Preface / Introduction

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revised 3/2019
Considered Working Titles:
Ethical Economic, Legal, Political and Social Institutions: Models for Change: An Outline for reforming the obsolete tenets of modern civilizations
OR: Meeting Human Needs: Ethically Reforming our Economy and Government
OR: Beyond Liberal and Conservative – Vision of a Peaceful Revolution
OR: Humane civilizations worldwide

Preface / Introduction

A DRAFT DOCUMENT, first published 2008 written and edited by the founders of Humane Civilization Worldwide

Our goal is a worldwide movement that seeks to realize a vision of reforming institutions of civilizations so that they bring the best human qualities out of people and create humane civilizations.

Preface revised 3/2019, 6/2024

The Humane Civilization Worldwide project is the result of our life-long pursuit to find ways of making the world a better place (‘our’ and ‘we’ refers to myself and my brother; we are both European physicians who immigrated into the U.S.). Observing and studying people, it appears that humans’ behaviors are often appalling and hardly rational: considering people’s intelligence, scientific knowledge, and the technological developments that were achieved, we should expect that the world is a much better place than it is. The climate crisis should never have occurred – global warming and its consequences have been understood long ago, but profit-driven economies fought any action to halt it. Wars should have been considered obsolete since the times when conquerors stopped pursuing systematic genocides or cruelly mistreating and enslaving conquered people. Crimes should be rare since they hardly ever enhance the thief’s or attacker’s quality of life. It seems hard to understand why cruel traditional practices often spread rather than having been abolished soon after they took hold in a culture.
This Humane Civilization Worldwide document (published in this website) is a work in progress; we work continuously on improving it. It is written so that any part may be read and understood by itself; there is no need to read from beginning to the description of material a reader may be most interested in. Consequently, reading through it includes repeating same thoughts but we try to avoid contradicting statements. There is no claim that ideas and opinions are original, many ideas may be described elsewhere; sometimes we reinvent what others already proposed. However, we have been trying to create a cohesive, fairly comprehensive ‘blueprint’ for a better future.
In efforts to understand humans, how instincts and emotions, responses to stimuli, and reasoning cause wishes, pursuits, and actions, we studied many aspects of human nature, and we studied cultural-institutional factors that contribute to people’s perceptions and decision-making. Our opinions are based on observing ourselves, people we know, and patients, empathetically listening to their stories and discussing their perceptions and thoughts; and on independent studies that included ethology (studies of observed animal and human behaviors), anthropology, history, primatology, psychology, neurosciences, and economics. Much anthropological information was gained from reading literature of foreign and native cultures, including post-colonial literature of Asia and Africa. Difficulties and failures in developing aid projects also added valuable information about humans and cultures. We discussed our own views and conclusions at length with many people.
Studying the development of humans led to some surprising conclusions:
Throughout history, progress toward higher quality of life for all has been extremely slow, hesitant and with frequent regressions. Hominids and early humans developed large brains – around a million years ago reaching about 1,000g – and walked upright for several million years but appeared to evolve genetically faster than intellectually, culturally, and technologically. Simple stone axes were used for over 1.5 million years with little improvements, until about 0.2 million years ago. The regular use of fire for cooking evolved over about a million years and made chewing and digesting food much easier. Genetic anatomical adaptations in teeth and intestine occurred simultaneously. The development of more sophisticated hunting weapons was slow enough that most African wild life had time to adapt by way of mutations, developing a fear of the small human hunters. It took Homo sapiens tens of thousands of years from the first lines drawn on cave walls, later outlines of animals to the creation of simple but beautiful paintings. Rather than thinking creatively and devising more sophisticated ways, Homo sapiens, the large-brained Homo neanderthalensis and earlier Homo species apparently followed primarily traditional ways of tool use with many developments appearing more coincidental than planned and invented.
After the last ice age about 11,000 years ago, the world’s climate appears to have been relatively stable and developments started very gradually to accelerate. However, our instincts and the prevalent primitive cultures did little to improve people’s lives. The largely coincidental developments of agriculture and animal husbandry led to higher population density, hierarchical structures, and the de facto enslaving of most people. Homicides decreased but due to the anonymity of these societies and the human propensity to us-against-them thinking, there was much more systematic cruelty, in warfare and to maintain ‘order.’ People may have felt sympathy within close groups, but the development of empathy was rather suppressed. Kings and high priests ordered the construction of impressive monuments, there were some technological inventions and a very small number of humans lived in considerable luxury. However, throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, progress from century to century continued to be slow. The advanced fresh water and sewage systems of the Romans were still copied in the Spanish colonial cities – aqueducts in Mexico look as if built by the ancient Romans.
In recent centuries, the speed of progress has accelerated, in some areas exponentially; humans’ inventiveness was promoted as wealthy people sought ways to enhance profits. The transition from small producers to large industries hardly enhanced the quality of life of the poor. Early sail ships were mostly used to transport goods, stolen from newly conquered colonies, to Europe, and African slaves to the Americas. Much later, the majority of people started to benefit from technological progress, and people experience today much less physical hardships and suffering than ever. However mental health problems, including anxiety and depression, abuse-addiction disorders, and existential crises are very widespread. Suicide rates are still high, and among adolescents and children rates have been increasing in some highly developed countries. Also domestic violence and antisocial behaviors by gangs are still serious problems, and crime rates, related to and unrelated to drug abuse, remain much higher than we should expect.
More recently, eco-anxiety became the most frequent mental health problem in young people [Harvard political reviews: Climate anxiety among international youth is at an all-time high. In a 2022 poll, “59% of youth and young adults said they were very or extremely worried about climate change and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning,” according to CBS News. Aug 26, 2023.]
In the past, empathy was discouraged – people were expected to condone if not enjoy seeing unimaginably cruel punishments of people that were considered ‘enemies,’ ‘witches,’ or major competitors. It is likely that the printing press led to the development of more widespread empathy: by reading descriptions of very different people, readers learned to visualize being in their place and feeling compassion; from reading, people may gain an understanding as to why “bad” people do bad things; the “them” or “others” were seen as being in many ways like us and deserving humane treatment. Particularly valuable has been literature in which observing novelists describe what they observed in people they knew, or publishers may have printed interesting diaries of poor people who were talented writers.
Modern institutions vary greatly in their adequacy. For instance, devastating economic conditions are an odd problem: if unemployed people want to work, there is work to be done, and there are resources to work with, why do governments not provide the money supply needed to effectively mediate economic transactions? If there are legal limitations to expand the money supply, should people not at least be able to work with local barter coupons? Obviously, healthy adults should find time for meaningful work, time to raise and educate young people and/or to help old and disabled people. Why are so many adults wasting time, engage in abuse behaviors, or, ignoring needs in their communities, work for wealth and luxuries they can hardly enjoy?
An important conclusion is that we have to understand and fight harmful inherent, biological predispositions in a global way by addressing our institutions, particularly institutions that condone or promote problematic predispositions.
From a philosophical standpoint and forming opinions that are based on much research data and observations, we conclude that humans must seek ethical guidelines that are based on an understanding of human nature and on what people universally wish or, more importantly, prefer (people may wish high status, honor, and revenge, but more importantly, they usually prefer peace and stability to contests, conflicts, and fights.)
Religions can hardly guide us, since, if there is a quasi-personal God, we cannot know what She/He wishes from us – world religions vastly differ in their teachings and within Christianity, people vastly disagree on details when interpreting the Bible, particularly concerning moral principles. An intractable problem has been the propensity of religions to incorporate inhumane traditional values and practices into their teachings, making it much harder to evolve and eliminate worst traditional practices. Unless isolated and marginalized, pacifist religions usually devised many exceptions to their principles.
Religious beliefs also promote the human capacity to hold multiple ‘realities’ – people often switch between traditional, religious, and group ‘realities,’ versus pragmatic, science and experience-based ‘realities.’ What Socrates reportedly stated “I know that I know nothing” essentially means that what we consider ‘truths’ or ‘reality’ are only models of reality that explain happenings and have predictive value but never are the whole truth.’
The purpose of this draft and organization is to
– Develop, explain and teach science-based ethics, which is based on an understanding of human nature. Following the basic ethical principles: giving, forgiving, cooperating and being compassionate, promotes supportive social interactions which have been shown to enhance people’s happiness, health, and also longevity.
– Further evaluate principles of ethics, such as a need to considering beings that are different and/or distant or will live in the future, avoiding meaningless risk taking, allowing and rationalizing abuse behaviors, including psychological-behavioral abuses, examples: addictive buying, abusive eating, gambling, and pursuing unethical thoughts, conspiracy theories, and/or wealth and power.
– Consequent to evaluating and teaching ethics, address aspects of cultures that negatively influence and shape ways people express their emotions and instincts. The goal is to redirect misguided developments, ameliorate conflicts, minimize unnecessary suffering, and bring the best out of people.
– Show ways of dealing in most effective ways with the climate crisis that is threatening to destroy many civilizations and lead to worldwide violence. Pressure governments to act decisively and initiate the needed radical changes.
– Propagate a philosophy of governance that is based on natural, science-based ethics.
– Continue analytical examinations of cultural and governmental institutions.
– Develop model frameworks of institutions that will serve as guidelines or goals for proposed changes of present institutions.
– Develop model institutions by thinking of how gathering-hunting civilizations may create good economic, educational, and governmental institutions when they unite with each other and form larger political units. We must not be limited by what can readily be improved in today’s principally bad institutions.
– Increase awareness of the meaning of described goals; address whole populations, explaining problems and ways to move forward.
– Offer education and on ethics based commentaries on many political issues, as they come up, particularly climate change
– In addition, the organization seeks to create a worldwide movement of people and organizations who share at least in part or in principle the goals of this organization in order to gain more influence on governments worldwide and also help many people find meaning and satisfaction in participating in the movement. Meaningless pursuits of wealth, status, luxuries or abusable substances may be replaced by a goal to contribute to improving the world and to prepare for the major changes that will be necessary.
It is not sufficient to make sporadic improvements to alleviate some contemptible cruelties and ignored suffering, or to correct specific irrational policies; we need to find and address the cultural-institutional factors that lead to senseless suffering, cruelties, irrational policies and corruption, and the factors that keep governments from effectively addressing serious problems. In particular, it is urgent to compel radical government actions to halt further destabilization of the climate and start reversing global warming.

