Simon Anholt - Collaboration vs. Competition

/

Today, leaders must realise that they're responsible not only for their own people, but for every man, woman, child and animal on the planet; not just responsible for their own slice of territory, but for every square inch of the earth's surface and the atmosphere above it. 

In our opinion, any leader who isn't prepared for this level of responsibility shouldn't be leading. And we will do whatever we can to help the world's leaders move to the Dual Mandate, and to help citizens support them as they do so. 

One day soon, the casual nationalism that characterises almost all political and economic discussions will seem as outdated and offensive as sexism and racism do today. 

The Dual Mandate

This is a great idea, but like in my last post complex questions arise, like how do you measure "good"? In the interview below, some of these questions are being asked and the way Simon Anholt responds makes his good intentions visible as well as the problems of the Good Country Index.

I love that what he wants is a discussion about this. That's directional utopian dreaming and being open about it. Open about not being sure how that will evolve or should. There's a problem and something needs to be done about it. So why not start by discussing it and listening to as many and diverse voices as possible? Check our presumptions and prejudices?
Yes, that is going to be messy. 

Especially because data is so difficult, the ways it can be read. Still everybody wants to use it and it looks so unbiased, even though human beings (who are not) need to make sense out of it. We have much more data and measuring than we ever had. It should be good for something, useful in shaping solutions, but it's a mess. I wonder for example how Ulrike Guéro thinks about this, because her utopian dream of a Europe without borders and equal rights for all, would need a lot of communication and measuring to make Europeans able to make informed votes on their collective well-being. It's a fascinating topic, and if you have any links about people trying to figure this out, please let me know.

IN THE IMAGE OF GOOD? Ft. Simon Anholt, Founder of the Good Country Index

Making the world a better place has been part of international discourse for generations, used both to save lives and to launch wars. At a time when do-gooding and humanitarian interventions have acquired mostly negative connotations, what does it mean to be a good global citizen?

I am writing a post about Ulrike Guérot and her wonderful utopian new book, will link to it as soon as it's up.

Update - interesting article I read today about Data:

"Europe was awash in the first wave of “big data” in history. As nations started developing large-scale bureaucracies and militaries in the early 19th century, they began tabulating and publishing huge amounts of data about their citizenry, such as the number of births and deaths each month, the number of criminals incarcerated each year, and the number of incidences of disease in each city. This was the inception of modern data collection, but nobody knew how to usefully interpret this hodgepodge of numbers. "