Tag: TED

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Study Shows Equality Benefits Everyone, Rich And Poor

“The rich developed societies have reached a turning point in human history. Politics should now be about the quality of social relations and how we can develop harmonious and sustainable societies.” 

The Equality Trust, based on the work of Professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, reached this summary after analyzing data showing that societies with greater inequality between rich and poor are far more unhealthy than societies with a more equal income distribution.

More Unequal = More Problems

The study shows that:

  • More unequal societies have more problems with general health, mental illness, infant mortality, drug use, obesity, imprisonment rates, teenage pregnancies and homicides.
  • More equal societies have better education and general health, more innovation, higher social mobility and more trust.

The slides and their titles (some listed below) show in more detail how societies with bigger gaps between rich and poor are generally more unhealthy societies than more equal societies:

  • Health and social problems are worse in more unequal countries
  • Health and social problems are not related to income in rich countries
  • Health and social problems are worse in unequal US states
  • Health and social problems are only weakly related to average income in US states
  • Child well-being is better in more equal rich countries
  • Child well-being is unrelated to average incomes in rich countries
  • Levels of trust are higher in more equal rich countries
  • Levels of trust are higher in more equal US states
  • The prevalence of mental illness is higher in more unequal rich countries
  • Drug use is more common in more unequal countries
  • Life expectancy is longer in more equal rich countries
  • Infant mortality rates are higher in more unequal countries
  • More adults are obese in more unequal rich countries
  • Educational scores are higher in more equal rich countries
  • More children drop out of high school in more unequal US states
  • Teenage birth rates are higher in more unequal rich countries
  • Teen pregnancy rates are higher in more unequal US states
  • Homicide rates are higher in more unequal rich countries
  • Homicide rates are higher in more unequal US states
  • Children experience more conflict in more unequal societies
  • Rates of imprisonment are higher in more unequal countries
  • Rates of imprisonment are higher in more unequal US states
  • Social mobility is higher in more equal rich countries
  • Overdeveloped countries? High life expectancy can be achieved with low carbon dioxide emissions
  • More equal countries rank better on recycling

 

Unequal Societies = People Being More Self Interested, Less Public Spirited, Less Concerned With The Common Good

“Because inequality increases status competition, it also increases consumerism. People in more unequal societies work longer hours because money seems even more important.

Because inequality harms the quality of social relations (increasing violence, reducing trust, cohesion and involvement in community life), people become more self-interested, less public spirited, less concerned with the common good.”

Taken from the presentation to The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, p. 34

 

Equal Societies Benefit Everyone, Rich & Poor

“Almost everyone benefits from greater equality.

Usually the benefits are greatest among the poor but extend to the majority of the population.”

Taken from the presentation to The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, p. 23

 

Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett: Why Greater Equality Makes Stronger Societies

Talk discussing the above data and arguments in more detail recorded January 8, 2010 at Hogness Auditorium, University of Washington, Seattle.

 

Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies [TED Talk]

Professor Richard Wilkinson discussing the above study with an emphasis on the UK, one of the countries ranking high in inequality.

Further Reading:

Image: People at the Museum by ancawonka on Flickr

 

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Global Interconnection Between People And Nations – A Fact Of Life [TED Talk]

"In the Modern Age, where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others." --Paddy Ashdown

Global Interconnection Between People And Nations – A Fact Of Life [TED Talk]

Today, in our modern world, because of the Internet, everything is connected to everything. We are now interdependent. We are now interlocked as nations, as individuals, in a way which has never been the case before.” 

– Paddy Ashdown

Veteran Diplomat and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Paddy Ashdown describes the period we live in as

one of those terrifying periods of history when power changes… And these are always periods accompanied by turbulence, and all too often by blood.”

"In the Modern Age, where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others." --Paddy Ashdown

Most notably, Ashdown points out that this global interconnection is a fact of life, but one which can be either a terrifying prospect or a cause for celebration and peace, as it means that we all share a common destiny:

Global Interconnection  –  Danger:

  • If you get Swine Flu in Mexico, it’s a problem for Charles De Gaul Airport 24 hours later.
  • Lehman Brothers goes down – the whole lot collapses.
  • There are fires in the steppes of Russia – food riots in Africa. We are all now deeply, deeply, deeply interconnected.
  • It used to be the case that if my tribe is more powerful than their tribe, I was safe. My country was more powerful than their country, I was safe. My alliance, like NATO, was more powerful than their alliance, I was safe. It is no longer the case.”

Global Interconnection  –  Hope:

  • If it is the case that we are now locked together in a way that has never been quite the same before, then it is also the case that we share a destiny with each other.
    …The advent of interconnectedness and of the weapons of mass destruction means that increasingly, I share a destiny with my enemy.
  • When I was a diplomat negotiating the disarmament treaties with the Soviet Union, in Geneva in the 1970s, we succeeded because we understood that we shared a destiny with them. Collective security is not enough.
  • Peace has come to Northern Ireland because both sides realized that the zero-sum game couldn’t work. they shared a destiny with their enemies.”

Global Interconnection  –  Hope For The Middle East?

  • One of the great barriers to peace in the Middle East is that both sides, both Israel, and I think the Palestinians do not understand that they share a collective destiny.”

