What is an Inquiry?

Inquiry

How Would You Spend $100 Billion to Reduce Suffering In the World?

Okay, let's play a game.  You've been given $100 billion to use to invest in solutions for some of our biggest and most complex global issues:
 

  • Reducing Carbon
   Emissions

 • Biodiversity Loss • Deforestation • Poverty Elimination  • Clean Energy R&D  
  • Public Education • Clean Water • Human Trafficking • Peacekeeping/
   Anti-Terrorism		  • Natural Disaster
    Prevention		  


How would you spend the money?
 

Remember to keep track of your own spending. You can choose a minimum of one response (e.g. Carbon Emissions 100%) or a maximum of four (e.g. Clean Water, Clean Energy, Education, and Biodiversity, at 25% each).

 

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Symptoms, Not Causes

Posted April 26th, 2010 by Michael Haupt

How disappointing that this poll addresses only symptoms of a much larger problem, instead of causes.  But then, that's what we've become accustomed too: knee-jerk, guilt-induced supporting of random initiatives because, if we're honest with ourselves, we cannot figure out the root cause of our malady.  It's easier to throw a few conscience-appeasing coins into a bucket and hurry on with our busy days, secure in the knowledge that we've done our bit.

In the medical world, multi-billion dollar behemoths make a very comfortable income by treating symptoms only.  Avoiding addressing the cause ensures that the gullible patient will keep returning for repeat prescriptions of a medication which has no possible chance to (and was never intended to) cure the cause.  It's easy to see who benefits: the medical establishment.

But who benefits in these ongoing humanitarian efforts which don't stand a hope in hell of ever achieving lasting change?  Only once we have an answer to this annoying question will we start shunning all humanitarian efforts in the same way we shun the medical establishment.  Only then can we hope to focus on finding the cause of our malady, instead of idly (and guiltily) addressing symptoms.

A slide in consciousness is one possible cause of suffering on the planet.  If I was forced to select one option from the poll it would be Public Education.  Only by raising the planet's consciousness will we start finding lasting solutions.  If we're all connected, why not treat the global mind as a single entity.  Personal Development for the Global Mind.  Instead of seeing individual enlightenment, we'll see mass enlightenment.  That's what we need.

--

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Other Choices:

Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Laura Ammons

Campaign Finance reform and stop the revolving door of conflict of interest where a Congressman consults/lobbies for that same special interest money to elect him to office.

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Game questions

Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Irina Filippova

Thanks for initiating this discussion, and especially the interactive part! I like the idea of a game, but shouldn't there be dollar amounts against each box? Surely these are not equal in cost? To make the game a little more "real", it might be helpful to put comparative data on spending - e.g. vs the Apollo ($25 bn in 1969 dollars) or Manhattan ($23 bn in 2007 dollars) projects, expressed in 2010 dollars. Otherwise, I am afraid the responses you will get won't be very meaningful or grounded; most people simply do not think in terms of billions. 

Also, how were these 10 areas arrived at, can you share how many issue areas you chose from and what methodology you used to prioritise them?

Warm wishes,
Irina. 

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None of the Above

Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

I love the occasional indulgence of fantasy.

All those options are examples of playing nice which - as they say in 12-Step - is like doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Fuck that.

I would take a few thousand to draft some ideas in such a way that they will fly thru Congress and use the rest for bribes - just like the lobbyists do.

There are already some centralized service agencies in place and fully funded. If we merely change their marching orders, alot can be accomplished. That's free - except for the cost of changing their marching orders.

Likewise there are plenty of good ideas and alot of good technology already out there, all we need to do is get the obstacles out of the way - again, bribes.

An example of some ideas would be to treat all 4 Quads, not just the Right. People who are economically oppressed and sick and fat will not spend their money on expensive technology that will reduce their carbon footprint. They're gonna buy another latte with extra whipped cream. Stop giving consumers more things to buy and start changing what is already being consumed. Make it ILLEGAL to:

  • manufacture, transport, sell, buy and use goods that are not sustainable and fair trade. Yes, I'm talking about starting a War on Styrofoam! Nevermind the marijuana. That problem will eventually solve itself anyway. Get those plastics off the menu at the auto manufacturers! Just say, No! to Monsanto! N'kay?
  • build anymore structures larger than a garden shed that do not generate solar power, process their own water and compost their own human waste. Not one. Standard.
  • use food stamps to buy processed food of any kind - except for special diets as per perscription by a Dr.This includes things like processed sugar, white flour, quick oats and crisco!
  • manufacture, transport, buy, sell or use cigarettes. Just add this to the list that the Drug Task Forces have to deal with. No extra charge. Stop the stupidness!
  • manufacture, transport, buy, sell or use cars or other motorized vehicles or machines that use petroleum products of any kind by December 2012! Fire insurance.

