The Hames Report

Convergence@Speed

A few years ago I started talking about the emergence of a plausible planetary technoculture resulting from the unpredictable conjunction of a few seminal streams of human invention, and the activities related to them. I was particularly fascinated by the effects of information-based technologies on what we currently do and how we do it – especially when divorced from more serious questions related to why we do it.

But now we also need to add the speed of change as an additional defining factor. Outside of its more everyday use as metaphor there is little current appreciation of the speed of change - still less concerning the conditions the speed of change could generate through technological innovation.

There are a number of significant convergences occurring that will transform human cognition and performance. The convergence of biotechnology, nantechnology and robotics, for example, is already radically transforming healthcare, war, security and manufacturing. Similarly the merging of in-memory computing, the Cloud and device mobility is shifting our capability to access knowledge, anywhere, in real-time – impacting how we interact with each other, undertake business transactions, and move to more participative forms of democracy.

Of course there are other more estoeric intersecting epistemologies that are potentially far more interesting than focusing on computer science and informatics (the convergence of quantum science, indigenous wisdom and spirituality, for example, that could well give rise to a new human cosmology) but these are outside the scope of this article.

How these conjunctions evolve, and how they will overturn everything we take for granted, make for a fascinating study for one overwhelming reason: the perceived rate of technological change is exponential. In other words we will arrive in the future much faster than anticipated. This is not a new phenomenon. One only has to review the time it took to decode the human genome or comprehend the illusion of time created by the exponential growth of a toxic weed in a pond, for example[1]. But it is still so often misconstrued and leads to patterns of human behaviour that lack foresight and wise judgement.

For the most part we cannot readily conceive of change at this magnitude because our intuition about the future tends to be commonly expressed as linear extrapolations of the past or the present. Consequently we tend to ignore, misinterpret (or drastically underplay) the impact of exponential change on our lives. This has huge implications for investors, ethicists, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and government policy makers, as well as technologists themselves.

Let’s spend a few moments considering what exponential change implies vis-a-vis how we currently think about progress and habitually make decisions based upon assumptions derived from more conventional understandings.

The arithmetic of logarithmic (or exponential) functions is easy enough. Essentially it is a simple formula: when relative growth of any kind (e.g. population growth, compounded interest, resource extraction, inflation or consumption) is a constant measured as a percentage over time, the doubling rate of what we are measuring (in other words the time it takes for a quantity to double in size or value) will be 72 divided by the unit of growth. So for example, if the economy grows at an average 7 per cent per annum it will double over the span of ten years. If the growth rate is an average of 10 per cent per annum then the doubling factor will be just 7 years. And so on…

In this context consider what China has achieved since 1980. The Chinese economy has been growing at an annual rate of 10 per cent for the past 30 years. That means the economy has doubled a total of 4 times over that period. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty during that time. Many new cities have been built. A modern infrastructure of highways and railways has transformed the landscape, opening up the hinterland and making it far easier to travel to the major cities. In 2010, China had 18 million households with an annual income above USD 16,000. By 2020, this number will be 167 million households. That's almost 400 million people! What is more, Chinese brands are now competing with (and out-performing) the world’s best.

Astonishing economic acceleration of this nature is unprecedented on such a scale. But there are always unintended consequences. For example, if you were motoring on the highway between Zhangjiakou and Beijing in late 2010 it would have taken you many days to reach your final destination. Massive traffic jams regularly clog this highway – occasionally stretching to more than 60 miles. On this occasion thousands of commuters were stuck on the road for days, living off water and food sold to them by vendors wandering through the semi-parked cars. Apart from ongoing construction on this highway and the carriage of illicit coal and other materials from Mongolia, it is the explosive growth in car ownership (Beijing alone is adding cars at an astonishing rate of 1,900 every day) that's the most likely cause of this urban nightmare. It has created a paradoxical situation where the number of drivers on Chinese roads now negates any benefit from travelling in cars.

Back to our exponential function. We can apply the same mathematical logic to population growth. In 1986 there were 5 billion people on the planet. The growth rate was just 1.7 per cent per annum, meaning that by 2027 we would have reached 10 billion people. By 1999 the population had reached 6 billion but the growth rate had slowed to 1.3 per cent per annum, meaning that it will take until 2052 to reach 12 billion. That still means we are growing at a rate of 80 million people a year on a planet unable to provide adequately for 7 billion. Problematically most growth is occurring in undeveloped countries that can least afford large populations and where education hardly exists – nations like Burundi, Niger and Uganda.

But the population problem also exists in economically developed countries. In Australia, the city of Melbourne has experienced 1.88 per cent population growth over the past decade. One might regard that as modest growth, but that is not the case. Indeed if growth continues at that rate Melbourne will overtake Sydney in 2028, when each city will have about 5.6 million people. No other city in Australia has ever experienced growth of this size. It has taken city planners completely by surprise (because they presumably did not do the maths) and strained the city's infrastructure and services - adding to road congestion, overcrowding on public transport, increased waiting times in hospital emergency wards, the demand for energy and water, and a host of other undesirable outcomes. All of this in a relatively affluent country where annual immigration numbers are controlled by the Commonwealth government; the total fertility rate, of 1.78 per woman, is below that normally considered to be the replacement rate for a population; and where the potential impacts of exponential population growth on the city should have been apparent and handled differently in terms of systemic urban design.

Obviously we can also apply the same mathematical logic to the extraction of fossil fuels (like oil, gas and coal) the loss of biodiversity, the rate of global warming – and, of course, the increase in computer processing power.

All of which brings us back to the matter in hand: namely the speed at which technologies are converging and the subsequent role they will play in the future. For the astonishing truth is that it is not simply the rate of change in discrete fields or disciplines to which we should remain alert, but also the rate of change in that convergence. It is this speed of change that led US inventor Raymond Kurzweill to predict that the “singularity” (the year in which artificial intelligence exceeds that of humans) will occur at some stage within the next two decades.

The examples to which I have referred should show us that exponential change demands a far more sophisticated approach to systemic design, taking into account many potential features and points of view, while also pondering deeply the social, moral and ethical dimensions of the futures we are creating. All of which is easier said than done, especially when the subject is rampant, seemingly unstoppable, technological invention.

Kurzweill maintains that by 2030 we will be interacting with technologies that are billions of times more powerful than those available today. While this is correct in terms of logarithmic change I can’t help wondering if this is what we really want.

There are three paramount dilemmas we encounter when considering such possibilities as those anticipated by Kurzweill. The first has to do with distinctions between fate (the inescapable future) and desire (the preferred future). The second concerns the inability of human minds to imagine beyond what is known through experience and to translate these imaginings into a design capability. The third raises the issue of morality. In the end all three dilemmas relate to our intentions – the territory where the most difficult choices must be made.

1. The enigma of fate and desire

Depending upon the culture in which one is literate, the potential for shaping events is taken either to be severely limited (i.e. it is the role of a higher intelligence) or theoretically infinite (i.e. mankind is creator and capable of anything). Most of us occupy a space somewhere in between these two extremes.

For me, as a Buddhist and a practising futurist, the main problem I have with the kind of positivist determinism confidently proclaimed by many scientists and technologists is the irrefutable inevitability accorded most technological expressions of the future. Currently there seems to be a huge disconnect between what convergent technologies can potentially bring to humanity, and what we want those things to be. Nor are there many opportunities to discuss or debate such issues.

The notion of a reinvented species of humanoid with super intelligence in which humans can finally discard their earthbound carcases holds no joy for me. Nor do I believe there is anything inevitable about this evolution.

2. Imagining beyond the event horizon

Envisaging how our lives could be so utterly different from how they currently manifest is problematic for most of us. Other than artists and other visionaries we tend to construct our “probable” futures from linear extrapolations of present circumstances and past memories. This is the “here and now” of our daily experience and it undoubtedly limits our ability to step into a place of infinite possibilities – an “expanded” now compressing all past, present and possible options. One of the reasons Steve Jobs was not interested in asking customers what they wanted from Apple was because they had little idea of what was actually feasible. They did not know what they wanted until they could feel and see it in their hands and play with it. In other words they could not see beyond a particular event horizon.

Apart from those rare individuals who perceive the world from an altogether higher plane of awareness, there are several accepted ways of amplifying human creativity and imagination. Using hallucinatory drugs, for example, or accessing new tools such as virtual reality, allow us to perceive possibilities that would have been previously barred from us. Few people have access to simulation facilities and the immersive experiences these provide, however, as most are still privately-owned or used purely for entertainment purposes.

Perhaps we need to think more seriously about investing in the capability for the expansion of human imagination as a pre-requisit for more sophisticated social designs. Obviously an increased capacity for imaginative cognition may ultimately be provided by the technology itself. But by then it will be too late to influence the design of the technology and many ethical concerns will possibly have been overlooked.

3. The Moral Dimension

The moral issues, including many ethical questions that require resolution and will have a considerable bearing upon the various choices that may need to be made, have incredible consequences and are too important not to be considerd as part of the original impulse for design of any socio-technological ecosystem.

Meanwhile the inexorable tide of technological innovation that sweeps everyting before it gives us little time for any considered thought on these matters. For example, some clusters of transformative technologies could improve the human condition by prolonging life, enabling the human-machine interface, and eliminating disease. One might consider these critical to humanity’s future did they not exacerbate the population problem. It is ironic that most of what we regard as being good for humanity (medicine, peace, sanitation and law and order for example) actually worsen the population problem, while an alternative strategy for resolving the problem, (by promoting conflict and disease and encouraging murder for example) is morally obscene.

 

 

---

[1] If a toxic weed doubles every day and covers the entire surface of the pond in 30 days, then it wil only cover half of the pond’s surface on day 29. This, of course, is part of the reason we see so little action to combat climate change. Looking at it today doesn't seem to be so bad. Unfortunately we do not see past the 29th day to tomorrow!

The Next Renaissance

To me, "Personal Democracy" is an oxymoron. Democracy may be a lot of things, but the last thing it should be is "personal." I understand "personal responsibility," such as a family having a recycling bin in which they put their glass and metal every week. But even then, a single recycling bin for a whole building or block would be more efficient and appropriate.

Democracy is not personal, because if it's about anything, it's not about the individual. Democracy is about others. It's about transcending the self and acting collectively. Democracy is people, participating together to make the world a better place.

One of the essays in this conference's proceedings - the book "Rebooting Democracy" - remarks snarkily, "It's the network, stupid." That may go over well with all of us digital folks, but it's not true. It's not the network at all; it's the people. The network is the tool - the new medium that might help us get over the bias of our broadcasting technologies. All those technologies that keep us focused on ourselves as individuals, and away from our reality as a collective.

This focus on the individual, and its false equation with democracy, began back in the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought us wonderful innovations, such as perspective painting, scientific observation, and the printing press. But each of these innovations defined and celebrated individuality. Perspective painting celebrates the perspective of an individual on a scene. Scientific method showed how the real observations of an individual promote rational thought. The printing press gave individuals the opportunity to read, alone, and cogitate. Individuals formed perspectives, made observations, and formed opinions.

The individual we think of today was actually born in the Renaissance. The Vesuvian Man, Da Vinci's great drawing of a man in a perfect square and circle - independent and self-sufficient. This is the Renaissance ideal.

It was the birth of this thinking, individuated person that led to the ethos underlying the Enlightenment. Once we understood ourselves as individuals, we understood ourselves as having rights. The Rights of Man. A right to property. The right to personal freedom.

The Enlightenment - for all its greatness - was still oh, so personal in its conception. The reader alone in his study, contemplating how his vote matters. One man, one vote. We fight revolutions for our individual rights as we understood them. There were mass actions, but these were masses of individuals, fighting for their personal freedoms.

Ironically, with each leap towards individuality there was a corresponding increase in the power of central authorities. Remember, the Renaissance also brought us centralized currencies, chartered corporations, and nation states. As individuals become concerned with their personal plights, their former power as a collective moves to central authorities. Local currencies, investments, and civic institutions dissolve as self-interest increases. The authority associated with them moves to the center and away from all those voting people.

The media of the Renaissance - the printing press - is likewise terrific at myth-making. At branding. Its stories are told to individuals, either through books, or through broadcast media directed at each and every one of us. Its appeals are to self and self-interest.

Consider any commercial for blue jeans. Its target audience is not a confident person who already has a girlfriend. The commercial communicates, "wear these jeans, and you'll get to have sex." Who is the target for that message? An isolated, alienated person who does not have sex. The messaging targets the individual. If it's a mass medium, it targets many many individuals.

Movements, like myths and brands, depend on this quality of top-down, Renaissance-style media. They are not genuinely collective at all, in that there's no promotion of interaction between the people in them. Instead, all the individuals relate to the hero, ideal, or mythology at the top. Movements are abstract - they have to be. They hover above the group, directing all attention towards themselves.

As I listen to people talk here - well-meaning progressives, no doubt - I can't help but hear the romantic, almost desperate desire to become part of a movement. To become part of something famous, like the Obama campaign. Maybe even get a good K-street job out of the connections we make here. It's a fantasy perpetrated by the TV show West Wing. A myth that we want to be part of. But like any myth, it is a fantasy, and one almost entirely prefigured by Renaissance individualism.

The next renaissance (if there is one) - the phenomenon we're talking about or at least around here is not about the individual at all, but about the networked group. The possibility for collective action. The technologies we're using - the biases of these media - cede central authority to decentralized groups. Instead of moving power to the center, they tend to move power to the edges. Instead of creating value from the center, like a centrally issued currency, the network creates value from the periphery.

This means the way to participate is not simply to subscribe to an abstract, already-written myth, but to do real things. To take small actions in real ways. The glory is not in the belief system or the movement, but in the doing. It's not about getting someone elected, it's about removing the obstacles to real people doing what they need to to get the job done. That's the opportunity of the networked, open source era: to drop out of the myths and actually do.

