Solving the World’s Problems

I’ve always enjoyed this small little saying. It usually comes up at the end of a drunken conversation at a bar somewhere. Away from the music on a smoke-sesh, out on a patio, I’ve had many deep and meaningful conversations. I tend to do most of my processing out loud. I talk a lot is another way to say that. Sometimes I’m talking just to hear myself talk and I don’t mean that in the mean way, but in the literal fashion. Sometimes it’s nice to process and think through conversation. I’m convinced there are two types that go to the bar and drink. One type would be like me, looking for people to think with and converse and to expand my idea of the universe. The other type is a listener type, My suspicion is this type is only surly because you’ve interrupted their thinking or their non-thinking. They don’t need to talk to think, but still a libation can ease their mind and allow thoughts to flow, or simply turn them off, and if the content is right, they can entertain a conversation.

Most of my talks tend to steer toward the world’s problems. The big items like world hunger, poverty, a stagnant government, misspending, war, oppression, etc. I’ve always laughed to myself when it seems so easy to come up with solutions to these problems while just standing around drinking. Someone inevitably points out there is nothing we can do and so we should go have another shot, “now that we’ve solved all the world’s problems.” Or while drinking and talking another will approach and say, “So we solving all the world’s problems today,” and the others respond, “Yeah, we’ve just about got them all figured out.”

How is it that such seemingly complicated issues can be solved over a couple hours and a few beers? How come a government who spends billions of dollars a year can’t seem to address even one particular problem and get it right?

The irony in all of this is while conversing we tend to perch ourselves up on a pedal stool, higher than the ones affected by the world’s problems. Through the use of alcohol, we can forget our own station in life and for a little while imagine what we would do if we had the power of the Rockafellas, the Rothchilds or Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. I’ve often wondered why people like Warren Buffett don’t spend a little money and solve some of these problems. Sitting in our high seat, imagining we have access to all power mechanisms in the world, it’s easy to see things like hunger, housing, and food should be a quick fix. Things like cleaning our rivers, taking care of our planet and solving the pollution issues, and fixing our education system seem so simple.

Here are some simple changes to current practices that could aid “world hunger” I’ve heard while drinking and conversing at a local bar. I’ve thought more and more about this lately now that the USA is out of the Afgan and Iraq wars. I think the country should immediately divert all funds that were going to those wars for the last 20 years to solving some of the world’s problems. If the old war money isn’t enough, we could lower the salary of all government officials to that of a teacher. Those who control the society through government stand to benefit from a failed education system. They benefit from the undereducated citizens who cannot hold the elected officials accountable and who, in my opinion, are actually being taught to not pay attention, to accept bad policy only stripping society of wealth and health instead of working to preserve and better it. Finally, our government and education system (or lack thereof) work together to create the illusion nothing can be done to save the world and solve even the easiest and most local of problems. Apathy is the main goal of not only the education system, but our elected officials as well.

World Hunger:

Stop throwing away food. Make a law against throwing away large unspoiled amounts of food by restaurants, grocery stores and farms. Implement local neighborhood programs to collect and distribute this food. The people who would do this collecting and distribution should be paid through government grants and stipends. A lot of this food could be served at schools and businesses with low income and impoverished families, some of whom are already on a free lunch/breakfast program providing them food devoid of sustenance.

These positions should be made permanent, like congress’s positions. The pay of the position should be $100,000/year with access to working capital for logistics and other hiring. I would go so far to say a place like DFW could see at least 10 or 20 of these top-level jobs. With money to hire drivers, stockers and other logistical employees and money to acquire warehouses, trucks and other supplies, I’d estimate at least 5-10 million a year for a program like this. 10 jobs paying 100,000 dollars a year is just 1 million dollars. $100,000 a year is around $2000/week. 50 more jobs at $50K - that’s only another 2.5Million. That’s not very much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still more than most people I know make and those jobs would be of great benefit. Getting the food from the location of waste and into the hands (and mouths) of those who need it is a crazy logistical undertaking, but honestly, one I think needs to be addressed. We are already dumping this waste into landfills and using our current waste collection infrastructure to make this happen.
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Addressing our waste collection programs would also greatly benefit world hunger. We need sorting facilities. Everything about our waste collection can stay the same if we are willing to create 100-200 $50K/year jobs dedicated to sorting waste. The current failure of the recycling programs around North Texas, and I’d assume at large, is due to this compromise factor. The city will recycle your waste if you sort it. It doesn’t work, there are so many variables here. The smarter thing to do would be to spend 10 million dollars a year to create high paying sorting jobs. another few million for sorting facilities and we can move in the right direction. How does sorting trash benefit world hunger? I’m not saying that we go global dumpster diving, collected food that is redistributed to the community must be collected before spoilage or being thrown away. With all the food that does make it to a sorter, it should be used in compost making. Restaurants and businesses could be paid a subsidy to ensure that waste food collected for composting is devoid of all meat products. The compost could be sold and distributed to farmers to produce better crops. This subsidy could be paid for by stopping subsidies to grow corn, potatoes and other foods that solely benefit large corporations like McDonalds. Another 50 million and new farming initiatives could be instated from a local level. Programs to align local farmers with local businesses should be enacted.

In a world where we see a supply chain failing, we must be smart and begin to take some of these global systems and refine them down to local ones we can control and monitor, change and adapt. I was just thinking about this kind of thing watching this video.