By Jon Farmer

Humanity is responsible for every problem that our society faces. Whether we're talking about climate change, poverty, racism, misogyny, violence, or apathy, they're all self-inflicted; the consequences of our life styles and our culture. It's a hard fact to accept. Our adult comfort with business as usual and the status quo keep us from seeing our problems and we simply can't solve problems that we don't see. So, if we want to change the world for the better then we need to put the kids in charge.

Children have a heightened sense of fairness, they haven't learned to discriminate against differences, and they don't rationalize to avoid challenging their status quo. Young people also have the greatest incentive to make good decisions because they have to live with the consequences for longer. Seniors have less incentive to govern with a long term vision. They're closer to death; it's like they can order whatever they want because they know they'll leave the restaurant early and the young folks will foot the bill.

Sure, kids might lack the technical skills and the background knowledge to actually do some of the work but they wouldn't have to do the work, they'd be in charge. The kids would decide what to do and then it would be up to the adults to figure out how to make their ideas a reality.

Granted, this sounds radical but adults are responsible for our problems and we're over due for a change. Realistically we don't even have to go to these extremes to achieve some of the same results. We could start by lowering the voting age and making sure that youth have a seat at our tables of governance. After all, they have the biggest stake in the outcome.