Global Risk Report

Recently, the World Economic Forum has released the Global Risk Report 2015, which highlights the most significant global issues that we're going to face this year(click here to read the report). This is a very comprehensive report, listing all of the problems that the world is facing, the reasons behind them, possible future solutions, while also ranking them in terms of impact and likelihood. Here's a graph of the 28 global issues that are considered the most significant in 2015, in terms of impact and likelihood:

Let's talk a bit about this graph. Interstate conflict seems to be the most likely risk to happen, and its impact is one of the highest, too. But what is interstate conflict? Simple, it's a conflict that happens between states/countries. The war of the U.S and its allies against ISIS is an interstate conflict. Sanctions that the U.S give to Russia because of events that have happened in Ukraine is another interstate conflict. Interstate conflicts has becoming more and more frequent nowadays, and their impact is becoming greater. In fact, "Having not featured prominently in previous editions of the report, interstate conflict is this year considered the most likely high-impact risk over the next 10 years, or indeed perhaps even sooner." (Global Risk Report 2015) It seems that if nothing is done to prevent interstate conflict, then the future that we're heading toward at is going to be a bloody one.

Things does not look good this year.

But interstate conflict is not the only risk that we should be worried about. Climate change is also an important one that can affect the entire Earth's population, which includes humans, animals (although technically, human is an animal species), and plants. Climate change can affect the way weather works, which can make extreme weather events happen more frequently, and food production suffer as the result.

 "...weather extremes in food-producing regions are already causing price increases and suggests that the impact of climate change on weather patterns and rainfall – causing either floods or droughts – could cut crop yields by up to 25%." (Global Risk Report 2015)

Climate change can also affect the behavior of animals and plants. Already we are seeing animals appeared in regions far away from their usual territories, forests caught on fire, ecosystems got destroyed. Heck, polar bears have been found on floating ice blocks, not knowing where to go because their homes have melted. And who cause all of this? Most likely: humans. Human activities for the past 250 years have been destroying the planet faster and faster everyday. 

Take pollution for example, the current level of atmospheric concentration of three major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at their highest in 800,000 years. As the result, heat from the sun is trapped on Earth due to these gases, which makes the world hotter. Heat waves in India have already claimed more than 2500 lives in just a month. Some regions have reached a temperature close to 48 degree Celcius (that's 118 degree Fahrenheit!) But somehow, there's still politicians who claimed that global warming isn't real. (I'm looking at you, James Inhofe). With a situation as severe as it is now, actions are needed to be make in order to prevent the environment and everything in it from being destroy, by us.

So far, we've talked about political risks and environmental risks. But what about economical risks? The economy is a very complex and delicate structure that connect many aspects of society together. Since there are so many things connected to each other, an error might cause a failure to a huge sector of the system, or even the system itself if the error is big enough. And with a structure as complex as the economy, it's hard to maintain it from collapsing.

And finally, one of the newer issues in our list, cyber crime is becoming more and more of a serious issue. With technology surrounding us 24/7, we are constantly vulnerable against cyber attacks. Whether we're working or sleeping or watching tv, there's always a risk that someone's going to hack into your computer to steal your private information like your bank account, your social id, etc. With just a bit of knowledge about hacking, almost anyone can steal information away from you. But information and identity aren't the only thing you need to be worry losing. Many cars nowadays have control systems to operate the car. The danger part is that you can gain access to the control system remotely. That means that hackers can lock you in your car and wait until you're suffocated, or drive your car straight into other vehicles on the road, or simply throw you of the bridge into the river. Cyber crime has never been more dangerous. And with technology becoming more and more advance, cyber crime can grow even larger and more lethal in the future.

Finally, here's a graph showing the risks that each region in the world is less prepare for. Hopefully, this blog has helped you learn a bit more about what we're going to face in 2015.

Sources:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2015/#read
Global risk infographics:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2015/top-10-infographics/
Interstate conflict:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2015/part-1-global-risks-2015/growing-worries-about-conflict/
Environmental risk:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2015/part-1-global-risks-2015/environment-high-concern-little-progress/

Motivation

Everything that you do in life requires motivation. Reading a book takes motivation, taking a bath takes motivation, wake up early in the morning to go to school takes a huge motivation, writing this blog takes motivation. For each and every tasks that a person does each day, there's usually a reason behind that makes the person does it, whether he likes it or not.

But that's not all what motivation can do. People who have something that strongly motivates them are more likely to success in what they do or to achieve their dreams, even though they might face many challenges along the way. So what motivates people, and how can we use them to solve world issues? That's what I'll be taking about today.

When it comes to the subject of human motivation, there have been dozens of theories trying to explain it, classify it, and rank it. In this vast pool of knowledge and predictions, two theories shine and become well-known in the field of human psychology: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Aristotle's Seven Causes of Human Action.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, developed by Abraham Maslow in 1943, describe the 5 levels of human needs: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. He believes that everyone is motivated to reach the top, however only a few made it. This is because if you want to reach higher levels, you have to satisfy the lower ones first. It can then be derive from his research that the reason human are motivated to do something is to satisfy a certain level of needs so they can move on to the next one.

Aristotle's Seven Causes of Human Action, developed by Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, said that all actions are due "...either to emotion or reason and that we seek pleasant things and act to reduce pain." (changingminds.org) In his theory, the seven causes that result in all human actions are: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire. These seven causes have many practical usages in many aspects of our life. From marketing, philosophy, to psychology and psychiatry, Aristotle's Seven Causes of Human Action helps us understand the motivation behind human actions.