The Most Important Thing About What You Can Do Is What You Can Do With Others

In the Modern Age, where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do … is what you can do with others.”

Watch Paddy Ashdown’s TEDx Brussels Talk

Image: Paddy Ashdown, Why the world will never be the same & what should we do about it @paddyashdown by TEDxBrussels on Flickr ©

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5 Things To Do Everyday To Be Happier

You can do an experiment where you give two groups of people a hundred dollars in the morning. You tell one of them to spend it on themselves, and one on other people. You measure their happiness at the end of the day. Those who spent on other people are much happier than those who spent it on themselves.”

— Nic Marks

Founder of the Center for Well-Being, an independent think tank at the New Economics Foundation, in London, Marks is particularly keen to promote a balance between sustainable development and quality of life. To investigate this, he devised the Happy Planet Index, a global index of human well-being and environmental impact.

The results made headlines: People in the world’s wealthiest countries, who consume the most of the planet’s resources, don’t come out on top in terms of well-being. Which raises the question: What purpose does unfettered economic growth serve?

5 Things To Do Everyday To Be Happier

According to Marks’ analysis of well being and happiness, what are the 5 things you should do every day to be happier?

1. Connect
Connect with the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbors. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.

2. Be Active…
Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and one that suits your level of mobility and fitness.

3. Take Notice
Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savor the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.

4. Keep Learning…
Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favorite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun.

5. Give…
Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.

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The Recipe For A Better World: 21 Billion Hours Of Online Gaming Per Week [TED Talk]

If we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global hunger, and obesity, I believe that we need to aspire to play games online for at least 21 billion hours a week by the end of the next decade.”

Jane Mcgonigal, Ph.D., a game designer, has been making online games for over ten years, and she has a plan. Her goal for the next decade is to make it as easy to save the world in real life, as it is in online games.

Right now, we spend 3 billion hours a week playing online games, she says. But according to McGonigal’s research at The Institute for the Future, that’s not nearly enough to solve the world’s most urgent problems, because

gamers are a human resource that we can use to do real world work” and “games are a powerful platform for change.”

When I look forward to the next decade” she shares, “I know two things for sure: that we can make any future we can imagine, and we can play any games we want. So I say, let the world changing games begin.”

Watch Jane McGonigal’s Ted talk [20 min.] about how gaming can make a better world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM

Why Are Games So Essential To The Future Of Humanity?

  • The first thing gamers get good at according to McGonigal is “urgent optimism,” extreme self motivation, the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle, combined with a belief that we have a reasonable hope of a success.
  • Secondly, gamers are virtuosos at “weaving a tight social fabric.” “It takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone, so playing a game together builds up bonds and trust and collaboration, and we build stronger social relationships as a result.”
  • Thirdly, gamers experience “blissful productivity.” According to Mcgonigal, we know when we’re playing a game, that we’re actually happier working hard than we are relaxing, or hanging out. We know that we are optimized as human beings to do hard meaningful work and gamers are willing to work hard all the time if they’re given the right work.
  • Lastly, there is a sense of “epic meaning” in gaming: Gamers love to be attached to awe inspiring missions; to human, planetary scale stories.

In McGonigal’s view, 

These are four super powers that add up to one thing: gamers are people who believe they are capable of changing the world.”

McGonigal has created games that attempt to give people the means to create epic wins in their own futures. “This is a transformative experience. Nobody wants to change how they live just because it’s good for the world, or because we’re supposed to, but if you immerse them in an epic adventure, and tell them: 

We’ve run out of oil! This is an amazing story, an adventure to go on, challenge yourself to see how you would survive”…Most of our players have kept up the habits they learned in this game.”

Links:

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Neuroscience Reveals: Your Consciousness Is Connected To Everyone Else’s [TED Talk]

All that’s separating you from another person is your skin. Remove it and you have removed the barrier between you and other beings. So there is no real independent self aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world and inspecting other people, you are in fact connected not just by facebook and internet, you are connected by your neurons.”

Neuroscientist Vilyanur S. Ramachandran, Ph.D., outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.

Ramachandran is director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. According to his research, we have whole chains of neurons which talk to each other, so 

there is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from somebody else’s consciousness… And this is not mumbo-jumbo philosophy” he says, “it emerges from our understanding of basic neuroscience.”

Watch Ramachandran’s TED Talk [7 min.] about the neurons that shaped civilization:


Ramachandran looks deep into the brain’s most basic mechanisms. 

[The human brain is] a lump of flesh of about 3 pounds… but it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space. It can contemplate the meaning of infinity, ask questions about the meaning of its own existence… It’s the greatest mystery confronting human beings”

Also he notes that

there are 100 billion neurons in the adult human brain. And each one makes something like 1,000 to 10,000 contacts to other neurons in the brain… the number of permutations and combinations of brain activity exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe.”

By working with those who have specific mental disabilities caused by brain injury or stroke, he can map functions of the mind to physical structures of the brain.

So if you are a patient with a phantom limb, and you see another person’s arm being touched, you feel it in your phantom. And the astonishing part is, if you have pain in your phantom, and you squeeze and massage the other person’s hand, that relieves the pain in your phantom hand, almost as if the mirror neuron were obtaining relief from someone else being massaged.”