Human errors: Ramesh Shrestha

Human errors at tipping point? (column 1 of 2)

"The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have." Noam Chomsky

Yes, we are seeking endless privileges and opportunities but we are running away from taking responsibility ……

Human being's optimism, perseverance and endurance have no boundaries or perhaps crossed all boundaries, if there were any. With unlimited optimism and ingenuity humans have tested and achieved brilliance with innovations and discoveries across all fields with flying colours. Industrial revolution, agricultural revolution and technological innovations made every imagination into a successful accomplishment; it was as if all dreams were converted to reality. The speed and veracity of technological development over the past five decades or so is nothing short of a miracle and in the process, humans may be unintentionally challenging Newton's Law of Motion.

In 1686 Sir Isac Newton presented a fundamental principle of physics stating that any pressure we apply on any object, there will be an opposite reaction, defined as the Law of Motion. In our quest for development humans have modified every possible element, object and entity in our planet. Everything we do for development involves application of force in the form of energy to manipulate 'objects' to realise our development goals. Steadily, but for sure nature seems to be fighting back against the system we created to govern ourself and the planet to achieve our ambition. One might ask if the system we created to achieve our dream is approaching a breaking point? There are at least five areas where we could feel the pressure that could break human resilience. They are our reckless leadership, unsustainable economic model, weapons of war, fallout from climate crisis and cyber technology. Combination of these or all five collectively has become a threat to humanity itself.

Reckless leadership

We believe that human values are guided by leaders to ensure that we respect, cooperate and collaborate with each other and remain on a clear path to avoid chaos and conflicts. This is true starting with our families led by the head of household, communities led by local leaders and countries led by elected official(s). This has been the tradition for centuries but over the past few decades, we notice our traditional leadership structure is disintegrating under pressure from multiple causes resulting in fragmentation of our families, societies and political polarisation in countries and in the world. There is also a rise in dictatorship behaviour among elected leaders in many countries which impacts on social, national and international issues. Their ego, bigger than life, is creating chaos in governance and public relations with eroding confidence. Collectively there is a crisis of leadership impacting people across all levels of society including at the international level with weakening of the United Nations, the only institution that brings people of the world together irrespective of ideology or wealth. Are we heading towards a world with leaders amid mutually destructive behaviours? Countries and the world need authentic leaders who can think locally and globally to face the challenges such as chronic economic inequality, ingrained political and economic corruption, geopolitical rifts, rebellious nationalism, threats posed by cyber technology and above all preventing wars with weapons which can wipe out humanity with the click of a button. Most current leaders we have are elected based on wealth, popularity or political coalition, not based on their cognitive or emotional agility.

Prevailing leaderships represent the oligarchies who control the economy, media landscape and industries, not the mass. Their vision lacks broad perspective and fail to act on social justice. Our current system of governance makes us feel like we are living in a democratic society with regular elections, with some form of administration with rule of law but it is only a mirage with the exception in a few countries. Even those few exceptions are under pressure to give in to a system created by oligarchy. Continuation of this type of leadership for the next few decades will bring uncertainty and chaos globally with political polarisation becoming the norm.

Unsustainable economic model

For decades renowned economists have been highlighting wealth disparity with an increasing proportion of the population living under minimum wages. The modern economic system has created business entities where private companies are amassing wealth but countries are amassing debt. No doubt, the neoliberal economists will have some mathematical model to explain this but for the majority of the people what matters is income sufficient to take care of a family, which the colourful visuals of economists cannot fulfil. People have become slaves to the modern economy with oligarchs as the Slave Masters. For the majority of people both couples have to work full time to maintain a household. Our economic system has become a centrifuge machine where wealth is concentrated among a small group of oligarchs, who control the global economy through their networks of all multinational businesses, banking, big-Pharma, media, technology, energy, etc. It impacts all countries with no way out but to be exploited. It also raises a question of the education system, especially the management practices where winning is considered as a zero-sum game. Winning itself is not the problem, the problem is winning at all cost with complete disregard for ethics and equity. Communities of countries arrive at this stage of a slavish economy as the private business & industrial giants remain in the shadow of all governments everywhere. It has diminished the government's role by shedding its responsibility to the private sector. Continuation of such leadership for a few more decades may take us to a tipping point to break not just the economy but humanity itself.

Our economy has created just two classes of people – rich and the poor with steady decline in the middle class, except China. Our economy is focused on production & consumption with no respect for sustainability. It is further amplified by marketing as if there is no tomorrow. The aim is to generate as much profit as possible now, not tomorrow. Privatisation has converted all social services into marketable goods for profit rather than service. In this context two main social goods are of special importance; they are education and health. The current economic policy is producing under educated & unhealthy citizens due to unaffordability of the private sector operated education and health services.

Current economic model has forced people to change all traditional practices starting from food habits, culture and even how we spend our time. Couples have decided not to have children because of unaffordability of child care costs. We are sacrificing our heterogeneous values systems including family values that have existed for millennia to a homogeneous culture all under economic pressure to serve the oligarchies. Every individual, except the club of billionaires, is affected by the current model of economy. The advancing cyber technology is further adding misery to the population, enclosing them in a balloon of loneliness where all one needs to do is work-sleep-eat and repeat the cycle and generate profit for the oligarchies. No one has time to talk to anyone as sustaining life is becoming difficult. How long such life, family, community will last?

To be continued …

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