Introduction and summary of ideas revised 3/2019 [previously revised/edited 2/2012; 2/2013; 8/2014; 1/2016; 10/2017; 3/2024]

It should be obvious that present economic and social developments are “far off,” distracting from humans’ principal goals of happiness and health, peace, good human relationships, and relative stability. People often think of what was better in the past, obviously not the primitive healthcare and the suppression and abuse of women and minorities, but much of what was simpler, less complex, felt better; people then hoped to work less in their future, not needing two jobs to pay rent or student loans. Credit-based consumerism has not improved human lives, we are not a happy people, but profits from unhealthy consumerism are the main driver of our economy.
Humans often behave badly, but we cannot directly influence them; if we want to change how people deal with their predispositions and environments, we must address our institutions. There is a lot of resistance since many believe that our institutions, political, economic, legal, educational, etc., are “the least bad possible.” That it is far from the truth, but it is a major reason why Americans rarely want to learn from other civilizations and cultures, that there is much reluctance to analyze our failings and make efforts to design institutions that are much closer to ‘ideal.’
People’s thinking and behaving and the consequent moods are expressions of instincts that are perceived as emotions and impulses; but these natural predispositions and people’s perception of the environment are powerfully influenced, even shaped, by a culture’s institutions: the culture at large and subcultures (family, group, professional, etc.) That people often appear unreasonable, unethical, and, even if well-to-do, dissatisfied is largely a consequence of their institutional-cultural environments. And our institutions, particularly the economic system, are the root cause of the climate crisis and of many emotional problems that people experience.
Institutions powerfully influence the development of individuals’ character, physical and mental health, perceptions, aspirations, decision-making, and happiness. While philosophers and even some scientists have been arguing as to whether humans are basically ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ it is obvious that, as most mammals and other animals, humans can be loving and caring as well as very aggressive, towards members of their own and other species; and like many social animals, they can be cooperative or adversarial, and they may assault as individuals or in groups. Environmental factors and, in case of humans institutions, are key.
Considering people’s intelligence, today’s astonishing scientific knowledge and the technological achievements, we should be able to expect a world with much less conflicts and suffering. Wisely utilizing robotics and other technologies, people should be able to work less and spend more time with family and friends, in nature, etc,
While observing continuous progress in many areas, we have a shared ethical obligation to study the failures of our cultures, observe and analyze them and cooperate in pursuing major reforms. To summarize: To make today’s civilizations more humane, we must change the institutions that shape people’s perceptions, aspirations and behaviors, and we must have ideas as to how good institutions would look like.

People, as individuals or functioning within institutions, appear most of the time hardly aware of broad ethical goals that reflect humans’ universal wishes and preferences, particularly peace, stability, mutual respect, loving relationships and a better future for our children (better future must be more than short-term). Instead people work mostly for what they may want and think of at the time. They may pursue any pleasurable activity; they may seek esteem, honor, or revenge; they may follow addictive pursuits, habits, or simply routines and ‘policies and procedures’. Rather than being rational planners, humans primarily follow pursuits that are driven by cultural traditions, which are derived from instincts; these pursuits are influenced by external and internal stimuli and they are experienced as “right” and/or as promising good feelings. People tend to go from one pursuit that is perceived as positive, to another – the pursuits are mostly short-term, maybe requiring a few years; dangers, probable deprivations, or suffering, and negative effects on others rarely stop the course of actions. High rank, social respect, power, and access to mating partners have always been motivators, but cultures modified these propensities, sometimes in detrimental ways.

Throughout prehistory and up to modern times, our intelligent ancestors tended to follow simple traditions and they rarely sought better ways by learning from past and from observations. They appear to have thought mostly about the present and about social relationships; they hardly thought about how they influenced their own and their offspring’s future, or, when environments changed, about best ways to adapt and/or move on.
After the last ice age, with the development of towns and agriculture, people lived much more densely in large, mostly anonymous groups. The evolving cultures became cruel in systematic ways, subjugating, exploiting, and abusing large parts of the population; leaders despicably abused humans’ and particularly women’s docile nature. At the same time, their strong attachment to whatever traditions evolved prevented them from responding to gradual changes and many cultures eventually collapsed. Concerning ethics, civilizations have struggled to develop more humane institutions but appeared to keep relapsing to old and new forms of cruelties. People’s inherent fascination with human suffering, cruelties and extremely painful practices is still not properly addressed by modern institutions.
A likely explanation for the very slow progress is that higher animals, including humans, have a strong instinctive predisposition to learn from and imitate older individuals how to express instincts within their environment. Modern people are not much different, even if many aspects of life became much more complex. We learn mainly from older authority figures, older peers from leaders of subcultures, religious, professional, isolated peer group, etc., and/or from advertisements that pretend to show what experts and our leader believe. Otherwise people are reluctant to accept novelty unless it is attractive and imminently rewarding.

Instincts from small group living have not served evolving civilizations well. Biological and historical factors may explain why. In spite of the high level of knowledge, technologically and psychologically, much of the world appears to be in a deplorable and bewildering state.

