Optimism
Friday, October 24th, 2008A bit more than a month ago I received an email from Mpls St. Paul Magazine asking for answers to a series of questions on “brains,” “smarts” and the prospects for the future.
I sat on the questions for a few days because I wanted to answer modulo my worries about the current state of the word.
I know modulo sound (at best) nerdy and (at worst) smug, but it’s the best word to express what I’m after:
I wanted a view that had enough perspective to see past the turmoil that dominates any view whose granularity is finer than (I suppose) about a year.
When I wrote up my response a few days later I surprised myself with the optimism present in my answers — which were largely about solving curable disease and helping education in the third world, and electricity production. In short, a lot of the world needs help at the warm/clothed/educated/fed level and there’s reason to be optimistic here.
The questions and my answers follow:
Q: Over the next 10 years what will have the most profound impact on human life?
A: The most profound impact on human life over the next ten years will come from the work being done by the technologists-turned-humanitarians and social entrepreneurs.
Q: Name three person you regard as smarter than yourself
Q: Who today or in history would you call a genius
A: My answer are the same for both questions:
Bill Gates, in his role as chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Fixing disease in the Third World is often less about cutting-edge technology than it is about simpler things like hygiene and logistics. The genius of what Gates has done comes not from the oft-discussed “balance sheet” approach to deciding where to investment will have the largest impact. Instead, it’s from what Anil Dash describes as “imposing a tax on every corporation in the developed world, collecting $100 per white-collar worker per year, and then directing one-third of the proceeds to curing AIDS and malaria.”
Saul Griffith is solving the energy production equation at both the micro and macro level. He founded Potenco whose pull-cord power generators provide a power source for safe electric lighting [in the third world]. Saul’s latest venture, Makai Power, is pioneering tethered, high-altitude wind power generation and is supported by the Google Foundation.
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman emeritus for MIT’s Media Lab and [founder of] the One Laptop Per Child education project [that is] at the heart of a mission to raise the bar in education in the Third World.
Q: If you could take a pill that boosted your IQ fifty points, would you take it?
A: In a heartbeat, but only if everyone else could too. Giving yourself a fifty-point boost is selfish; raising the planet’s collective intelligence is good for the species.
Q: Would you rather be street smart? Book smart? Business smart, or people smart? (Choose one)?
A: Street smart is synonymous with problem-solving, which is at the heart of anything interesting.
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Thanks to Robert Stephens for suggesting me to the publishers.
