Abstract
Faced with climate change, financial, economic and spending crisis, mass migration, terrorism, wars and cyber threats, it appears we are very close to global emergency. Given this state of affairs, we are running out of time to fix the problems of our planet. Here, we present what should be decided during the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2017 and a reflexive preamble.
A spiced-up version of this chapter by Dirk Helbing was published as FuturICT Blog on July 31, 2017, under the URL http://futurict.blogspot.ch/2017/07/to-elites-of-world.html. Most of the blog appeared as a series of seven opinion pieces in The Globalist in August 2017 (reprinted here with permission). The first piece is accessible under the URL https://www.theglobalist.com/population-environment-technology-society-climate-change-disaster/; the other links can be found right there.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Report on the Wilton Park Event “Disrupting cities through technology”, see https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WP1449-Report.pdf
- 2.
D. Helbing, The Automation of Society Is Next: How to Survive the Digital Revolution (CreateSpace, 2015).
- 3.
This new form of globalisation may be called “glocalisation”: the principle would be to think global, but act local (and diverse), experiment, and learn from each other.
- 4.
Potentially together with a basic income. Both would be perfectly compatible with most constitutions, as long as currently existing property would not be taken away.
- 5.
This would not necessarily have to be realized through inflation as we know it today. A decaying value could also be produced by giving each amount of money a specific “creation date” and defining a value that depends on its “age”. It would now be possible to create electronic coins and paper bills that have such a feature built in.
- 6.
Nor should it be invested into family members—with the exception of publicly approved cases, where these people depend on the help of others for health reasons; investments into the same person or project shall also be limited to restrict undesirable kickback deals.
- 7.
We have currently a similar time-limited protection for patents, so this approach would be compatible with already existing legal principles.
- 8.
This ecosystem approach is inspired by the rain forest, where it’s the dropping of leaves after some time, which creates humus and, thereby, the basis of abundance and diversity. Note that the biggest trees grow in rain forests.
- 9.
Resilience, i.e. the ability to quickly recover from shocks and successfully respond to unexpected developments, requires, in particular, a sufficient degree of decentralization and diversity.
- 10.
The subsidiarity principle assumes a multi-level organization and demands that something should be decided on the lowest level possible, if reasonably efficient, and on a higher level only if necessary. This principle allows for individually, locally, and culturally fitting solutions, which enable everyone to unfold their talents. “Economies of scale” may not be a sufficient reason to replace regional diversity by standardized products and solutions. Pluralism and diversity are the basis of innovation, societal resilience, and collective intelligence. Hence, they must be sufficiently protected from over-standardization and the control by too few companies, institutions, or people.
- 11.
To create the desired multi-dimensionality, exchange between the various currencies will have to be discouraged by introducing a suitable amount of “friction” (such as conversion taxes).
- 12.
Analogous to the principle “Parents are liable for their children”.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Helbing, D. (2019). To the Elites of the World: Time to Act. In: Helbing, D. (eds) Towards Digital Enlightenment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90869-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90869-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90868-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90869-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)