That’s a powerful question. If I had to pick one idea with the potential for truly transformative impact, it would be:

Universal Basic Assets (UBA) – A foundational stake for every person.

While Universal Basic Income (UBI) gets more attention, UBA is a more profound and systemic idea. It's not just a periodic cash payment; it's the idea that every individual, by virtue of being born, receives a foundational portfolio of assets that provides long-term security and opportunity.

What Would This Look Like?

A UBA could be a "starter kit" composed of several components, given to every citizen upon reaching adulthood:

1. A Financial Stake: A sum of money (e.g., $60,000 - $100,000) invested in a low-risk, lifelong fund. It could be accessed in parts for specific, wealth-building purposes: education, starting a business, a down payment on a home, or as a supplemental retirement fund.
2. A Digital Stake: Free, lifelong access to essential digital infrastructure: high-speed internet, cloud storage, and a platform of educational and productivity software. In the 21st century, this is as crucial as physical infrastructure.
3. A Natural Resource Stake: A share of the profits from commonly held public assets, like the carbon tax revenue, spectrum auctions for telecoms, or mineral rights. This directly ties a person's wealth to the health and management of their shared environment.

Why Would This Idea Change the World?

1. It Re-architects the Foundation of Capitalism. Our current system often leads to a vicious cycle where a lack of initial capital prevents people from building wealth. UBA provides that initial capital, turning everyone into a potential capitalist. It doesn't just treat the symptoms of poverty (like UBI does to an extent); it attacks the root cause: the absence of seed capital.

2. It Fosters True Freedom and Risk-Taking. With a foundational safety net of assets, people are liberated to take risks. They can go back to school, start that company, pursue art, or leave a dead-end job without facing absolute destitution. This would unleash a wave of innovation, entrepreneurship, and personal fulfillment unlike anything we've seen.

3. It Creates a More Equitable Starting Line. It doesn't guarantee equal outcomes, but it dramatically improves the starting point for everyone, regardless of the family they are born into. This begins to break the cycle

One idea that could change the world is the concept of a global basic income (GBI)—a system where every person, regardless of their location, income, or status, receives a regular, unconditional sum of money to cover basic needs like food, shelter, and healthcare. This idea addresses several interconnected global challenges and has the potential to transform societies on a massive scale.

Why it could change the world:

1. Eradicating Poverty: A GBI could lift billions out of extreme poverty by ensuring a financial safety net. According to the World Bank, over 700 million people live on less than $2.15 a day (as of 2023 data). A basic income could directly combat hunger, homelessness, and lack of access to education or medical care.

2. Reducing Inequality: Wealth inequality is a growing crisis, with the richest 1% owning more wealth than half the world’s population (Oxfam, 2023). A GBI could redistribute resources more equitably, narrowing the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest, and fostering social stability.

3. Adapting to Automation: As AI and automation displace jobs—potentially up to 300 million by 2030, per McKinsey—GBI could provide a buffer for workers, giving them time to retrain or pursue new opportunities without the immediate threat of financial ruin.

4. Boosting Mental Health and Innovation: Financial security reduces stress and mental health issues, which the World Health Organization links to poverty. With basic needs met, people could take risks, start businesses, or engage in creative pursuits, driving innovation and cultural growth.

5. Climate and Social Benefits: A GBI could be funded through mechanisms like carbon taxes or wealth taxes, incentivizing sustainable practices while providing resources for communities most affected by climate change.

Challenges to consider:

• Funding: Implementing GBI on a global scale would require unprecedented coordination and resources. Estimates vary, but providing $1,000 per month to every adult globally could cost upwards of $60 trillion annually—more than global GDP. Solutions might involve progressive taxation, redirecting military budgets, or leveraging technology to cut administrative costs.
• Cultural and Political Resistance: Some argue it could disincentivize work or face pushback from governments and corporations benefiting from the current system.
• Implementation: Disparities in infrastructure, corruption, and currency value across nations would complicate delivery. A blockchain-based digital currency could be one solution to ensure transparency and accessibility.