Make it MANDATORY to:

  • include cardio/resistance training and access in all health insurance.
  • include proper diet training and prescription in all health insurance.
  • ride public transit on certain days when available.
  • work out and change your diet if you've ever had an illnesss or injury which is related to being weak or eating crappy food. If they can force drug addicts to go to 12-Step meetings, they can do this.
  • attend community meetings or do community service which focus on taking responsibility for the environment that we live in if you've ever been caught littering, throwing your dog's poop in the creek or driving muscle cars or Hummers. 'Nuff of that shit.

Just some ideas...

--

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[has that already been done?]

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Is this a joke?

Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Autonomy

World Leadership?

I'll take the job, and I will ask two questions to every World Leader, and if none of them can answer them then I will take the lead...

To end Suffering, is very simple, but if you do so with money, then you will only prolong it... And I spit on Integrals Love, Three times... One for The father, The Son and the Holy Spirit....

And I also challenge them for the Love of their community which they also apit on, by valuing them in terms of money and not for them....

And I can assure you that it would only take me less than 100 words, and a moment of silence.... And that was for the Father

WE have a leader for those who Suffer... Name Jesus Christ, and people still honor him to this day.. You can start by honoring those who listened to him, to cure this little narcassim problem... For if I were to be any sort of leader to try to end suffering, I suppose I should suffer also? How many leaders are that also Suffer?? And understand that it has Meaning, which Jesus Christ well demonstrated.... And others have believed that he would return and he shall, for I just wrote it... How many suffered in his name?

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Protest. Peacekeeping and Anti-terrorism together in one option?

Posted March 4th, 2010 by Frands Frydendal

What kind of an analysis is this, that doesn't allow for distinction between peace-keeping and antiterrorism?

I would use all my money on peace-keeping, and none on antiterrorism.

Peace-keeping in all its aspects can be directed to prevent terrorism.

Anti-terrorism is an entirely different mindset. Alone by the word and definition a concept of conflict. Anti-terrorist activities are not necessarily peaceful. As a matter of fact we have a couple of terrible wars with any number of traumatizing activities going on at the moment with lots of different purposes, some even include "peace-keeping".

What is terrorism? The word is derived from "fear", meaning political actions directed towards creating fear. Usually by using weapons to kill, maim and threaten people.

But does the question "Who holds the gun? Does he have a license from somebody - and from whom?" make a difference to whether the political action towards creating fear in somebody is terrorism or anti-terrorism?

The ethnocentric states certainly like to maintain this difference and thereby the equation, that peacekeeping = Anti-Terrorism.

Is it not political actions towards creating fear, when states go to war? And terrorism? 

And when you try to enforce respect with weapons, what difference does it make, that some more or less legitime government has sent you? For some more or less legitime purpose? The grat Quest for Oil - under the cover of antiterrorism? 

Rebels are terrorists - unless they win. If they win, they are freedom fighters, and later they become government.

True peace-keeping is something quite different.  


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solution

Posted March 4th, 2010 by Earl Chapin

Loan half the money to a consciouness capital company (if ken and burt are right this will address all other issues except for natural disasters) and use the other half for peacekeeping/terroism.

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Sounds like whoever made this inquiry is smitten by Bjorn Lomborg.

Posted March 4th, 2010 by barbi hammond
Didn't Bjorn Lomborg invoke the very same argument by making the very same either/or proposition in the form of an inquiry as to how best to spend $100 billion dollars or .2% of global GDP to reduce world suffering by pitting what he estimated to be the exact cost of current attempts to resolve climate change against the cost of alleviating any other form of human suffering in the world as an either/or alternative?  Why do I find such an either/or dualistic approach and/or divisioning into fragmentation and percentages inquiry so disingenuous and "first tier"?
 
Obviously, had it not been for the high cost to incur in addressing climate change meaningfully (which if I recall was estimated to be $100 billion or .2% of global GDP, according to Lomborg's guesstimates--who maintains furthermore that this money (even if spent) would not resolve climate change as it is currently being handled (his arguments all of which I have thoroughly discredited elsewhere) and, as such, from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis of economics, would be money that is far better spent in resolving some "other" form of human suffering instead, that it is the very individuals who argue in such way as to balk at the cost of addressing climate change meaningfully who are the ones who would never have been so charitable or benevolent on their own accord so as to propose (even in a hypothetical sense as they are currently doing now out of the sheer kindness or benevolence of their souls) in donating $100 billion or .2% of world GDP to alleviate any other form of human suffering as an alternative, were it not for the fact that they were merely taking this opportunity to fabricate a false alternative which they hope to raise as an ethical concern due to their political opposition to international agreements such as cap and trade.
 