Sadly, we tend to miss the great opportunities offered us by major shifts in media.

The first great renaissance in media, the invention of the alphabet, offered a tremendous leap for participatory democracy. Only priests could read and write hieroglyphs. The invention of the alphabet opened the possibility for people to read or even possibly write, themselves. In Torah myth, Moses goes off with his father-in-law to write the laws by which an enslaved people could now live. Instead of simply accepting legislation and government as a pre-existing condition - the God Pharaoh - people would develop and write down the law as they wanted it. Even the Torah is written in the form of a contract, and God creates the world with a word.

Access to language was to change a world of blind, enslaved rule followers into a civilization of literate people. (This is what is meant when God tells Abraham "you will be a nation of priests." It means they are to be a nation of people who transcend heiro-glyphs or "priestly-writing" to become literate.)

But this isn't what happened. People didn't read Torah—they listened as their leaders read it to them. Hearing was a step up from simply following, but the promise of the new medium had not been seized.

Likewise, the invention of the printing press did not lead to a civilization of writers - it developed a culture of readers. Gentlemen sat reading books, while the printing presses were accessed by those with the money or power to use them. The people remained one step behind the technology. Broadcast radio and television are really just an extension of the printing press: expensive, one-to-many media that promote the mass distribution of the stories and ideas of a small elite.

Computers and networks finally offer us the ability to write. And we do write with them. Everyone is a blogger, now. Citizen bloggers and YouTubers who believe we have now embraced a new "personal" democracy. Personal, because we can sit safely at home with our laptops and type our way to freedom.

But writing is not the capability being offered us by these tools at all. The capability is programming - which almost none of us really know how to do. We simply use the programs that have been made for us, and enter our blog text in the appropriate box on the screen. Nothing against the strides made by citizen bloggers and journalists, but big deal. Let them eat blog.

At the very least on a metaphorical level, the opportunity here is not to write about politics or, more likely, comment on what someone else has said about politics. The opportunity, however, is to rewrite the very rules by which democracy is implemented. The opportunity of a renaissance in programming is to reconfigure the process through which democracy occurs.

If Obama is indeed elected - the first truly Internet-enabled candidate - we should take him at his word. He does not offer himself as the agent of change, but as an advocate of the change that could be enacted by people. It is not for government to create solar power, for example, but to get out of the way of all those people who are ready to implement solar power, themselves. Responding to the willingness of people to act, he can remove regulations developed on behalf of the oil industry to restrict its proliferation.

In an era when people have the ability to reprogram their reality, the job of leaders is to help facilitate this activity by tweaking legislation, or by supporting their efforts through better incentives or access to the necessary tools and capital. Change does not come from the top - but from the periphery. Not from a leader or a myth inspiring individuals to consent to it, but from people working to manifest it together.

Open Source Democracy - which I wrote about a decade ago - is not simply a way to get candidates elected to office. It is a collective reprogramming of the social software, a disengagement from the myths through which we abdicate responsibility, and a reclamation of our role as citizens who participate in the creation of the society in which we want to live.

This is not personal democracy at all, but a collective and participatory democracy where we finally accept our roles as the fully literate and engaged adlts who can make this happen.

The Next Renaissance was Douglas Rushkoff's keynote address at the Personal Democracy Forum that took place June 23-24 in New York City, at Frederick P. Rose Hall. Douglas is an author, lecturer, and social theorist and The Next Renaissance is reprinted here with his permission. His books include Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace, Media Virus! and Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say.

 

 

Ten Big Mistakes People Make in Thinking About the Future

Being a working futurist means that I think a lot about how people think about the future. It also means spending a lot of time with people who are also thinking about their own futures. Typically, this involves a dialogue between three distinct groups:

First, there's usually a small handful of very foresighted people, who are aware of their own blind spots and biases, and who are eager and open about the prospect of soaring into a wild blue sky to gather a lot of exciting new information.

Second, there's a larger group of people who don't usually think at 50,000 feet - but are willing to go there if they're with people they trust. Their wings aren't sturdy, and they are prone to some very common mistakes in thinking, but they're often the most gratifying group to work with. What they want is permission to let go, encouragement to go big, and a watchful eye to keep them out of the rocks and ditches.

And then there's a third small group that's very resistant to the idea that anything could or should change. I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking and writing about that last group, because I'm fascinated by the question of what drives change resisters. What they want from me is safety - the reassurance that if they overcome their natural reticence and try to embrace some constructive thinking about change, they won't end up all alone somewhere terrifyingly unfamiliar.

Of that second group, I've found that there's a fairly short list of common mistakes that they make over and over again - little assumptions that create big obstacles in their ability to see all the potential alternatives clearly. These are the same mistakes most people out on the street and in the media make, too; on any given day, one can open a newspaper to the op-ed page and find three or four of these mistakes, right there in black and white. When pundits and prognosticators are wrong, these assumptions are usually somewhere near the root of why they're wrong.

To the end of helping progressives think more productively about the future we're trying to create, here are ten of the most common mental hiccups that keep people from seeing the bigger picture and planning for it with a full measure of courage and intelligence.

1. The future won't be like the past. And the most likely future isn't. In any group, there's usually a tacit set of assumptions about where the world is headed, and what their future holds. Life has gone on for a certain way for a while - and the longer that trend continues, the more invested they get in the assumption that things will just keep on going that same direction. I always ask people early on to describe their Most Likely Future - the one they and their friends assume will happen if nothing else changes. And I've never met anybody who had to hesitate a minute to fill me in on what that future looks like.

But the gotcha is: research by academic futurists has found that this expected future really isn't the most likely outcome at all. In fact, it only actually comes to pass somewhat less than half the time. Which means that somewhat more than half the time, you're going to be facing something else entirely. And if you're too settled on that vision of what's most likely, odds are that you won't do nearly enough to prepare for those alterative futures in which you are even more likely to actually end up living.

It's good to know what your expected future is. Objectively understanding what that story is and how you arrived at it is half the work. The other half lies in being willing to let go of that cherished vision long enough to figure out and prepare for some of the other things that could (and probably will) happen instead.

2. Trends end. This is related to No: 1 in that the most typical reason the expected future doesn't come is that one or more of the trends supporting it fails. As noted above: the longer a trend has been going on, the more we tend to assume that it will never end. But all trends do end - and, in fact, the longer it's been going on, the more overdue you are for it to change. One of the things I do is map the trends that are creating the current conditions, and figure out which trends are overripe (there are tell-tale signs) and thus most at risk of disrupting the existing circumstances. Imagining how these trends could fail or reverse - what would happen if the opposite thing happened instead? - is a useful way of revealing viable and realistic alternative futures.

3. Avoid group-think. Another reason the Most Likely Future tends to obscure everything else is group-think. Every group has basic assumptions about how the world works - what's realistic, what's plausible, what's nonsense, what can't be discussed. The longer the existing set of operating rules has been in place, the more pressure people feel not to question that - and the crazier you look if you do suggest that other futures are possible.

In fact, it's arguable that when a group that's reached a point where no other futures are even discussable, it's a clear red flag that they are vulnerable to being flattened by some new situation that comes out of the blue - or any of the many other places they're no longer looking out for change. Which brings us to:

4. If it's taboo, it's probably important. The thing you are not discussing (the elephant in the room) has a very high probability of being the very thing that will put an end to the present era, and launch you into the next phase of your future. Worse: the longer you ignore or deny it, the more at its mercy you will ultimately be when the change does come down.

A big part of being a futurist is to gently get people to start thinking and talking about those taboo subjects, the ones that are too scary or painful to think about. The very act of bringing those hard issues out onto the table and beginning to grapple with them, all by itself, has tremendous power to make people more courageous and resilient. The elephant only has power as long as we refuse to talk about it. When we finally confront it, its power becomes ours.

5. Any useful idea about the future should sound ridiculous at first. This rule originated with Dr. Jim Dator, the founder of the graduate program in futures studies at the University of Hawaii. His point was: If you're not coming up with ideas that sound a little crazy on their surface, it's a sure sign that you're stuck in too many conventional assumptions - and are therefore not thinking big enough about just how different the future could be. If things don't look a little weird, you're not reaching far enough.

An example: Six years ago, I wrote about the right-wing's up-and-coming assault on contraception. It sounded completely off-the-wall at the time, and I took a lot of grief for it. But look where we are now.

6. Ask: What stays the same? The world is big, and governed by huge interlocking chaotic systems whose behavior can be impossible to anticipate. But, at the same time, there are also constants - the things that don't change from era to era, or that change so slowly that you can pretty much count on them staying the same even when everything else is going to hell.

Chief among these is human nature. Economies grow and shrink, nations rise and fall, the globe is getting hotter and world is getting smaller, but through it all, we are still Homo sapiens - which means we will always be hungry, greedy, horny, infuriatingly stubborn, astonishingly kind, quick to take up arms against each other, and equally quick to bind each others' wounds. It's just how we are.

Any serious survey of a future landscape includes questions like: What stays the same? What will we carry forward with us? What will follow us, whether we want it to or not? What can we count on? What will we still need to guard against?

7. The other side is not always wrong. Right now, America is assertively separating itself into two vivid, strongly held visions of the future. In these situations, groupthink necessarily runs especially high; we are committed not only to progressive values, but also to a specific set of solutions, policies and outcomes that we believe will best make those values manifest in a world shaped by our vision.

The other side, of course, is equally passionate about their values, vision, solutions, policies, and outcomes. In his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality, Chris Mooney points out that one of the defining traits of liberals is that we're far more open to evaluating conservative ideas on their merits, and adopting good ideas wherever we find them. Conservatives, on the other hand, will usually consider the source first. If an idea came from a liberal, it's immediately rejected as unacceptable, regardless of its merits.

This is gross generalization, though. It's plenty easy to find progressives rejecting potentially useful ideas out of hand because they came from sources we don't agree with. But when we're deep in the throes of transforming a country, an economy and a society - long on problems and short on good ideas for fixing them - that kind of narrowness of mind is a luxury we can't afford.

8. Be aware of different change theories. Everybody has their pet theories about how change happens. Almost all of these theories can be sorted into one of about 10 basic buckets, which are described here. Most of us have two or three of these buckets that we think explain just a whole lot about the world, and another one or two that make us very uneasy. And it's usually true that the people we disagree with most are working off of some fundamentally different assumptions about how change happens. Understanding which theories you're drawn to and which you tend to reject can go a long way toward helping you notice your own blind spots, and also form strategies to deal with places that your pet theories collide with those of other groups.

9. Don't think in five or 10 years. Think in 100 or 500 years. A lot of Wall Streeters didn't see the 2008 meltdown coming because economic forecasters typically work with historical data that's anywhere from two to five years old. In 2008, that means that their models didn't include so much as the possibility of a financial disaster on the scale of 1989, let alone 1929. They were thinking on a scale of five years, not 50. And certainly not 100.

While we know abstractly that bad things happened to the generations before us, we seldom believe that anything that bad could actually happen to us. America is safe and stable, and has been for a long time. We're comfortable thinking that there's no way we could face famine or drought, epidemic or genocide, or other catastrophes on that kind of culture-changing scale.

This is a common blind spot. Anything that's happened to humans before is quite likely to happen at some point again. And there's always the possibility that it could happen to us. Simply recognizing our true vulnerabilities, however unlikely those catastrophes may seem, and giving them their due in our future planning enables us to become stronger and more robust, even if the full catastrophe never arrives.

10. Don't assume it will be hard. Don't assume it will be easy. Better yet: don't assume anything, ever. Most of the above cautions are aimed at a final big one: Be acutely aware of every assumption you're making, and don't leave any of them unexamined.

Clear thinking about the future is all about carefully choosing which assumptions you're going to work off of. Often, futurists' main role is to point out and re-examine assumptions that everybody else just accepts as gospel. Someone will say, "Oh, we can't do that; it's too hard." And my job - made easier, because I'm an outsider - is to ask them why that's just assumed. As they explain the obstacles, we can unpack each piece of that assumption together - about how this person won't go along, or how that agency's rules work, or why the time frame just won't allow for it.

This exercise is worth doing because, frequently enough, the assessment that something's just not possible (or, conversely, will be trivially easy - one should question those, too) falls apart when you take a second, deeper look at things. Maybe that assessment was true when you last visited this question six months ago. But maybe things have changed since then - and now, your options are different. Or maybe it turns out that that old assessment is still true, after all. In that case, revisiting it increases your confidence that you can still trust it, though it doesn't exempt you from continually poking at your assumptions, every time you revisit them, to make sure they're still true.

Whether the assumption changes or not, the exercise is worth doing because basing your assumptions about the future on outdated information that already belongs to the past isn't useful. The future is ambiguous enough when you start working from the baseline of the present. You only increase that ambiguity when you put yourself several steps back of that line - especially when you don't have to.

In a time when the stakes are so high, and the margin of error so thin, it's more important than ever that we make the right decisions about the future the first time. Being mindful of these 10 mistakes can go a long way toward increasing the quality of our strategy and planning, and improve the choices we make about our future.

This piece was written by Sara Robinson and is reprinted here with the author's permission. Sara is a social futurist and the editor of AlterNet's Vision page. Follow her on Twitter, or subscribe to AlterNet's Vision newsletter for weekly updates. © 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154773/

The Next Dust Bowl

Which impact of anthropogenic global warming will harm the most people in the coming decades? I believe that the answer is extended or permanent drought over large parts of currently habitable or arable land — a drastic change in climate that will threaten food security and may be irreversible over centuries.

A basic prediction of climate science is that many parts of the world will experience longer and deeper droughts, thanks to the synergistic effects of drying, warming and the melting of snow and ice.

