In
a couple of days, the U.S. elections will be decided. As has been
the case for more than a decade, many races are so close that the
difference between winners and losers depends mostly on who is most
motivated to actually vote. This leads to the inescapable conclusion
that no matter who wins, at least half of us will lose. From a big
picture perspective, however, all of us will lose, because virtually
all the competitors have a fundamentally flawed worldview that
practically guarantees it.
This
worldview, that there are no limits to what can potentially be done
to increase human happiness, is tempered only by the answers to
questions that define people's values and seem to most influence how
they vote. Such questions include: how much influence any of us
should have over the happiness (and survival) of others; what, if
any, is the minimum amount of happiness society should tolerate; and
who (or what) can be denied the means of attaining happiness. If the
worldview is right, then the proper application of ingenuity, effort,
and social engineering by a society can sustain unending growth in
the happiness of its members in accordance with its values.
The
flaw in the worldview is the dependency between happiness and
ecological impact: as happiness increases, we use greater and
greater amounts of resources other species need to both survive and
keep the world habitable. Over the past forty years, we've used so
much that those species are going extinct at an alarming rate.
Continuing and accelerating this trend is already endangering our own
species, exemplified (but by no means limited to) the destabilizing
effects of carbon pollution on the world's climate. As more species
die off, and we directly consume many of the rest, the world will
become so difficult to live on that our own life expectancy – and
happiness, which is proportional to it – will reach a maximum and
then drop in response, along with the number of people on the planet.
Worldwide,
more people are getting this message, and are actively finding ways
to at least become more efficient with how much happiness they get
for the ecological resources they consume. Here in the U.S., we're
still like adolescents who want the advantages of adulthood without
the responsibilities, taking from our mother (Earth) without paying
our own way. Other nations, such as the oldest in Europe, have
experienced the consequences of overburdening their environments and
learned to live within limits; we petulantly deride them for not
being growth-oriented enough, not acknowledging that it is because
they have already grown up.
Whatever
the results of this year's election, we all need to work toward
creating a healthier, more enlightened world, beginning with the people
and places we personally interact with. Changing the dominant
worldview is key to this; otherwise we will see a growing number of
people lose much more in the years ahead.
