Perhaps it could have been said more tactfully, perhaps not. This is a topic that the intended audience almost always will have far too much investment in for them to be able to approach it with an open mind. Anyone with ideas on how to convey the core concepts in a way that stands a chance of getting through, please let me know.

Have you noticed there is a great deal of unnecessary man made suffering and stupidity going on? Even though for my own mental health I make a point of trying to ignore world events, it is impossible to completely avoid seeing the tragic consequences of too much power and too little wisdom and compassion. The daily news is a litany of suffering. It runs the full spectrum of misdeeds from interpersonal to international.

Should we accept all this suffering as inevitable and beyond our control? If not, what can we do about it?

A natural first response is that great problems require great power to solve them. This is dangerous thinking. Great power creates great problems, but it rarely solves them. ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ is a poorly understood concept. Our human intelligence has allowed us to wield power that would have been inconceivable only a few generations ago, yet our psychological makeup and ability to ‘be responsible’ has not developed at all. Some power is so terrible that it is not even possible to use it responsibly, yet that has not stopped us producing thousands of nuclear weapons or creating horrific biological agents. It is human nature to focus power rather than responsibility.

If great power is not the solution to great problems, what is? Who is it creating these man made problems anyway? How can they be stopped?