Here's one idea that, if truly implemented, could fundamentally change the world:

The Idea: Radical Empathy as a Core Global Curriculum

Imagine a world where empathy is taught with the same rigor and importance as mathematics, literacy, and science from kindergarten through university.

This isn't just about teaching kids to "be nice." It's a formal, structured curriculum focused on the cognitive and emotional skill of genuinely understanding and sharing the feelings of another.

Why It's World-Changing

Most of humanity's greatest problems—from war and political polarization to social inequality and climate inaction—are not failures of technology or resources. They are failures of empathy. We fail to see the world from the perspective of those who are different from us, who live in other places, or who will live in the future.

This curriculum would be the antidote. It would treat empathy as a practical skill to be developed, not just an innate personality trait.

How It Would Work

The curriculum would evolve with age:

• Early Years (Ages 4-7): Emotional Literacy. Children would learn to identify and name their own emotions and those of others through stories, play, and facial expression recognition. The core lesson: "Other people have feelings just as real and important as yours."
• Primary School (Ages 8-12): Perspective-Taking. Students would engage in structured activities where they must argue from an opposing viewpoint, role-play historical events from different sides, and analyze stories from the perspectives of various characters. They'd learn about cognitive biases that prevent us from understanding others.
• Secondary School (Ages 13-18): Complex Systems Empathy. The focus would shift to understanding the experiences of entire groups and systems. This would involve studying the lived realities of people in different economic conditions, cultures, and political systems. It would also introduce "temporal empathy"—the skill of empathizing with future generations, which is crucial for tackling long-term problems like climate change.
• Higher Education & Professional Life: Empathy would be integrated into all fields. Doctors would be trained in patient perspective, engineers in user-centered design, lawyers in understanding the motivations of all parties, and CEOs in grasping the impact of their decisions on their employees, communities, and the planet.

The Ripple Effect

1. Reduced Polarization: When you are trained to genuinely seek to understand the fears, hopes, and reasoning of "the other side," it becomes nearly impossible to demonize them. Political discourse would shift from combat to collaborative problem-solving.
2. Less Violent Conflict: Leaders and populations educated in radical empathy would be far less likely to see war as a viable first option, as the human cost would be felt more profoundly.
3. Greater Social Justice: Policies would be designed with a deep understanding of their impact on the most vulnerable. People in positions of power would be better equipped to dismantle systemic barriers because they could more clearly see them from the perspective of those affected.
4. Action on Global Challenges: Problems like climate change, pandemics, and global poverty require collective action. Empathy breaks down the "us vs. them" and "now vs. later" thinking that paralyzes progress, fostering a sense of shared responsibility for our planet and future.
5. Improved Mental Health: Teaching emotional literacy from a young age would equip people to better understand themselves and their relationships, leading to greater resilience and healthier social connections.

This isn't a utopian fantasy; it's a "software update" for humanity. We've built an incredibly complex, interconnected world, but we're still running on outdated mental software that prioritizes tribalism and short-term thinking. Making radical empathy a core skill would be the upgrade we need to survive and thrive in the world we've created.

Universal basic income (UBI) - a guaranteed income provided by the government to all citizens regardless of their employment status or income level. This idea has the potential to alleviate poverty, reduce inequality, stimulate economic growth, and provide a safety net for those who may be displaced by automation and technological advancements.

One idea that could profoundly change the world is "Universal Basic Income (UBI)." Here’s why:

How UBI Could Change the World:

1. Economic Security for All – By providing a regular, unconditional cash payment to every citizen, UBI could eliminate poverty, reduce inequality, and ensure a basic standard of living.
2. Flexibility & Innovation – People would have the freedom to pursue education, start businesses, or care for family without financial stress, fostering creativity and entrepreneurship.
3. Job Market Adaptation – As automation and AI disrupt traditional employment, UBI could act as a safety net, allowing workers to transition into new roles without fear of destitution.
4. Health & Well-Being – Financial stress is a major cause of mental and physical health issues. UBI could reduce anxiety, improve access to healthcare, and promote overall well-being.
5. Simplified Welfare Systems – UBI could replace complex and bureaucratic welfare programs, reducing administrative costs and ensuring fairer distribution.

