Featured – Page 15 – Mutual Responsibility

September 23, 2012September 28, 2012

Social Networks And The Need To Recognize Human Connection

The great project of the twenty first century – understanding how the whole of humanity comes to be greater than the sum of its parts – is just beginning. Like an awakening child, the human super organism is becoming self-aware, and this will surely help us to achieve our goals. But the greatest gift of this awareness will be the sheer joy of self discovery and the realization that to truly know ourselves we must first understand how and why we are all connected.”

In their widely acclaimed book, Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Nicholas Christakis MD, PhD & James Fowler, PhD examine human connection through social networks. The book reveals some startling insights about human interrelation. Understanding the degree of human connectivity is of primary importance if we are going to change our world.

Working Together Generates A Higher Form Of Life

Working together, cells, generate a higher form of life that is entirely different from the internal workings of a single cell. For example, our digestion is not a function of any one cell or even one type of cells. Likewise, our thoughts are not located in a given neuron; they arise from the pattern of connections between neurons. Whether cells, ants, or humans, new properties of a group can emerge from the interactions of individuals. And co-operative interactions are hallmarks of most most major evolutionary leaps that have occurred since the origin of life – consider the agglomeration of single cell organisms into multi-cellular organisms, and the assembly of individuals into super organisms.”

Social Networks Reflect Our Inter-Connectivity

The networks we create have lives of their own. They grow, change, reproduce, survive and die. Things flow and move within them. A social network is a kind of human super organism, with an autonomy and a physiology – a structure and a function – of its own. From what no person could do alone. Our local contributions to the human social network have global consequences that touch the lives of thousands every day and help us to achieve much more than the building of towers or the destruction of the walls. A colony of ants is the prototypic super organism, with properties not apparent in the ants themselves, properties that arise from the interactions and cooperation of the ants. By joining together, ants create something that transcends the individual: complex ant hills spring up like miniature towers of Babylon, tempting wanton children to action. The single ant that find its way to a sugar bowl both of achievements are made possible by the co-ordinated efforts and communication of many individuals. Yet, in a way, these solitary individuals – ant and astronaut, both parts of a super organism – are no different from the tentacle of an octopus sent out to probe a hidden crevice. In fact, cells within multi-celluar organisms can be understood in much the same way.

Like a world wide nervous system, our networks allow us to send and receive messages to nearly every other person on the planet. As we become more hyper connected, information circulates more efficiently, we interact more easily, and we manage more and different kinds of social connections everyday. All of these changes make us, Homo dictyous (Network Man), even more like a super organism that acts with a common purpose. The ability of networks to create and sustain our collective goals continues to strengthen. And everything that now spreads from person to person will soon spread further and faster, prompting new features to emerge as the scale of interactions increases.”

The Necessity To Understand Human Connection

Individualism and holism shed light on the human condition, but they miss something essential. In contrast to these two traditions, they miss something essential. In contrast to these two conditions, the science of social networks offers an entirely new way of understanding human society because it is about individuals and groups and, indeed, about how the former become the latter. Interconnections between people give rise to phenomena that are not present in individuals or reducible to their solitary desires and actions. Indeed, culture itself is one such phenomenon. When we lose our connections, we lose everything.

Scientists are also increasingly seeing events like earthquakes, forest fires, species extinctions, climate change, heartbeats, revolutions and market crashes as bursts of activity in a larger system, intelligible only when studied in the context of many examples of the same phenomenon. They are turning their attention to how and why the parts fit together and to the rules that govern interconnection and coherence. Understanding the structure and function of social networks and understanding the phenomenon of emergence (that is the origin of collective properties of the whole not found in the parts) are thus elements of this larger scientific movement.

The great project of the twenty first century-understanding how the whole of humanity comes to be greater than the sum of its part-is just beginning. Like an awakening child, the human super organism is becoming self-aware, and this will surely help us to achieve our goals. But the greatest gift of this awareness will be the sheer joy of self discovery and the realization that to truly know ourselves we must first understand how and why we are all connected.”

Image: Team Spirit, December 2006 by JF Schmitz

September 23, 2012September 19, 2012

Uprising 2012: The Message Of The Freedom Informant Network

Is this what it’s come to, a price tag on life, a world coursing with greed, intoxicated on monetary gain, and material conquest? Why have we allowed this? Ladies and gentlemen these are the questions you should be asking yourselves.

