OS Open Call: If you were King How Would You Prioritize World Problems?


Hypothetically you have now inherited the world's problems. Billions of people with different needs expect you to help them. Where do you start? Do you start in your own country or backyard?

I'm going to attempt to list and defend my priorities as King of the World as I hope others will.

My list is short:

1) Religion

2) Human Overpopulation

3) Education

In our hypothesis it is assumed as King of the World you can affect change on your chosen problems.

Defense of my priorities:

Worthy Conflicts/Issues: Abortion, Energy Crisis, Global Warming, World Economy, Wars, Gay Marriage/Equal Rights, Technology, Pedophiles, Nuclear Weapons, Global Warming, Saving Animals/Habitats, Peace on Earth, Socialism/Greed in the name of Capitalism, Technology, Despots, Birth Control.

As an example "Peace on Earth" will suffice. Peace on Earth is not reality based, since all life involves conflict. From trees blocking out the sun from other plants to humans warring over resources, etc. As long as life exists, so will conflict.

Peace on Earth can only become reality with the extinction of life. To wish for peace and the existence of life, while laudable, is a futile attempt to conjure up two diametrically opposed ideals (such as good and evil) and ask them to play nice.

All of my three priorities play negative roles in "Peace on Earth". Religious views are a cause of overpopulation, which leads to wars over finite resources or wars over religious beliefs.

The less educated are preyed upon buy religions, to grow their flock. Creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of the above mentioned atrocities.

The genesis of human retardation I propose is religion. We are merely children with better toys. We now have the ability to create our own apocalypse.

I wouldn't hand a child a loaded gun. Religion is a nuclear weapon, it teaches us not to advance emotionally, rationally, "Accept the words we wrote and re-wrote... that God told us to".

Religion takes no responsibility for the souls its teachings brought into the world. Religion fights knowledge (Galileo as example), religions only want warriors, God's warriors (cannon fodder).

In 1800 the world's approximate human population was .98 billion in the roughly two hundred years since human population has spiked to 6.7 billion. The demand for Earth's finite resource has spiked with our growth. Add to this the industrial revolution and the resulting pollution and we arrive at our current state of events.

Humanity itself is has been here but a partial blink of an eye. Life on Earth has existed for hundreds of millions of years, humans 50-70 thousand. Yet in the last 200 years we've added approximately 6 billion people. It is estimated that 10% of all the humans to have inhabited Earth are alive today scrambling for resources.

Without action the exploding human population will inevitably lead to more wars over resources. This is where education could play a positive role and religion is detrimental. Religion for preying on the less educated (for their own gain) and preaching against birth control and sex education.

This is not to say religion doesn't have positive attributes. However, history provides evidence that religion's actions have had a more negative impact than their supposedly peaceful, moral and ethical teachings.

Abortion, Gay Marriage, Birth Control and Stem Cell Research are just a few of the conflicts we're engaged in solely due to religious beliefs.  We would not be using political means (votes), expending tax dollars (separation of church and state) or arguing amongst ourselves (as vehemently) over these issues if religious views were not involved. Education also plays a part. Overpopulation is aided here as well.

Global Warming, War, Pollution, Dwindling Resources, Saving Animals/Habitats, Energy Crisis, Fossil Fuels, Terrorism, Alternative Energy, Starvation, Pandemics just to name a few, are all impacted by my three picks: Religion which aids overpopulation which in turn is aided by lack of education which aids religion.

Religion, overpopulation and education feed off each other, in a vicious circle, and create the above mentioned issues as well as many I missed or do not know of. They also feed the future conflicts yet to be faced.

This is an abbreviated defense of my three nominees for top priorities if I were "King of the World".

Is it realistic to think humans could solve these problems? The evidence leans heavily towards "no".

We pay lip service to the future and live for today.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. It's a hypothesis, a series of questions with infinite answers followed by infinite questions.

I look forward to your responses. Choose one or three or five... I'd like to see what drives us, what makes you passionate, angry, happy...

Please comment or write your own response. Rating is appreciated.