Humane Civilization Worldwide (HCW) and its website focus on examining major inadequately addressed problems and offer framework models of institutions that are designed to improve or replace current institutions; the intent is that these rough ‘blue prints’ will guide reforms of the institutions that are the root cause of unnecessary conflicts and suffering. This vision of an institutional framework of humane civilizations is based on our understanding of studies in the fields of economics, ethics, social and political sciences, and human nature. We include fairly detailed proposals for changing economic, educational, political and other institutions that are relevant in all civilizations.

Goals have been to:
– Establishing a vision of realistic, sensible models of institutions that help develop peaceful humane cultures and civilizations worldwide.
– Working, cooperating with organizations and individuals with similar ethical goals, towards becoming a powerful worldwide movement (people and organizations agreeing, at least with the basic ideas and goals of the presented vision). Individuals and organizations may differ in their priorities and some details but should be united in the pursuit of this broader vision, communicating as part of this movement with a voice that cannot be ignored.
The described proposals try to end the hold of obsolete philosophies concerning present institutions but remain pragmatic; progressive, unconventional thinking will be needed far into the future. The documents of HCW are based on our present knowledge and derived opinions; they are only a first step, a work in progress that needs to be continuously improved and expanded.
Our thinking about economic and social order go beyond ideologies of left and right and describe a radical departure from conventional economic views. People want to conserve or save much that is universally recognized as beautiful and valuable: timeless wisdoms, some natural, on instincts based social patterns, the heritage and artifacts of cultures, animal and plant species, and other aspects of nature. People also must become progressive, thinking in generous, tolerant, and broad-minded ways. The world must neither stand still nor change in random ways; it needs positive directedness, and we need to free ourselves, as quickly as possible, from obsolete notions – ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ are no longer reasonable goals, and ‘freedom’ is always relative – instead we must pursue that civilizations treat all people ethically and humanely and that people have reasonable resources to fulfill valuable potentials and find happiness.
There is no claim that ideas and conclusions are original, our own; many have been proposed, even tried, or we re-invented them; but this is an attempt of a comprehensive plan – putting the pieces together and creating broadly useful guidelines.

Thoughts on philosophy, religion, ethics, and education:

Philosophers and psychologists wrote much about humans being basically good or bad; this dichotomy makes little sense when observing human nature. Humans have the ability to be considerate, loving, ethical and content with meaningful work, but humans also tend to be egoistic, greedy, power-hungry, shortsighted, callous and cruel (inherent and by teaching reinforced ‘us-versus-them’ thinking is a main cause for humans’ callousness and cruelties). Most philosophers and scholars emphasize individual responsibility1. This is essentially meaningless if we consider how the culture, cultural institutions, and significant personal experiences shape individuals’ perceptions, thinking, values, and the expression of instincts. And only the institutional environment is readily accessible to change, not the thinking of all or most individuals. The institutional environment and culture that people live in powerfully influences them, as do the anarchic conditions in shantytowns and other, particularly very poor, areas of the world2.

Basic philosophy of governing and societies’ institutions need reforms and new ways of thinking: they are still largely based on obsolete notions of the 18th century, focusing on elusive, philosophically-scientifically untenable notions. We must pursue a world where everybody can have a decent life and is treated humanely, and we need more global thinking.

Ethics and improved economic institutions are most relevant for progress and the survival of civilizations. Ethics is not adequately studied and taught, and ethical supervision of agencies and institutions is inadequate. Ethics, as a science, must be further developed.
Ethics must be based on empiricism, the understanding of human nature, not on transcendental philosophies or religions3. Ethics must be pragmatic, observing human instincts and deep-seated goals of all people. Globally, people share some desires and, more importantly, preferences; for instance, people may wish honor and revenge but on the whole prefer peace. Most people share a wish that the next generation, particularly their children and young relatives, have a better life then they have had. Many instincts foster ethical behavior: social instincts, sense of reciprocity, desire to help and share knowledge, and particularly sympathetic feelings and compassion. Empathy is largely learned, humans can learn to feel empathetic towards friends, strangers, even animals; empathy means one visualizes being in the place of others or being the other being, making efforts to understand his/her perceptions, emotions, fears, and aspirations, which is usually associated with compassion. But people also must learn to avoid expressing or vicariously and in thoughts enjoying inclinations such as aggression, vindictiveness, excessive competitiveness, unethical sex, fascination with cruelties and most importantly ‘us-against-them’ thinking. ‘Us-versus-them’ thinking, seeing others as too different to empathize with, is also a problem people must address since it greatly reduces compassion; an example is males versus females with boys having little empathy towards girls, even individuals they love. Perceiving people as “them” or “others” weakens or completely eliminates sympathy and compassion. Tendencies to addictive behaviors have to be addressed as problems of cultures and of ethics.
Ethics must be emphasized in formal and informal education for all ages, and most institutions need ethical consultations and oversight. Individuals must see ethical decision-making as above institutions’ traditions, policies and procedures, etc., since rules of professional and institutional ethics often miss major problems and may be based on false opinions of former and present leaders. Education should also teach that unethical behaviors are not only major obstacles to progress, they greatly damage the individual’ s self respect and quality of life; examples include being dishonest, short-sighted and narrow-minded, corrupt, or greed-driven; similarly damaging are addictive and dysfunctional responses to stress.
Ethics must be global and universal, it must include respect and some compassion for all people and sentient beings, and consideration of the environment we leave to future generations; and it must be based on the scientific understanding of human nature and the world. Thoughtful, sensitive, and mentally healthy people of all cultures should be able to find consensus concerning global ethical principles.
Cultural-religious morals and ‘spirituality’ are not necessarily following ethical principles; they often incorporate unethical traditions and they generally adapt to leaders’ proclivities. Most forms of religious moralities are patriarchal and repress women; inhumane old traditions are readily incorporated as religions’ moral mandates. Members of pacifist religions often justified wars; Christianity was pacifist until the concept of “just wars” was devised; Christians also abandoned the mandate to always forgive and readily used torture and the death penalty.
The term ‘spirituality’ is often used to avoid talking of religious beliefs and biases. Actually spiritual states are not necessarily connected to a sense of feeling the presence of or communicating with a god but may be induced by awe, experiencing natural or artistic beauty and greatness.
Humans are able to hold contradictory beliefs and may rapidly switch from one realm of thinking to some incompatible ideas – religions have frequently exploited this inherent perilous problem.
Religions were assumed to be a source of positive spiritual emotions and an inspiration for ethical behaviors. However, throughout history religions have divided people and caused or contributed to conflicts, cruelties and wars.
Religious texts, traditions and teachings have to be understood as parts of cultures, comparable to poetry, never as truths. We particularly must avoid beliefs that contradict the scientific understanding of nature and of humans; and religions must end tolerating, justifying or mandating violations of global ethical principles and of human rights. Religious people must accept and be tolerant towards other cultures and philosophies including agnostic and atheist thinking.

While people are able to hold simultaneously contradictory beliefs, they generally are only able to understand and focus on some aspects of religious teaching part of the time. Being religious basically means trying to believe in what one considers the most essential aspects of religious teachings. If Christians would truly believe that they may, in their afterlife, experience extreme suffering, temporarily in purgatory or eternally in hell, they would be paralyzed by fear. Actually self-proclaimed Christians often joke about hell. Christians are to emphasize forgiveness in their prayers, but most Christians also embrace punitive legal systems and vengeful thoughts. There is no record of Jesus addressing homosexuality or mentioning abortions and the Old Testament gives little value to a fetus; still homosexuality and abortion have caused divisive conflicts and severe hostilities among Christian societies.
Founders of religions and religious leaders addressed certain aspects of ethics and cultures, but they emphasize different priorities and many religious doctrines contradict science-based ethical principles. Societies must not allow discrimination and other forms of abuses by professionals, landlords, etc., based on individuals’ ‘conscience,’ referring to biases that were taught by a religion. Privately, people may follow ethically questionable biases of their religion, but they must not be allowed to force others to follow them, not even their children, if their physical and mental health are negatively affected.

