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https://fixthenews.com/292-rest-here-weary-doomscroller/?ref=fix-the-news-newsletter>
'Hi everyone, Gus here. I've just come back from the annual TED conference in
Vancouver, where despite everything that's going on, I was reminded that there
are some truly extraordinary people out there moving things forward. I met
Boyan Slat, the founder of the Ocean Cleanup, whose river barriers are
preventing millions of tons of plastic from entering the ocean, Wawira Njiru,
whose organisation Food for Education is feeding over half a million Kenyan
school children every day, and David Fajgenbaum, who is using artificial
intelligence to find existing medicines that work for rare diseases.
In my conversations with all three of them, I was struck by their common
humility. There was no pitching, no selling, no bragging about their
accomplishments, and not one of them complained about the awful state of the
world, or expressed dismay at the headlines. Instead, they all had this quiet,
potent steeliness, and what I can only describe as an inner light that I guess
comes from making a decision to solve a really big problem, no matter what it
takes.
As I said in my TED talk this year, "Progress isn't a rule - it's contested
terrain, fought for daily by millions of people who refuse to give in to
despair." Boyan, Wawira, David, and so many of the other incredible
changemakers I met last week aren't sitting there thumbing their phones and
shaking their heads at how shocking it all is. They're doing something, and
they're going to keep on doing it until their very big problem gets fixed. I'll
try to remember that the next time I'm doom-scrolling on a Thursday morning.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
