Mean Wage Movement

The Problems in Our Progress | Chapter 2

How do we decide which issues are the most important to solve?

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In the introduction, I said the world’s biggest problems were climate change and wealth inequality — and that I had an idea that could fix them.

That’s a bold claim, don’t you think? Why should you trust me to tell you what matters most or how to change things? Certainly, many well-informed experts have already written books about global problems such as these.

Even if I could understand the whole world perfectly, why does my opinion about the world’s problems mean anything? People have all kinds of value systems, informed by all different things like religion, nationality, class, gender, age, culture, and politics. What seems like a serious problem to me might look like a non-issue to you, and vice versa.

A Christian might think the world’s biggest problem is the number of unsaved souls. An atheist might think religion is the main problem. A republican might think democrats are ruining the world. A vegan might believe factory farming is the most important thing to change.

We’ve all got our issues that hit closest to home, the ones we feel most motivated to work on. That’s a good thing because there are so many problems to solve and they all need smart, passionate, diligent people working on them.

So how can anyone say which problems are the “most serious” on a global scale when everyone has such different perspectives?

I don’t claim to have an incredible amount of knowledge about how the world works. In fact, the reasoning I used to reach these conclusions is rather simple. Let me show you how I reached my conclusions, and you can see if you agree with my thought process.

The values we have in common

The first step is to think about what values are held universally, or nearly universally, by human beings. This can help us understand what is really precious in life; what we need to preserve.

Even though outlooks on life are so diverse, I noticed that when you boil it down far enough, there are a couple of core values the vast majority of people agree with. The reason it looks like people disagree so much is that these values get twisted around in conflicting directions by different philosophies, belief systems, and cultures.

Here is one nearly-universal core value, which seems obvious but is worth mentioning:

We want the ability to stay alive.

A unifying attribute of all species is the effort to propagate into the future and avoid extinction. It’s part of what it means to be alive. It’s an instinct as old as the first cells. Any species that didn’t have a survival instinct is long gone by now.

Some people do choose suicide, so the rule applies to humanity at large but not every individual. Even though they chose to end their lives — as I believe is their right — I’m sure they preferred to do it on their own terms rather than be killed in some uncontrollable way.

Most of the time, people who are living through even the harshest conditions cling to life for as long as they can.

There are also some who actively advocate for the end of our species. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement comes to mind, and so do antinatalists (people who think giving birth is morally wrong).

While I can see the logic in their philosophies, I’m skeptical these will ever become more than fringe ideas, simply because the instinct to survive is so essential to our biology. Even these people tend to advocate for the end of humanity in a controlled, peaceful manner. There are very few people who would wish to see our entire planet die a painful and chaotic death.

For the purpose of identifying values that define humanity at large, it’s safe to say that “I prefer for me and my family not to be killed” is about as universal as it gets.

One way to uncover core values is to keep asking “why?” when people describe their beliefs and concerns.

Ask the Christian: why is it a problem that people don’t believe in Jesus? They might say that knowing Jesus is the only way to be saved, the only way to find true love and happiness in life. Why is that important? Well, because you don’t want to suffer in hell, you want to go to heaven forever so you can have a happy eternity. Loving Jesus makes your life richer here on Earth, and worshiping God makes God happy too.

Ask the atheist: why is religion a problem? They might say they’ve seen the negative effects religious fundamentalism has on society, the way it perpetuates harmful attitudes about certain types of people, how it divides families when one person stops believing. And why are all those things a problem? Because they impose suffering on innocent people, who ought to be free to seek peace and happiness in their lives, but are prevented by harmful cultural ideas that come from religion.

Ask the republican: why are democrats the biggest problem? The answer might be that democrats want the government to have more control and power, creating new taxes and rules that limit the prosperity and freedom of common people. Why is this a problem? Because corrupt governments with too much power have done horrible things in the past, and we need to protect people from this threat so they can live happy and healthy lives with plenty of personal freedom.

Ask the vegan: why is factory farming the biggest problem? They might point to the billions of animals that are killed every year, enduring a poor quality of life and a painful death. Or they might talk about the meat industry’s contributions to climate change, deforestation, and water use. Why are these things a problem? Because suffering itself should be directly eradicated wherever we have the power, and because environmental destruction leads to more suffering for both animals and humans.

We could argue about whose logic is the most reasonable here, but that’s not the point.

The point is that all four of these are ultimately motivated by a similar core value. They apply it differently through their worldviews, and they believe in radically different methods for accomplishing it, but the motivating belief is the same:

Happiness, itself, is valuable. Suffering is to be minimized.

You might be thinking: “but my opponents in ____ group clearly prefer suffering to happiness since they act the way they do.” Or, you might point out that I’ve essentially described utilitarianism and many people do not agree with that philosophy.

However, I think if we look deeper, most people do in fact have an intuitive alignment with this core value — even if their worldview seems contrary on the surface level.