Most modern education systems are far from optimal. The primary goal must not be to make children productive but, while teaching knowledge, we must direct them to become ethical, healthy and happy. Teaching must include teaching broad compassionate empathy, averting us-versus-them thinking, and ameliorating the effects of us-versus-them thinking. People must learn the capacity of being broadly empathetic, feeling empathetically compassionate towards very different beings. Sex education needs to include learning about psychological aspects of relationships. In many situations, sex-segregated school settings are probably beneficial. Diverse school systems must learn from each other. And civilizations must learn to understand that mass media and the Internet including social networks and games are de facto part of the educational system. Therefore ethical guidelines must be developed that balance the right of freedom of expression with the need to protect children and adolescents from ethically and culturally destructive influences.
Children learn from the people and culture around them: their family and teachers, folklore and games, the media, the Internet, etc. Entertainments of all kinds are powerful teachers and need to be recognized and treated as part of the education system of a civilization with similar ethical oversight as schools. Language, being or not being multilingual-multicultural, the physical-social environments, work places, and income distribution also influence people’s values and thinking.
Ethics is not adequately studied and taught. For instance, teaching ethical principles often includes the notions of autonomy and justice: offering autonomy may lead to chaos when individuals do not recognize that cooperation and common pursuits are more important than idiosyncratic goals; equality and justice does not consider how different people actually are – everybody having same rights and treatments is often inappropriate. To include ethics discussions in education of all levels would be helpful in establishing adequate ethical supervision of agencies and institutions and greatly decrease the problem of corruption in all its forms.
Religion and legal systems are usually seen as substitute for empirical, pragmatic ethical considerations that should be observed in all situations; they are not. Economic systems, functioning like a behavior modification program, often interfere with ethical decision-making; rather than recognizing its destructiveness, capitalist societies often encourage reckless competitiveness, addictive consumerism, greed, and group thinking; group thinking sometimes encourages extreme positions, proposals, and actions, which most involved individuals would consider highly unethical and unacceptable. Ethics education must counter these problems.
We cannot wait for people to suddenly decide to become responsible and pursue ethical goals. Peaceful and humane civilizations are possible. But ethics, including compassion towards people perceived as “others,” can and must be taught. Following ethical values feels good and may become self-reinforcing. Cultures should teach people to avoid unethical expressions of instincts and addictive behaviors, such as substance abuse, consumerism, and pursuit of wealth and power.
Conflicts and negative feelings towards others are also reduced if cultural institutions teach some common standards and habits, such as observing reasonable cleanliness, avoiding waste, being careful and reasonably punctual, and above all being polite, honest, respectful and considerate towards others. If lack of gratitude, insulting and hurtful statements or talking down on another person causes anger, it is most important never to retaliate and learning not to take such behaviors personally, instead accepting the impolite behaviors and making efforts to respond with friendly politeness. Friendly consideration readily leads to friendship, attachment and love. Institutions that decidedly address the world’s foremost problems are possible. Good institutions bring the best out of people.
Religions should be a source of spiritual emotions and be part of artistic culture, but they remain a major problem. By definition, religious beliefs cannot be substantiated and sacred scriptures have been interpreted in many different ways. If specific religious texts really were communications from a, the only, God, expressing his/her will, why would God allow so much ambiguity? And religions cannot be genuinely tolerant: believing one thing excludes accepting the validity of a divergent belief. Religious people often claim that all religions essentially express the same moral principles. This is not true – not only are priorities, focus and interpretation of the human condition different, the moral principles of the early books of the Old Testament, Hindu Scriptures, and other holy texts are principally different from Jesus’ teachings as related in the New Testament. Religious beliefs in reincarnation are not comparable with Christian teachings. Generally, religious teachings also reinforce cultural hierarchies and power structures and incorporate local traditions, which may be cruel and ethically indefensible; and most religions incorporate inhumane patriarchal values. Hinduism goes even further in classifying some humans as utterly contemptible.
Teaching children about hell or other cruel punishments after death is a form of child abuse; and it is only possible to accept both, permanent happiness in heaven for some and unending tortures in hell for others, by greatly reinforcing the inherent propensity to ‘us-against-them’ thinking, which essentially eliminates compassion and reinforces adversarial thinking all relationships. Premature rituals such as First Communion and Confirmation feel wrong, almost like child marriages or teenage girls vowing to become nuns – children do not understand the meaning of their religion and its sacraments.

Thoughts on human relationships and legal systems:

NGOs, religious-charitable groups, political parties, and other groups and agents should address many obvious problems. Urgent goals that need to be cooperatively, systematically and effectively pursued include:
– Groups with goals to improve aspects of societies ore the world as a whole must work to move from isolated efforts to broad cooperation, probably under an umbrella organization.
– The educational system should include 1. Ethics, particularly learning that it is preferable to give, forgive and cooperate rather than take, vindicate and compete; that everybody benefits, if we learn being broadly compassionate and empathetic, avoiding ‘us-against-them’ thinking; “living simply so others can simply live.” 2. A broad range of objectives for young people: healthy lifestyle, personal human contacts, a wide range of sciences, meditation, forms of art, appreciation of nature, etc. Life skills teaching, as promoted by the U.N., is also be important. 3. Broad adult education.
– Teaching empathy may include telling a child who acts in hostile way 1. “How would you feel if he would…,” 2. “How do you think he/she (victim) feels …); practicing to listen to and talk with people about their experiences and by reading material where one feels compelled to identify with people who are very different from oneself; texts then may lead to engaging descriptions of the characters’ specific forms of suffering, their fears, but also their aspirations and sources of happiness. We cannot know much about our body parts without seeing, touching, or moving them – much of the time we only review our body image when believing to feel the body; and we do not know the sources of many forms of pain, for instance abdominal cramping pains. Any person can imagine to be a person of the other sex or a different age, a person with severe health problems, a person who suffers at this moment, etc. Still, empathy is always limited: working a few days in a factory does not lead to an understanding of workers who work in that factory for decades, as occasional babysitting and worrying about the child’s health does not give a good impression of being the mother of a sickly child or of multiple young children. In addition, the ‘same’ experience, for instance a natural childbirth, may be perceived very differently by different women.
– The role of religions must be primarily cultural-artistic, not teaching ‘facts’ and morals.
– Legal thinking versus systematic ways of preventing most ethics violations: Punitive-adversarial legal systems are fundamentally unethical and they are largely based on pre-Christian notions. Legal systems should be replaced by science-based ways of preventing most ethics violations; treating rather than punishing people who, due to pathological developments, did or appear likely to act in dangerous and seriously unethical ways. Most disturbed young people can be detected early with screening approaches; it is important to ask young people about the fantasies they enjoy and pursue in their thoughts. Usually there are apparent environmental and genetic factors that therapies must address. If there are predispositions that make it difficult for some people to experience empathy and compassion, these patients still can learn to live meaningful lives without acting out aggressively. We must not pursue “just” treatment but humane treatment that includes proper therapies for everybody.
– People are not equal and we must move from ‘equal rights’ to ‘special rights’ of specific groups, e.g. women’s reproductive rights and mothers’ rights when working. If negative consequences for illegal activities are instituted, these have to be adapted to the individual’s circumstances. Girls should not imitate boys’ rough and dangerous activities and sports; the female brain and body is more susceptible to severe injuries with long-term consequences; particularly closed head injuries have generally worse consequences in girls than boys.
– Freedoms must be limited, e.g. ‘free speech’ must not include the right to knowingly disperse false claims or slender. The freedoms of some often infringes on freedoms of others or they are destructive to the environment.