The point of the matter is that any attempt to alleviate any form of human suffering will ultimately be short-lived and will ultimately prove to be far too costly in terms of its overall toll on human life should the very foundation to support life as we know it (an atmosphere) be overlooked and short-changed or exchanged in a misguided attempt to resolve some "other" form of human suffering to "resolve" as an either/or alternative to that of climate change from the perspective of cost-benefit analysis (i.e., that of alleviating age-old issues which have plagued humankind since time immemorial such as poverty, terrorism, or disease instead of reducing carbon emissions).  What victory is there to be had in resolving poverty, deforestation, or world hunger, after all--should we fail to address catastrophic climate change such that we face a massive reduction in world population to 1 billion by 2100?  Obviously, we cannot address any form of human suffering meaningfully without first attempting to secure the very foundation for life itself (an atmosphere conducive to life forms as we know it).
 
What Lomborg proposes (as an alternative to the percentage of global GDP that he estimates would be spent on the costs of implementing cap and trade) is to take the money instead and spend it toward alleviating other forms of human suffering so as to elevate this false either/or alternative to the level of a moral or ethical dilemma.  And/or to take this hypothetical "money"--the so-called $100 billion hypothetical dollars of world GDP--to leave to each and every nation to spend at their own discretion toward a modest tax that would be determined or set by each individual government or nation-state on their own accord to put aside for research and development (R&D) of a "doohickey" to replace fossil fuel by the year 2050. 

(The font changed to bold by the Itself without my input whatsoever in the middle of typing indicating an important concern or point that we wish to highlight and bring to I-Integral's attention.  Incidentally, this happens frequently on my blog on Myspace as well and is taken to be an arational manifestation of some kind in the fact that it changed "by the Itself" and for the fact that I did not personally "change" the font to bold.  We also noticed that the Universe had left an extra space below for an additional comment to make in the line below but currently escapes the threshold of my awareness to add; so will leave as "blank").
 
It is the nature of the mental-rational structure (orange and green) to be over-reliant on the wonders of technology to solve climate change automatically. Many, for instance, are counting on some "doohickey" to solve the crisis "for them" to make carbon energy obsolete by replacing it with cleaner and renewable energy ("some day") rather than be inconvenienced by having to face the deeper issues of reducing consumption and demand for carbon energy which will need to be in place and fully implemented prior to this big transition into a new energy source and technology. Reduction of demands does not require R&D but rather CO2 reduction and ..energy efficiency... Neither of which will be meaningfully accomplished by the markets nor by individual nation-states without a legally-binding international agreement such as cap and trade. Instead, the mentality is, take some pill or spend some money on inventing some new machine to magically attend to these problems and to thereby relieve me of these personal responsibilities. In the meantime, I'll continue my merry way of consumption, and some day someone else will invent a machine via R&D to automatically "fix" climate change for me.
 
 
While certainly newer technology and carbon-free, renewable energy will ultimately be necessary to to replace fossil fuel (and while true enough that the new technology is not yet widely available), the inquiry above first of all misleads the voter into thinking that the phase one research and developmental phase of the transition into a new carbon-free economy has yet to be accomplished. News flash: the phase one R&D phase has already been sufficiently and succesfully accomplished such that if the world were to implement these newer technologies (made possible by R&D) today, the catastrophic effects of climate change could potentially be averted.
 
Yet in spite of the technology already being "out there" and in existence today, there's still the matter of funding for this big transition into carbon-free renewable energy globally during a time of worldwide economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, there's still the ongoing and nagging problem of climate change and rising atmospheric CO2 which will not go away in the "meantime" while we patiently await for this newer technology to be "invented" by R&D. Which if not dealt with in a timely manner (say--fully implemented globally by 2020)--is likely to cost the world not $100 billion or .2% of the global GDP but rather--on the order of trillions of dollars and well over 50% of global GDP. Thus rather than investing a small percentage of global GDP, $100 billion dollars, in preventive care to reduce carbon emissions, we will instead incur a debt that is worse than all the world wars combined while simultaneously being reduced to a population of approximately 1 billion by 2100. But rather than focusing on energy efficiency and reduction of CO2 by spending a small amount of global GDP on CO2 reduction today ($100 billion), we are instead hoping for some miraculous breakthrough in technology as we continue to add dangerous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
 
 
Much of this has to do with the mental-rational structure's associations with the deficient phase of the magic structure (deficient red), which is externally-related and is oriented upon gaining power and control over nature by way of magic and possession. Technology is essentially a reactivation of deficient magic in the mental structure. Magic, being only very dimly self-aware, is blind and is possessed. For this reason, the magic structure is also irresponsible.
 
