping your distance has become an essential act of humanity for each of us.

For global warming, the policy of reducing carbon emissions is more subtle in terms of outcome. Every one-tenth of one-degree rise produces impacts on climate, on sea level, on food production, and more. Every one-tenth of one-degree fall reverses some of the damage already caused.

If we can take all of the other worries and break them down into simple steps that yield measurable outcomes, collectively, we can tackle not just all the ones I worry about, but also many of the ones that worry you.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and let me know how you are facing 21st-century challenges. I look forward to receiving your comments.