Summary of thoughts on the climate crisis:

– Climate change has to be addressed from many sides:
1. Teaching about the severity and effective responses to the crisis and demand radical, effective government leadership.
2. Teaching that pursuing simple living and ethics coincides with the pursuits of sustainable living, health and happiness.
3. Saving energy and resources and minimizing greenhouse gas releases by reforming industries, transportation systems, and land management. Addressing waste and food choices; expansion of renewable energy; building mostly with wood and bamboo, insulating buildings, applying passive solar principles and basic geothermal heating and cooling, etc.
4. Sequestering carbon primarily by growing much vegetation and preventing organic material from decomposing or burning.
5. Addressing the albedo (reflectivity) of earth’s surfaces as feasible.
– Economically, people should have some security: governments must establish comprehensive safety nets. It is probably valuable if governments issue guaranteed incomes for everybody rather than trying to create enough jobs with wages that support a reasonable living standard. At the same time, lending must be severely restricted for many reasons, one being that people do very poorly when they take advantage of the opportunity to borrow money indiscriminately. Rapid changes to address the climate crisis make economic safety particularly important.

Governments must lead. Public-private partnership nonprofit enterprises have to reform industries, transportation systems and land management.
Specific issues include:
– Minimizing the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by avoiding waste and saving energy and resources in every way possible while expanding renewable energy sources.
– Sequestering carbon, primarily by reforestation and cultivating rapidly growing plants including bamboo and algae. Additionally, preventing the burning and decomposition of organic material, including dead and commercially worthless wood and most landfill trash, for instance by keeping it dry, very cold, buried in ground that is immersed in stagnant water.
– There are many experimental and small scale projects that can sequester carbon for centuries or millennia and that are relatively inexpensive – some may and should be rapidly expanded.
– Addressing the albedo (relative sun light reflection) of the earth, increasing the reflectivity of man-made surfaces, using wind power to create artificial snow where snow fields and glaciers are melting, choosing fast-growing plants that are relatively light reflecting, planting vegetation that may promote cloud formation, etc.
Further research will improve ways of decreasing greenhouse gas releases, sequestering carbon, and increasing the albedo (reflection of sun light) of the earth’s surface.

Thoughts concerning modern economic systems:

An economic system is obviously dysfunctional if there are unemployed people who want to work, there is work to be done, and there are resources to work with, but there is no money supply to efficiently mediate economic transactions.
Economies need a stable money supply that should not depend on financial institutions’ lending activities. Bank lending expands the functional money supply in that deposited money can be lent to more than one person or institution (with lending the money stays within the banking system but moves into different accounts – the bank still has the money and can lend it to others). Banks usually lend “generously” when there is no need to expand the economic activities but shrink the money supply by issuing fewer loans when there is an economic slowdown, which are the times when money is needed to employ people who could provide services, repair buildings and infrastructure, etc.
Countries must never borrow money – if the economy expands, the country must expand its money supply – print new money. If a country’s borrowing from foreign countries or the IMF does not lead to significant inflation, it would have been safe to simply increase the country’s own money supply. If new money is issued, the question is: 1. Does the increased money supply immediately stimulate the economy, lead to the creation of new workplaces with job growth and increased productivity? 2. Does the increased money lead to a delayed but significant increase in the productivity as in healthcare and educational expenditures, civilian research, or large infrastructure projects? 3. Is the increased money used for expenditures with no positive effect on the civilian economy, such as weapons, military activities, or space programs. If productivity increases, even if delayed, an increase in the money supply will hardly lead to significant inflation; however, military expenditures hurt the civilian economy by increasing people’s incomes without increased civilian productivity and by competing for resources. Also inflationary are too much lending by banks and investing in marketing, encouraging consumption without increasing productivity.
In the modern USA, much of the functional money supply consists in loans from private banks. Rather than individuals, enterprises, and government agencies that work with it, financial institutions own much of the circulating money supply. Bankers decide what new or growing business enterprise should get loans – a primary goal is that the receiving enterprise will be profitable, able to pay loans back and hopefully then qualify for further, larger loans. However, bankers are hardly qualified to make such decisions and usually rely on past, obsolete data, for instance, if recently values of residence or office buildings rose, they may lend money to builders until there is an oversupply and values drop. When private loans by large investors determine where there will be new investments, potential profits will drive choices, not the needs of society.
Federal banks should maintain a stable money supply with limited loans being issued by local cooperative nonprofit development banks. Private for-profit banks and securities markets should have a very limited function and be tightly regulated. The trading of securities should be taxed.
Since money tends to flow from poor, less industrialized areas to metropolitan areas and wealthier foreign centers, economically depressed areas may need local currencies that function like barter coupons and cannot leave the area. Such money is likely to maintain or increase local economic activities, prevent migration to urban slums and help attract branches of metropolitan industries.
A worldwide currency is needed for government reserves and international economic transactions. Private crypto currencies (electronic money) should be outlawed except possibly as limited local barter currency.
Income taxes are hard to collect and they tend to ‘punish’ actual work while taxing income from speculative investments much less. Sales taxes are much easier to apply and they positively influence economic choices, if taxation rates are graded according to product categories that consider social desirability. Polluting and very unhealthy products should be taxed much higher than basic, wholesome, ecologically sound goods.
Income from taxation should cover disability and elderly income (Social Security), health insurance and education at all levels. To eradicate economic hardships that may lead to child malnutrition, homelessness, etc., a low guaranteed income should be introduced worldwide, maybe issued in coupons usable for nutritious food, shelter, clothing and public transportation; the amounts are to be adapted to local conditions. This is particularly important in areas where many jobs disappear due to the rapid increase in automation, robotics, etc. and due to the economic disruptions when global warming creates in many areas catastrophic damages and when government programs address it effectively.
While free enterprises are valuable, they need to be influenced and directed to incorporate priorities other than maximizing profits; e.g. by targeted taxation that addresses polluting, unhealthy, excessively luxurious, and wasteful goods and production processes. We must also encourage a broad move towards social enterprises with the ‘common good’ rather than profits being their primary objective, along with broader cooperation and greatly limited patent and ‘intellectual property’ rights. It should be obvious that cooperation leads to more rapid progress than patenting inventions and competing, as is usual in medicine; physicians learn much from peers who innovate treatments. Car safety progressed rapidly worldwide when Volvo did not patent its innovation, particularly the three point seat belts. People forget: inventions are generally the result of some entity hiring engineers and scientists to pursue a specific goal; profits do not necessarily promote progress.

Prior to any major changes, all politicians should observe some economic insights that diverge from dogmatic conservative thinking, including:
– Inappropriate reduction in government spending in an indebted country worsens its ability to pay debts and causes unnecessary suffering;
– Excessive indebtedness of a country should be treated as largely a responsibility of lenders.
– If borrowing money seems appropriate to improve and develop an economy, expanding the local money supply would be more reasonable; increasing the money supply is not inflationary if it increases civilian economic activities. Borrowing and creating new money for defense spending is inflationary: it increases the civilian buyers’ income without increasing production of desired goods and services; and the competition between military and civilian industries drives up costs of metal and other material resources, and labor.
– Investing in advertising and consumer loans is inflationary if there is no overproduction and/or an adequate increase in productivity.
– Trading securities needs to be taxed, and the creation of complex ‘financial instruments’ must be limited – sales should be forbidden if there is no ‘informed consent’ to a transaction meaning, the buyer (maybe nobody) understands what is included in the contract.
– Lending should be limited and mostly replaced by increased saving and the extension of the money supply, in some places by adding local currencies.
– In any economy it is essential for the health of a civilization that there is a comprehensive safety net: no person should be marginalized or excluded, and governments should provide a guaranteed income, healthcare, and education for everybody.
– Governments must be employers of last resort.

