References

1. The Global Risks Report

The global risks report 2019

The Global Risks Report has confirmed what we might already be feeling today: an imbalance in one area of life is interconnected with an imbalance in other areas. This predicament is compounded by the fact that our economic system reflects our social values, which in turn reflect and shape our emotions and our psychology. To quote one of its conclusions, “We will struggle if we do not work together in the face of these simultaneous challenges.”

World leaders are struggling to manage the multifaceted crises we’re facing today. To give you a sense of the magnitude of changes:

• The global debt burden, which is significantly higher than before the global financial crisis of 2008, is at around 225% of GDP
• 700 million people worldwide are estimated to have a mental disorder
• In 2017, climate-related disasters caused acute food insecurity for approximately 39 million people across 23 countries.
• 85% of survey respondents expect major-power political confrontations

2. Newtonian physics and the impact of this worldview on society

Newtonian physics

As humans evolved, so has their definition of themselves and their relationships. In particular, we can observe these main drivers in our understanding of evolution:

• Newtonian physics – we are machines operating in space under strict simple laws
• Biological – we are complex machines motivated by competition for traits and resources that favor survival
• Social – we are part of a complex social network and the desires & wellbeing of any individual is interrelated with those of the collective

Even as it entered the public discourse, it was already clear that Newtonian physics fall short of including human emotions in the equation:

“For Voltaire and similar thinkers, Newton’s triumph in mechanics proved that science would eventually explain everything, including human actions, in terms of rigid cause-and-effect (deterministic) laws: “It would be very singular,” Voltaire wrote, “that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal, five feet high, who in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.”

3. The narcissism epidemic

Prof. Jean Twenge describes one of the most prominent expressions of the growing human ego.

Narcissism — a very positive and inflated view of the self — is everywhere and it’s why five times as many Americans undergo plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures today than did just ten years ago. It’s the value that parents teach their children with song lyrics like “I am special. Look at me,” the skill teenagers and young adults obsessively hone on Facebook and Tik Tok, and the reason high school students physically beat classmates and then broadcast their violence on YouTube for all to see. It’s the message preached by prosperity gospel and the vacuous ethos spread by celebrity newsmakers. And it’s what’s making people depressed, lonely, and buried under piles of debt.