The world around us has been manipulated, coerced in a direction where human life is outweighed by profit.”

The quotes in this post are taken from the video at the bottom of this post: Uprising 2012: The Freedom Informant Network

Wake From The Dream

All the while you chase the dream life they’ve created for you, waving it in front of your face like a carrot on a stick. Stop it, stop being guided through life. We need to quit letting the decisions of a few control the lives of the many. We need to take our future, our children’s future, back into our hands.”

Reestablish Connection

When did we lose our connection with others, with community, and family? Stop focusing on the differences and start acknowledging and building upon our common grounds. Start sharing, connecting, teaching one another, and learning from each other as well.

Build our bond as human beings. Find your strength in unity. Find your voice, and then let it be heard.”

Be The Change You Want To See

What you have to say does matter. We just need to get off our knees, stand on our own two feet, and remind them just how much we do matter. Become the change you want to see.

Build the future together, a decent future, a future where life is cherished, rather than spent worshiping money.”

Value Education

Rid yourself of your cynicism, your ego, your fear. Instead open your hearts, your minds, and your eyes. Broaden your horizons… It’s time to change our ways, to evolve and break free of this viscous cycle. It’s time to educate ourselves on the issues affecting us and work together to create progressive affective solutions.

Welcome to the future. Welcome to the freedom informant network.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZwqQo4_B2E

Image: 12M 15M Global Revolution Revolución Global Zaragoza by gaudiramone’s photostream.

The Freedom Informant Network.

September 22, 2012September 19, 2012

The World We’ve Made: Every 5 Seconds A Child Dies From Malnutrition And Hunger

Man can and must prevent the tragedy of famine in the future instead of merely trying with pious regret to salvage the human wreckage of the famine, as he has so often done in the past.”

– Norman Borlaug, agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate.

In a previous post, Agriculture In The 21st Century, the amount of food produced in the world that is wasted (1/3 of food produced) was brought up. In that post, a number of experts were quoted, stating that malnutrition and hunger could be ended if unused food were properly distributed.

Malnutrition and Hunger

The following statistics from the World Food Programme show the severity of the lack of food distribution in the world, chiefly highlighting its affect on the children of the world:

Every five seconds a child dies because of hunger.

854 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat, more than the combined populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Hunger is the world’s no.1 health risk. It kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

One in seven people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight.

Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people.

65 percent of the world’s hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.

Undernutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries.

One out of four children – roughly 146 million – in developing countries is underweight.

More than 70 percent of the world’s underweight children (aged five or less) live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone.

10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths.

Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent.

Iodine deficiency is the greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage, affecting 1.9 billion people worldwide. It can easily be prevented by adding iodine to salt.”

The Need For Empathy

In famine, a focus on women and children highlights biology: here is a mother who cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life. This focus obscures who and what is to blame for the famine, politically and economically, and can lead to the belief that a biological response, more food, will solve the problem.”

– Sherman Apt Russell, Nature and science writer

The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”

– Charles Trevelyan, British civil servant and colonial administrator

What Do You Think?

In the post before this one, Redefining Prosperity, the issue of prosperity was raised in relation to economics and growth. The same question can easily be posed here as well:

What is the responsibility of those who live in the world in relation to malnutrition and famine?”

What do you think? Write your answer in the comment section below…

Image: Zoriah_kenya_famine_kakuma_refugee_camp_irc_international_rescue_committee_aid_hunger_starvation_shortage_20090128_9672 by Zoriah.

September 22, 2012September 19, 2012

Redefining Prosperity

Prosperity – at least in economic terms – has always been defined within the remit of very narrow boundaries.> Typically it has always meant growth, a six letter word that obsesses politicians and economists. But when attempts to create growth prove counter-productive then it’s time for a rethink. The ultimate aim of growth is prosperity, yet – for the vast majority at least – it remains an elusive dream. The question that needs to be asked is: What is prosperity? And if our previous attempts to attain it have proved unsuccessful then how can it be achieved?

The following excerpts are from the book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a finite planet, by Tim Jackson. The excerpts are quotes from Zia Sardar, a London-based scholar, writer and cultural-critic who specialises in Muslim thought, the future of Islam, futures studies and science and cultural relations.

Prosperity Depends On The Society You’re In & Your Responsibility To It

The good life of the good person can only be fully realised in the good society. Prosperity can only be conceived as a condition that includes obligations and responsibilities to others.”