Developments in modern societies fail in many ways and Western economies created grave problems that need to be addressed. Competing free enterprises are often creative, and they achieved much progress and material growth; however, without government involvement, enterprises largely ignore the unemployed and the poorest people, the needs of poor countries and the protection of ecosystems and the environment. They rarely focus on what is most needed and enhances people’s well-being and happiness. Much of the developments did little to improve people’s quality of life. When productivity increases, people are enticed to seek luxuries, even ‘perfection,’ and they may work rather more (particularly in the USA, less in Europe). Consumerism corrupts ethical thinking and often becomes an addiction. Advertisements purposely create unreasonable desires and/or they make people feel inadequate and insecure so that corporations can exploit their discontent and anxieties. Buying on credit is today strongly encouraged ; it usually leads to indebtedness with detrimental consequences. A lack of self-confidence and meaningful values are often a consequence and a cause of spending excessively on artless entertainment and luxuries that do not enhance happiness.
Driven by profits and legally protected as “free speech,” commercial media portray violence, cruelties, unethical sex, and other abusive behaviors as entertainment, thus inadvertently or recklessly reinforcing grossly unethical inclinations in people. While media keep offending and eroding cultural values, some religious groups responded with a return to fundamentalism, rather than focusing on ethical principles5.
Economies with their financial institutions, supported by current economic policies, are self-driving and largely out-of-control. While overall wealth grows rapidly in much of the world, corresponding improvements in quality of life are often lacking and income gaps between poor and wealthy have increased in many areas. Some developments cause worldwide dire social and political problems, including wars. Over a billion people still live in miserable conditions; for most there is no way to escape extreme poverty. Slums in poor countries are still growing. Much farm and grazing land is becoming wasteland. Families and their cultures have been disintegrating. Ecosystems are destroyed. Women, underpaid and working in wretched conditions, contributed greatly to the rapid development of industrializing economies, but even though much discussed, widespread discriminating and abusive treatments of girls and women continue with little political will to stop them6. Even in highly industrialized societies, discrimination remains frequent and institutions do not adequately consider needs specific to girls, pregnant women and women with small children. Most institutions of higher education, including medical schools, hardly consider the special needs of women with young children, even though there are more women students than men.

Whether economics is a science is debatable: economics, as taught in schools and as used in political decision-making, consists of multiple theories with limited validity. Different schools of economics do not even agree on basic principles; indeed economists of similar persuasion keep giving contradictory advice: there is not enough consumer confidence meaning people should dare using their savings and go into debt, versus people do not save enough, there is too much debt! And economists generally lack an understanding of human decision-making processes, the importance of emotions, the frequency of cognitive errors, people’s propensity to addictive behaviors with distorted thinking, etc. No school of economics appears able to predict economic developments7. Economic and related political discussions appear stuck within narrow models; particularly conservative politicians and economists keep recommending approaches that lead to much suffering and, in case of recessions, very slow recoveries.

Thoughts on cooperation among organizations, political actions, and democratic governance:

Progressive organizations, charitable organizations, NGOs, political parties, and representatives within governmental agencies, deal with many issues that Humane Civilization Worldwide addresses. Even if some may disagree with specific goals or consider them unimportant, these organizations and agents would greatly benefit from cooperating, possibly under an umbrella organization that represents the majority of people. Whether a group focuses of endangered animals or women’s rights, leaders of progressive causes should never oppose each other. Group representatives should cooperate when working towards their shared goal of making the world a better place for future generations.
Today it is easy to dismiss progressive causes because each group appears to represent a very small minority. While a majority of people agree with many progressive pursuits, concerns related to human rights, women’s rights, environmental concerns, climate change, or avoidance of warfare, they usually focus on supporting mainly one or a few groups; consequently no group appears to represent a significant segment of the population. Sadly, many groups directly compete for donor dollars, even if they claim or believe that they encourage people to donate more to NGOs and charities. Charitable organizations should not spend much resources for fund raising and advertising, which is basically wasteful and counterproductive, particularly if enticing people to support one instead of another, similar organization/ It may be beneficial if informative advertising by multiple groups promotes more giving.
Because of progress in many areas, much of what is discussed today may seem obsolete in the near future.
If developments are positive, capitalism with its top-down managed corporations and encroaching property rights may be weakening, while cooperative work on ‘commons’ grows, with sharing and broad access to knowledge. We may expect an adequate amount of inexpensive automatically or robotically produced high quality goods: scarcity may not remain an important issue of economic thinking. However, natural land is a limited and extremely valuable resource and natural environments require protection; climate-related work such as reforestation does not lend itself to automation and the use of huge machines. The biologist Edward O. Wilson proposed to maintain and return half the land to a natural state with protected areas being interconnected so that animals can move around in large areas; this is a reasonable, realistic goal.
An optimistic laissez-fair attitude is destructive, in spite of reasonable expectations that industries actuate inventions which may help alleviate many major problems. However, catastrophic climate change, a consequence of industrial developments, is, with political will and much education, largely preventable. It is happening now and there is hardly any response by industries that is doing more than slightly slow the detrimental developments. Governments must lead in taking radical steps. Changes with a ‘business-as-usual-with-incentives’ approach and voluntary actions is too little too late.
Specific problems include:
– A transition to an “all-electric” luxurious future is hardly feasible; it would lead to resource shortages8 and/or accelerated mineral resource mining with its own pollution and political problems. Societies must focus on ultra-light electric vehicles and comprehensive rail systems that include a dense network of small narrow-track light rail lines.
– Population growth is slowing, but not rapidly enough, and food production has been increasing less than population growth. The world cannot support most of the world population emulating Western style middle-class living.
– Seeking profits, and particularly enterprises’ legal duty to make profits for investors interferes with the pursuit of ethical and pragmatic goals. It also leads enterprises to frequently move places of production, and sources, where raw materials and parts of products are bought, change frequently; this creates major instability for people.
– A money supply relying on debts leads to many seriously indebted families. Severely indebted people show decreased cognitive functions and they tend to discount their and their children’s future, often become desperate, and they may commit crimes or suicide.
– Other consequences of laissez-fair economic systems include: widening income gap, monopolies and oligopolies with small businesses unable to compete, and much waste in wealthy areas while worst poverty is hardly mitigated; the readiness to respond to major crises is generally inadequate. In addition, poor countries are drawn into the Western economic system with all its problems. Living simply and more densely is hardly a priority.
– Since most people in wealthy countries stay comfortable while much of the world suffers, Western leaders are likely to ignore the urgency of climate change and economic problems – there is little political will for needed dramatic actions.

