Breaking Our Cultures Addiction to Conflict

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

this is a story

about the end of the world for thousands

of years

cultures and religions have told us the

end was coming

and we’re still predicting it but now

joined by

apocalyptic based news and entertainment

industries that

increasingly profit by showing us all

the ways the world will end

through movies and television books

and video games or just by showing us

what’s happening in the real world

now for over 20 years i’ve investigated

human trafficking across the globe and

in that time

and collaborating with others we found

an enormous amount of child abuse images

on facebook now think of it for the

first time in history

pedophiles didn’t need to hide what they

were doing

across language barriers across borders

across the world these people were

gathering

on facebook validating each other

enabling each other and trading images

and videos of children

being attacked which is all a form of

human trafficking

now in reporting all this to law

enforcement

i had a front row seat and because of

this work

i’ve seen the end of the world for

thousands of children

through images of destroyed lives

images that i have to live with so

i decided to do something because i

think the end of the world

especially the world of children is

really something we should avoid

so whether through theological forecasts

from long ago

or through the new religions of

electronic entertainment

we’ve taken the stories of the end of

the world and gobbled them up

like a chocolate eclair and in the past

70 years or so for the first time

we can make it happen we don’t need a

deity

we don’t need aliens or another comet

with nuclear or bioweapons the choice

to end the world is ours and like never

before

this armageddon option is on the table

as a viable

solution to resolving conflict

imagine how living in that

shadow of death has made all our other

conflicts pale in comparison

imagine what that has done to our

humanity to our global village

of ideas and innovation with the world

ending

why should we seek resolution why should

we cooperate with each other why should

we

collaborate or compromise or show

compassion

if it weren’t for a few glimmers of hope

it seems we’ve simply given up and

turned our backs on the better

angels of our nature it’s clear we live

in a culture of conflict led by the

adversarial industrial complex

that profits from a violent culture that

no longer seeks solutions to the

enormous challenges facing us this new

industry

built on all forms of conflict seeks to

continually increase the shouting

the fighting and the arguing it’s a

cacophony

of conflict that gets higher ratings and

more votes

makes more money creates more followers

and most of all

makes us feel really good when we get

into an endless argument on social media

and that’s when we completely lose our

motivation

for coming to agreement

through every form of communication the

adversarial industrial complex produces

bitter conflict at higher levels all the

time with no end

it’s like an addiction and we the

addicts

always need a bigger dose to feel

satisfied

these cultural conglomerates are always

there

like our eager dealers doling out

stronger fix

every hour of the day and like the

global heroin supply

the conflict drug is more addictive

today than ever before

but conflict is a corruption of ideas

it pollutes the imagination it bypasses

kindness

igniting flames of hatred and tolerance

and violence

within seconds of experiencing conflict

the

stress it brings releases adrenaline and

cortisol into your body

as if you were actually in danger this

isn’t new

it’s mostly a defense mechanism and

survival mechanism

we evolved in conflict and fear and in a

survival mode

until only recently we had to spend

every moment

of every day thinking about survival

finding enough food

finding shelter avoiding getting eaten

by something

or attacked by other humans for

thousands of years as our brains

developed

we became wired for a lifelong fight for

survival

now is it possible that we still have

our ancestors mode of thinking lurking

within us

that we’re still expecting those life or

death conflicts every day

that we think we need to keep running

even though nothing’s chasing us

the question is are we stuck here

in this addiction to conflict

so we started reporting these abusive

images

of children on facebook directly to law

enforcement

and there were thousands of them

facebook didn’t like that they told me i

should report the images directly to

them and only to them

now these images were clearly criminal

so i asked facebook what other crimes

exist

that should be reported to a corporation

instead of

to law enforcement now of course there

aren’t any

and that is when facebook stopped

talking to me completely

now i had never been in a conflict like

this before

it was just me my computer

no money against one of the world’s

largest most influential tech companies

and after fighting them for about a year

with no chance of winning

a very wise mentor of mine suggested

that i

step away from the conflict because he

said conflict was just one

option why not try compelling

facebook to change now i didn’t even

know what that meant

because i wanted to fight and i wanted

it to get nasty

the the darkest motives of human nature

inevitably seep into our lives they

remain

woven throughout our delicate fabric

of this vulnerable planetary community

advanced science communications

government cooperation

and commerce have unintentionally

conspired and providing us with the

sense that

we have moved beyond chapters filled

with senseless violence

especially violence against children the

no matter how civilized evolved or

advanced we become hatred peers in our

windows

the story of humanity is filled with men

who come

in the night ending the world for

mothers

fathers and children the killers of

dreams exist in all generations

it’s one of our constants in roughly the

past century

the same human endeavors that carried us

to new levels of knowledge comprehension

and understanding

also gave evil the diabolical tools to

destroy

millions of lives at a whim

higher levels of technology don’t equate

to higher levels of wisdom or

benevolence

only to higher levels of ability both

wondrous

and insane much of our current

addiction to conflict is played out

through our own

personal worldview our politics

and the harsh reality is that we’re now

behaving more like politics

than like ourselves ezra klein author of

the book

why we’re polarized says we’re

