There’s only one thing in the world that always makes things better: that is more information.
Here is a famous graph:
I wouldn’t show you this graph, except I met a girl this morning who, I swear, had never heard of just going in the men’s when the women’s was closed. This is a reminder that not everyone knows the things we know. Pretty much no matter what, new people being born all the time.
Depending on what people have told you, you might know what this graph shows: the end of humanity.
Depending on what people have told you, you might even know the punchline, shown here, on this other graph, that we live on the far right side of:
The world does not spin around the sun in a circle, then; it spirals, rather, up, as we add and mine and add and add, costlessly, information; perhaps the only unlimited resource; perhaps the only one that is always a good; perhaps the only one that is always free to give.*
Buddha is quoted as saying that the cause of all suffering of ignorance. Applying some logic, we can say that to remove the cause of a thing is to eliminate its occurring again, and then, that the end of all suffering is information–correct information, known to the right decision-maker, at the right time.
This sounds like it could be a advertisement for a smartphone, but it is in fact something a little bit larger.
As we see now that the rock Sisyphus pushes is just this: the combined and distributed knowledge of the population of the world. Which does not roll all the way back down the hill, as long as we keep the lights on.
As someone told me, “Yeah, I guess if you were a pacifist, that is how you’d have to change things.”
Shoutout to Econ 101.