Governmental institutions:

Democratic institutions work inadequately and must be improved. While decision-making by large populations tends to pursue reasonable goals and avoid extreme actions, the actual systems often undo this benefit.
– The U.S.’ primary elections often eliminate moderate candidates that would be acceptable to the majority.
– Political campaigns usually evoke emotions rather than promoting thoughtful consideration.
– Systems tend to encourage shortsighted goals and putting local interests far above larger, much more important concerns. As soon as elected, a primary concern of politicians is getting re-elected in the next election cycle, and they want to appear effective around the time when the contest for reelection starts.
– Members of parliaments usually fail in achieving a balance between a pursuit of instantaneous advantages for their constituency versus interests of the country, world community, and future generations.
– Seeking funds for their election/re-election campaigns invites more or less obvious corruption.
– Misguided cultural-religious groups and extremist political groups that embrace simplistic thinking ignore the complexities and scientific aspects of proposals, and they often inflame politics, exacerbating conflicts.
– The organization of governmental agencies may inadvertently promote inefficiencies and a lack of adaptability and oversight.
With ‘self-governance’ people elect individuals of their jurisdiction who naturally have associations and interests of the subgroups to which they belong; voters with different interests have little influence unless they have time and/or the resources to lobby. Progress is impeded since local populations and their elected officials usually don’t see problems that are obvious to outsiders; problems often include serious human rights violations.
So far, a workable and generally acceptable system of democratic governance has not been attained, and in most civilizations there is no consensus as to what exactly the goals of governance should be; still, some areas, particularly Scandinavia, are doing quite well. Much consideration is needed to develop constitutions, regulations, and laws that adequately consider strengths and weaknesses in human nature, as well as differences between various cultures, subcultures and family cultures, and between genders’ and individuals’ characteristics. The primary goal must be to create institutions and elect leaders that address the important issues and challenges in the pursuit of more humane and sustainable civilizations; we must understand that there is no “justice” but there are humane and inhumane approaches when addressing problems and conflicts.

People have to clarify the functions of governments for highly industrialized and for developing countries; specifically what tasks a society should fulfill that individuals cannot do and private corporations should not do.
A consensus may focus on the following functions and goals:
– Education that includes teaching ethics, healthy lifestyles, an understanding of human relationships. and other life skills
– Health care, support of disabled and elderly.
– A broad approach to address global warming and worsening climate instability.
– Supervision of all institutions.
– Crime prevention and institutions replacing the function of present, unethical legal system.
– Establishing a money supply with special consideration of poor areas, that poor people have money for local economic interactions (local currencies may be needed since money usually ‘leaks’ from poor areas to cities and foreign countries). Most circulating money should belong to the people, enterprises, and agencies that work with it.
– A guaranteed income locally adapted to cover basic needs.
– Supervision of economic and financial institutions; limiting lending activities – people should never become severely indebted.
– Infrastructures that include a comprehensive rail system (in sparsely populated and mountainous areas mostly small narrow-track trains, light rail and two-level trains in densely populated areas, freight trains, and high speed trains for long-distance travel).
– Guidelines for the development of towns and city neighborhoods with relatively high population density and adequate provisions for all types of community functions; also caring for presently homeless and emotionally unstable people; city planning must incorporate parks and much vegetation.
– Central governments have also the function of mediating in internal and international conflicts.
Proposals for good governance include:
– The government is secular and incorporates a broad range of members.
– Decisions are generally not based on a simple majority vote but on seeking consensus or a ‘common denominator’ that is acceptable to essentially all representatives.
– Representatives are obliged to work for the whole country, not making decisions that mainly serve constituents and that are based on local culture or religion.
– For many positions only objective outsiders are eligible.
– In elections, voters rank candidates and also express whom they consider acceptable versus questionably acceptable versus not eligible.
– Executive committees or cabinets may include parliament members; they are elected by the parliament. Their function is to find what is best for a country, wider regions, and the world community. They also mediate between the interests of regions and districts.
– Most officials with executive functions and judges or ethics committee leaders must not be from the region they work for or its neighbors, and the leaders of a federation must be foreigners. Executive officials may not need to be full-time in the capitals.
– Generally, there should be leading committees rather than presidents, governors and mayors.
Biologically and culturally, women tend to have different approaches to problem solving and different priorities. When electing two representatives for any area, it would probably improve democratic functions if always a woman and a man are elected. The work of governing bodies may be more effective if women and men form separate chambers with women having at least equal power and influence (in the USA, the House of Representatives may be all men, the Senate all women). It may be argued that women should dominate executive functions since women are generally more aware of social consequences of decisions and they tend to be more pragmatic and oriented towards peaceful solutions. It is important that women in politics no longer have to adapt to male thinking patterns and strategies.
The U.S. constitution has been considered a model but it is failing. The introductory remarks of the constitution are spurious, and there was no attempt to fulfill the stated goals at the time. The constitution mostly attempts to assure a permanent balance between opposing political forces, that no branch of government or party becomes dominant. Other democracies may be doing worse, but the intent of the U.S. constitution has much of the time been perverted, and in many regards, the U.S. has lost its moral ground and leading position.
In particular, freedom of speech must be limited, not allowing speech designed to harm people, and there must be consequences for purposeful dangerous communication such as making up lies to thwart elections. The term ‘opinion’ should be defined as a conclusion that is based on knowledge but is uncertain, as opposed to what is considered scientifically ‘proven.’ A hunch, bias, or a religious belief must not be declared one’s opinion, at least not publicly. When journalists publicly interview people and media spread people’s declarations and ‘opinions’, they must make sure that they are not becoming tools for spreading dangerous misinformation and hatred. Interviewers and media representatives should respond immediately or as soon as feasible to apparently false claims, asking for sources and/or commenting that hardly any reputable scholar would agree. Media should not publish “opposing views” which describe grossly unethical attitudes, biases, or obvious falsehoods. Generally, speaking to a public should be like making statements under oath – this is particularly true for candidates in an election.
Tribes, religious groups, and other groups of shared culture or heritage are valuable for people’s sense of identity. However, they must not be a basis of governance. The goals of governments must include following highest international standards of ethics and relevant sciences, never representing the interests and biases of ethnic groups, professional organizations, religions, etc. Tribal ancestral traditions should not influence political thinking.
Western countries have not been able to provide a workable model of democratic governance for Third World civilizations as they still struggle with dysfunctions in their own democratic institutions. In interacting with the poor countries, highly industrialized countries have compelled most poor countries to become part of the international system of working with bank loans, and they pressured them to abide by Western political and economic goals. Western countries often supported cruel dictators. Poor countries emulated Western legal systems, but due to costs and lack of qualified professionals, legal systems work in most poor and even some wealthy countries very poorly. It is time to offer models of governance that are applicable to wealthy and poor countries.
A major challenge is to strengthen and broaden ethical thinking in politics and all institutions. All political decision-making demands thorough ethical considerations.
Ethical dilemmas in political decisions and issues of establishing priorities that have been treated very negligently, include:
– Most problematic developments, such as global warming and destabilization of climates, have hardly been recognized as problems of the world community that concern everybody. Many individuals, businesses and institutions continue to irresponsibly worsen the problems, e.g. promoting meat rather than legume-based protein foods and synthetic milk and meat; marketing heavy SUVs rather than fuel-efficient lighter vehicles; expanding highways and air traffic while refusing to adequately invest in efficient rail systems; ignoring waste; shipping food large distances, when similar food could be grown and processed locally.
– Access to abortions: As men have been impregnating women at an irresponsibly high rate, women had over a billion abortions in the last two decades alone (averaging more than one abortion per women). Abortions saved the world from disastrous overpopulation, famines, mass migrations, and likely violence. Until recently, more than half of all abortions were, in most regions, illegal; contributing considerably to women’s suffering and to pregnancy related deaths. Of all the continents, South America had the highest rate of abortions; it also has the second highest population growth. All over the world, policies and moral teachings concerning birth control, including abortions, are mostly based on archaic male-centered views and misinterpretations of religious texts; some people, particularly males have a hard time understanding that embryos and fetuses are “pre-human,” not yet having characteristics of a human, not even of a young child. Abortion laws discriminate against women and violate their human rights. Obviously, families wishing to adopt have always been a tiny number compared with the number of needed abortions. As a matter of human rights, abortions should be safe with reasonable anesthesia, and effective preventive measures should make the need for abortions rare.
– Few Western politicians reveal much concern about the millions of people who have been abused and killed in central-East Africa due to wars, which are partly caused by industries’ need of cobalt and other minerals.
– Most politicians are indifferent about extreme pollution killing large numbers of older people and children since this is today mostly a problem of the poor.
– Increase in food production is barely keeping pace with population growth; much agricultural land is expected to become less productive because of global warming and lack of fresh water. World fish stocks have been decimated by over-exploitation. People of poor countries who enter the middle class, not recognizing other ways of finding contentedness, want to emulate a wasteful Western lifestyle that contributes to the still growing releases of greenhouse gases9.
– Heat waves will destroy the livelihood of hundreds of millions, particularly in South Asian, Sub-Saharan Africa, and also Latin Americans. Densely populated coastal areas will be devastated by frequent floods. Still, Northern countries resist accepting climate refugees that migrate in growing numbers.
– The USA still considers reliance on military force essential in solving most severe conflicts. U.S. bombings in North Korean and Cambodia killed a large part of the areas’ populations and led to inhumane dictatorships. Later interventions in Central America, Somalia, and Yemen appeared to have worsened and/or prolonged local conflicts. As conflicts in Ukraine developed, Western countries did not support immediate, intense efforts to deal with the situation diplomatically – countries on Russia’s Western border could have declared to be a neutral zones with close economic ties with Russia and Europe.
– While preoccupied with international terrorism, U.S. military actions that killed mainly civilians have been likely to increase the recruitment by foreign extremist organizations. People broadly ignore that Western influences, particularly entertainment that is dangerous to traditional cultural values and encouragement of consumerism, may promote religious fundamentalism and extremism, rather than lead to progress in these cultures. For political reasons and because of their dependence on oil, Western politicians have kept ignoring Saudi Arabia’s role in promoting extremist Muslim teachings.
– Vastly more deaths than terrorist acts by foreigners are caused by irresponsible gun laws: the U.S. has inordinate numbers of suicides, homicides, and accidents that involve fire arms, and there is much ‘home-grown’ terrorism. There is also much domestic violence: thousands, mostly women, are killed every year by family members, intimate partners, and former lovers. Major causes of suicides are not adequately addressed: substance abuse and emotional issues that often lead to abuse-addiction disorders, and severe indebtedness. Regarding suicides, research indicates that if a frequently used ‘fashionable’ means of suicide becomes hard to obtain, suicides drop rather than people seeking other methods of suicide. Additionally, small steps could greatly reduce traffic fatalities.
– The USA has failed to properly address substance abuse disorders and other abuse-addiction problems. Drug-related deaths keep climbing and the demand for drugs along with the U.S.’s irresponsible gun laws are responsible for much of the violence in Latin America. The U.S. needs proper drug abuse prevention that focuses on ethics and meaning in young people’s lives (avoiding existential crises), support of families with serious problems, and more efforts to prevent and treat mental disorders, particularly PTSD. The U.S. needs everywhere readily available drug abuse treatment, including methadone and buprenorphine maintenance, long-term low-intensity residential treatments; and other measures.