so locked into our political identities

that there’s virtually no candidate

no information no condition that can

force us to change our minds

we will justify almost anything or

anyone

so long as it helps our side and the

result

is a politics devoid of guardrails

standards

persuasion or accountability so this

is identity politics at its most

powerful and divisive

and it crosses over to identity media

identity entertainment identity religion

and our virtual

identity on social media and isn’t

online conflict the absolute easiest

it has no consequences not many of us

would take some of the harsh things we

say

and post online and say them to someone

in person our culture of conflict

glorifies the act

of destroying the very people whose

cooperation we need

the act of calling for reconciliation

conflict resolution problem solving and

collaboration

has become an absurdity we label those

who

compromise in order to find the best

solutions as weak

and as traders if they don’t agree with

us

a hundred percent all the time then they

are the enemy and the cause of all our

problems

no matter what they say or do no matter

what solutions

they may bring none of it matters the

only acceptable solution

is their eradication but all this

doesn’t mean

that we’re stuck in one position ezra

klein asks

aren’t we better than this we have the

freedom to choose don’t we

we can go in any direction we want and

to make every choice

out of compassion instead of conflict

so in time i put aside the idea of

fighting facebook

and search for something that would

compel them to take action

and get rid of child abuse on their site

so to protect these children

i decided to imagine compassion

and in that imagining i began to think

of the children first

the children in danger i imagine giving

them a voice

and telling their stories of how they

see the world

my conflict with facebook became a

campaign

led by compassion for children and that

made all the difference

by leading with compassion i realized i

needed to build an alliance with other

people

who may not agree with me on everything

but who cared about saving children

this idea would use technology and a

message of compassion

to rally people from around the world

and compel facebook to shield these kids

from predators after reporting my

findings on causes.com

i very quickly gained a hundred thousand

followers

then half a million and eventually to

this point

where we now have over one and a half

million people

in over a hundred countries demanding

that facebook protect children

with over four hundred thousand

signatures on a petition to mark

zuckerberg

now with that facebook has implemented

new software and ai tools to locate and

remove these images

they’ve hired thousands of moderators to

scour postings and reports

probably the worst and most

psychologically damaging job in

all the tech sector and they now have

facebook liaisons with local law

enforcement

in offices around the world they also

established a way for law enforcement to

quickly gain access to information when

a child is in danger or suspected of

being exploited

now this isn’t to say that facebook has

solved the problem they haven’t there’s

much more

that can be done but they’ve started

because we compelled them to start

now on the momentum of what we did with

facebook

i wanted to address another injustice

escort advertisements in the tribune

companies

advocate newspapers in connecticut were

proven by the u.s department of justice

to be selling human trafficking victims

owned by the united states oldest

newspaper these ads ran

openly for decades and were a huge

source of income for the publishers

for five years i argued with them to end

these ads

i even showed them similar ads that they

had run

announcing awards for the return of

runaway slaves over two centuries ago

both ads promoting slavery the

publishers wouldn’t budge

again it wasn’t a fight i could win i

had to imagine a different way

one that led with compassion for those

being sold for sex in the 21st century

so i approached some of our lawmakers

and explained

the problem in the context of human

rights

i wrote legislation that would make the

publishers accountable

if young people were found to be

advertised in these listings

it was a team effort it took a lot of

work but

my idea eventually became law and one

week

after the law went into effect the paper

stopped running the ads

and within a year the paper sees

publication altogether

now imagine this there are ways to win

without fighting

without conflict in every moment

there’s the possibility of a better

future but we get caught up

and we won’t do what’s necessary to make

it a reality

because the future doesn’t ask anything

of us today

so i’m going to ask you in a moment

close your eyes for just five seconds

and imagine i’ve handed you

a magic wand and when you do that

imagine you could take your magic wand

and change just one thing in the world

what would it be just five seconds

imagine the first thing that comes to

mind now

now whatever that was for you remember

how important it is

because you can make it happen and in

moments of conflict

imagine compassion delete conflict in

your life

and you’ll delete it in the world we

live

in a continually evolving era in which

everyone can be heard

and make an extraordinary change if they

build collaboration

with anyone who wants to help don’t

conflict or compete

just compel with compassion and adopt a

philosophy of no drama

because whether or not you believe that

everyone has a right to live their life

the way they want to

they are going to so don’t waste your

energy on circumstances that are beyond

your control

stand up and take action because if you

don’t

how will you feel in 10 years

how will you explain doing nothing to

your children

to their children or to yourself

we can’t continue to live under these

morbid dictates

or be defined by those who seek to end

all the possibilities of today

or the promises of tomorrow instead

we can reject the fear and hatred of our

enemies

in the face of all threats you have the

opportunity to engage with activists on

the ground level

and become an activist whatever that

means to you all on your own

we need the change you will bring to the

world

so you have a decision to make give into

the fear

and malevolence thrust upon you or

devote yourself to compassion

we break our culture’s addiction to

conflict by rejecting it

and healing our individual addiction to

it

so let’s step out of the fray and for a

moment

imagine compassion because it’s not the

end of the world

thank you

you