Precipitation patterns are expected to shift, expanding the dry subtropics. What precipitation there is will probably come in extreme deluges, resulting in runoff rather than drought alleviation. Warming causes greater evaporation and, once the ground is dry, the Sun’s energy goes into baking the soil, leading to a further increase in air temperature. That is why, for instance, so many temperature records were set for the United States in the 1930s Dust Bowl and why, in 2011, drought-stricken Texas saw the hottest summer ever recorded for a US state. Finally, many regions are expected to see earlier snowmelt, so less water will be stored on mountain tops for the summer dry season. Added to natural climatic variation, such as the El Niño–La Niña cycle, these factors will intensify seasonal or decade-long droughts. Although the models don’t all agree on the specifics, the overall drying trends are clear.

I used to call the confluence of these processes ‘desertification’ on my blog, ClimateProgress.org, until some readers pointed out that many deserts are high in biodiversity, which isn’t where we’re heading. ‘Dust-bowlification’ is perhaps a more accurate and vivid term, particularly for Americans — many of whom still believe that climate change will only affect far-away places in far-distant times.

Prolonged drought will strike around the globe, but it is surprising to many that it would hit the US heartland so strongly and so soon.

The coming droughts ought to be a major driver — if not the major driver — of climate policies. Yet few policy-makers and journalists seem to be aware of dust-bowlification and its potentially devastating impact on food security. That’s partly understandable, because much of the key research cited in this article post-dates the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Raising public awareness of, and scientific focus on, the likelihood of severe effects of drought is the first step in prompting action.

I first heard of the risks in a 2005 talk by climatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona in Tucson. He pointed to emerging evidence that temperature and annual precipitation were heading in opposite directions over many regions and raised the question of whether we are at the “dawn of the super-interglacial drought”.

The idea wasn’t new. As far back as 1990, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York projected that severe to extreme drought in the United States, then occurring every 20 years or so, could become an every-other-year phenomenon by mid-century.

Events are starting to bear out these worrying predictions. Snowpack reduction, early snowmelt and a decrease in dry-season river flow in the American West, forecast more than two decades ago, have now been measured. In much of the northern Rockies, the peak of the annual stream runoff is up to three or four weeks earlier than it was half a century ago. Heat and drought — coupled with the greater impact of destructive species, such as bark beetles, aided by warming — have increased forest die-off and the risk of wildfire.

The palaeoclimate record dating back to the medieval period reveals droughts lasting many decades. But the extreme droughts that the United States faces this century will be far hotter than the worst of those: recent decades have been warmer than the driest decade of the worst drought in the past 1,200 years.

And much warmer conditions are projected. According to a 2009 report of the US Global Change Research Program, warming over mid-latitude land masses, such as the continental United States, is predicted to be higher than the forecast average global warming: much of the inland United States faces a rise of between 5 °C and 6 °C on the current emissions path (that is, ‘business as usual’) by the century’s end, with a substantial fraction of that warming occurring by mid-century.

A 2007 analysis of 19 climate projections estimated that levels of aridity comparable to those in the Dust Bowl could stretch from Kansas to California by mid-century. To make matters worse, the regions at risk of reduced water supply, such as Nevada, have seen a massive population boom in the past decade. Overuse of water in these areas has long been rife, depleting groundwater stores.

Of course, the United States is not alone in facing such problems. Since 1950, the global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% of global land area per decade. Recent studies have projected ‘extreme drought’ conditions by mid-century over some of the most populated areas on Earth—southern Europe, south-east Asia, Brazil, the US Southwest, and large parts of Australia and Africa. These dust-bowl conditions are projected to worsen for many decades and be “largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stopped.”

The concept of drought has not been ignored by the IPCC and other scientific groups; there is even a United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. But the cumulative risks don’t seem to have been fully recognized by the public and by policy-makers. And key questions remain to be answered, ideally in a dedicated report by an organization such as the US National Academy of Sciences or the IPCC.

Most pressingly, what will happen to global food security if dust-bowl conditions become the norm for both food-importing and food-exporting countries? Extreme, widespread droughts will be happening at the same time as sea level rise and salt-water intrusion threaten some of the richest agricultural deltas in the world, such as those of the Nile and the Ganges. Meanwhile, ocean acidification, warming and overfishing may severely deplete the food available from the sea.

What are the implications of dust-bowlification for energy generation? After agriculture, energy generation is responsible for the majority of freshwater withdrawals, and two key strategies for generating additional potable water — wastewater purification and desalinisation — are both energy intensive. Future energy systems will need to be low on greenhouse-gas emissions and on water use. In particular, thermal power plants, including nuclear, may need to switch from evaporative or ‘wet cooling’  systems to dry cooling techniques, which, unfortunately, tend to be less efficient.

From an ecological perspective, what will be the effects of dust-bowlification on the global carbon cycle? In the past six years, the Amazon has seen two droughts of the sort expected once in 100 years, each of which may have released as much carbon dioxide from vegetation die-off as the United States emits from fossil-fuel combustion in a year. More frequent wildfires also threaten to increase carbon emissions. And as habitats are made untenable, what will be the effect on biodiversity?

At the same time, drought models need to be improved. They successfully chart the hydrological changes seen in the US South-west and the drying seen at the global level, but regional predictions can be disturbingly variable. Some models forecast an increase in precipitation for East Africa, whereas others correctly predicted in 2010 that warming of the Indian Ocean would lead to drought in the region, such as this year’s devastating drought in Somalia. The models need higher resolution and a better understanding of precipitation, sea surface temperature and the effects of vegetation.

Human adaptation to prolonged, extreme drought is difficult or impossible. Historically, the primary adaptation to dust-bowlification has been abandonment; the very word ‘desert’ comes from the Latin desertum for ‘an abandoned place’. During the relatively short-lived US Dust-Bowl era, hundreds of thousands of families fled the region. We need to plan how the world will deal with drought-spurred migrations and steadily growing areas of non-arable land in the heart of densely populated countries and global bread-baskets. Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.

These predictions are not worst-case scenarios: they assume business-as-usual greenhouse-gas emissions. We can hope that the models are too pessimistic, but some changes, such as the expansion of the subtropics, already seem to be occurring faster than models have projected. We clearly need to pursue the most aggressive greenhouse-gas mitigation policies promptly, and put dust-bowlification atop the world agenda. The time to act is now.

This piece was written by Joe Romm and first published in the journal Nature on 27th October 2011. It is reprinted here with the author's permission. Joe is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." In 2009, Rolling Stone put Romm #88 on its list of 100 "people who are reinventing America." Time named him a "Hero of the Environment″ and “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger." Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D, demonstration, and deployment of low-carbon technology. He is a Senior Fellow at American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.

 

 

When the Storms Came

Hi Jez. This is papa again. This is the last time you will hear my voice. As your life can only be activated after my passing we will never actually know each other. Yet these days, with so much time on my hands, I think of you constantly, wondering whether you will take after your mother or myself and imagining how your life is likely to unfold in conditions that are so utterly different from when I was born in 2011.

For the past few years I have been recording my own life’s journey to your mindbank just in case you want to know more about me as you grow up, especially the mistakes I made and the valuable lessons I learned along the way. As today is my final birthday it is an appropriate moment to add a concluding message to the imprint you will have access to at the moment of your birth.

As I mentioned to you in earlier chronicles I studied biocultural anthropology at Wisdom University and have been a biocultural ethnographer most of my professional life. Each month I work my allocated ten hours (about the current average for elders like myself) for the FinanceLab hubbed here in Moscow – a “resilient” city with a populace approaching 25 million, many of them environmental evacuees. I hope you are able to visit Moscow at some stage to see the city I experience every day and which has become my unlikely sanctuary.

To be employed by FinanceLab is a great honour. This enterprise has managed all non-peer-2-peer transactions and financial flows for our zone since the global banking meltdown mid-century. Such trades amount to almost CNY 80 trillion each week which makes us the leading monetary facilitator in the region. Naturally all data is teleported instantly these days. Even so my job is pretty cool. My only regret is that I would love to be able to meet more people and listen to their stories, like in the old days, than be interacting with them via my webscreen all the time.

Because of the extreme heat and lawlessness it’s simply too dangerous to travel much these days – unless one is very wealthy of course, which I am not. So apart from an occasional trip to Beijing to visit your aunt and her family (and a vacation on Mars Station two years ago which I found overhyped, especially in terms of its so-called “luxurious” amenities) I tend to stay put. My friends still teasingly refer to me as a homey.

My devoted companion is DAO. As a fifth generation personalised android, DAO is able to access the totality of documented human knowledge, answer any question I pose and tend to all my requests. But she’s not really into hugging or intimacy, which I miss. You will meet DAO quite soon of course as she has agreed to care for you when I am gone. I still pine for your mama who loved me and looked after me so selflessly. Its sad that you will never have the opportunity to hear her voice the way you are listening to mine now, but the imprinting mindbank technology simply wasn't available back then.

These days I grow my own food using permaculture techniques I learned from your grandma after grandpa died. Because of the resources rationing I always recycle my waste. Choosing to be off-the-grid for water and energy I can at least ensure my diet doesn’t contain unwanted additives, which is a luxury few people can afford. I value my health. Besides, tending to my small indoor wall bioshelter is deeply satisfying.

Even after all these years, I still occasionally crave some grilled chicken or a pork green curry – what person born Asian would not? But after the great contagion of 2038 which killed over two billion people in a matter of weeks, including your mama, most meat production was banned. Even the Americas are totally vegetarian these days - or so it is claimed. Frankly I don't put much faith in local markets as you can never quite be sure what ingredients are used in those so-called "organic" products. Just last night an entire community was quarantined for consuming illegally acquired organic pork meat capsules from the market just around the corner. Nor do I fancy the artificial equivalents, though they often look and taste authentic enough.The local supermarket has become far more trustworthy of late, expecially as product labelling is strictly standardised these days. I suppose they had to do something to survive. But I'm just not into genetically modified food, so it is pointless my shopping there.

Being born of a Thai mother and an Australian father I grew up in what seemed to me at the time to be the most sublime if chaotic cosmopolitan city in the world. Like most old coastal cities, Bangkok has been submerged for the past quarter of a century. Unless you take one of the many underwater tours on offer from the coastal city of Ayyuthaya you will never see the glorious temples I visited in my youth. Most of the tropics are just too hot to inhabit now. As the default capital of South East Asia, Singapore still exists of course in what is undoubtedly an extraordinary feat of acqua-engineering. But I can’t imagine enjoying life in such a tightly regulated enclave where all residential dwellings are required to be submerged by at least 10 metres. I need to feel free and to breathe fresh air, even if that is an illusion and my movements are somewhat constrained.

I often wonder what might have happened had the scientists’ warnings about climate change been heeded. When the storms came it was far too late. It all happened so quickly. Wealthy people simply moved to the resilient cities. The poor suffered. So many people died from lack of water, disease and starvation. Recent rumours suggest almost 4.7 billion people perished within a decade - although ordinary citizens like me are still denied access to the official figures that are hidden somewhere within the vaults of the Planetary Social Records Unit.

After many relationships I now live alone – the unintended consequence of my generation being instructed not to parent children or to make too many friends on iWeb for fear of identity theft. Not that I mind. I feel no attachment or loyalty to this place. Almost everything your grandparents valued about life on this planet has vanished - including the strong sense of community that pervaded our culture, the local dialects, the scent of frangipani in the evenings, and the sheer diversity of life. But now all of those have gone, driven out by unbridled urbanisation as well as the callous nature of corporations and the tribal conflicts that erupted once the storms came.

And so today, as I record this message for you Jez, I celebrate my 89^th birthday. It is Saturday 12^th June. The year is 2100. Although I still take my daily does of Aprovel my geneticist tells me to expect death in about four months from now, probably from a stroke. I am ready. I have seen so much and lived through some astonishing changes. I have few regrets. My clone is already shadowing me in FinanceLab. My passing will hardly be noticed.

But I still have one small glimmer of hope: that as you listen to my voice recounting my story you will pause and wonder who your papa really was. I would like to think that you know and appreciate what I tried to do to make your life easier. Hopefully you will regard me fondly from the messages I have recorded over the past few years and that have been captured for you in this imprint.

Take care and be good!

Love from Papa.

The fictional author of this fictional letter is the same age as my youngest son Nico who was born on 12th June 2011. In composing this extreme picture of life at the turn of the 21st Century I hope I am wrong about most things. I would like to believe that Nico will enjoy everthing about living on this Earth that has made my own life's journey so precious and miraculous. My suspicion is that most of what is implied in this scenario may actually come to pass in one way or another and that such circumstances will make it much harder for him to make such a statement at the end of his life.

 

Greek Mythology

A strategic foresight practitioner like myself cannot help but be mesmerized by the extent of disruption being caused today by the breakdown of the competitive, machine-like, model of human enterprise - especially when, even in its death throes, it still traps us in paralytic fear of alternative, more humane, possibilities.

The endgame of the industrial paradigm, typified by linear thinking, exhausted systems and wasteful practices, is rapidly giving way to a networked society. Here abundance will have ousted scarcity, distributed knowledge (shared in peer-to-peer networks and used collaboratively) will have liberated innovation far more effectively than the clumsy legal frameworks of the past, and a new literacy, networked intelligence, will have helped us surmount most of the limitations inherent within the old model.

Yet many of us, including elected leaders and their King Canute-like courts, vainly cling to a myth: namely that the industrial model of “free market” capitalism, braced by certain democratic principles, is the definitive peak of human achievement. In other words that better options are impossible to imagine and that we must therefore do everything in our power to prevent a collapse of the old order. Of course this is to deny the inevitability of evolution as well as the rules of nature.

