Ways we solve world problems i.e., by education, by reward-penalty, and by design - What worked, what is the catch, and where the focus should shift?
Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/
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The way we have been trying to solve world problems i.e., by
education, by reward-penalty, and by design - What worked, what is the catch,
and where the focus should shift?
SOLVING PROBLEMS THROUGH EDUCATION
Education is usually considered the universal and baseline
intervention to solve world problems, but there is a catch. Education here may
imply, in all its encompassing connotations, from the simple awareness, to the
education system, to Reading, Writing, Arithmetic (RRR), to research and
innovation, to system thinking, and anything that enables us and inspires us to
take action to solve the problems in the life of the individual, community, and
world at large.
The catch here in terms of education is manyfold, first,
education may take a decade or generation or two to actually see the benefit
and by that time whole context and definition of the problem may change.
Second, education doesn’t guarantee the resultant desired action due to the
lack of accountability, i.e., in spite of education, one may or may not choose
to act in a specific expected manner. Third, there is no common denominator in
the diversity and pursuit of specialized education, i.e., while everyone
acknowledges, faces, and is to some extent accountable for aggravating common
world problems through their action, be it a subject of climate change, energy
crisis, poverty, inequality, material scarcity, erosion of bio-diversity, etc.
but just education has not been a panacea for these problems. The “education”
around common big world problems that impact each one of us without
discrimination, must find its way to the curriculum across hierarchy and
specialization of course without discrimination, i.e., the themes mentioned
above (like climate change, poverty, inequality etc.) must be introduced and
taught to every stream of education, irrespective of hierarchy and
specialization, i.e., from science to law, to agriculture, to hospitality, to
philosophy and more. Big world problems require collective action and
collective consciousness to resolve them, and for that, a common definition of
problems must be understood, and a baseline sensitization and sensitivity
across the educated population must be there.
SOLVING PROBLEMS THROUGH REWARD-PENALTY
Reward-penalty is another superimposed approach tried and
tested over centuries to solve a range of world problems, essentially in an
attempt to bring order. There is the catch again. Reward-penalty may imply here
every enforcement effort like incentives, recognition, penalty, and punishment,
imposed primarily by institutions of all kinds, across all hierarchies, that
encourage actions that are compliant with social and statutory norms and
discourages any action otherwise. The simple catch here is this is the archaic
notion of attempting to solve problems. In a utopian scenario, in a civilized
and conscious world, the systems and actions should be self-regulatory and
should be in equilibrium on their own, but the counter forces like unawareness,
ignorance, greed, pursuit for short-term gain, etc lead to unbalance and
disproportion of individual and collective actions, which hence in turn require
checks and balances in terms of reward-penalty.
SOLVING PROBLEMS THROUGH DESIGN
Finally, what you can’t solve through education and
reward-penalty, you solve through design. Acknowledging that the most urgent
and big challenges of the world are usually wicked problems, still solving
problems “by design” may possibly be the most appropriate and fastest way to
attempt to solve the small and large problems that the world is facing. The
“design” here may imply a framework, schemata, method, system, philosophy,
engineering or automation, that provides a ground, a conduit, or a datum, which
is conducive, self-regulatory, and self-healing; and that works even if there
is a lack or disparity of education and enforcement in terms of reward-penalty.
There are numerous ways, examples, and possibilities of how the world’s key
problems are being tackled and must be tackled through scaling up this approach
of solving problems “by design”. These are a few examples and possibilities for
solving problems by design –
✅Example includes, connecting
poor and remote households with off-grid power, internet, banking, community
food bank, and seed bank as a means of empowerment, access to education, food
security, and means for bringing them out of the poverty trap, and not leaving
this to fate and chance.
✅Possibility of leveraging
existing supply chain networks of many kinds to serve multiple functions like
food and medicine aid networks to connect local, remote communities and
entrepreneurs to the global market, is a poised possibility.
✅Further, the possibility of
leveraging big data to reinvent urban travel by predictive matching of
ridership demand and supply around public transport so that no bus is running
nearly empty in a city.
✅Leveraging big data and AI to
reconfigure land use in real-time, matching vacant housing stock and other
vacant land use properties with current and predicted housing demand and
homelessness, to provide everyone with a home and much-needed shelter.
✅Redefining census parameters to
include information including, household health condition, household debt
profile, and specific skill profiles, that may encourage institutions to take
steps towards better social security, service delivery, aid, well-being,
encourage entrepreneurship, untapped employment like post-retirement and dual
household income (translating opportunity cost to actual economic gains for
households).
✅Preparing tangible
layers/networks/ sub-systems and blueprints for autonomous circular cities and
communities based on resource demand-supply match, sharing, pooling, product
life extension, community storage and preservation, community repair facilities,
off-grid renewable energy provisions, etc.
✅Applying AI and robotics for
mass-scale waste profiling, segregation, and high-value reuse, and taking
humans out of the unhealthy waste stream
✅Going beyond documentation,
actually devising the easiest means of providing intellectual property rights
to indigenous and artisanal community practices across the world to preserve
these practices and protect them from exploitation, biopiracy, etc., and
strengthen their socio-economic conditions.
There may be many more examples of how small and big
problems of the world must be solved “by design”. Of course, there are inherent
challenges in doing so primarily, through the aid of technology, but those
challenges can always be tackled through appropriate governance.
Author: Anoop Jha
Image:Pixabay
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[Recent update
Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.
Please Note, that I am also conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com
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