There are many problems facing humanity, from disease to poverty and political unrest to genocide. Of all the problems, which one is the most significant?
Share why if you wish.
Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions
There are many problems facing humanity, from disease to poverty and political unrest to genocide. Of all the problems, which one is the most significant?
Share why if you wish.
Humanity.
I had two potential answers to this question, and it just so happens that your one word response neatly sums them both up.
The first possibility that I was going to propose is overpopulation. Many of the existential problems that we face can be traced back to simply having too many people on the planet: everyone desires a better standard of living, which leads to depletion of oil, natural gas, and coal (and the burning of which has led to Climate Change); rare elements used in smart devices and high-tech toys are depleting our natural resources; plastic waste from single-use packaging that never decomposes is clogging up waterways, is making it’s way into the digestive tract of various mammals, birds, and sea life (not to mention an island in the ocean larger than the state of Texas); crowded countries fighting over water and other resources lead to conflict, wars, and refugees, the movement of which further destabilizes neighboring nations; forested areas are being cut down in order to make room for grazing land for animals intended to feed the ever-growing numbers of humans in the world.
That would seem to encapsulate most of the emerging problems we have, but then I thought of another answer I might like even better: greed. The growing population might be sustainable if we could work together to feed, clothe, and educate everyone, but it is the greed and/or fear of those that already have their share (and being an American, I consider myself part of that group) almost guarantees that there will continue to be conflict, suffering, misery and unhappiness.
Or, to put both answers more succinctly: humanity.
Mankind’s great ability to adapt himself to so many environments and spread throughout the world, finding ways to use so many resources to his own benefit, may in the long run be the cause of his own undoing. Because there are so many of us, along with the fact that we are becoming so interdependent the world over, it will require an enormous ability to cooperate to solve all those problems you mentioned. And man’s own nature may not allow him to find that much cooperation. Or maybe they will.
1) Climate change
2) Unchecked power