Although I am no financial expert we can find a good example of predictable collapse in the way economic theory, typically favouring either “free” market principles or centralised government control, is applied. Regardless of the politics, what remain constant in today’s world are:

• a monetary scheme founded on compounded debt
• an economic orthodoxy increasingly driven by selfishness that limits the nature of value (and the value of nature) to mere utility while ignoring some costs as being relatively unimportant
• a global reserve fixed on a single currency thereby biasing the system in favour of that currency
• a limited range of fiscal responses nations are able to adopt in order to out-compete each other while maintaining social cohesion (through security, employment, education & welfare for example)
• a banking system overtly manipulating regulatory mechanisms to generate wealth for a surprisingly small number of individuals and corporations.

This is just one example of why systems that are supposed to support humanity are failing us. It is clearly unsustainable. Any structure with such intrinsic constraints is ultimately going to fail. We are witness to that inevitabilty right now in Greece. As the grand experiment we call the European Union staggers from one crisis to another, with past mistakes rationalised rather than resolved, the Greek economy is being allowed to fall into even more of a chaotic mess. Greece will run out of money in six weeks. So what is actually going on?

In early 2010, we discovered that successive Greek governments had been consistently and calculatingly misreporting the country's official economic statistics so as to keep within the EU's guidelines. Subterfuge had enabled Greek governments to spend well beyond their means, while hiding the actual deficit from Brussels. In May of that year the deficit was estimated to be 13.6 per cent for the year, which was one of the highest in the world relative to GDP. Total public debt was forecast to hit 120 per cent of GDP during 2010, again one of the highest rates in the world.

Now, after two bailouts (totalling €240 billion) Greece is indebted to other nations, mostly France, Germany and the UK, to the tune of €0.45 trillion. This is small in comparison to some European economies, and direct damage of it defaulting on its debts could probably be absorbed by the eurozone. However, the fear is that an Athenian default could trigger a financial catastrophe for other, larger economies, such as Italy. The ripples will be felt around the world.

Actually a default (accompanied by Greece's exit from the EU) is probably just a matter of time. There are good reasons for this, not least of which is Greece’s history in such matters. Whatever happens, the current debt (as well as some of the irresponsible commentary accompanying it) is causing a deep cultural malaise in Greek society and overwhelming the ability of other systems to cope. Unemployment figures are stuck at 21.7 per cent, including an incredible 50 per cent of all young people. Over the past two years public service salaries have plunged by 40 per cent and suicides have risen by 22 per cent. In Athens alone there are over 13,000 homeless people. The health system is in turmoil since there is no cash to pay pharmacies for prescriptions. Corruption is rife, the bureaucracy is bloated, competitiveness is poor and evasion of tax is estimated at 47 per cent. If all of that wasn’t crippling enough the country now faces increasing political turmoil and parliamentary dysfunctionality afer an inconclusive general election in which both mainstream pro-Europe parties saw a dramatic colllapse in support. It is highly likely fresh elections will have to be called.

As always there is an upside to be considered. After the most recent bailout the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund all insisted Greece find ways to make its economy more competitive - principally by cutting the cost of doing business in the country. That is undoubtedly a sensible call as it should attract overseas investment and international visitors. Since the early 1990s until fairly recently the nation’s growth has been higher than the EU average. In terms of economic complexity the nation is strong with a diverse range of embedded productive knowledge. Nor can the Greek work ethic be criticised: the labor force, which totals approximately 5 million, works the second highest number of hours per year on average among OECD countries.

If the drachma was still a valid currency this situation might not have arisen. Or at least, if it did, it would be within Greece’s jurisdiction to introduce measures to deal with the problem. Over the past century the Greek economy has often owed more than it produces. But now Greece is being intimidated by its European partners to repay loans faster than it can possibly manage and with no amnesty being offered.

At this point austerity measures, it is claimed, are vital. Austerity (the cutting of public spending to the bone) is the new global economic medicine prescribed for dealing with sovereign debt. Proclaimed with frenzied zeal by almost all the world’s leading financial institutions, austerity is being demanded of Greece by its eurozone partners, as if it were the panacea to everything. This is quite a dangerous strategy – not least because the chances of Greece defaulting are already quite high and more pain might simply push the country over the edge.

The logic of austerity is being driven by the custodians of the old industrial system - in whose opinion productive efficiency matters far more than social wellbeing or commonsense. Austerity means people suffer because many essential public services are reduced, or eliminated altogether. This undermines self-reliance and unravels the fabric of society still further. Economic shock therapy of this kind does not work because it destroys cultural cohesion. We have seen that before in pre-revolutionary Chile and in Cuba - where it was the US weapon of choice – as well as in Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s US - where it was a doctrine of faith. Yet we still blindly insist that it must work in Europe for there are no other “economically rational” solutions.

And here my economic naivety comes to the fore as I cannot for the life of me see the rationality in such partial, linear solutions. Of course economic austerity makes sense in theory, especially in terms of trimming what has become a bloated and inefficient public sector. But to rely just on austerity measures to save Greece is to wilfully ignore morale, motivation and empathy within the community – the very things that breathe vitality and meaning into innovation and entrepreneurship.

Greece actually has all the resources needed to be a thriving and prosperous nation. Unfortunately ordinary men and women in Greece are not sufficiently connected and their politicians, bullied by France and Germany, are mere slaves to their European partners. So while trimming the fat from government spending is wise, enduring solutions are going to come from elsewhere. But where should we be looking?

Once more an appreciation of context is important. As the world transitions to a more openly transparent, networked world, and systemic failures caused by the industrial paradigm continue to crop up, almost on a daily basis, the acquisition of new literacies becomes a critical factor in society’s renewal. Paradoxically the disruptive conditions enveloping Greece are now inviting an incomparable opportunity to seize the future by creating and adopting new literacies, and new values, that are already re-casting the basic patterns of human production and consumption.

Because a renewal strategy of such a wide-ranging nature will need to be multidimensional, strategically relevant and systemically viable, it will require imagination, foresight, courage and a commitment to the extraordinary cultural ethos for invention that Greece bequeathed the Western world ages ago – qualities that appear to have gone missing from today’s political leadership scene.

But if this leadership were to emerge, phoenix-like from the current disorder, what might a viable strategy for the future of Greece actually comprise? If the design challenge is to create the greatest benefit for the greatest numbers of people then the following points would at least need to be seriously considered:

1. People have lost faith in brand politics and celebrity politicians – particularly the three major families that have dominated politics in Greece for decades. Here is an opportunity to instigate far–reaching reforms to the system of political governance by adopting diversity and inclusion within an overtly egalitarian society. Greece, once the cradle of democracy could actually reconceive what demos means in an age of online interconnectedness. Greater participation from citizens, even in the form of new political coalitions and governance models, might also do a great deal to stamp out the nepotism and corruption that still haunts political life in Greece.

2. Governments cannot create wealth. But they are responsible for generating the conditions wherein wealth can be generated and shared. As we transition from the failed mode of fossil-fuelled industrial economism to a cleaner, more sustainable world of global business ecosystems, enabled by digital and bio-technologies and featuring community collaboration, open-source design and peer-to-peer relationships, new purpose and new wealth will be created by people being given encouragement to trade and use their talents and natural resources more effectively. Four things are evident in this context. Greece must:    

• invest in a reliable and speedy online infrastructure that allows all citizens to connect at any time and for any reason – or risk innovation being smothered
• increase economic complexity by supporting knowledge economy ventures and cleantech startups as well as providing targeted support for traditional industries such as tourism, merchant shipping, agriculture and fisheries
• encourage companies to grow around community - acquiring new knowledge and capabilities for the way goods and services are made, shared and consumed
• optimise an abundance of assets that are being ignored in the current context – assets such as sunshine, ancient sites, beautiful islands, good food and wine, etc.

3. There is no denying the Greek bureacracy has become bloated, costly and inefficient. But it needs to be trimmed slowly (through natural attrition and the suspension of obsolete programs, for example) in order to avoid an even bigger crisis. Unfortunately, institutions that sell credit are generally impatient. Not giving Greece the time it needs to repay and rebuild could result in an upsurge of corruption that quickly spins out of control – as occurred in Russia when Mikhail Gorbachev was denied adequate time to develop a post-soviet economy by the World Bank and IMF.

4. As adaptiveness to contextual volatilility becomes essential for investors, entrepreneurs, corporate strategists and government policy makers alike, we need to use new information and communications technologies, including the new social media, to speed up the learning metabolism within society. As proven by Stafford Beer in pre-revolutionary Chile, but mostly forgotten today, equality and responsiveness to shifting realities can be transformed through instituting an "electronic nervous system" that links voters, workplaces and agencies in a single interactive national communications network. Such an investment would serve Greece well at this juncture as well as providing a prototype for Europe as a whole.

5. Liberating the untapped wealth of the people while avoiding unnecessary hardship must be part of any strategy going forward. That probably required Brussels and other creditors to give Greece some slack, including allowing extra time for the debt to be repaid. If Europe declines then Greece should simply default and find new trading partners. As my colleague Ivor Kellock recently reminded me - there are always people willing to do deals….

 

Dichotomies

Recently I was drawn into an intriguing and entirely amicable exchange of ideas relating to the fiscal position of the US relative to the state of the global economy.

Three points were being made by an online trader who chooses to characterise himself as a right-wing libertarian on his blog. I will refer to him simply as Alan. Although I would never think to classify myself in that manner I found myself agreeing, at least in part, with Alan's initial claims about the decline of “Brand America”.

Alan’s first claim described the US economy as one burdened by unsustainable debt, a worsening in living standards and an inability to compete internationally. The second declared the US dollar, being the global reserve currency, a two-edged sword within that specific context: in other words it uniquely permits the US government to print money which, especially after the financial crisis of 2008, has extended its liabilities to the point of insolvency. The third indicated the critical role innovation must play (especially as a universally-recognized value in US culture) in restoring the American economy to its former vitality.

Differences only became evident when Alan began to insist there is only one way to go about the latter task. That way, according to him, is to give people the freedom to create enterprise, relying on individual entrepreneurs to generate wealth for society and allowing markets to self-regulate, with little or no interference from the state. He then started to deride countries like China where a communitarian ethos, nuanced by a relatively short period of communism, has since resulted in a society where, he contends, creativity does not exist and most people live under a yoke of oppression.

I am on the record as having been highly critical of many of China's approaches to its problems - especially environmental and human rights issues. But I always attempt to put such criticism in perspective - to appreciate the conditions under which Chinese leaders have brought millions of people out of poverty, while making adequate provisions for the needs of the new middle classes, recovering from the worst excesses of Mao's cultural revolution, and dealing with the soul-destroying impacts of massive environmental degradation, all at the same time. This is unprecedented. No other nation in history has been faced with such dilemmas on such a scale. I happen to think they are not doing a bad job of it. Furthermore they have not been distracted by deliberately and systematically initiating conflict and societal disruption around the world – unlike some who claim to be purer than pure. 

Alan's views endorse the popular, though thoroughly discredited, monetarist notions of Milton Friedman - especially in the form of the economic "shock therapy" he advised should be used in pre-revolutionary Chile and Cuba to effect regime change. Basically Friedman believed that an individual’s right to generate wealth should supersede community interest – a view similarly expressed by Friedrich Hayek.

And so it was that I was reproached by Alan for being a socialist. This contention apparently arose from his hypothesis that if my thinking did not explicitly accord with his own interpretation of “an individual’s liberty and rights” then I must inevitably advocate collectivism - which would then brand me as a socialist or, even worse, a communist.

The fact that I neither advocate collectivism as a panacea, nor belittle individual rights, is neither here nor there, though the sloppy use of language in assuming socialism to be synonymous with collectivism irks me somewhat. My real irritation arises from the fact that so many people are still taught to think in this generalised manner – divorced from any ethical taxonomy of ideas and readily accepting theoretical abstractions they often do not understand, and are even less inclined to contest, in which to frame their beliefs.

But perhaps all of that is about to change. As communities around the world rise up against unfairness and injustice, awakening from their lethargy to confront the more obvious inequities in our current systems of production, governance and consumption, many subtle distinctions for expressing and organising ideas are starting to populate the language. Labels we may have happily used to represent an idea in the past are mostly inadequate for describing the variety of opinions, feelings and desires emancipated into our world today. Far greater precision and granularity is needed. Resorting to orthodox classifications such as collectivism and individualism in order to portray the differences between highly sophisticated, multilayered agendas and ideologies, especially when that is done merely to discount or deny a pivotal idea, is either laziness or sheer mischief. In either case it is inexcusable. And if emotionally charged statistics are triggers to this sloppy way of thinking, let us remember that the Soviet experiment with communism taught us far more, and ultimately damaged far fewer lives, than the US's imperialistic, neverending (yet ultimately futile) war on terror.

But back to my main point. A new panarchical language is evolving - its vocabulary a developmental technology enabling the human family, connected to each other and embedded within nature, to remain individually and collectively inventive, but also ensuring altruistic qualities such as empathy and wisdom are fundamental design criteria for shaping progress on this planet. This is a language that includes and transcends obsolete generalisations and abstractions in order that original ideas and motivations can evolve and take flight - but within a rewnewed shared purpose.

Let us take the concept of the market as an example. Markets are vital to our future. But markets are only one economic contractual mode, another being barter for example. There is certainly no reason for markets as currently constructed to apply to everything we produce, transact and consume. Nor are markets free - a delusion supported by nice theoretical statements and perpetuated by yet another sloppy use of language. It is just that the costs are hidden from view. Indeed in their current highly politicised form (driven by a toxic mix of competitive business interests and the maintenance of power – usually in the form of rich countries wanting to ensure adequate supplies of essential resources like oil, for example) many markets have become surrogates used to distort reality and fortify old industries and regimes. Unregulated, markets simply cannot be trusted to provide adequately for humanity as a whole.

