Who will change our society?

Who will bring about these changes in the society? I had earlier written about changes in our society being essential, inevitable and more importantly drivable. Again I had discussed about problems that exist in our society and categorized these into those that can be solved and those cannot be solved. Solving the problems would involve some kind of changes which are ultimately drivable. Now the only missing piece of the puzzle is "Who will bring about these changes that will solve the problems in our society?"

Most of the problems that we look to solve in our society are complex and large because of the simple fact that we are a planet of 6 billion people. Some of these changes that we are looking at are humongous at first glance, for example that of eliminating corruption, and sometimes even look impossible or highly unlikely. By one of the corollaries of the law of diminishing efforts, early contributors to a sufficiently large and lengthy task end up contributing more than later contributors. So people end up being hesitant to take up/contribute towards solving such big problems during the initial phases of such causes.

This has been one of my favorite topics for debate and one for which I get people to debate with very easily. It is easy to find people who look at the size and improbability of these problems and identify them as not worth spending their time and effort on. But they do not realize that it is because of decisions like these that these tasks look improbable and huge. Also for such big problems the actual requirement of efforts might be smaller than the perceived amount of effort required. Another corollary of the law of diminishing efforts states that the amount of perceived amount of effort required decreases non linearly with an increase in the amount of actual effort put in towards such complex and large tasks.

Very few people decide to take up such causes. The numbers are pathetic in the so called educated sections of the society because the amount of risk that such people have to take are very high. A person with a potential to earn millions of dollars in income would stand to lose the opportunity to earn that money if he/she tries to pursue improbable looking objective of solving such complex problems in the society. I believe that there would have been more takers if these problems didn't look so complex in the first place, but that is not to be.

Now it is not a sin or even a definable mistake or act of selfishness on these people's part to not take up causes or not give up prospective careers to work for the good of the society. I believe that everybody is, and should be, free to take up whatever career choices they wish to make in their lives. Besides the society always needs people who will work hard to earn their millions and simultaneously generate value and meet the needs of the society. Also it is plain statistics at work. For every thousand people, you only need a handful, to actively pursue such causes like solving the problems we face in our society, and statistics ensures that for every thousand there would be a few who resonate with such causes.

Now here is my proposition. If we can increase this above percentage of people, then these problems would get solved faster. If we increase the efficiency of these people, these problems would get solved faster. If we increase the resources available for these people for solving these problems, these problems would get solved faster. Doesn't that sound logical?

Ever since I started thinking about this I have been trying to figure out ways to get it to happen. I have been talking to everybody who I think would resonate with such causes about how it can possibly happen. What I have realized is that most people want this to happen but most of these are not willing to put in effort to make it happen. Of the very few who are willing to put in efforts even fewer are willing to take it up as a cause to live for. The consolation is that there would be a lot of supporters for such causes if and when they gather momentum and the perceived required effort drops drastically.

I, for one, have decided that, I am going to invest my life for this cause. Now that I had defined the objective I wanted to find the best possible method that I should take to work towards this objective. Like I mentioned before, if we have more people, infrastructure, technology and resources, then we could achieve these objectives faster. Of these, getting the non-human aspects together is easier than getting the human aspect ready.

If you have money then you can theoretically mobilize the other aspects but for people you have to inspire them and make them buy this vision. If 5 in 1000 is the number that you are looking at, then you have to reach out to 1000 people before you find your 5 people. Also you have to network heavily between these few people to be able to effectively work out strategies and move towards the objective.

The tough part about the vision is that there is little or no money in pursuing it. Only those people who are bold enough to think beyond money, will be able to take it up as a career. Only those who enjoy taking huge, complex and improbable tasks would enjoy such causes. Only those who can die for a cause would achieve it. And it is such people that the society needs to work for such causes. Anybody can do that. It is all a decision and only a decision. A decision that you are going to put efforts towards the cause and that you are going to achieve it. Are you game?