"Lots of people have talked about taking that step into the unknown.
Taking that step into the unknown is actually a lot less courageous
than taking a step from the unknown."
...
"If you don't take it out into
the world,
you didn't get it in the first place."
...
"I'm inspired to write a new essay - it will differentiate between
what we are known for doing, and who we are known for being."
I am indebted to my daughter
Alexandra Lindsey Platt
Doyle
who inspired this conversation, and to Paige Rose PhD who contributed
material.
Be a hero. Not the old kind of hero who privately builds a
submersible and goes to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the ocean's
deepest point (it's 7 miles down). Not the old kind of hero who
privately builds a rocket to get people to Mars to colonize the "red"
planet.
Be a new kind of hero.
End world hunger.
Estimates of the cost of
ending world hunger
range from $7 billion to $36 billion a year. To emphasize an
inconvenient
truth, let's investigate only the lower figure. $7 billion provides the
42 million people facing famine with one life-saving
nutrition-packed meal a day for an entire year. One meal costs the UN
World Food Program as little as 43¢ x 42 million people x 365 days
a year = $6.6 billion ie a $7 billion ante covers it with $400 million
to spare.
[source:
oxfam]
Oh, but wait: isn't $7 billion an impossible amount of
money? Actually no, it's not. In the light of the following two facts,
it's chump change, chickenfeed.
One, over only the past two years, the top 1% of
the world's
richest people
have raked in nearly twice as much newwealth
as the rest of
the entire planetcombined, their fortune soaring by $26 trillion
while the others (the impoverished-by-comparison bottom 99%) saw a
return of only $16 trillion.
[source:
oxfam]
Two, a tax of less than 5% on
the world's
multi-millionaires and billionaires raises $1.7 trillion a year, a
smidgen of which amply covers the $7 billion tab for
ending world hunger,
and the remainder of which easily lifts 2 billion people out of
poverty, funds all shortfalls on existing
humanitarian
appeals, supports poorer countries being ravaged by climate impacts,
and delivers universal healthcare / social protection for everyone
living in poorer countries.
[source:
oxfam]
A knee-jerk spring-loaded rubber-band response (which translates to "a
not clearly or fully thought through response") to either or both of
those two facts, is "Oh, soak
the rich
again, is it?". Actually no, it's not - not unless you regard the tax
that goeswith (as
Alan Watts
may have said) renewing your vehicle registration to pay for road
maintenance / repair, as "soak the motorist". Here's the truth: once
you've got your first $1 billion stashed under your mattress, paying
the grocery bill is no longer a problem. A less than 5% tax to pay for
ending world hunger
is like a tax to fill potholes: everyone is better off for
it.
The old kind of hero, the one who builds a submersible and goes to the
bottom of the Mariana Trench, or the one who builds a rocket to get
people to Mars to colonize the place, will long be acknowledged for
their doing. The new kind of heroes ("Heroes II" - if you will),
the ones who invent the possibility of
ending world hunger
and then turn that possibility into reality (and we all now know it's
not even that hard to do) will long be acknowledged for their
being.