Judging catastrophes from a historical perspective, recent problems are significantly less severe than famines, wars and genocides in the past. Homicide rates appear to have declined throughout human history10 although, with the formation of anonymous societies, systematic cruelties increased. Since WWII, crimes have greatly decreased in most countries and most civilizations decreased institutionalized cruelties11. However, this is no reason to minimize the significant remaining violations of human rights, including institutionalized ethics violations; leaders of societies must consider that humans apparently have a natural propensity towards committing ‘crimes against humanity’ and genocidal actions,’ which can easily be fostered12. We also must address new catastrophic developments. In the U.S., mental health issues have been worsening in recent decades; climate instability and global worming moves rapidly towards much more frequent, worse catastrophes and eco-anxiety has become a major problem, mostly in younger people. Even if we do, in many regards, much better than earlier generations, we need to uncompromisingly address current problems and challenges.
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1 The great differences between cultures are not related to people choosing to be cruel or diligent/moral out of free will. However, many thinkers believe that free will is an essential aspect of being human. Goldhagen believes that not seeing people as free agents dehumanizes them, turning them into automatons(Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Worse than War, 2009, p.11). However, it is not free will that distinguishes us from robots (we do not even know whether we have free will), being sentient distinguishes us from automatons.
2 Many strong personalities, including spiritual leaders and humanistic writers, influenced countless individuals; however, institutional changes are needed to solidify progress. Without them, people usually revert to the old ways; this process has repeated itself many times throughout history.
3 Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge, Edward O. Wilson, 1998: chapter 11, Ethics and Religion, p. 238ff.
4 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/29/electric-cars-battery-manufacturing-cobalt-mining
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423730/the-rare-earth-crisis/
5 Particularly religious people may study: Our Endangered Values, by Jimmy Carter, 2005.
6 Compare: Half the Sky , Turning Oppression into Opportunities for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, 2009; A Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, by Jimmy Carter, 2014.
7 Compare: The New York Times, 3/25/2010, Opinion article “The Return of History”, by David Brooks (conservative commentator), addressing the history of modern economics. He relates “In The Wall Street Journal, Russ Roberts of George Mason University wondered why economics is even considered a science. Real sciences make progress. But in economics, old thinkers cycle in and out of fashion. In real sciences, evidence solves problems. Roberts asked his colleagues if they could think of any econometric study so well done that it had definitely settled a dispute. Nobody could think of one.”
8 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/29/electric-cars-battery-manufacturing-cobalt-mininghttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/423730/the-rare-earth-crisis/ .
9 Significant food shortages are predicted. Actually, there still is sizable excess food production, but much nutritious food is used for wasteful meat production, for pet food or processed into fuel for cars. Particularly beef production is extremely inefficient regarding land and water use; rain forests are cut down to produce beef; additionally cows produce much greenhouse gases. In addition, much food spoils while stored and transported and particularly in wealthy countries, much is wasted (compare A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World by Jonathan Foley, National Geographic May/2014, and other sources. There is a vast potential for increased food production, e.g. utilizing hydroponics in areas with limited fresh water, but investments in new technologies appear grossly inadequate (compare Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, 2012,p. 85ff.
10 The Better Angels of Our Nature – Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker, 2011.
11 In many countries there are at best feeble attempts to stop human rights violations and many governments are perpetrators. Human Rights regarding freedom of movement and asylum (article 13 and 14) cannot be realized one country at a time; international agreements are needed. Far too many people, particularly women, fulfill criteria for seeking asylum when living in countries where their basic rights are continuously threatened and violated. A few wealthy states, such as the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, cannot absorb millions of abused and/or malnourished people who wish to move. Additionally, progressive countries have difficulties preventing the continuation of the abuses of girls and women within the immigrant communities.
12 Authors, including D. J. Goldhagen, offer complex explanations for common people’s participation in genocidal actions. The three main reasons are 1. Humans’ (primates’) ready ability to think of individuals outside their own groups as “them” or “others”, i.e. not or no longer deserving consideration, 2. a lack of traditions that effective teach ethics, and 3. humans’ natural fascination with suffering and cruelties, which is associated with positive and often sexual excitement; with desensitization, worse suffering is needed for the rush and excitement (people want to see accidents and crimes and readily participate in sadistic transgressions). People often celebrate murderous and genocidal actions. Truman was reportedly jubilant after the bombing of Hiroshima (Goldhagen, Worse than War, p. 187 and 3.) Even Chimpanzees and certainly early humans sometimes killed others with apparent excitement and seemingly lacking any empathy or compassion. Compare Through a Window, by Jane Goodall, 1990, p.106: After a chimpanzee group split into two, there were systematic attacks against all adults of the smaller group, including old and weak relatives and former friends, male and female. As in human inter-group violence, there was frenzied excitement followed by a seemingly triumphant mood.

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