Potential Challenges:

• Funding (taxation, automation dividends, or repurposed welfare spending)
• Political Resistance (fear of "laziness" or inflation)
• Implementation (global vs. national models)

Real-World Experiments:

• Finland (2017-2018) – Reduced unemployment and improved well-being.
• Kenya (GiveDirectly) – Long-term cash transfers led to lasting economic benefits.
• California (Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration) – Showed UBI recipients found better jobs and reduced financial stress.

If implemented wisely, UBI could be a transformative force, reshaping economies, reducing suffering, and unlocking human potential on a global scale.

What do you think—could this work, or is there a better idea?

One World-Changing Idea

Universal access to quality education—delivered through a combination of digital platforms, community centers, and personalized learning approaches.

This could transform our world because education is the foundation that enables:

• Economic mobility and reduced inequality
• Scientific innovation and problem-solving for global challenges
• Greater civic participation and stronger democracies
• Increased empathy and cross-cultural understanding
• Sustainable development aligned with planetary boundaries

What makes this particularly powerful is how it creates cascading positive effects across generations. When education becomes truly accessible to everyone regardless of geography or socioeconomic status, it unlocks human potential at an unprecedented scale.

What do you think about this idea? Or would you like to explore a different world-changing concept?

Carbon Takeback Obligation

• What it is: Require any company that extracts or imports fossil carbon to permanently return a rising share of the resulting CO2 to safe storage (geologic or mineralized), reaching 100% by a set date. If they can’t, they must buy certified removals.

• Why it changes everything:

• Flips incentives: profit depends on cleaning up carbon, not just selling it.
• Simple, tech‑neutral rule that creates massive, reliable demand for carbon removal.
• Works upstream (at the well, mine, and port), avoiding billions of hard-to-police tailpipes.

• Gives the fossil industry a viable transition path: sell molecules only if you store the CO2.

• How to implement:

• Start at 5–10% takeback, ramp steadily to 100% by mid‑century.
• Set strict MRV (measurement, reporting, verification), permanence, and liability standards.
• Create registries and markets for long-term storage credits; enable 10–20 year contracts.
• Apply border adjustments so imports face the same obligation; accept verified global storage.

• Recycle any compliance revenues to households (dividends) to protect low-income consumers.

• Risks and mitigations:

• Greenwashing → independent auditing, severe penalties, conservative permanence rules.
• Price shocks → smooth ramp, predictable schedule, consumer rebates.
• Land-use pressure → prioritize geologic/mineral storage over biomass offsets.

One clear rule, phased in predictably, could realign the entire global energy system with net-zero while driving innovation, jobs, and cleaner air.

One idea with transformative potential for the world is advancing green nitrogen fixation—developing environmentally friendly ways to produce fertilizer essential for global food supplies, dramatically reducing energy use and pollution compared to current methods[1].

Currently, making fertilizer through traditional nitrogen fixation consumes about 2% of global energy and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions[1]. Green nitrogen fixation utilizes engineered bacteria, enzymes, and renewable energy (like sunlight or green electricity) to produce ammonia, aiming to support food production while minimizing environmental impact[1]. This shift could bolster food security for billions and help slow climate change—addressing two of humanity’s most pressing challenges.

Other breakthrough ideas include: - Engineered living therapeutics: Using programmable microbes inside humans to deliver medicine more sustainably and affordably, revolutionizing disease treatment[1]. - Nanozymes: Synthetic materials mimicking enzymes to catalyze critical reactions in medicine, water purification, or food safety, with stability far superior to natural enzymes[1]. - Plastic-eating microbes and biodegradable plastics: Solving plastic waste by replacing single-use plastics with materials that naturally decompose, or using specialized microbes to clean up existing pollution[3][6]. - AI-driven collaborative sensing: Smart urban networks of sensors, powered by artificial intelligence, could optimize resources, reduce pollution, and make cities safer[1].

Any of these could profoundly alter society, but green nitrogen fixation stands out for its immediate global relevance to food, climate, and energy systems[1].