ChatGPT Conversations: Based on everything you know, what is the highest priority thing to change about earth?
Sheer says – a little bit of explanation. I’m adding to my blog some of my most interesting conversations with ChatGPT as they happen
I asked (as a anonymous user): Based on everything you know, what is the highest priority thing to change about earth?
ChatGPT Responded:
If I had to name **one highest-priority thing**, based on the widest lens possible, it would be this:
**How humans make collective decisions across long time horizons.**
Not a single policy, technology, or moral failing—but the *decision-making system itself*.
### Why this matters most
Nearly every existential or global problem traces back to a mismatch between:
* **Short-term incentives** (profits, elections, status, comfort)
* **Long-term consequences** (climate stability, biodiversity, social trust, technological risk)
Examples:
* Climate change → we know what to do, but incentives reward delay.
* Ecosystem collapse → benefits are immediate, costs are deferred.
* Misinformation → attention beats truth in the short term.
* AI, biotech, nuclear risk → power advances faster than governance.
* Inequality → compounding systems outrun corrective mechanisms.
The issue isn’t ignorance or even malice—it’s that **our institutions evolved for a slower, smaller, less interconnected world**.
### What “changing this” actually means
Not one silver bullet, but a shift in how humanity:
* Values future generations (politically, economically, legally)
* Designs incentives (reward prevention, not just reaction)
* Coordinates globally (problems ignore borders; governance doesn’t)
* Measures success (beyond GDP, clicks, or quarterly growth)
* Builds wisdom alongside power
If decision systems improved, *many other problems become tractable*:
* Climate action becomes rational
* Technology becomes safer by default
* Cooperation outcompetes zero-sum behavior
* Trust becomes a strategic advantage
### A simpler way to say it
> **Earth’s biggest problem is that we are using Stone Age instincts, medieval institutions, and god-like technology at the same time.**
Fixing that alignment outranks any single environmental, political, or technological issue—because it determines whether we can solve the rest.