How can we use these theories to solve world problems? Let's take pollution as an example. In my country, everyone litters because there's no reason why they shouldn't. Even though most people know that pollution is bad for the environment, there's no signs or indications that it's directly affecting their lives. Therefore, they don't have any motivation to stop littering. Companies released waste into rivers because it costs a lot to have those waste treated properly. In a business perspective, it's financially more benefit to just dump trash into the water. There's no motivation for companies to recycle or build waste processors (I think that's what it called). So if we find a way to help people see that protecting the environment from pollution is directly benefit to their lives, then we can help make the world a cleaner place.

It's kind of sad to know this is how we treat Earth

Polluting our source of water? What's wrong with people?

Same thing is happening to water shortage. Since many of us get access to water so easily, we don't generally think that we should save water. What we didn't know is that 783 million people in the world don't have access to clean water. But since that doesn't affect our life or is one of our needs, we simply don't care. If we can get people to realize the potential benefit in saving water (save water = save money), then we can slowly, but surely stop shortage of clean water around the world.

While we waste water in our every task,

These girls have to walk for miles just to get 1 bucket of water

People aren't the only ones lacking motivation in solving world problems. Leaders of governments around the world, according to Global Risk 2015, procrastinates and act very slowly when it comes to finding a way to solve problems in the world economy. This is partly because world economy is very complex, therefore when you're trying to solve a problem, you have to be careful not to create 15 more of them. So maybe hardness is the real problem behind the sluggish behaviors of our leaders. Or maybe the reason is because they aren't passionate about making their country a better place but instead trying to help themselves gain more power. If this was true, then it would explain why a leader who is passionate about achieving his goal (like Martin Luther King) is more likely to success than those who only say that they are.If our educational system can improve so that every single citizen is motivated to help their country become a better place, then maybe we'll get better world leaders, therefore world problems can be solve.

Motivation is a strong tool that can help a man achieve the impossible. Therefore, no matter how great or difficult a task is awaiting for you in the future, just remember that if you're motivated to face it, you'll be more likely to achieve success.

Is "giving" all we have?

So recently, my teacher showed me this video and asked me to write a blog about it. This is one of those "inspirational" and "philosophical" video about life so if this is not your thing then you can just skip this blog.

To be honest, this video confused the heck out of me. However, I'll try my best to interpret what this video is about and, hopefully, give you my opinions about the subject.

In the beginning, the video talks about how the world is "fragmented" and "full of distractions", that we're always so busy thinking about what we're going to do that we choose to ignored everything else. Then the author says that we are focusing too much on the external world and not the internal one. What does that mean? Is the author saying that all the stresses and distractions of our daily life are the things that prevent us from journey into the internal world? That would make sense since with all of the issues and distractions that we worry about everyday (issues such as work, school, social expectations,etc. and distractions such as the Internet, TV, games,etc.), we don't have time to discover who we are or socialize with anyone anymore.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone would ask you something about yourselves and your respond was "I don't know!" This kind of situation has becoming more and more frequent in teenagers, who spent most of their free time either on their phones or computers. The result is that many teens don't know what they want to become when they grow up, some aren't even sure what their hobbies and interests are (like yours truly). In the beginning of the year, seniors at my school were asked by the school counselor about what major they're going to choose for college, and about half of them didn't even decide yet. It seems that with all of the distractions and problems that are surrounding us, our life has become a repetitive cycle of working-frittering. If people aren't working, they're most likely to use their technologies. People just don't socialize like they used to anymore. Like the author said, "...we are alienating from each other..."

The second topic that the author discussed about is the fact that westerners value rational thinking more than meditative thinking. What that means is, westerners choose to believe logic and rational thoughts over guts and feelings. You might be asking "How is this a problem?" Well, like the author said, "language is incapable of  portraying reality." This means that mathematical equations, research documents, science experiments, etc., they are just "maps" showing us what reality looks like, they aren't reality itself.

This kind of thinking, however, is useless in carrying out practical affairs. But the author uses this way of thinking to show us that nature is a field with stuffs in it that influence each other. He believes that it doesn't know or doesn't care about what it made up of, how can it do what it does, why it do what it does, or anything relating to that subject, it just do what it normally do. This "attitude" of nature is something the author called a "flow of energy", an "...urge of nature wanting to be free." (This is some serious hippie stuffs right here, not that there's anything wrong with being a hippie.)

This "flow of energy", according to the author, should be allowed to flow freely and not stopped. The author believes that blockage of this "flow of energy" is the reason why we aren't happy, that if we "...undo ourselves from all physical, emotional, mental, spiritual blockages and social expectations to let room for this flow of energy to run through us...", our purpose in life will unfolds through what we give to the world.

This idea seems pretty good to me. However, there's something about his video that I don't agree on. It's the fact that he claims companies that protect their companies with copy rights are blocking nature's "flow of energy", that they're trying to fight nature!? The author praised the millions of people in the world who are giving out their knowledge, talents, love and compassion for free. But something like that can't be apply to companies because their goal is to make money. How can a company make money if they give out their products for free? Or let others steal their intellectual property? I know the author means well when he said we have to give things to the world to realize our purpose, but is it so wrong to protect your work? The title of this video might be "giving is all we have", but this makes me believe that it should be "we should give out things for free". Trust me, almost nothing in this world is "free".

Overall, this is a very interesting video with a lot of meaningful messages. This blog is just to show you how I feel about this video, so feel free to show me what you think about the video in the comments.