Of course, some philosophies explicitly promote happiness and condemn suffering. Hedonism is an example of this. Humanism also has a primary goal of promoting well-being for all humans. It’s easy to see how that fits my claim.

But what about the dutiful capitalist who thinks our primary moral obligation is to work hard, contribute to the economy, and earn money? They might believe it’s better to spend 70 hours a week sacrificing your body at work than it is to take time off, relax, travel, and enjoy life. That doesn’t seem to agree with my claim that everyone wants to promote happiness and minimize suffering.

However, I think this person, when pressed, would still demonstrate a core belief in happiness over suffering.

What is the point of working hard and earning money?

If the answer is that they can use the money to provide security for their family, or to increase their access to resources and experiences they might not have had otherwise, then the goal was still to increase enjoyment of life even if it took some suffering to get there.

If the answer is that working hard is important for the health of the economy, and it’s our duty to do our best to contribute to society — why does a healthy economy and society matter? Because it means we will have more collective security and freedom in our lives when we are not impoverished? Then again, the end goal was to build happiness in the way we spend our days and to insulate ourselves from suffering.

What about the puritanical religious person who condemns all pleasures of the flesh, believing instead that we should live in fear and trembling of God, spending our time working out our salvation and bringing others to God? That doesn’t sound like someone who values enjoyment very highly.

Usually, this kind of thinking is motivated by a belief in heaven and hell. The believer is willing to sacrifice earthly pleasures for the promise of eternal bliss that is beyond comparison to anything we know in this life — and when you consider how long eternity is compared to a few decades on Earth, it doesn’t seem like a bad trade. So, again, the goal was happiness and avoidance of suffering. Would this person be so motivated to avoid “sin” if there was no promise of heaven? If God sent all people to the same hell regardless of their choices on Earth, would they have the same motivation to remain faithful?

Even when you disagree with someone’s worldview, you can usually understand their humanity better by understanding what kind of suffering they’re trying to resist, and what kind of happiness they are hoping to find.

Of course, some people are selfish and only care if they are healthy and happy. They might do things that hurt other people if it satisfies them. There are a wide variety of pathologies, traumas, and ideologies that can lead people to be insensitive to other people’s suffering. These people still have the core belief that happiness is desirable, but they haven’t learned to see others as individuals who are equally deserving of that happiness.

Even Voluntary Human Extinction members and antinatalists are motivated by a belief that happiness is the goal and suffering is to be avoided; they recognize that life includes a lot of suffering at present, and they prioritize the ending of suffering over increased enjoyment. They would see it as a net good if nobody had to suffer anymore (by not existing at all), leaving the plant and animal kingdoms to thrive in peace.

All this to say: most of us hold the core value that enjoyment and happiness are fundamentally good, and suffering is intrinsically bad. We push for changes that we believe lead to greater happiness, and we oppose things we perceive as causing suffering.

Of course, some amount of suffering is inevitable. And people can learn to take valuable lessons from their suffering and turn it into happiness. But as a society, it’s hard to see any redeeming value in the hopeless kind of suffering inflicted by famine, war, exploitation, disease, and neglect — especially when we have the capacity to prevent those things.

Everything we count as “progress” aims in some way to promote happiness and end suffering. Technology makes our work more efficient, gets us where we’re going more easily, and gives us access to information. Religions teach the golden rule so that empathy will be embedded in society. A growing economy makes it easier to meet basic needs and reach self-actualization. Healthcare can reduce all kinds of suffering and adds happy years to the lives of many.

I think these things all have good intentions, and they’ve taken hold because we all want positive outcomes, better lives. Of course, there have been some negative side effects of this progress, which we’ll talk about too.

What do these shared values tell us about the world’s biggest problems?

We can’t call something a problem unless we know why it’s a problem.

If we want to talk about the deepest problems humanity faces, we have to understand the deepest common values and goals of humans. Whatever poses the biggest threat to those universal values will be the most pressing issue to solve. As a collective organism, our species should naturally want to work together to prevent outcomes that everybody hates.

If you accept my logic so far, we have identified two universal values shared by humans of virtually all types:

1. We want the ability to survive. We don’t want to be killed or otherwise forced out of existence.
2. We value happiness and positive experiences, and we strive to eliminate suffering.

If these are defining goals of humanity, then humanity’s defining problems are the things that make these goals unreachable.

1. Anything that threatens our species’ ability to survive indefinitely must automatically take priority as one of the most important problems to solve. Extinction is “game over” for everyone.
2. The more suffering a problem causes around the world — the more it prevents conscious beings from living a happy, fulfilling life and instead fills them with instability and misery — the more important that problem is to solve.

With these guidelines, we can start to analyze some contenders for the most serious issues.

1. Extinction threats

This book focuses on climate change. I’m realizing now that writing this book is really going to test my logic and worldviews! Because everything I’ve presented in this article so far leads to the conclusion that I should focus my efforts on the most likely thing to bring extinction — and that may not be climate change.

While climate change could hit a tipping point that leads to runaway global warming so severe it causes extinction, the more likely scenario is that some humans will manage to survive on dystopian-future-Earth.

