“Out with the old, in with the new”

200 years of industrialism has taught us, “Out with the old, in with the new.” We have conditioned ourselves to think if it’s broke, then go buy a new one. Think about it. If you break your ten-year old dish washer, the new ones are better by every measure. And they’re cheap.

That mindset has seduced us to believe that we can replace everything but that isn’t how we are going to solve the challenges of our time.

We don’t need a new planet. We just need to clean up the one we have. A hamburger shouldn’t be cheeper then an apple. It shouldn’t be cheaper to produce something in the US and ship it to China to package and then send it back before it goes to market.

We don’t need to create a new form of capitalism. Capitalism is a modern miracle. Everything we enjoy today is due to capitalism. The car you drive, the suit you wear, the roads we drive. Everything. Sure, crypto is a lot of fun to play with. And perhaps, crypto will be the innovative solution that brings financial equality. But what we really need now is guardrails in place. We are not here to serve capitalism. Capitalism is here to serve us.

We don’t need a new political system. We just need to fix how we elect officials and remove the conflicts of interest money creates. The Electoral System doesn’t make sense. Gerrymandering, the sheer amount a time a politician spends fundraising, lobbying, elections that are bought; all problems. Democracy is under threat, no question about it. People’s faith can be restored in a system when it begins to work for them. There is no need to swim against the current.

We don’t need new social media platforms, we just need to set up rules. Clearly, Facebook can’t regulate itself. The dark patterns of the internet are real. There’s a reason why cigarette companies are not allowed to advertise on Saturday morning cartoons. The question is, how should we use these tools?

While we wait for some of the answers to be invented, we can change our behaviors now. Today. We can’t wait for things to be perfect, we have to start where we are.