I readily concede that is not the view shared by most conservatives. If we look at recent history, especially the way Milton Friedman and his Chicago disciples wreaked havoc in Chile and Cuba (and, by implication, in Thatcher’s UK and Reagan’s US) by applying "free market" principles as a weapon of choice to reduce potentially viable economies to a near state of feudalism and class warfare, we might be forgiven for thinking that money is all that matters and should be used purely to keep the rich wealthy by humiliating and destroying the poor and degrading the environment.

But if we are at all concerned for the wellbeing of future generations and the need to sustain the abundance of life on Earth, it is obvious that economies and markets must be designed differently – with a revitalized purpose that serves the majority, social architectures reflecting current and future priorities, and an autopoietic capability to maintain relevance and viability.

This is precisely why I am arguing for a better balance between individual wealth (generated by individuals through entrepreneurship) and the wealth of the commons (generated by nature and communities). The way capitalism is currently utilised is destructive because it rampages over the needs of the majority. But disaster capitalism is like a zombie in that it refuses to die. At least soviet communism had the good grace to admit defeat!

So a major problem still is in our thinking and in the language we use to explain that thinking. In the West we continue to construct reality in past heroic terms and are unwilling (or unable) to include and transcend orthodox economic mechanisms that have brought some of us so much wealth and comfort, even though they are no longer sufficient for our collective needs.

In Greek philosophy nomos (laws and customs) is used in the service of logos (knowledge and purpose). A more pertinent way of expessing this idea is to accept that economies should be implanted within (i.e. be of service to) social and natural ecologies. Since the early 20^th century when escalating production and consumption, aided and abetted by corporate public relations and advertising, became the engulfing credo throughout the developed world, we have succeeded in turning that moral genesis on its head – exclusively pursuing growth and affluence to the detriment of our peace of mind and sense of communal wellbeing and, in the process, damaging our vital connection to nature, upon which we rely for life’s essentials.

Unlike Alan, my overriding contention is that the future design of viable socio-economic systems must surpass any historical ideas - especially the Occidental mindset of free market economics – at least as this is currently construed, practised and regulated. If we are not able to do that it is probably because the thinking and the language we still use is so embedded in the ideological assumptions of past centuries – a reality based upon scarcity, competition and “every man for himself” – that it has become almost impossible to extract ourselves from this dominant worldview.

I am not that pessimistic however. I do not doubt new forms of empathic capitalism will emerge to displace disaster capitalism - where economies are embedded in ecologies and not vice versa. And I believe they will flourish because of that. That does not make me a socialist or a capitalist - or anything else for that matter! Nor does it in any way imply that individuals and entrepreneurship are of secondary importance to society’s collective aspirations. Indeed to fall into the trap of trading one off for the other is intellectually negligent.

The key to civilizational advancement is surely to find ways of accommodating both within socio-economic structures that are distributed, agnostic, and do not just favour a wealthy minority who sit back and trade on the misfortunes of others.

The (Other) World Game

1. A Single Worldview

Over the past few years I have given considerable thought to the notion of the civilizational worldview as a shared construct. I believe this paradigm insinuates its way into our beliefs and attitudes towards each other and towards the Earth on which we rely for energy, sustenance and inspiration.

The grand visions and moral imperatives of this source model trace the most improbable story of the human project on planet Earth. An exultant story of astonishing adventures, passionate social movements and political revolutions. A romantic story of virtuosic creativity. A story that has fashioned great works of art, assembled complex urban environments, spawned incredible technologies, and produced massive wealth.

These accomplishments are all the more remarkable in that they have arisen via discoveries made within relatively bounded domains of knowledge and have been primarily driven by our curiosity and willingness to investigate discrete disciplines - initially theology, later philosophy and the humanities and, most recently, science. Such is human ingenuity and persistence.

If, or when, it occurs to us at all, we assume this civilizational worldview to be a constant element – the bedrock underlying everything we do and the means by which we can express our most fundamental nature. It is the life-condition we discern, experience each day of our life, and in which we are immersed from birth. It matters little whether we were raised in the parched deserts of Sudan, the chic urban landscape of Chicago, the dense rainforsts of Borneo, or the overcrowded slums of Mumbai. Regardless of where and how we live, what we earn, the particular skills we have acquired, or our social status, the civilizational worldview is as natural to us (and as mystifying) as the air we breathe.

This same civilizational worldview has fortified our world-system for at least the past 2,000 years. Along the way it has been nourished by a stream of varying sentiments about human purpose and capability, tested in a cauldron of competing ideologies, and shaped by common moral impulses. All these have progressively wrought our worldview into a deeply congruent and ingrained credo defining what we faithfully believe to be an indisputable truth describing humanity. Rising above any specific value set connating good or bad and right or wrong; transcending philosophy, history and geography; this credo implies eight tenets:

1. A ruling power “elite” serviced by a compliant underclass of “serfs”[1]
2. Wealth and power acquired by the elite at the serfs’ expense and protected via state political, military or policing mechanisms
3. An all-encompassing ethereal or superstitious dogma (where the elite may be depicted as representatives of a deity or divine beings) typically used to manufacture consent
4. An industrial war machine viewed as a crucial component of the economy and held up as validating the inherently combative nature of humans
5. Most aspects of production and consumption controlled by the elite - through ownership, language, access to services and skills, etc.
6. Games, entertainment and mass media used as a social distraction in ways that help maintain compliance within the social order
7. Economies (nomos or rules) accorded a higher status than ecologies (logos or purpose) - thus nature is logically exploited as a human right
8. An irresistible narrative within society based upon competition, labour, scarcity and difference.

This set of eight tenets does not imply a universally applicable monist integrity. On the contrary our worldview is something of a chameleon, changing its tone, color and intensity over time according to its changing surroundings and cultural maturity. But the critical thing to note is that the civilizational worldview was instituted, shaped and given legitimacy by us. As a social construction it can be rejected, remodeled or transcended - if that is what we want.

Until now it is explicitly what we have not wanted - nor even anticipated as being necessary. I cannot find evidence of any serious or persistent critique that comes close to challenging the veracity of this worldview. Indeed across the sweep of history, in every culture, architects of the bloodiest upheavals and entrepreneurs behind the most compassionate enterprises alike, have all assumed the validity of the civilizational credo. So it is fair to presume either that the civilizational worldview is the preferred epistemological framework for Homo sapiens, or that we have not yet been motivated to discover surrogates. Not to be searching for viable alternatives must surely mean either:

• that the current civilizational worldview has served our needs well - and
• those benefitting from this worldview (in other words those who have most to lose - the elite) want it to endure, or
• the thought of renewal or reinvention is simply too confronting, or
• an embodied sense of “worldview” as an implicit social construction is way beyond our collective consciousness to such an extent that reasons for alternatives are outside our capability to know.

Personally I deem a combination of the first and second of these possibilities to be most likely. There can be no doubting the civilisational worldview has brought great affluence, health and well-being to many millions. The reservation I have is whether it can do the same for the burgeoning billions of the world’s inhabitants who are starving, have no security, shelter, income or education, and are victims of injustice and discrimination.

The elite in all contemporary societies (i.e. essentially those who control the flow of money, resources and ideas - including elected and self-appointed leaders, the priesthood, public intellectuals, high wealth industrialists, bankers, politicians and their advisers, royalty, business corporations and industry lobbyists) put most of their efforts and resources into preserving and reinforcing the existing order because they have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. Nor is embracing the existing state of affairs and safeguarding venerable institutions necessarily a bad thing. Indeed it can be stabilising and comforting – something most of us yearn for at some stage. But occasionally, betrayed by hubris and distracted by the very means that have been constructed to maintain consent, the old-guard fail to heed the all-too-obvious signs of impending disaster.

Arrogant leadership, inadequate or flawed information, and decisions driven by vanity rather than wisdom have instigated almost every contemporary tragedy - from the sinking of the Titanic to the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and even the collapse of Enron and Lehman Brothers. Now it seems, with climate change, we may be heading into a situation that threatens humanity itself. Yet we continue to ignore warning signs, convinced of our invulnerability and oblivious to the damage already being wreaked by our “lock-in” to the civilizational worldview.

The elite are unlikely to change their ways until they feel pain, which is unlikely as wealth can quarantine us from the worst of adversities. In practical terms we know that if climate change turns out to be as disruptive to our way of life as scientists now predict, it is the poor, the disadvantaged and those who remain trapped by circumstances, who will suffer most. The elite can still sleep easily in their beds.  

2. A Cultural Cornucopia

A more profound facet of the worldview, and one that is more immediately recognisable, is the countless mindsets applied by people in differing cultures to help them interpret the worldview. Although the terms worldview and mindset are often used interchangeably, they are actually distinct. In my context a cultural mindset is a set of ingrained assumptions that reinforces social identity and purpose within a community. As powerful inducements for continuing to accept prior behaviours, choices and technologies, cultural mindsets invariably reflect and accentuate one or more features of the prevalent worldview.

But whereas the worldview is a single phenomenon, the shared backdrop to our collective experience, an abundance of cultural mindsets are extant. Continuously breathing life and relevance into the worldview, they are the social filters we acquire, transmit from one generation to the next, and overtly employ to sculpt the civilizational worldview to local conditions, such that it retains intrinsic meaning for us.

Each cultural mindset is exceptional in its semiotic palette. For example, each aspires to perceive knowledge accurately - yet translates truth and beauty and goodness in dissimilar ways. Each has its own sense of place, sophisticated ways of knowing, implicit biocultural associations, language, ethics and customs. And each affords unique answers to that most fundamental of questions: What does it mean to be human and to be living together on this planet?

In the distant past there seem to have been significant differences between one cultural mindset and another. But when the urge to discover and explore new lands accelerated during the 15^th century, and new colonial settlements started to blend with native mindsets, entirely novel hybrids formed. The fusion created through the collision of the Indic, Sinic and Occidental cultural mindsets, for example, shaped a fertile interface for trade and commerce along the Silk Road.

Unfortunately that is all changing. One of the repeatedly ignored downsides to globalization is the pall of homogeneity that erodes heritable knowledge and distinctive cultural attributes. Take the indigenous cultural mindset of native Australians, for example. At the time of white settlement there were at least 270 discrete Aboriginal languages and possibly 600 or more dialects. Half have been lost and only 18 are spoken today by around 500 individuals. This represents a huge loss of knowledge, much of it irreplaceable.

Sadly this trend is also reflected in our consumption patterns. Our addiction to luxury goods, for example, means global brands are to be seen in shopping malls in every large city and international airport with tedious inevitability. Meanwhile distinctive local trades, crafts, customs and markets are an endangered species – increasingly known only to a small and contracting clientele and a few scholarly anthropologists.

Even the purest and most precious of cultural mindsets are surrendering to this overwhelming assault as an incessant stream of corporate advertising infects our minds with the banal, the trivial and the frivolous. Large multinationals now dominate the food chain, the industrial war machine, global finance, the energy industry and the political agenda. They are happy with the status quo and see little reason to amend their ways.

The fact that we do not generally take these granular cultural predilections into account is one of the most glaring reasons for transcultural misinterpretation and international follies. It is also giving rise to a global monoculture in which western industrialised capitalism (the Occidental mindset in its most vibrant and compelling modern form) is given precedence over all other expressions of what it means to be alive and human. This particular cultural mindset overwhelmingly views reality as a logically explicable system of physical artifacts, calibrations and observable phenomena. It is a mindset dominated by scientific rationalism, in spite of the philosophical outcry cautioning us that such a viewpoint only illumines a path to perdition. Indeed the German writer Goethe claims in Urfaustus that putting one’s faith in Newtonian principles is tantamount to selling one’s soul to the devil.

In comparison, the Indic mindset sets far greater store on iterative cycles of internal reflection and spiritual transcendence, the prominence accorded to the relationship of the individual soul to the manifestation of external phenomena amounting almost to an ecological metaphysic. The Sinic mindset is different again, cherishing balance in all things – the feminine yin and the masculine yang preserving a delicate equilibrium between extremes.

As intimated there are other mindsets in existence that were once considerably more important in locally circumscribed situations than they are today in a global context. The ancient Amerindian, African Ubuntu and various Indigenous mindsets, for example, hold far less sway in today’s world, largely because they signify values, relationships and ideals that do not sit comfortably with our addiction to material wealth and scientific progress. These islands of humanity serve as critically disregarded laboratories where gender, social order, symbiosis and persistent narrative can inform many of our inquiries. For that very reason we should be paying more attention to them, specifically in terms of how we might develop a greater consciousness of evolving to a less exploitative worldview where communities can live in harmony with each other and nature. But that, I suspect will take a radical metanoia on the part of society at large.

Finally, to make things even more complicated, there are subtle inflections of multiple mindsets - as in the recent amalgam of contemporary mindsets across Asia, resulting in part from globalization as well as the intended and unintended remnants of imperialism.

Thus a multitude of different interpretations and understandings can materialize from societies operating from within differing cultural mindsets – to the extent that extreme behavioural divergence between them is often evident even though the civilizational worldview itself remains a shared and immutable phenomenon.

So, depending upon our cultural upbringing and mode of social initiation into the modern world-system, we will inevitably perceive, translate and respond to any crisis within the civilizational worldview through a distorting filter and with an intensity that differs from one society to the next, reflecting deeply implanted cultural attributes.

Because of this we also have a tendency to apply differently nuanced operating models and technologies (including the language used to express priorities and principles) to policy, governance, organizational and management issues that may give the impression of contradictory interests and needs. This impression is part illusion and part fact. A reality check can be undertaken by comparing such apparently conflicting interests with how our moral impulses play out in each case. These checks invariably surface basic needs and expectations that are universally applicable to the entire human family - irrespective of other incidental local factors.

