Why is technocratic exponential utopia naive about solving our complex web of self-inflicted wicked problems?
Rick Botelho
Unite Equity Muses | Ask ethical questions about co-designing a fair-free-flourishing future
Equity has a multitude of meanings. Here, equity refers to fairness: fair rules, fair play and fair opportunities for all.
Enjoy equity musing if you can find the time for slow thinking and for responding to Big Hairy Audacious Question (#BHAQ) about fairness. The aim of #BHAQ is to evoke deep collaborative learning about how we can do good for the commons and the common good: an inner space journey of opening, inspiring and aligning our mindsets for the greater good.
This mindfulness journey is about awakening our unawareness of our unawareness by amplifying the light of virtues, illuminating the flaws of our shadows and ameliorating the vices of our dark sides.
If curious about the power of evocative questioning, consider subscribing to this newsletter to embark on this mindset learning journey together.
The limits of technology
Our complex web of self-inflicted wicked problems in the 21st century is a manifestation of, and interdependent with our failures to address the dysfunctional relationships between virtues and values.
Technocracy and artificial intelligence (AI) are intrinsically amoral, but they can be equally used for moral and immoral purposes. Technocracy can enable or disable human endeavors to solve or exacerbate our wicked problems. AI alone cannot address the ethical challenges of solving our political, social and human dilemmas.
Exponential technology and mindsets are values and not virtues. This triple-edged sword can be used for moral, amoral and immoral purposes: the good, the bad and ugly. Tri-polarity stewardship involves amplifying virtues, rectifying flaws and ameliorating vices.
"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world, that is the myth of the atomic (technological) age, as in being able to remake ourselves."
The hype of exponential technocratic utopia creates hyper-marketing bubbles full of endless possibilities and optimism for transformational innovation and entrepreneurship. Wow! These developments are fascinating, amazing and boundary-busting initiatives. So cool and seductive that we risk losing sight out of both our humanity and inhumanity.
Passionate hubris clouds perceptions, impairs discernment and suspends critical faculties in addressing the ethical and human dimensions of solving our complex web of self-inflicted wicked problems.
This aspirational exuberance of exponential mindsets is insufficient for solving our wicked problems. The top contenders include: unethical governance, inept stewardship, incompetent leadership, rampant political corruption, linear extractive economies based on neoliberalism, truth decay, propaganda machines, ineffective legal systems, the injustices of isms, unfair advantages and inequities, poverty, human rights abuses, global warming, environment degradation, rapid declines in biodiversity and planetary demise. Not a pretty picture.
Unlike exponential technology, our educational and religious systems are not designed to exponentially overcome our personal limitations (such as our lack of self-awareness, virtues and sovereignty) and redress the personality flaws (megalomania, narcissism, sociopathy and authoritarianism) that perpetrate and perpetuate our self-inflicted wicked problems.
The challenge of opening mindsets
Equity muses pose #BHAQ to explore what prevents us from doing good and what might open, inspire and align our mindsets to do good. The opposite sides of the same coin serve the commons and the common good.
The greatest threat to humanity and the health of the planet is our closed mindedness. Our closed mindsets pose the greatest security risks and threats to ourselves and to others. Furthermore, we are not developing the resilience nor anti-fragility abilities to prevent, adapt and mitigate against the traumas arising from these risks and threats.
Recommended by LinkedIn
How might we:
#BHAQ raise the educational challenges of how we can create synergies between exponential technology and collaborative learning to generate the transformational network power needed to launch #EquityMoonshot.
How can we develop and scale up the use of intergenerational learning platforms and the meta-verse to:
Mindsets as complexity phenomena
Mindsets are dynamic, multi-dimensional states influenced by dispositional traits and contextual factors. Mindset states arise from complex interactional effects of attitudes, virtues, values, beliefs, perceptions, prejudices, explicit and implicit biases, patterns of thinking and emotionality. The list below provides a dynamic continuum of state characteristics.
Psychological continuums of intra-personal dynamics
Ethical and political continuums of inter-personal dynamics
The internal dynamics of our mindsets states set up our behavioral responses and influence our interactions with others without our awareness. The unawareness of these internal dynamics creates enormous marketing opportunities for mindset manipulation. Political tyrants, autocrats, patriarchs, corrupt leaders, religious leaders, sage-on-the-stage gurus, mansplaining mavericks and cult personalities exploit people's vulnerabilities and manipulate their mindsets for a variety of moral, amoral and immoral purposes.
The rate-determining step in the mass manipulation of mindsets is the "unawareness of unawareness" that prevents people becoming open-minded, truth-seeking free thinkers together. We have yet to develop learning systems that empower people to embark on intergenerational lifelong learning journeys of developing self-awareness, virtues and sovereignty.
Unleash the power of equity musing
Enjoy musing over equity, freedom and human rights if you have the time for slow thinking, deep learning and generative dialogues in community together.
"Healing Healthcare so Healthcare can Heal" • Family Physician • Physician Coach
2yUnawareness of our unawareness is the greatest threat to progress. When we become aware of something in society that conflicts with our values, are we also aware of our human tendency to patronize those who are seemingly not as aware as we are in that moment?