Listening to the news last 10+ days, I am of the opinion that we should add Jacinda Ardern to our PM choice list 😄 Jacinda Ardern’s response post Christchurch killings came as a ray of hope when the rest of the world political leadership is crumbling. What we usually hear from our political leadership, including ours, post an attack similar to this, is one of war rhetoric. We will hunt them down, we will smoke them out, we will teach them a lesson, they are cowards, our military might will crush them. There will be always a Us Vs Them narrative. If internal, rather than condemning the attack unequivocally, we have heard responses of they have a reason or there is no real threat.

In her responses so far, Jacinda hasn’t declared a war, refused to name the terrorist, and avoided creating a them. She gave an opt response to terror by disregarding the terrorist. To quote her: He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety. And that is why you will never hear me mention his name. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless. And, to others, I implore you: speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name. She focused on Us. By not speaking or mentioning the attacker, she avoided creating a them.

Jacinda Ardern has set a role model for other world leaders even though she may be one of the youngest.

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What differentiates Sapiens from other species? As a species, how Sapiens became more successful than any other species on earth? How did we, the Sapiens, ended up ruling the earth with no predators, rather we are the most notorious, violent, ruthless predators on earth as of now. How did we manage to the top of species?

One critical thing that differentiates us from other species is that unlike others, we can live in virtual world. While we live and exist in a physical world, we have built successful societies, cities, economy, nations, religion, various *isms based on ideas which are virtual and exist only in our mind. We can pull together and assemble millions of people based on an idea, eg: company, religion, nation. Multiple thousands can come together in a stadium to enjoy a cricket match without killing each other. This is not possible in other animal kingdoms. Sapiens’ ability to assemble and work together based on an idea made them the successful species. Ideas work on our minds, changes our perception. Ideology is nothing but multiple ideas put together.

When idea gets added to a piece of paper it turns in to money. Credit and debit along with money builds an economy

Draw imaginary lines on earth and we get Countries, Nations, and States

Add idea to a stone and it becomes an idol. Inject idea in to a thread, it becomes mangalsutra

Ideas of Constitution, Capitalism, Marxism, Socialism, all religious isms

While we all know and talk about Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, they exist only in paper as a legal entity

Our capability to imagine, capacity to thrive in virtual world allowed us to build civilizations, cities, tall structures, bridges, successful economies, explore inner and outer space, and also to discriminate, divide the people, go to war, kill each other, commit genocides. Idea is a weapon, and like any other physical weapon, depending on whose hands are wielding it, can be put to constructive or destructive purpose. A leader can kindle the imagination of the population and liberate the masses or suppress the minorities or lead them to wage war with other countries for the daftest of reasons.