The loss of each cultural mindset, as well as the congealing of the remainder under the intensity of Western orthodoxies, is leading to a monoculture and must be resisted at all costs. The ideal of a global monoculture, that is implicit in the cult of progress and technological positivism, impoverishes our humanity. As the great poet Octavio Paz said: Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life. That there are now far fewer extant cultural mindsets should concern us, particularly as biocultural diversity, considered by many scientists to be essential for the survival of our species, cannot be replaced.

3. Rebooting Civilization

So within the current world game we have two structurally-embedded elements that are discrete and yet intimately interwoven:

• A prevailing civilizational worldview, dominated by conventions that fly in the face of what 99 per cent of the population deems acceptable today and exemplified by an old industrialised capitalist paradigm that is failing us on a number of levels
• A diminishing number of richly diverse cultural mindsets that, while potentially containing genetic material for metamorphosis of the worldview, are simply discounted as being of less consequence to present endeavours and future outcomes.

Only comparatively recently has there been any rigorous critical appraisal of the civilizational worldview – something nigh impossible from within its defensive walls. But there are now plenty of examples of seemingly irresolvable problems caused or aggravated by this worldview that leads us to question how much longer its entropic nature can persist before totally unraveling. This is not whimsy, as some might wish, but a grave epistemological issue.

The human project is in a state of disruptive transition. Indeed I believe we are rapidly reaching a developmental crisis point that necessitates a total rethink of how we interpret and value progress. Given the major crises facing humanity, particularly the storm of intersecting environmental, economic, food, water and energy meltdowns, we must rapidly come to terms with the old proposition that there are indeed fixed limits to growth. Naturally much depends upon how much pain we are prepared to take before the adoption of a new paradigm becomes the preferred option. And whilst we cannot go back and reinvent the past, the future paradigm remain very much ours to configure.

Furthermore the socio-economic volatility and community awakening we are currently witnessing offers an exceptional opportunity for us to shift to a higher plane of consciousness in facilitating a different ethos underlying relationships we have with each other and our environment. We just need to be able to see the promise of an “appreciative” society with greater clarity and conviction.

Ironically, transformation of the civilizational worldview can help us by opening our minds to alternative possibilities. Enshrined within the rigid chrysalis of the present worldview is a source of hope – the imaginal cells of a worldview crafted to be intentionally viable, resilient, and based upon the fundamental premise of provisioning for humanity as a whole rather than continued pandering to a wealthy minority.

That is what we can achieve if, initially, we are able to envisage an appreciative worldview as a recasting of the eight tenets underpinning the old civilizational paradigm – a doppelganger with a decidedly different moral credo. Namely:

1. Open source governance – primarily as the interaction of the commons (at a global and many local levels) with elected regional representatives
2. Wealth (as in access to food, health, employment, learning, happiness, wellbeing and security) distributed without favour and protected by appropriate officials, effective monitoring councils and the justice system
3. An all-encompassing humanitarian mechanism for ensuring that cultural diversity is protected and fostered
4. The elimination of conflict through the dismantling of the industrial war machine and its relationship to "disaster" capitalism, (as famously articulated by the "shock doctrine" economist Milton Friedman) alongside the promotion of cooperative structures and multicultural enterprises
5. Most aspects of production and consumption controlled by the commons with open access to ownership, language, services and skills
6. Games, entertainment and the mass media used as a social distraction and openly acknowledged as just that
7. Economies (nomos) are lodged within ecologies (logos) - thus nature is protected for future generations and ecocide is a crime
8. A diversity of cultural mindsets and compelling narratives within a society unified through cooperation, empathy, intelligence and abundance.

But what of role should our cultural mindsets play? An understanding of context becomes particularly critical when so many of the ideas and institutions defining civilization seem to be in a state of collapse. This is the case today. It is the ideal time to be learning from other cultural traditions as an alternative to blind insistence on the superior nature of the Occidental mindset.

Possibly the most profound transition in history, one that has taken literally hundreds of years so far and is still far from completion, was the move away from pious notions of an infallible ‘maker’ or supreme being, to the concept of scientific materialism. Here it is the physical world that really matters. This shift required discarding deeply imprinted fears and fallacies. Unsurprisingly it led to the modern obsession with material goods and the acquisition of personal wealth. But evolution cannot just stop there…

We must now move beyond even our current phase of understanding. Among the most vital of contemporary principles is the rejection of the idea of the world as a machine and the adoption of the world as a living, interconnected, ecosystem. The transition towards a new society instilled with such a basic ontological shift appears most likely to lead to a new holistic consciousness that integrates both science and spirit. Yet the practical realities of governing a global population of seven billion or more people still lag far behind conceptions.

In the past, our inability or unwillingness to engage with really big issues (e.g. endemic poverty, environmental degradation or the alienation of young people) in any meaningful or constructive manner has been hampered by the fact that we have not allowed for diversity. We have been seeking a universal panacea. It is unlikely to appear and, if it does, will not be of much use.

Our inclination to delegate important decisions to others, for example (whether to dictators, monarchs, professional managers or elected representatives) was deemed pragmatic. Our unwillingness to understand our experience through an “others” perspective allowed us to live unconsidered lives. This epitomized a disquieting social apathy – a deeply ingrained passivity that has been extremely difficult to overcome. What is more it often allowed corruption, misconduct and oppression to thrive, to which we then turned a blind eye for fear of attracting still further repression. Many communities still suffer from that indifference today.

With the advent of today’s sophisticated communications systems and online social media, however, there can be no excuse. People are able to speak out and air their concerns, wielding power in ways that were previously out of the question. Governments and dictators fall at the hands of people power. Today, the voice of every citizen can be heard. Individuals can contribute to a global community of mind (a collective intelligence for change) should they wish to do so. Indeed some commentators argue the case that it is increasingly impossible to remain quarantined from such participation, given the potency and insidious nature of new social media. Furthermore, new social networks help create the collective consciousness we so urgently need to reboot civilization.

As far as I am concerned some of the more important questions we should be pondering are not even on the agenda. While the greatest threats to humanity and to our environment seem to be that nothing is done, that the wrong things are done too quickly, or that too little is done too late, I believe the greater threat to our social wellbeing is that we act without wisdom.

The most urgent issues for humanity no longer focus on discrete events and their immediate impact but on how we can adapt to evolving conditions in ways that lessen the damage wherever we can, exploit those opportunities that are bound to emerge, and delay more serious consequences to give us more time. There are three philosophical questions we must answer:

1. How can we tread more lightly on this planet?
2. How can we buy more time to do what must be done?
3. How can we preserve for future generations that which is uniquely rare, beautiful and inherently natural about our world?

Somewhere within the solution we will need to active steps to preserve the various cultural mindsets that still exist, while using their knowledge to fashion a new world game rich in diversity, strategically relevant to our collective purpose and shared aspirations, yet systemically viable in the face of nature’s wakeup call. Jeremy Rifkin call this the empathic civilization. Now there’s a thought….

This is a reframing and expanded version of a previous article in which I mentioned the dual concept of worldview and mindset. I hope the distinctions made between these concepts - which is really the focus of this piece - act as a convincing argument for the intentional metamorphosis of the civilizational worldview, together with the preservation, celebration and, wherever possible restoration, of unique cultural mindsets and their stores of invaluable heritable knowledge. 

 

---

[1] In alleging differences between a ruling elite and a compliant underclass I am not inferring the existence of any organised collective conspiracy (by the elite) and certainly not any global cabal intent on world domination. Nor am I even suggesting that any directed cause-and-effect relationship exists. Rather I acknowledge the greater likelihood of spontaneous emergence of divisions arising within society that are then exploited by individuals and groups according to their circumstances (though always in concurrence with the other tenets) through the assertion of power in various forms - including ruthless domination over others, ownership of property and other assets, networks of relationships, etc. 

 

The Veiled Impediment

Consider if you will three situations in which different groups of people have been tasked with changing the status quo in various ways (each according to a specific context) in order to deliver “better outcomes”. The first is enacted at a local community level, the second at a corporate level (which may or may not have international ramifications) and the third at a global level. 

Case 1. The Government Taskforce

Somewhere on the planet this week a government will appoint a taskforce or establish a Royal Commission to enquire into a matter of grave concern to the local community. The issue might be one of police corruption, the decriminalisation of drugs, food security, or the welfare of indigenous youth - but investigations will generally follow a similar path:

• Terms of reference will be set by bureaucrats in such a way as to circumscribe the investigation, and thence relevant evidence to be collected, while validating present assumptions (about the nature of the problem and its resolution)
• Designated experts will be dutifully summoned to repeat opinions already on the public record
• A panel will be convened to hear “new” evidence
• The community will be consulted - in at least one of two favoured ways:
  • Town Hall meetings may be organised to allow locals to vent their collective feelings - though these gatherings usually serve only to inflame previously known attitudes
  • Individuals will be invited to respond to a survey containing a number of predictable, tick-the-box, questions in which pre-ordained expressions of the problem are implicit.
• More likely than not the findings will avoid advocating substantial change, recognising governments' reticence in this regard, and merely reinforce current notions regarding what should be done.

Sometimes considerable public funds (the item most likely to attract the ire of talk-back radio hosts and the tabloid press) will be spent on these enquiries. Meanwhile relevant Ministers will be hoping to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat by confirming novel, more effective, solutions for addressing the matter in question. The community's trust in government policy and decision-making is at stake. Reprisals for failure will be discernible via the ballot box at the next election.

Case 2. The Executive Leadership Team

As predictable as the annual migration of Pacific salmon, in at least one week every year, thousands of executive teams will seek prolonged sanctuary in their Boardrooms. Those from more profitable enterprises will probably zoom off to more exotic locations. The task ahead of them? To recast their strategy for the coming year.

Almost certainly they will be hoping to arrive at distinctive ways for increasing profits, strengthening their brands or driving alignment around a new operating model. Any strategic imperatives will have been decided in advance by the CEO - with appropriate input from the leadership team. Quite possibly they will be following advice from consultants who will have been asked to provide economic and industry forecasts for the next three years. These same advisers may also be facilitating the retreat using a generic process their associates developed for this purpose.

Over the course of two or three days participants will examine current results and productivity targets relative to their competitive position in the market, receive briefings on new products in the pipeline, and review any mergers or acquisitions in the offing. Other items, fitted in between social and sporting activities, may include, for example, talent management and customer satisfaction polls.

Following the retreat these business leaders will return to the more familiar routine of running their divisions - invigorated by their collegial commitment to the new plan and equally buoyed by the realisation that their strategic responsibilities are over for yet another year. At risk is the company's future performance, financial results and reputation, as well as shareholder value. Reprisals for failure (reflected in the marketplace and the stockmarket) could result in the sacking of the CEO and the replacement of key executives.

Case 3. The United Nations Summit

Towards the end of June, twenty years after the original Earth Summit, thousands of delegates from national governments, the private sector, NGOs and community groups will descend upon Rio de Janeiro once again for the UN’s Conference on Sustainable Development. Official discussions will focus on two main themes: How to build a green economy to achieve sustainable development (and lift people out of poverty) and how to improve international coordination for sustainable development.

Representatives at Rio+20 will be hoping to come away with renewed commitments as to how we can work together more effectively to reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an increasingly crowded planet.

On the Rio+20 website there is a noticeboard where messages of hope for successful outcomes from the summit have been put. These posts come from all over the world and from all sectors of society. They resonate as a collective cry of anguish - pleading as one for commonsense to prevail. Imploring far fewer words in favour of more urgent action, demanding a more courageous commitment to change, expressing unity as a species and concerns for future generations, these notes, many just brief epigrams, are a poignant reminder of how much faith we put in our elected leaders to know what to do in times of trouble and to put into action what needs doing.

In this instance risk is both extreme and existential - in that we are running out of time to make fundamental changes to ingrained patterns of industrial production and consumption. Failure in this context is too terrible to contemplate. It might mean we have forgone one of the best opportunities to tackle climate change and poverty. Reprisals for failure will be taken by nature. We might complain about the lack of political will. But ultimately the game will be out of our hands... 

The Veiled Impediment

In all three examples it is highly probable we will regard almost any achievement as limited and disappointing, or at least much less than most of us would have wanted and expected. There are good reasons for this. Most importantly there is an obstacle in the way that inhibits more effective and enduring change. It is hidden from view - which is why I call it the "veiled impediment".

But first I want to dismiss some of the more fallacious charges we are prone to use when reprimanding others. Especially an increasing tendency to blame people for less than satisfactory outcomes. I learned long ago from the great W. Edwards Deming that the majority of problems we encounter result from what statisticians refer to as common-causes rather than special-causes. Common-causes are the normal, historical, predictable and quantifiable variations in a system, whereas special-causes are unusual, not previously observed, non-quantifiable variations. In other words it is reasonable to suppose there is something inherently flawed about the processes we use, rather than any overt individual incompetence or negative interference.

For the most part the intentions of taskforce panels, executive teams and UN summit delegates are honourable - their aspirations similar to our own. They are upholding their values and fighting for what they believe to be true and fair. Appreciating this, and the significance of common-cause variation, compels a fundamental reframe as it shifts emphasis away from personalities to the issue of design.

So what is it about contemporary process design that is so defective? I believe the unchallenged culprit is habit. We generally comprehend a given situation using knowledge previously acquired and tested. It is actually quite rare for us to deliberately create new knowledge or fabricate new tools to deal with new problems. But that means we can only ever know what worked before and only ever use tools and techniques ordinarily available. We then rationalise these habits as "best practice". And who in their right mind would opt for second-best?

In the case of our protagonists almost all the information they acquire will point to them being on the right track. Even against the odds they probably anticipate success – otherwise why would they embark upon such ambitious endeavors in the first place?

