Teach Three Things

If you could teach exactly three things no more and no less to every person in the world, what would those three things be?

 

This is a very tricky question... I think there are a lot of very good ways one could answer this, and it all depends on one's priorities in life. Since this is the Philosophy section of the forums, I think I'm going to take a philosophical route.

(Note: I'm assuming that by teaching, you mean that everyone just magically gains the knowledge. I don't claim to know everything I'm going to list, and I definitely don't claim to be capable of teaching them!)

1. The first thing I would teach the world is how to think logically. Many people on Earth seem to have lost this capability, and that's caused a lot of problems. People tend to approach problems not by asking what would work best, but by asking what would feel best. Granted, in some situations, this line of thinking is quite appropriate; in many cases, however, it leads to irrational and impulsive decisions that harm everyone involved. I, personally, have been guilty of this in many times; again, I'm not claiming that I have all of the answers. I really think that I would benefit from this just as much as everyone else.

2. The second thing I would teach the world is how to recognize and control our biases. Everyone on Earth possesses some kind of bias, even if they don't realize it. It has to do with where we grew up, what we look like, what language we speak, and a million other things. I can guarantee that all of us have, at some time or another, made a decision based on one of these factors. It may not have been a conscious choice; our brains often work in mysterious ways. Regardless of whether we intend to or not, we often jump to conclusions about people and places based on factors that should be irrelevant; learning how to control and suppress this would be an asset to humanity.

3. The final thing I would teach the world is how to empathize with one another. Too many times, we think only of ourselves, leaving others in the dust while we chase our own ambitions. People seem to have lost the ability to understand each other's emotions, and that causes a lot of conflict in the world. For whatever reason, people in first-world countries seem to be simultaneously more and less connected to other people- we see everyone's outer shell, but we rarely get to know one another on a deeper level. The ability to empathize with others would be an asset to humanity and to every living thing. This, I think, is the most important thing to teach people, and one that is necessary for lasting peace in our world.