I asked experts at the UN if this idea would work. They said it genuinely will.
If anything's a measure of if an idea will work, if EXPERTS AT THE UN SAY IT'LL WORK, that's a really good indicator!
Problem is, I don't know how to implement the idea, and I need your help.
All world leaders want to do good things. Their values is to do the most good. They just disagree on what the most good is!
- All wars are because one side thinks X is good, another side thinks X is bad, and both sides are willing to fight for what they believe in to stop X or to keep X.
- All cooperation is because two sides think X is good/moral, so they work together to get X!
Otherwise, one side wouldn’t want X, and they wouldn’t both work to get it. - And all bad decisions are because someone’s goals/values led them to think “I should do this bad thing.”
So here’s my idea: What if we had an international summit to get world leaders to agree on values/morals?
Based on these fundamental laws of Geopolitics, the world would be better in some fundamental ways if we did this simple summit!
- This would prevent wars, including potential war in Taiwan, the ongoing war that’s happening in Ukraine, and all future potential wars to come.
- This would make All world leaders cooperate on everything to get moral things, because all world leaders will think the same things are good/moral, so they will all work together to get those things!
- This would make all world leaders have thought-through moral values so world leaders will do a more moral job improving their home country.
It’s time to live in harmony as a shared humanity under a common goal to always do the moral, just thing is no longer a dream of the past. It is now our future, and this is a real thing that just needs an international summit.
All you need to do is make it happen!
(So that's what I'm asking for! Can you help me save the world by helping me figure out how to make this happen? I tried a lot of stuff with the UN, but it's just so unclear who to email there, and currently, Oct 2025, I'm sending this idea to the G20!)
The rest is just extra about why in the world this crazy idea would actually work,
I spoke to experts at the UN and they think it's a good idea,
but only read it if you're not convinced.
You already read the important part.
Now, what came to mind when I first thought of this was “Why would world leaders like Putin ever go to this kind of summit? Wouldn’t they just reject it?”, and I almost gave up on the idea,
but then I thought about it some more, and I realized there are several fundamental reasons that, no matter what, Any world leader would want to both
- attend this summit, and
- Genuinely be willing to change their values/goals, if they hear a goal they think is more moral.
Here’s the case I would make to Putin if he was wasn’t going to the summit:
- “Putin, you have some great reasons for your values - that’s why you have those values. If you just shared those reasons with these other world leaders in Europe at the summit, then they’ll work with you to help with your goal!
And hey, if you hear a convincing case to change your values, that means you’ll get even better values! That’s a free improvement! So listen out for if anyone makes a good case that some other goal is more moral.” - “There is no cost to improving your goals. And if you don’t hear a convincing case that some other goal is more moral, there’s no downside to that either. There’s just no possible downside to either scenario.”
- “No-one wants to be known as the person who didn’t choose world peace, moral leaders, and global cooperation to solve all the world’s problems & where everyone flourishes.
Every other country that attended and advanced to more moral values will hate you,
your people will hate you, and you’ll hate yourself. Don’t be that person.” - “Now’s your shot to be a hero for all of time and all of history and for everyone on earth!”
These points convinced me, so I figured I’d try bringing the idea to some actual experts.
And I did! Some at the UN, some international relations experts outside the UN, and they all said it’s a generally good idea!
Think on my idea a little while, and if you can’t think of any ways it could cause harm, go ahead & do it!
To a moral humanity!
Yours truly,
Wes Reisen
Simple feedback: read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845
Think about politics in Darwinian terms: who survives the process?
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Of course! The detailed historical examples. No amount of abstract knowledge can substitute historical discussion.
In fact the academic version (the logic of political survival) is for me less interesting, because it is too much based on data analysis instead of cases.
I will also note that the possibility of more morally misaligned actors might use the information that world leaders now agree on X moral values to their advantage, in order to do bad things. Perhaps this force is counteracted by more morally aligned people using such information to do good things!
it seems boggling at first glance that this would work, but in summary, it would work like this: Sometimes, in an argument, one or more sides doesn’t care about reaching the RIGHT conclusion, they just care about it reaching a conclusion they approve of. This is often the difficulty with arguments.
However, when everyone is brought to the table and wants to reach the RIGHT conclusion, you find that the correct/RIGHT conclusion (seemingly) is arrived at much more often, is arrived at much faster, and as a bonus, the debate is much more respectful!
This project would basically bring world leaders to the table, where they would look for the RIGHT conclusion to major problems, which should lead to the correct/RIGHT conclusion (seemingly) is arrived at much more often, is arrived at much faster, and as a bonus, the debate is much more respectful!
There is sort of precedent for this: science used to be much more argumentative, and now, most of science is done in very intelligent ways, aimed at getting to the RIGHT answer, and not “their answer”. This led to many, if not most or all, scientific problems being solved*.
In addition, if you aim to be a powerful scientist, fighting for “your answer” makes it much harder than it is if you were fighting for the RIGHT answer. Similarly, if this project worked well, it would be much harder to gain power if you fought for “your values” than if you fought for the RIGHT values!