But here’s the rub: in each of my three cases the level of deeper awareness (of integral consciousness) from which they are viewing their issues, the individual knowledge and collective understanding they bring to these matters, and the language and methods they are using to make sense of the information being thrown at them from all quarters, are utterly inadequate given the profound complexity of the matters with which they are dealing.

Worse still, they do not realise this. In fact it is highly probable they have convinced themselves the job they are doing is entirely acceptable, if not exceptional. This would be comic if it were not for the fact that literally billions of people’s lives depend on a new vision for humanity out of the UN summit; thousands of people will be impacted by any discrete strategic plan that lacks resilience in the face of change; and the community at large will suffer if a government taskforce or Royal Commission fails in its mission. 

Designing Better Outcomes

Much depends on what we mean by “better outcomes” of course and context is vitally important in this regard. Personally I interpret “better outcomes” to refer to three ostensibly discrete yet intimately related factors. Depending upon the depth of enquiry and the intensity of integral interrogation:

1. Better outcomes at level 1 means that enduring solutions (socially beneficial, culturally empathic, ethically apposite and economically feasible) can be found and applied to our most obdurate problems today

2. Better outcomes at level 2 means that upgraded means of sensing and making sense of the human condition are continuously incorporated into learning and enquiry processes - thereby leading to a situation where fewer problems of the type we are witnessing today are likely to re-occur in the future

3. Better outcomes at level 3 means that individual and collective epistemologies evolve onto higher planes of appreciation such that optimal expressions of what it means to be human (creativity, compassion and courage) find congruence in a new wisdom of panarchic communion that touches us all.

The implications are profound. Thinking-as-usual is a veiled impediment to progress. Like rats trapped on a treadmill it will get us nowhere and achieve little but for exhaustion and frustration.

Instead, we need to incorporate new ways of perceiving, clarifying, interpreting, conversing and responding to a myriad, continuously mutating, features within our many cogent constructions of the human story. And we need our design charrettes to evolve in alignment with this new consciousness.

In other words genuine progress (in government enquiries, corporate strategy development and international symposia alike) depends upon our ability to:

• discover more sophisticated ways of expressing what we are seeing, thinking, and feeling
• ensure tacit assumptions underpinning individual expressions of reality are transparent to others
• create more inventive and accurate methods for synthesising and liberating wisdom (including advanced pattern-finding techniques)
• imagine more inspiring futures that provide emotional continuity with our past yet liberate the human spirit and draw upon our innate desire for empathy, cooperation and unity in diversity
• expand and improve our use of real-time, granular, broadband intelligence from multiple sources
• compose a new vernacular for interweaving deeper reflection with collaborative action as well as the past with the present and the possible.

At a minimum there are ten principles we must incorporate and embed into our routine practices when planning and implementing change:

1. Design charrettes that include and connect all salient features - even when these are considered to be nominally beyond the scope of our enquiry as defined by others
2. Questions deliberately crafted to probe our innermost values, beliefs and assumptions in order to reveal and open up entirely fresh options and alternative pathways
3. Dialogical cycles that recursively and iteratively explore our individual and collective interiors (psychologies and cultures) as well as the more palpable exteriors (of the built environment, human behaviours, technologies and systems) we erroneously believe we can control
4. Immersive decision theatre facilities in which the most intricate scenarios can be visualised and played out in ways that surface a range of future strategic options
5. Analytical methods (quantitative and qualitative) that purposefully trawl across the “expanded now” of our total life experience (a compaction of past, present and possible future states of the natural or business ecosystems that concern us) in order to “include and transcend” potential pitfalls, flawed routines, outmoded stratagems, etc.
6. Mechanisms for accelerating our individual and collective learning metabolisms while institutionalising these to effect faster yet more considered trajectories for intentional evolution
7. Procedures to enable our attention density to remain constantly attuned to new or unanticipated developments in the broader world-system
8. Methodologies for using real-time intelligence to navigate changing conditions so that strategy becomes a continuous process of resilient design, review and recalibration
9. Shared narratives for portraying a range of possible futures and for guiding collective action within preferred futures
10. Tools and vocabulary that can be used to develop a mature capability for strategic leaning - rather than the contemporary bias for an immediate response when our senses warn us of an impending situation that needs our attention.

Unintended consequences

It seems to me that these ten design criteria must be critical attributes of any learning system intended to ensure that what we are doing and how we are doing it, today and into the future, is sustainable and relevant. Yet these design criteria are precisely what the protagonists in my three cases lack. It is also the reason I know not to expect “better outcomes” from their activities – irrespective of any extravagant promises made to the contrary - however much I hope that is not the case.

The sad truth is the final result from most strategy retreats, government taskforces and globally-sponsored summits, are predictable for their triteness, absence of imagination, the esteem accorded banal generalities, and a seemingly infinite recycling of clichéd aims and objectives dressed up in novel slogans.

Because of this inadequate systemic and self-awareness, the inability of current modes of enquiry to include and transcend such astonishing variety, the lack of an inclusive language for depicting complex patterns, and the impoverished methods we habitually use in place of thoughtfully designed, bespoke architectures, the pace of change towards an intentionally empathic future for humanity is incredibly and frustratingly slow.

The gradual awakening of citizens to various forms of oppression and injustice we are witnessing today in so many different forums and events around the world, especially in terms of how we deal more effectively with embedded corruption, political dictatorships, terrorists, peak oil, a rampaging banking sector, food security, climate change and the like are now mirrored in a similar prerequisite for transcending orthodoxies concerned with how we perceive, interpret, talk to each other and act upon such matters.

Without transformation of the principal means we use to comprehend the truth of our situation at any moment we may simply fall into the trap of assuming we know what is best and of reproducing what has already failed. If we do that for too much longer we should not be surprised if the collective voice of humanity rises up against those in authority to threaten a terrible retribution.

Feeding Frenzy: Clues to the Future of Food

Today's industrial agribusiness and animal husbandry practices, together with the extensive value chains and investment habits that maintain them, have created a paradigm that originated almost a century ago in the US and Europe. Facilitated by the convergence of petrol-based machinery, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, advanced refrigerated storage and conveyance methods, broadacre farming (and its oceanic equivalent of seabed trawling) this market system exploits the planet’s resources for the benefit of an affluent minority of the world’s citizens who mostly live in large cities in Europe, the US, Japan and parts of Asia such as Singapore.

It is also a system under extreme stress. The actual amount of food we produce is theoretically sufficient for possibly 12 billion people. But in spite of assertions to the contrary, the system as currently configured cannot feed a population of seven billion without causing a further decline in the planet’s productive capacity and putting the health of the community at risk - through e-coli outbreaks, for example, as well as swine and avian flu pandemics. Transfixed by the need to double food production over the next fifty years in order to sustain a population in excess of nine billion, (with less water, less land, depleted soils, fewer fertilisers and no fossil fuels) the industrial agricultural system has shifted way beyond its generative capability to function effectively. In spite of its apparent benefits it is becoming a lethal killer.

Originally each of the innovations mentioned above appeared to be ingenious responses to one of our most critical issues: how to safely grow and manufacture sufficient food for a burgeoning human population and deliver it to where it is most needed. The obvious answer was to increase production and to process large quantities of food in ways that preserved nutritional value, even whilst being transported over considerable distances.

Beginning with the Haber-Bosch process (a method of geo-engineering ammonia which can then be used in the oxidation of nitrates and nitrites for fertiliser) this is precisely what we did. And for a while it seemed to work. Crop yields increased remarkably as traditional landscapes comprising small fields, copses and forests were converted into vast plains better suited to the new agricultural machinery.

Unfortunately there were other costs that were either ignored or not seen at the time. We are only just beginning to come to terms with the overall effects of a process that precipitated the detonation of a population time bomb, the collapse of natural ecosystems, and soil and water degradation on a massive scale. 

Only belatedly have we come to grasp the negative impacts of discrete solutions on such intricate complexity. Misgivings had been around for decades but were mostly disregarded or disparaged. In 1962, for example, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring cast doubts on the indiscriminate release of large quantities of chemicals into the environment without full knowledge concerning the potential effects on human health and ecology. Carson’s logic effectively launched the environmental consciousness movement. The unintentional consequences of the industrial paradigm, however, were not seriously considered prior to 2004, the year in which the Stockholm Convention eventually outlawed several persistent organic pollutants and restricted the use of DDT.

And so we allow the industrial paradigm to persist even as it implodes. Grounded in widespread impulses and anecdotal beliefs, such as those arising from a belief that greater yields are generated by economies of scale rather than by economies of flow, for example, strategies calculated to maintain this system are ingrained in every part of the supply chain - from research, production and processing right through to packaging, distribution and consumption.

Inequities and process flaws are unavoidable of course. Farmers and fishermen toil to survive but are manipulated by large corporate intermediaries who profit from their struggle. Loss and waste is prevalent and getting far worse. Bio-diversity has been drastically diminished. Arable land is being degraded and developed for urban use, yet huge tracts are also given over to the production of biofuels. Grain harvests are failing leading to famine, malnutrition and starvation. Less healthy foods are directly marketed to children and to those on lower incomes.

In the meantime the rising cost of staples such as wheat, corn and rice nudges even greater numbers of people into poverty. This is a cruel paradox given that we actually produce sufficient food to feed and nourish the entire human family. The problem can be reduced to a few very simple elements:

• In the developed world:
  • we eat too much – most of which is processed
  • what we choose to eat causes obesity, aggravates illnesses like diabetes and leads to further environmental degradation
  • most of our food is produced at a distance from where it is eaten
  • much food is allowed to go to waste and is thrown away.

• In the developing world:
  • too few of us eat enough food that is wholesome and nutritious
  • what we do eat causes malnutrition and a range of other diseases
  • local farming practices cannot keep up with demand
  • the impacts of climate change are already making matters worse.

Given such unacceptable outcomes one might have expected the need for a substantial and urgent redesign of the food system to have been self-evident. But that is not the case. Protectionist policies combined with corporate interests still wield sufficient clout, both economically and politically, to stymie any attempt to invoke wide-ranging change. Indeed over the past decade alternative proposals, ranging from organic and biodynamic produce, food hubs and growers markets to large-scale hydroponics and permaculture, have been contemptuously and systematically scorned by agribusiness and its powerful industry lobbyists. At the same time, propositions in the same mould as the Haber-Bosch process (such as genetically modified plants and geoengineered manipulation of the climate) have been pushed by some scientists and large multinational corporations, causing outrage amongst most thinking people.

Meanwhile key assumptions underlying the viability and security of the food system go largely unchallenged and significant alternatives stall or occur only at the periphery, quarantined from the broader market system, which then continues on its suicidal path.

Which brings us to our current situation. Today it is evident that modern industrial agriculture is in crisis - unsustainable in its current form. There are three main reasons for this:

1. The industrial agricultural system is both chemical and petroleum intensive which exacerbates the risks from climate change
2. Industrial agriculture is a monoculture and the lack of diversity in crops contributes to the destruction of Earth’s natural cycles and ecosystems
3. We are facing a convergence of water, land, energy, technology and knowledge shortages - combined with an increased demand for food created by population and economic growth.

Recent estimates from several leading authorities on the subject indicate a need to double food production by 2065. In view of volatility in other parts of the ecosystem, particularly instability in the two critical variables of temperature and precipitation, that target cannot be achieved. Take temperature for example. An increase of just 2 degrees celsius has the potential to wreak all kinds of havoc on the food system. Rising temperatures and unpredictable levels of precipitation are already impacting food production in some arid parts of the world. As the problem worsens considerable damage is being done to agricultural yields and food security.

Most propaganda from agribusiness predictably claims that the industrial model remains the best way to feed the world. Advocates for the current paradigm are well entrenched. A recent report on food security from an independent group of eminent scientists from 13 countries, funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food, stops short of mentioning the need for transformation of the current system. Instead it puts forward a detailed set of recommendations to policy makers in which a number of outmoded assumptions are taken for granted.

Politically correct reports such as these avoid the real issue: namely that we must transform the paradigm of industrial production and its inherently toxic practices. Anything else is a recipe for species extinction. But is resorting to a bankrupt paradigm really the best or only way to arrive at a viable solution? Are there alternatives?

Yes of course there are. Better education would possibly encourage us to eat less. Efficiencies in flow lower costs and reduce waste. Permaculture deployed at scale can conjure arable land out of wasteland. Biomimicry methods could increase the growth rate and resilience of plants. Enlightened approaches to diet can eradicate obesity and help reduce heart disease and diabetes. Greater crop diversity could eventually restore the capacity of soils to produce more. Smart irrigation methods could drastically reduce the amount of water required to produce crops. Better use of local resources could see the majority of a community’s food grown within that community. And so on….

My conclusion, shared by many, is that any enduring, universally acceptable resolution of the various dilemmas, flaws and failures inherent within the current food system, will only come from a reimagining of the system’s high level intent, design criteria and foundation principles.

Paradigmatic renewal sounds very grand and philosophical but it is important to appreciate why a high level design is the starting point. It is a fact that systems only ever deliver what their architectures have been designed to deliver. Change the intent and the key design principles, in addition to any explicit factors causing the system’s state to behave as it does, and we change the outcome. So devising an entirely different conception could shift the entire food system into a resilient and viable future, transforming the relationship we have with each other and with nature in the process. If we do not start with high level design we run the risk of repeating many of our current mistakes and sticking with fallacies that no longer make sense.

