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Happy 2025: Let’s Light a Lamp of Hope and Begin the Race to Bring Heaven Down to Earth for All

Being Human for a Better Tomorrow in the Age of AI
  • December 20, 2024
  • 28th edition
  • 17th in Vol 2
Happy 2025 Let s Light a Lamp of Hope and Begin the Race to Bring Heaven Down to Earth for All

The previous edition of Mindvista was all about 2024, how was it for you? Put forth some thoughts to celebrate, reflect, and ace the future.

However, the future involves stakeholders beyond you and me, friends, and family. It is about the next generations and the larger humanity and its betterment.

There are great reasons to be future positive:

  • Materially, more humans have a better quality of life now than at any time in history.
  • Technology enables us to win battles like never before, be it in medicine, energy, transportation, education, and with beneficial AI, genuine breakthroughs are on the horizon this decade.
  • As people, we are all connected 24/7 thanks to media, content, technology, and social networks.
However, we are far from an ideal world. Every person, community, region, institution, and nation is challenged by a relentless present and unrest about the future. This inhibits will, attention, and action to solve what are possibly the six deep challenges impacting billions of lives:
  • Healthcare - Under-resourced, inaccessible, and unaffordable for billions.
  • Economic inequality and wealth redistribution - Act and yet do not rob Peter (the wealthy) to fund Paul (benefits).
  • Environment and Energy - Clean food, air, water, and sustainable energy to live healthy.
  • Education and Human Development - Impart not only literacy for living but also skills to excel and cognition to learn and adapt.
  • Institutional Trust and Ethical Governance - Distrust in institutions across political, public, private, and civil sectors is alarming. Leadership failures, employee disengagement, unholy nexus, and lawful but unethical practices have eroded faith that stakeholders with resources care about constituents and consequences.
  • Social Cohesion and Conflict Resolution - We are more connected but also much more divided than ever by war and media. Divisions, be they political, economic, social, racial, gender, national, linguistic, or ethnic, run deep, and conflicts and wars have displaced people increasingly each year.

For both a deeper dive and a lighter take on these serious issues, see Sidebar: Big Challenges and Small Wins.

In past Mindvista editions (20th to 24th), we explored new AI-enabled solutions to address challenges in healthcare and wealth redistribution, and we will explore such ideas for the other challenges in upcoming editions.

We have the ideas, technology, means to resources, and capital if we have leadership and citizen participation for securing the future for all.

Leadership that values public good, purposes actions to the important, builds trust, and shares moral values.

A citizen participation that values conversations over mere connections and active engagement can transform entire societies.

We can be the first generational crossover, where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not only a right but a state of being, universally and for all.

2025 could be the year it all began coming together and begin a new worthy race bring heaven down to earth.

So, as we celebrate the holidays, let’s plan to light a lamp of hope for all.

I hope to do so and see you on the other side.

Happy holidays and Happy 2025 and beyond for all.

Sidebar: Big Challenges and Small Wins

Healthcare
  • Preventable, curable, yet five diseases (diabetes, osteoarthritis/osteoporosis, respiratory, cardiovascular, cancer) alone impact over a billion lives and cause more than 30 million deaths annually.
  • Lack of trust and transparency - no patient in any country has comprehensive data from trusted sources on disease, treatment, outcomes, costs to make informed decisions.
  • Unaffordable - 1 billion people (14% of global population) face catastrophic health spending (>10% of household budget), even in developed countries.
  • Inaccessible healthcare - 4.5 billion people were not fully covered by essential health services.
Also remember, the only thing we should be managing are our expectations for New Year’s resolutions, not just our symptoms.
Economic Inequality
  • The world remains vastly unequal, with extreme wealth coexisting with extreme poverty.
  • The poorest 50% of the global population share just 8% of total income, while the richest 10% earn over 50%.
  • Wealth inequality is even more pronounced, with the wealthiest 10% owning 76% of total global wealth.
  • Inaccessible healthcare - 4.5 billion people were not fully covered by essential health services.
BTW, let’s make wealth distribution so fair that even Monopoly players would approve – but without the ‘Go directly to jail’ part.
Environment and Energy
  • Global crop and economic models project up to a 29% cereal price increase by 2050 due to climate change, potentially putting an additional 183 million people at risk of hunger.
  • Global urban population facing water scarcity is expected to rise from 933 million in 2016 to 1.693–2.373 billion by 2050.
  • Air pollution remains a critical issue with health and economic impacts. The World Bank estimates the cost at $8.1 trillion annually, 6.1% of global GDP.
  • The world faces significant challenges in managing carbon emissions and waste, with over 2 billion tons of municipal solid waste generated annually, projected to increase by 70% by 2050.
Seriously – If we can manage to recycle all the ‘New Year, New Me’ resolutions by January 2nd, imagine what we could do for the planet.
Education
  • Despite progress, 251 million children are still not in school. In low-income countries, 1 in 5 children are out of school.
  • The learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries increased from 57% to an estimated 70% by 2022.
  • This generation could lose $21 trillion in lifetime earnings, equivalent to 17% of today's global GDP. Education accounts for 50% of global economic growth and 70% of income gains among the poorest.
Oh what a wonderful world to be if we can – Let’s educate for a world where the biggest crisis a kid faces is deciding which superpower they’d want, not whether they’ll get to school.
Institutional Trust and Ethical Governance
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer and OECD survey reveal:
  • 44% of people globally have no or low trust in their national government, with only 39% expressing high or moderately high trust.
  • Business is the only trusted institution in 15 of 28 countries surveyed.
  • Government is seen as far less competent and ethical compared to business, with a 52-point gap in competence scores.
Much needed – Trust in institutions should be like trust in a good friend – they might not always have the best advice, but they’ll at least show up with pizza when you’re down.
Social Cohesion and Conflicts
  • According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 69% of American adults believe social media platforms amplify social and political divisions.
  • False information is 70% more likely to be retweeted than factual content.
  • The 2021 Digital Democracy report found misinformation and online hate speech surged by over 70% during political strife.
  • As of May 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people reached 120 million, marking twelve consecutive years of increase.
How I wish – In 2025, let’s be more connected over coffee than in our echo chambers.

II. Questioning / Asking

Good conversations flow from well‑sequenced questions—topical, simple, coherent, cohesive.
LLM Conversation Example 1
Q: What are empirical judgments?

A: Empirical judgments are based on observation, experience, or experimentation.
Q: What are moral judgments?

A: Moral judgments are based on ethical principles and values.
“AI is a language. Treat it like one: practice, iterate, and mind your grammar prompts, assumptions, and verification.”
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