The prevailing vision of prosperity as a continually expanding economic paradise has come unravelled. Perhaps it worked better when economies were smaller and the world was less populated. But if it ever was fully fit for the purpose, it certainly isn’t now. Climate change, ecological degradation and the spectre of resource scarcity compound the problems of failing financial markets and economic recession. Short term fixes to prop up a bankrupt system aren’t good enough. Something more is needed. An essential starting point is to set out a coherent notion of prosperity that doesn’t rely on default assumptions about consumption growth.”

It is perverse to talk about things going well if you lack the basic material resources required to sustain yourself: food and water to be adequately nourished or materials for clothing and shelter. Security in achieving these aims is also important. But from at least the time of Aristotle, it has been clear that something more than material security is needed for human beings to flourish. Prosperity has vital social and psychological dimensions. To do well is in part about your ability to give and receive love, to enjoy the respect of your peers, to contribute useful work and to have a sense of belonging and trust in the community. In short, an important component of prosperity is the ability to participate freely in the life of society.”

Prosperity can only be conceived as a condition that includes obligations and responsibilities to others.”

Image: Responsibility by Marco Buonvino

September 21, 2012September 19, 2012

The Missing Puzzle Piece: Cooperation, The Third Integral Aspect Of Evolution

Scientists from a wide range of disciplines have attempted for more than a century to explain how cooperation, altruism, and self-sacrifice arose in our dog-eat-dog world. Darwin himself was troubled by selfless behavior. Yet in his great works, the problem of cooperation was a sideshow, a detail that had to be explained away. That attitude prevails among many biologists even today.”

The above and subsequent quotes on cooperation in evolution and human society come from Martin Nowak’s and Roger Highfield’s book, Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed.

Does Cooperation Hurt Survival Of The Fittest?

Why weaken your own fitness to increase the fitness of a competitor? Why bother to look after anyone besides number one? Cooperation goes against the grain of self-interest. Cooperation is irrational. From the perspective of Darwin’s formulation for the struggle for existence, it makes no sense to aid a potential rival, yet there is evidence that this occurs among even the lowliest creatures.

… This looks like a fatal anomaly in the great scheme of life. Natural selection should lead animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival and reproduction, not improve the fortunes of others. In the never-ending scrabble for food, territory, and mates in evolution, why would one individual ever bother to go out of its way to help another?”

To Compete Or Cooperate

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.”

—Peace Pigram (Mildred Lisette Norman)

In the game of life we are all driven by the struggle to succeed. We all want to be winners. There is the honest way to achieve this objective. Run faster than the pack. Jump higher. See farther. Think harder. Do better. But, as ever, there is the dark side, the calculating logic of self-interest that dictates that one should never help a competitor. In fact, why not go further and make life harder for your rivals? Why not cheat and deceive them too?

… Humans are the selfish apes. We’re the creatures who shun the needs of others. We’re egocentrics, mercenaries, and narcissists. We look after number one. We are motivated by self-interest alone, down to every last bone in our bodies. Even our genes are said to be selfish. Yet competition does not tell the whole story of biology. Something profound is missing.”

The Third Integral Element Of Evolution

Previously, there were only two basic principles of evolution—mutation and selection—where the former generates genetic diversity and the latter picks the individuals that are best suited to a given environment. For us to understand the creative aspects of evolution, we must now accept that cooperation is the third principle. For selection you need mutation and, in the same way, for cooperation you need both selection and mutation. From cooperation can emerge the constructive side of evolution, from genes to organisms to language and complex social behaviors. Cooperation is the master architect of evolution.”

Implications For Humanity

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

—Bertrand Russell

Human society fizzes with cooperation. Even the simplest things that we do involve more cooperation than you might think. Consider, for example, stopping at a coffee shop one morning to have a cappuccino and croissant for breakfast. To enjoy that simple pleasure could draw on the labors of a small army of people from at least half a dozen countries.”

“Our breathtaking ability to cooperate is one of the main reasons we have managed to survive in every eco system on Earth, from scorched sun-baked deserts to the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the dark, crushing ocean depths. Our remarkable ability to join forces has enabled us to take the first steps in a grand venture to leave the confines of our atmosphere and voyage toward the moon and the stars beyond.”

