Gregory Bateson said that the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.
Throughout the 19th and 20th century, people have sought to control the way nature works to fit their needs. And though many challenges have been overcome in this way, the solutions don’t appear to be sustainable in the long run. Indeed, the solutions even appear to be making things worse. And so, it seems like the problems are becoming even bigger, in spite of our best efforts to the contrary.
Our challenge for the 21st century is to give up forcing nature to fit our ways of thinking, and instead change our way of thinking to match how nature works.