 
Over-reliance on the wonders of technology, in short, is also irresponsible and blind as it is a reactivation of deficient magic and results in obsession with space, then possession by space.
 
 

Bernhard wrote:....


(and I quote):

"
 
warn Al Gore immediately
because he begins to agree
that R&D is key.
How do you react:
1. deny it (your source is not reliable)
2. admit it and say, it won't be so hard
3. admit it and say, it's too late
in case you don't believe it, look at the facts:


Bernhard:
 
 
Sorry that I didn't notice your comment above, but what makes you suppose that Al Gore or anyone who favors cap and trade disagrees with R&D? It's not an either/or proposition as the inquiry above or as Bjorn Lomborg would have you to think.
 
 
Had I not known better, I would think that you were trying to say that "Al Gore is just now beginning to see the light that Lomborg was right all along in that R&D is key, and that reducing ..carbon emissions.. is wrong."
 
 
Gore believes that R&D is "a" key, not "the" key.
 
 
The key concern is still mitigation and a ceiling on carbon emissions to prevent a tipping point and catastrophic climate change. This can be accomplished through a combination of cap and trade and technology, something that Al Gore has always maintained but that Lomborg denies as being a necessity.
 
 
No one here is in denial except those who use ad hominem attacks--i.e., attacking the messenger, Al Gore, rather than the message of the Itself--to attack the science of global warming or the seriousness of climate change by attempting use as a red herring other world issues to "relativize" the subject into an overall "meta-system" or "meta-theory" or whatever.. Sounds green to me.
 
 
Emissions standards such a cap and trade encourages energy efficiency and results in reduced energy demand at the lowest cost to consumers and to individual taxpayers by giving or assigning the bulk of the cost to the heaviest polluters in the world: which are not individual consumers but rather emitters of industrial pollutants. Cap and Trade is how the U.S. phased out lead in gas: not by a lead tax, but by a cap and trade policy. And all without wrecking the economy, driving gas prices up, and without a need for new R&D other than what was already in place there and then. And without such a policy in place here and now as we had there and then, industries have no incentive to become more efficient to reduce energy demand on their free will. In the current scenario, industries are actually being rewarded for being as inefficient and as wasteful as possible by cutting corners on energy efficiency in order to make a profit.
 
 
Industrial CO2 is the biggest pollutant. Hence the cap and trade to encourage industrial efficiency and to reduce overall energy demands. Energy efficiency can be done right here, right now, across industries and in agriculture but not until they're forced to cap and reduce their carbon emissions via climate legislation. Efficiency is already happening on the consumer end in homes, buildings, fuel efficient cars, appliances, energy efficient light-bulbs, and taking mass transportation. Efficiency alone can cut carbon emissions by 40% without any new R&D or technology.
 
 
And to reiterate: the technology for a doohickey, a solar panel or supergrid as Bjorn Lomborg envisions (to be developed by the year 2050), is already here; it just requires the political will or possibly fake money to scale it on the level that is required to make an impact. Even then, energy efficiency is first, replacing the dirty power is second:
 
 
 
 
Maxi, maybe you live off the grid with your own ..solar panels.. and whatnot, and if so more power to you. But what we're talking about here is switching over such a massive amount of energy consumption to a different power source that it will require massive centralized power plants. Large-scale concentrating solar power plants require scraping vast swaths of desert (1000 acres per 100 megawatts). Scraping the desert to power more energy-wasting plasma TVs, to air-condition poorly insulated houses, or to run the dryer all day long just doesn't make sense.

Or, to think about it the way solar consultants do when they meet with homeowners, first you insulate the house, install dual pane windows, and replace the pool pump with an efficient model, THEN you decide how many solar panels you need. Energy efficiency comes first, replacing the dirty power second. . . .

The entire way that Lomborg frames his argument makes it sound as though the technology for a doohickey isn't here yet, which is why we need to invest in R&D. This is untrue. From your article link:
But Gore did end on a positive note and in fact a place of agreement with his nemesis Lomborg. R&D is key. Al Gore believes that we do have the technology we need right now to be fossil-free by 2020. But it will take strong political will, something on the order of JFK's initiative to get a ..man on the moon.., to get that technology to scale so that it has the positive impacts we desire.
Even then, ..energy efficiency.. is first, replacing the dirty power is second.