Cooperation—not competition—underpins innovation. To spur creativity, and to encourage people to come up with original ideas, you need to use the lure of the carrot, not fear of the stick. Cooperation is the architect of creativity throughout evolution, from cells to multicellular creatures to anthills to villages to cities. Without cooperation there can be neither construction nor complexity in evolution.”

Here is Roger Highfield describing cooperation in evolution [12 minutes 59 seconds]:

… cooperation is the third pillar of evolution. And without cooperation, there is nothing constructive really going on in biology… we’re not only talking about cooperation with each other in this generation. If you look at the state of the planet we have to think carefully about cooperating with future generations too.”

Current Problems/Crises Lack Cooperation

Many problems that challenge us today can be traced back to a profound tension between what is good and desirable for an individual. That conflict can be found in global problems such as climate change, pollution, resource depletion, poverty, hunger, and overpopulation. The biggest issues of all—saving the planet and maximizing the collective lifetime of the species Homo sapiens—cannot be solved by technology alone.

They require novel ways for us to work in harmony. If we are to continue to thrive, we have but one option. We now have to manage the planet as a whole. If we are to win the struggle for existence, and avoid a precipitous fall, there’s no choice but to harness this extraordinary creative force. We now have to refine and to extend our ability to cooperate. We must become familiar with the science of cooperation. Now, more than ever, the world needs SuperCooperators.”

What Do You Think?

How has the absence of cooperation being taught as a key integral aspect of evolution, affected your view of the world?

How would your viewpoint change if you were taught: Cooperation is needed for evolution to continue. It is needed for the development of more complex and harmonious human societies. It is essential for solving problems/crises today?

September 20, 2012September 19, 2012

Compassion & Altruism Are The Keys To Personal, Social & Global Happiness Says Neurologist Dr. James Doty

It has been stated many times that survival is of the fittest, but when one reads Darwin closely this is not the case. Rather, the more accurate statement, coined by Dacher Keltner, Ph.D. and other leading social scientists, is ‘the survival of the kindest.’ Paul Ekman, Ph.D., a leading expert on emotion describes an ever expanding body of scientific evidence that being compassionate affords significant benefit to oneself and society in his recent article in JAMA. In addition to evidence that survival may be enhanced by caring for others, there are now findings suggesting that the statement made by the Dalai Lama, ‘if one wishes to make others happy be compassionate, if one wishes to be happy be compassionate,’ in fact, has great validity.”

Dr. James Doty, a Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and Director of The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found in his research that compassion directly affects a person’s well being.

Compassion Increases Happiness & Immunity & Decreases Stress

But happiness alone is not the only benefit of being compassionate. In a number of studies using a variety of psychological and biological measures and neuroimaging techniques, compassion not only stimulates one’s pleasure (reward) centers but also leads to a decrease in biological markers of stress and an increase in indices of adaptive immune function.”

Compassion Improves Survival Of The Species, Leads To Happiness & Improved Health

So what’s not to like about being compassionate? It improves survival of the species, leads to happiness and results in improved health. The reality is that while science and technology have the potential to offer incredible benefit, it is the simple interventions known to us for thousands of years that can have a profound effect on the lives of individuals and society.”

Compassion, Not Science, Will Be The Influence That Will Lead Humanity To The Peak Of Its Potential

Science and technology have the ability to have a profound influence on the human landscape. But that influence can lead us to the deepest valleys of suffering, or can lead us to those peaks of our greatest potential. It is my belief that compassion is going to be the instrument that allows us to see the latter, and not the former. It is the key that will unlock that which separates us. It is the key that will address the issues, which we all think of as isolated issues, such as global warming, war, conflict, poverty. Fundamentally, these are not entities that are external to ourselves; these are problems of the human heart.”

All Crises – Personal, Social, Global, Ecological – Are Problems Of The Human Heart

The chain of causation that has resulted in ecologic catastrophe, global warming, poverty, war, these are not external events, external to ourselves. I submit to you that they are problems of the human heart. While science and technology offer great hope for many things, until this technology is focused on afflictions of the heart, I do not believe that there is hope for our species.”

Image: Knitted Neurology by estonia76

September 19, 2012September 19, 2012

World Economic Collapse Explained In 3 Minutes

A classic, funny skit showing how economically interdependent nations have become, and what a horrific cascade of events happens when everyone tries to make a profit off of one another.