Nuclear war could create global dust clouds so thick that they prevent plants from growing for several years, leaving billions to starve. AI superintelligence could erupt into a force that immediately ends or changes life as we know it. Bioengineered diseases could cause extremely severe pandemics. A comet could fall out of the Oort cloud and send us the way of the dinosaurs.

Here’s the thing… I don’t feel like I have much ability to influence those factors. I don’t understand how to convince powerful governments to get rid of their biggest weapons. Many people are working on AI all around the world, and they already know the risks, and there’s no way I can convince them to stop. Similarly with engineered pandemics — the tools for it are probably already developed, and I hope nobody decides to create something like that, but I can’t know or regulate what happens in all the secret labs around the world. Finally, if a comet heads our way there’s nothing I can do about that either.

If you are some kind of expert in one of these fields, and you have ideas for how to protect the world, by all means — adopt that as your most important issue. We seriously need smart and motivated people to be figuring out how to eliminate the risk of nuclear war, how to prevent technological disasters, and how to detect and divert incoming astronomical bodies, among other things.

As for myself, I’m focused on addressing climate change. That’s partly because I can’t wrap my head around how to influence those other threats, but also for these reasons:

• It’s already impacting us and our planet. The other threats are potential risks that could happen in the future, but we’re already locked into some level of destruction with our emissions so far, and we’re making it worse every day we refuse to reverse course.
• It’s directly dependent on the actions of the global population. We can vote with our dollars to end this issue more than the others. Climate change is the result of all of our consumption, while the other threats are carried out by small, secretive, powerful groups of people.
• Making a difference is as simple as adjusting your lifestyle and habits; you don’t have to be a tech expert or a political pundit to participate.
• Even if we don’t go extinct, we are already causing a massive extinction event for other animals, and it’s embarrassing to be a member of the species that has killed off so many innocent others.

Finally, while climate change may not cause literal extinction, it will likely cause suffering for an untold number of future generations, and reducing suffering is the other half of my goal.

2. Sources of suffering

Again, although I’ve already described global poverty as the greatest source of suffering, this is another situation where someone could argue that other factors are more significant — and I don’t have any way to prove them wrong.

One could look at it from a spiritual level and say the biggest source of suffering is a lack of connection, equanimity, and love. Another person could say it’s social factors like misogyny, homophobia, and racism. Someone else could say it’s war. Others could point out that human suffering isn’t the only thing that matters, and the greatest suffering on Earth is endured by the billions of animals we breed, raise, and slaughter for food.

I don’t think any of these people are wrong. These issues are all worth devoting one’s life work to. And naturally, to some extent, they are interconnected: our level of loving, empathetic connectedness with others influences how likely we are to engage in hateful behavior or ignore the harm we cause. And the more we are harmed and hated, the harder it is to exist in a state of peace and benevolence.

While I care about the suffering of animals, I am choosing to focus on human factors in this book. I feel that I’m already asking people to become more selfless and altruistic towards the world’s poor, and I don’t want to push my luck by asking them to focus on the needs of animals as well. However, I will be talking about veganism and animal agriculture later because what’s bad for those billions of innocent animals is also bad for us.

I chose to focus on global poverty for two reasons: 1) it’s a massive contributor to suffering in many ways and it doesn’t get talked about as often as it should; 2) the vast majority of people who read this book will be in the top 10% of the world’s richest people (if not the top 1%), meaning that they are people who have the power to make a difference.

Global poverty means that hundreds of millions of people are struggling to meet their basic survival needs. I’ll be honest — I need to do more research to be able to paint a full picture with all the most recent numbers. For now, suffice it to say that many millions of people are dying from a lack of clean water, preventable/treatable diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and malaria, and starvation (9 million per year, 3 million of which are children). Many others suffer from a lack of access to healthcare and from human trafficking, slavery, and horrible work conditions. And, on top of all the basic bodily needs that go unmet, many of the world’s poor never have a chance to receive an education.

What’s shocking to me is how accustomed we’ve become to this reality.

Maybe we haven’t all brushed up on the stats recently, but generally, we know that many millions of people are suffering and dying every year, and that it’s just because they were born in a poor region and can’t afford to access all the same things we can. We shrug and say “that’s just how the world is.”

With how easy technology has made it to send money around the world, this is no longer something we have to passively accept.

Something like COVID-19 comes along and it dominates the news cycle for months and years; we see it as a horrible world-changing event that everyone should be concerned about. 4+ million dead globally in a year and a half — it’s no small number, to be sure.

However, why do we panic about that number while completely ignoring the millions more who die from poverty every year?

How can we do that when we claim to believe that all lives are valuable?

What is the common thread behind these problems?

Now that we’ve thought about what problems are the most significant to solve, it’s time to look at how the world became this way.

What led us to our current reality? What would have to change in order to improve it? What’s the best way to reduce our environmental impact and lift people out of poverty at the same time? That will be the focus of chapter 3.

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