The creation of viral memes that encourage and elicit responses from as many as possible of the multitudes (addicted to responding to such things on their ubiquitous hand-held devices!) is ‘big business’ these days. Big data is reckoned to be the most valuable commodity in the world today (worth more than gold, diamonds or oil!) and even responding to what seem innocuous or rather silly questions means that your head is being counted in some way and you are being drawn into deeper relationships with ‘AI’ (Artificial Intelligence) algorithms and their constant efforts to collect and collate every bit of knowledge about, and insight into, your behavior that they can… for the purpose of predicting your behavior and drawing you into profitable (for their owners, if not you) relationships!
Like many people I , too, am sometimes motivated to join the fray…and have my say! This question popped-up recently on my social media timeline and begged an answer: “If you could RID the world of one thing what would it be?”…By the time I saw it well over 790,000 people had already responded and contributed their 10c worth (an indication of just how many may be idling their time away on social media activities, but do have some concerns about ‘the state of the world’?)… Many were trying to say something amusing (for hopes of garnering that valued ‘laugh’ emoticon if nothing else) but others answered the question directly with many choosing the most obvious kind of things to ‘rid the world of’. A good proportion, resisting the ‘rules of the game’, couldn’t stop at suggesting ‘one’ thing to rid the world of but posted some extended lists.
Naturally there were some common themes running in the typical suggestions about what that ‘one thing’ the world might be better of without… Some things might have only resulted in fairly personal benefits, some might have made an important impact for a small subgroup, other suggestions might have had much further reaching positive effects… But, I wondered, what ‘one’ thing might achieve as many of these ‘wishes’ as possible? Given a few moments thought and reviewing the frequent references in other responses to ridding the world of ‘evil’, or perhaps more specific issues such as ‘racism’, ‘child abuse’, ‘hate’, ‘animal abuse’, ‘corruption’, ‘violence’, ‘inequality’, ‘intolerance’, ‘greed’ …and so on. perhaps in the long list of responses there were other candidates such as ‘complacency’ and ‘apathy’ that also contribute to some of the foregoing being continuously tolerated by the majority? .. Arguably all these suggestions are worthy but each, on its own (and in my humble opinion) likely too limited in effect!
So , ultimately — tempted as I was on this relatively rare occasion to become part of ‘Big Data’ collection — this was my rather rapidly considered contribution:
“Scanning the last hundred comments or so (out of almost 800k, at this time) …other than references to specific illnesses, I’d say all other suggestions could simply be achieved by: “ridding the world of people’s failure to live by the Golden Rule”! As soon as everyone (without exception) starts treating ALL others in the way they themselves would like to be treated — and practicing love, compassion and understanding — all the other iniquities and inequities in the world would stop being ‘a thing’ (as a by-product, IF everyone was treated fairly, justly and with love and compassion, then anxiety, stress and depression would also stop existing… and, hence, most likely the majority of health issues would disappear too!)!”
But, perhaps there are yet better suggestions ‘out there’ if so I’d like to know what they are… What do YOU think? Answers on a postcard please to… 🙂