…the banking system must continually expand – not necessarily because it is the right (or wrong) thing to do, but, rather, simply because that is how it was designed …the extremely wealthy are saving incredible amounts of money, while at the lower ends the savings rate is deeply negative. Why is this important? Because as the Greek philosopher Plutarch once stated, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

– Dr. Chris Martensen, taken from his Crash Course In The 3 Interconnected E’s: Economy, Energy, Environment

September 16, 2012September 16, 2012

Are Politicians Kicking The Can On Hard Economic Decisions, Or Are They Out Of Options?

Nouriel Roubini, professor at the NYU’s Stern School of Business, and Chairman of Roubini Global Economics, in the Project Syndicate article “Fiddling at the Fire,” describes the precarious, and volatile state the economic and geopolitical world state is in, and challenges today’s leadership in the wake of the deepening global crisis, accusing them of “kicking the can,” avoiding hard decisions and action:

Politicians Kick The Can On Hard Economic Decisions When Approaching A Brick Wall In The Economy

Ineffective governments with weak leadership are at the root of the problem. In democracies, repeated elections lead to short-term policy choices. In autocracies like China and Russia, leaders resist the radical reforms that would reduce the power of entrenched lobbies and interests, thereby fueling social unrest as resentment against corruption and rent-seeking boils over into protest.

But, as everyone kicks the can down the road, the can is getting heavier and, in the major emerging markets and advanced economies alike, is approaching a brick wall. Policymakers can either crash into that wall, or they can show the leadership and vision needed to dismantle it safely…”

Is The Reason For Politicians Kicking The Can On Hard Economic Decisions Weak Leadership Or Something Else?

Indeed, politicians have their own calculations, they think about their personal legacies, the next elections, what the party line is, what the powerful lobby groups, sponsors want, but in general they are not “evil people” intentionally wanting to destroy the world or their own countries.

The Reason For Politicians Kicking The Can On Hard Economic Decisions Is Incomplete Knowledge About The World’s Current Situation

The politicians seem weak, they “kick the can” because simply they have no idea what to do with the crisis, or if they start to see the possible actions they do not dare to make them as they fundamentally differ from previous ones, they might seem like political suicide.

They are actually in a truly desperate state, since from their position they certainly see the direction the world goes, and most probably they are much more aware of the potential catastrophic events waiting for us if we do not change course than most others can imagine.

And still, they are helpless to change course.

The Problem Is That The World Has Shifted While The Approach To It Hasn’t

This is because a fundamental shift happened within the conditions we exist in, and the whole upbringing, attitude, the methods and the tool set of the present leadership have become obsolete, moreover destructive.

Everything they know, even the Nobel prizes given to eminent economists, the whole financial structure, political ideology they have always been using is based on a linear, polarized, fragmented world.

In that system there are friends, enemies, there are open markets and free, mostly ruthless competition, the stronger survives, and rules, and so on.

What Are The New Conditions In Today’s World? How Should It Change The Approach Toward A Solution?

All this thinking has become irrelevant. It’s as if one day humanity suddenly woke up on a different planet.

Today’s social and environmental conditions have become round, global and integral, which means all the people, individuals and nations are all totally interconnected as cells of the same body, or cogwheels of the same machine, and there is nothing that can be done about it. It happened as part of the evolutionary process, the interconnected parts cannot be separated.

As an example it is similar to highly individualistic sport stars, shining alone, receiving all the accolades, rewards, fame for themselves, suddenly being drafted and ordered to play in an All Star team, losing their individual recognition, simply playing for the team, in order to achieve a common goal. Or as an even more extreme example like cancer cell cultures, living purely to multiply and consume their environment suddenly merged together in order to build a healthy, living, balanced organism, where each needs to serve the whole.

Thus humanity urgently needs totally new concepts and ideology in politics, economics, and finances, the whole human system needs to be rearranged not along the lines of previously knows “isms,” leftist, rightist agendas, separatist, fragmented, polarized worldviews, but based on a full research and understanding of this new global interdependent system, where individual people and nations truly constitute cells, or cogwheels of the same united organism that has to find its way and future in a mutually responsible and considerate way.

Image: “Kick’n the can” by Anthony on Flickr.

September 15, 2012

Now You Can Understand Why Connecting To Other People Is Great, Thanks To This Shouting Sociologist

The benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs!”

