Wow! This is a big question. I have been marinating on it all week. I think it is very hard to understand the scale of 7 billion people. I remember reading a great article published around the time the Gates Foundation was started that talked about how tech-world people might be able to grasp larger numbers, and therefore be better suited to tackling some of the world’s largest problems.

Personally, I think that if everyone better understood the complexity and scale of planet Earth, then there would be a serious increase in empathy. So much of contemporary living is predicated on denying that complexity and denying natural impulses towards empathy. For me the challenge is connecting small scale action to larger scale change. Sometimes, the systems that seem most responsible for marginalizing people and destroying the planet appear much too large to combat. I try to remind myself that although there does seem to be a spirit, or unseen power, of capitalism and near-sighted profit and power driven vision, that those systems are made of individual people. The more we can communicate and share stories across artificial boundaries, the more it will become clear that a fundamental change in thinking is necessary.   

I hadn’t seen that video before. It is really cool. I hope we can use it for Work on Purpose at some point!

It sounds like your question comes from a global perspective. How did you come to have that perspective? How do you think we can help others reach that vantage?