I think it's helpful to define the word important because important can mean either most fundamental, or most urgent. The answers as to "what is important" for

I think it's helpful to define the word important because important can mean either most fundamental, or most urgent. The answers as to "what is important" for the two different definitions will almost always give very different, possibly opposing, answers. That being said, it sounds like you're asking each person to define importance for themselves subjectively, and then answer accordingly. Since I posed the "important" issue, I'll answer both. Though there is a common thread. The common thread is health. Health is a word with a relatively vague definition, but nonetheless a powerful concept. Our society is a complex system and healthy can be a description of individuals, groups, the whole of the population, and the environment. For now let's consider the health of the whole human population. Even if we now have scoped health, it's not hard to see how impossible it would be define it precisely, because as the population and culture evolves, so must our idea of health. If we optimize for only a few metrics (e.g. max profit and minimum death) we hurt the dynamism/holism of the system. There isn't a single set of metrics that actually covers everything and it's dynamism. Despite our difficulty defining it, we know it when we see it, and this brings us to the most fundamental problem in society. Most fundamental: What is health for society? How do think about and map physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health into comprehensible value systems, and then map those to policies. Instead of relying on static definitions, what are some of the perhaps more dynamic markers of health? How do we incorporate new technologies into our concept of societal health? Most urgent: What are the areas that are currently causing, or have massive risk of causing, "disease" or suffering in society? Climate change, bio-tech risks, failing food systems, authoritarian drift, education (decreased sense-making capacity and the degradation of the information commons). Those are my big ones, but there are others. Much of my thinking is influenced by Daniel Schmachtenberger (though no affiliation). If these ideas resonate with you, check him out on the youtubes. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=daniel+schmachtenberger https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=daniel+schmacht... Am I working on it: I am studying systems science generally, I work for an educational nonprofit, and I'm experimenting in increasing my own health capacities and doing some teaching and coaching others.