Nicholas Christakis, MD PhD, in his powerful TED Talk “The Hidden Influence of Social Networks,” lays down the omnipotent role of social networks and the benefits of connecting with other people…

Social Networks Naturally ‘Sustain & Nourish The Good’ & ‘Reject The Bad’

We form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs. If I was always violent towards you or gave you misinformation or made you sad or infected you with deadly germs, you would cut the ties to me, and the network would disintegrate.

So the spread of good and valuable things is required to sustain and nourish social networks. Similarly, social networks are required for the spread of good and valuable things, like love, kindness, happiness, altruism and ideas.

If we realized how valuable social networks are, we’d spend a lot more time nourishing them and sustaining them, because I think social networks are fundamentally related to goodness. And what I think the world needs now is more connections.”

An Example Showing How Certain Properties Reside Not In Individual Parts, But In The Interconnections Between Them

Think about these two common objects. They’re both made of carbon, and yet one of them has carbon atoms in it that are arranged in one particular way – on the left – and you get graphite, which is soft and dark.

But if you take the same carbon atoms and interconnect them a different way, you get diamond, which is clear and hard. And those properties of softness and hardness and darkness and clearness do not reside in the carbon atoms; they reside in the interconnections between the carbon atoms, or at least arise because of the interconnections between the carbon atoms.

So, similarly, the pattern of connections among people confers upon the groups of people different properties. It is the ties between people that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. And so it is not just what’s happening to these people – whether they’re losing weight or gaining weight, or becoming rich or becoming poor, or becoming happy or not becoming happy – that affects us; it’s also the actual architecture of the ties around us.”

Human Beings Are Not Reducible To The Study Of Individuals, But Must Be Understood In Reference To The Collective

Our experience of the world depends on the actual structure of the networks in which we’re residing and on all the kinds of things that ripple and flow through the network. Now, the reason, I think, that this is the case is that human beings assemble themselves and form a kind of superorganism.

Now, a superorganism is a collection of individuals which show or evince behaviors or phenomena that are not reducible to the study of individuals and that must be understood by reference to, and by studying, the collective. Like, for example, a hive of bees that’s finding a new nesting site, or a flock of birds that’s evading a predator, or a flock of birds that’s able to pool its wisdom and navigate and find a tiny speck of an island in the middle of the Pacific, or a pack of wolves that’s able to bring down larger prey.

Superorganisms have properties that cannot be understood just by studying the individuals. I think understanding social networks and how they form and operate can help us understand not just health and emotions but all kinds of other phenomena – like crime, and warfare, and economic phenomena like bank runs and market crashes and the adoption of innovation and the spread of product adoption.”

Watch Nicholas Christakis’ TED Talk ‘The Hidden Influence Of Social Networks’

September 15, 2012

A Mutual Approach: Economists And Politicians On The Need For Global Cooperation To Treat The Global Financial Crisis

We’ve got these big problems that require people to take a longer-term view than just their own selfish individual or national interest… We must now reform the international financial system around the agreed principles of transparency, integrity, responsibility, good housekeeping and cooperation across borders.”

– Gordon Brown, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN.

Self Interest Gets In The Way Of Cooperation

At the London G20 summit on 2 April 2009, world leaders committed themselves to a $5tn (£3tn) fiscal expansion, an extra $1.1tn of resources to help the International Monetary Fund and other global institutions boost jobs and growth, and to reform of the banks. From this point, when the global economy was on the turn, international cooperation started to disintegrate as individual countries pursued their own agendas.”

– Larry Brown, The Guardian economics editor, in the article “Global Financial Crisis: Five Key Stages 2007-2011”

The Call For Mutual Cooperation, If Limited, Has Not Dwindled

We face the most difficult economic conditions in generations. The international community must unite to tackle the downturn and set the path toward a sustainable future… Only by working together can we meet the challenge.”

– Alistair Darling, Scottish Labour Party politician, in the article “International Cooperation Is the Way Out of the Financial Crisis”

A… new model is needed to acknowledge that we live together in a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious world. Prevailing values will have to increasingly accommodate diversity with substantial challenges for national and individual identities. We will only make lasting progress by recognizing that we are different but interdependent. Thus, we have to cultivate a much greater feeling of regional and global togetherness.”

– Professor Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum founder and chairman, in the article “The Great Transformation – Shaping New Models”

It’s not a crisis that will be resolved by one group of countries taking action. It’s going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions, all categories of countries actually taking action.”

– Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund Chief, in a U.S. State Department conference.