One way to advertise this idea is that it reminds people of what the UN/UN charter was for, and that it is an improvement upon it.
I will note that most change of this scale doesn’t arise from methods like this. This could aide in giving a rough sense of how likely this is to work. Here’s some examples of things like this working:
And here are some examples of efforts that have required broader support:
(Note: this was all off the top of my head.)
If this worked, it would probably result in a major culture shift throughout most major institutions, which would help keep the program from falling apart, and would help incorporate new members.
Exact information on this is dependent on data on phycology and whatnot. If you know about that stuff, please let me know or add it here.
Also, if world leaders spend a lot of time surrounded by a particular culture (e.g., a month at some event), they might carry some of that culture over when they get back home, but also they re-assimilate into their home culture.
And a good culture (say, in the UN) can also help with this project's success. A bad one can result in this project being harder.
Message to any world leaders who aren’t willing to change their values: If you can successfully stop this from happening if you tried, then it wouldn’t work, so there’s no point in trying to stop me. It would be comparable to voting in an election determined by people’s opinions, not by how they voted (the equivalent of writing on a random piece of paper, “I vote like so: __”).
I say this because in any scenario where, even assuming every world leader who has completely unwavering moral values tried really hard to stop our program AND cooperated with one another, IF such an effort would potentially be successful, then our program would fail.
To expand on that: If your efforts make the difference between our program succeeding and failing or otherwise affecting its success, we would have a huge incentive to ensure that this program isn’t bad for you. This is because, if [you think it would be better for [your values] to try and prevent any given facet/part of our program], you would logically do so, and we don’t want that, so we will make sure [You are happy with each of those facets of the program].
Basically, you don’t need to stop our program. The threat that you might try to stop our program has the same effect.
If we can help you in a way that doesn't come at a cost to us (e.g., reschedule meetings so the time of the meetings work better for you), we will!
As an analogy, if you had the option to get rid of a country, then you don’t have to worry about them being bad for you, because they have a massive incentive to be good for you: not getting destroyed.
Here’s another analogy: Someone is making you food. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to ensure that the person makes good food since you can simply throw the food away if the food does not taste good, and the person making the food already has a massive incentive to make food that tastes good to you: not getting the food thrown out.
All of this goes without saying, but saying it makes it clear.
Another reason world leaders might support this is that they think the program would have a good result (namely by them thinking that their current goals would be the goals that would be landed on, namely because they might think their goals are right and that the program would land on the right goals or goals close to the right ones), and that that result would become even better with their participation.
A common strategy used to limit the effects of human error it to better account for it in models and whatnot, often by coming up with a value system that would make sense for any given set of decisions where some of them are due to human error. For example, in economics, one might say that a person ascribes inherent additional value to things that are on sale.
Another way is to try to make human error guide someone in a similar direction to logical decisions. For example, there is a major taboo against drug use in many areas, which supposedly decreases drug use when unnecessary.
More generally, a common strategy is to limit how much human error changes someone’s decisions, on average.
A world leader’s goals are probably adjustable one way or another. In the case where a world leader is committed to some values that depend on something (e.g., whatever is seen as “patriotic”, whatever their religion says (this only applies to some religions), changing those things changes their values. That might be very difficult for some value systems, but luckily [a commitment to the values of something that can easily change] has plenty of good logical arguments against them (https://youtu.be/wRHBwxC8b8I), which could be a better strategy to change someone’s mind if they have such a commitment that is difficult to change, but for which one can change if they have such a commitment.
If you know about psychology or world leaders, please let me know how true this might be. If it isn’t true, we’d have to work out how we might handle a world where only some people have their morals aligned. My first thought on this is that:
Supposedly, a more morally aligned global order might try to make itself more morally aligned. We only need this to work enough for it to sort itself out.
Maybe replacing the keys to power?
Maybe this would start its rollout on the most major world leaders first? And then, over time, more and more people get added to the program once we’re ready for them
I imagine this would be implemented in a similar fashion ion to other UN programs when they started, but before that, we should work out key things that would change how or if the program should happen.
If anyone here knows any info that can help with this (e.g., Does any world leader have a commitment to their current values instead of their overall values?), please let me know in a comment, email, etc.
Quick note: (Note taken while I am tired, so medium “parse-ability”): this program should be able to adjust to new ideas such that [an idea on how this program can be improved] can be implemented as soon as possible, perhaps without having to do an event. This is tricky for some ideas (e.g., how the event could be more fun). This would cause ideas to be implemented sooner, and also there’s be less of a cost to do the program sooner, since you wouldn’t be “missing” most important ideas. One idea that MIGHT satisfy this is: Part of the UN normal chat space (slack, discord, or whatever they use, if anything) was a philosophy section on what philosophy to go by and why, so the discussion can continue 24/7, and ideas for improvement can get implemented for the next day (or sooner).