Imagine – by Philip Dodson
Imagine a world that wasn’t driven by material, by greed, by celebrity, by short-term interest.
Imagine a world that was driven by community, by helping others, by thinking beyond ourselves and beyond the now.
What if the short-termism of party politics in the ‘democratised’ world, which in itself is one of the biggest fallacies, but imagine it was replaced. All the ‘isms’ and parties are largely the same. They will do whatever their supporters pay them to do, or whatever the marginal voter would like to hear, so in 4-5 years they will vote for the party’s self-preservation.
Party politics has all but failed and is clasping on tightly to an old ‘analogue’ world, an old world where their values were largely formed in a distant age of industrialism, empires, and capitalism. This old school thinking is not aligned with an unstoppable, connected and digital world, that is forming around them.
How we educate our population is the same as party politics, it’s old school, not imaginative, not connected to the world that is developing around it. 20% of the jobs today weren’t around 5 years ago, yet education is largely unchanged, just tinkered with to suit the political dogma of the incumbent party.
The digital world, the connected generation, the millenials, in fact across all ages, are turning off this old school ‘analogue’ world. The entrepreneurial & digital revolution that is happening globally, will just simply by-pass it and make it redundant.
Social media and the internet, coupled with amazing technologies, will change the way the world is governed, educated and it will be the turning point for the human race. That’s why the global ruling classes are so fearful of it and are desperate to control it.
We don’t need self-interest lead decisions any more, narrowly focused on a wealthy elite that dominate the developed countries. We can be governed by a ‘council’ of business leaders, community leaders and by people who do not have to be thinking about ‘bribing’ people at the up coming elections.
Education can be provided interactively and with proper engagement, in small community based learning environments, where local business, community leaders work hand in hand with teachers. No more huge faceless state run education factories. These learning environments can look at what is really needed for the individual to equip them for their lives. Not simply to process them to get artificial grades in meaningless exams
Finally, imagine when businesses are run for the good of all, where society measures prosperity in terms of the relations and how we help others in life and not measuring it by materials. The post second world war era can now be seen as one that has created a selfish, greedy, material worshiping society, that has all but killed communities. Time to undo it, time to think about others, time to think about what really matters in life, that is people and not things.
We don’t have to live in a shed and eat worms, but with 7 billion people on the planet and rising, with dwindling global resources and a self-centred society, something has to change. We have to start sharing, helping others, think long-term beyond our own personal short-term gain.
This will only happen if we ditch the old world and imagine. How far will your imagination go?
Philip Dodson 