This is an audacious and exciting proposition in which there will be no losers. A strategically relevant high level design would not merely metamorphose every critical assumption underpinning a range of deficient structures, mechanisms and relationships, enabling innovation at the same time as relieving current stress points, but would generate an entirely new paradigm for health and wellbeing. A paradigm more in keeping with our true circumstances. One linked to the broader problem of environmental sustainability. One in which waste is reconceptualised. An equitable and just system capable of ensuring abundant supplies of affordable, wholesome food for every inhabitant on the planet and offering an adequate and secure living for all and sundry - from primary producers to retailers.

So what might a fresh, strategically relevant, globally integrated and sustainable system of agriculture and acquaculture actually look like? How would it assure positive outcomes for all without the usual trade-offs and inequities to which we have become so uncritically accepting?

Futurists are fond of proclaiming the future is never the same as the present. That is mostly correct when we look at technology and how everyday practices are transformed by new applications – touching everything from travel to health care, education, finances, trade, marketing and manufacturing. This is because the speed of new knowledge creation and innovation have become astonishingly exponential. Deep-seated elements, however, like ingrained cultural mores and ethics, move slowly by comparison, although even these are accelerating with the development of real-time, interactive communcations technologies that can be used to interact with anyone, at any time, for any reason. Although such instant connectivity provides many social benefits (e.g. the time it takes for paramedics to get to a cardiac arrest patient for example) it is also one of the reasons some people feel their lives are spinning out of their control.

Of course there is always a slim chance that the future food system will continue to feature much of what exists today; the same players, the same production and consumption traits, value chains, policies, pressures and failures… But that is increasingly unlikely when (i) the necessity for massive change is accepted by influential agents within the food system and when (ii) this acceptance accords with a spontaneous community awakening to the damage being done by current practices. In fact when these two prime factors align the only other things in dispute concern (i) the speed at which we choose to shift to a new paradigm (including how different potential pathways available within that shift are expressed and communicated) and (ii) the economic imperatives of the transition. A third factor is the political will to lead, or the lack of it. But this is becoming less relevant in an age of democratic activism.

Personally I am confident that the future story of food will be one in which we recognise the importance of provisioning for the entire human family in ways that do not harm the capacity of the Earth to harvest sufficient, nutritious food for future generations. Of necessity this will require changes to some of our most basic patterns of production and consumption. Any number of positive alternative scenarios can be crafted, with critical pathways duly mapped, to illustrate and assist in either the improvement, transformation or transcendence of that which currently exists, as we are hoping the establishment of a Sustainable Food Lab in Australia will amply demonstrate.

But while future narratives are important, of far greater signficance initially are:

• The choice of design criteria that together proclaim a manifesto for a system that benefits the greatest numbers of people, regardless of circumstances or geographical location. It is essential that such criteria are made explicit in all stories related to the future of food for they embody the ethical foundation upon which a viable, secure and morally defensible food system will evolve and endure.
• The selection of systemic acupuncture points that, once agreed and enacted with wisdom and empathy, can trigger a radically new purposeful energy across the entire system.

Let me deal with both of these here in as concise manner as possible.

1. Design Criteria

As indicated previously, I believe the intent of a viable future food system, within the additional complexity of the intertwined environmental, economic and energy issues facing us over the coming dacdes, must be to make adequate provisions for the entire human family in ways that (a) ensure people everywhere have access to sufficient nourishing food, (b) increase the health and wellbeing of the human family, (c) does not harm the capacity of the Earth to provide for future generations, and (d) secures a fair living for everybody involved in the supply chain, especially primary producers. In-built resilience must be generative.

Given that different design principles reflect different priorities, a single story is sufficient to illustrate a number of sustainable design principles I find relevant to these ideals.

Most market economists trust that a resource without a private property regime is destined for misuse. Yet for centuries, on the Indonesian island of Bali, rice farmers have coordinated their use of scarce water through collaborative social networks. The system is centered around what anthropologists refer to as “water temples” which enfold the water sharing within a context of traditional religious beliefs. In effect the networks function through a form of bottom-up cooperation in which the temples provide a channel through which producers can coordinate their water use. Modern computer analysis has found that the resulting allocation is close to ideal in terms of the productivity of the local farms. It defeats pests naturally and uses the available water to maximum effect.

Bali’s water sharing is an example of commons management. In the late 1960s the government decided to push rice farmers into the modern age. New laws bypassed the water temples. Hydrologists were hired to install modern irrigation systems and government bureaucrats pushed Green Revolution techniques, complete with heavy pesticides, upon the farmers. The result was a disaster. Insects soon developed resistance to the chemical pesticides. Crop yields plummeted. In the end the government relented. Farming communities returned to the social productivity arrangements experts had deemed relics of a bygone and unlightened era.

Principle 1 – Stewardship for future generations

We acknowledge that economies are held within ecologies (not vice versa) and that it is our responsibility to hold the inheritable gifts of the Earth in trust and pass them on, undiminished, to future generations. Economically these gifts are irreplacable and invaluable capital. Protection of these common assets must trump individual and corporate gain. This principle must be enshrined into our economic operating system and enforced by the world’s courts.

Principle 2 – Putting human knowledge to better use

Valuable wisdom is contained within all heritable knowledge. A food system capable of feeding a population in the billions while preserving nature’s gifts for future generations must learn to adapt and utilise a variety of methods for food production based upon indigenous intelligence as well as Western science and modern ingenuity. Inventions like permaculture, for example, can be scaled up and used to return waste and degraded land to agriculture. Urban spaces can be developed into community gardens. Innovations that are out of patent protection can be used in situations where patented products are beyond the means of the community to access because of their cost. In all these situations a revitalised commons management can assure our most valued resources are impossible to privatise.

Principle 3 – Moving from scarcity to abundance

The global market is only one mode of economic production and value exchange. Others, including collaboration and reciprocity, continue to exist in many cultures. Our food system will become more resilient by encouraging these modes to function alongside each other. While the global market is still likely to be shaped by corporate competitive interests, other modes could lead to the expansion of local economies and barter systems, comprising food hubs and growers markets where fresh locally produced goods are exchanged and primary producers retain more of their products’ true value.

Principle 4 – Stimulating sustainable lifestyles

The global economy depends upon nature for raw materials, energy stocks and ecological services (such as clean water, air purification and soil fertility) that are indispensable to life. But materials flows in the global economy have become excessively large relative to their host, the natural environment. Further growth will merely make current problems, like global warming, far worse. Instead of growth we need to move to an economy of ecological sufficiency and wellbeing where food is produced, sold and consumed in closer proximity, healthy eating is encouraged, and waste is eliminated through process efficiencies.

Principle 5 – Insisting markets tell the truth

Many environmental costs often go unrecognised by markets, as when costs created by carbon emissions are not factored into the price of gasoline or electricity. These costs are invariably transferred to the poor which is a classic failure of markets. New policies must shift levies and taxes away from things valued by society (like employment, fresh food produced by renewable energy and the bolstering of community life) to undesirable things like pollution and urban traffic congestion.

Principle 6 – Accounting for nature’s contributions

Nature is a plentiful storehouse of the raw materials needed by our civilisation. The collective annual value of assets like plants, fibre, fuel, fish, water, soil and minerals can be valued in the trillions. But the global ecosystem also provides, other services (including purification, mitigation, seed dispersal, pest control, pollination, stabilisation, nutrient cycling, detoxification and biodiversity maintenance for example) that are an indispensible substrate of economies. These contributions must be factored into economic decision making by both administrative and economic means.

Some people may argue that these six design principles are either too idealistic or too far-removed from our current situation as to be unworkable. But that is the point surely? The future of food is about transformation of the current paradigm. Transformation entails boldly imagining what has been impossible until now, yet is most desirable, then finding ways to bring that new vision to life.

Take the 4^th principle, for example. Few people known to me personally would want to argue against the urgent need for a system based upon trust and cooperation where variety and diversity (of resources, products, channels and access points) is utilised for the common good. Variety can manifest anywhere and should be encouraged. Surprisingly a city like New York has around 650 or more permanent community gardens and there are now over 4,000 farmers markets across the country. So whereas sixty years ago the US national highway network heralded the collapse of local markets offering wholesome, affordable, locally grown, seasonal produce, these commercial commons are now being re-established with great enthusiasm.

Or take the 5^th principle, which also happens to double as an acupuncture point for whole-system change. When markets tell the truth it is pretty certain that long distance transport costs will rise. Manufacturers will react by shifting from global to local production. Clean and abundant energy from the sun and the wind will enable widespread organic farming, which will be competitive because the prices of fossil fuels and agricultural chemicals will have risen steeply as the sun sets on those industries. In that new world farmers will begin to cut out intermediaries and keep more of their products’ value. That cannot be a bad thing.

It matters little where our gaze falls, it is obvious that it would be silly to persist with the current system. Take farmers for example. There are around 1.8 billion of them worldwide, but more than a billion are likely to be thrown out of work if food supply channels continue to contract. What about international trade? Approximately 26 per cent of the world's food is traded internationally. At least half of that is controlled by a virtual monopoly of around two dozen companies - commodity traders such as Glencore-Viterra, seed industry firms like Dupont and Monsanto, food processors such as Nestle, and the massive supermarket chains of Carrefour, Walmart, Tesco and China’s Bailian Group. With power consolidated in such a small number of commercial entities, developing countries are being forced to f ollow agendas that best suit these multinational corporations rather than the needs of their own people or the local environment. Or perhaps we should hold labelling and standards up as an example of what is working reasonably? Well no actually. Strict bureaucratic specifications in developed countries like the US, EU and Australia, result in mountains of rejected product that would otherwise feed the victims of drought or those who are simply less fortunate because of where they live.

Clearly the current system is fatally flawed in almost every dimension demanding sustainability or equity. Furthermore its performance is becoming more untenable each year. In that situation a newly defined intent as well as strategically aligned, relevant, robust design criteria, are the path to a future system with a generative capacity to respond and adapt to changing conditions.

2. Acupuncture points

There is just one further set of ideas we need to articulate before launching into possible future narratives. Indispensible tools for transformation of any system they concern the array of constraints within the current system that can be targeted for change in ways flip the system into a more desirable condition - effectively, cheaply and relatively unobtrusively. I call these constraints acupuncture points for reasons that are probably obvious. They are the key causal factors regulating the actual performance of any system’s architecture.

In terms of the global food system I have identified four acupuncture points, although I am sure there are probably others. These are the loci where we need to focus our attention if we are serious about nudging the current system into one that is ecologically responsible, socially desirable, ethically valid and economically realistic. Aligned with the six design criteria each acupuncture point is a catalyst in its own right. Some may be more appropriately applied to specific regions or countries. But collectively they facilitate a new and purposeful energy that will enable us to transcend most of the flaws we have been studying in the current system.

  i.     Establishing eco-efficient production

Current production processes founded upon economies of scale are extremely wasteful and toxic, threatening every ecosystem on the planet. Instead we need to adopt economies of flow to ensure: finite resources including water, fertiliser and pesticides are used sparingly and with far greater precision; we mimic nature in the design of distributed processes and products that have negligible ecological impact; and we use the notion of industrial ecology to ensure that our plants, farms, factories and supermarkets are restorative of human and natural capital.

  ii.     Investing in sustainability

Surges of innovation, where new technologies and means of communication come together to revolutionise production processes, accelerate the rate at which natural capital can be turned into sustainable value. Investments and forays by ventures capitalists into green chemistry, clean-tech, biomimcry and industrial ecology promise startling breakthroughs in using natural wealth more efficiently, prudently and fairly. At the same time governments need to be persuaded to enact policies that democratise the economy, thus changing the way capitalism functions. They can best do this by encouraging energy and eco-efficiencies, removing subsidies from fossil fuels, and exploiting peer-to-peer networks in the creation of a distributed, post-carbon industrial infrastructure.

  iii.     Using social media

In the 1920s Edward Bernays used the new power of broadcast propaganda based upon crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to help the tobacco industry overcome one of the biggest social taboos of the time. He used these methods to persuade women that smoking in public was not just acceptable but the cool thing to do. Over time corporations elevated "public relations" based upon Bernays's techniques into a new artform, blatantly manipulating public opinion for commercial gain. Now is the time to fight back, using new social media to inject different, more ethical and beneficial, messages into public forums. Today the power and persuasion of new social media and crowd-sourced feedback mechanisms can be harnessed to advocate the purchasing of fresh wholefoods, to support local producers, and to promote healthier eating habits. 

  iv.     Liberating women

This may seem counterintuitive to many of us living in Western countries but is vitally important to global food production. A 1994 UN report noted that most poor people are women and most women are poor. Yet almost all low-income women are economically active. Even in many wealthy countries gender bias dampens economic activity. Women also lack access to land and credit. In developing countries they own only 15 per cent of the land. In spite of that women are responsible for between 60-80 per cent of the world’s food production. By empowering women on the land we stand to increase productive economic activity and also the amount of embedded productive knowledge in the economy.

Having recommended a renewed purpose for the food system, suggested a few simple principles that should inform the high level design of that system, and identified a number of strategic acupuncture points where we can focus resources to flip current conditions into a more desirable state, we can now look more deeply into what is already working at a local level, throw in some imagination and creative thinking, and begin to craft some compelling stories describing what our preferred futures within that new paradigm would actually look and feel like.

These stories might illustrate the growing number of networked ecovillages, transition towns, and other sustainable communities that are already flourishing around the world. We might choose to focus on farmers cooperatives as a way of keeping today’s agribusiness consolidation (that concentrates market power in an ever smaller number of multinational corporations, who then influence the food choices available to consumers) in check. We could point to new ways of preserving the biocultural diversity of crops (meeting the expectations of the land) by using a combination of smart breeding, soil preservation and growing perennial rather than annual plants. For the more technically minded, especially those who are willing to go out on a limb, we might resurrect the contentious issue of genetically modified crops or the chemical engineering of new products, suggest scaling fish farming into tight urban spaces, establishing native seed banks and niche markets for heritage breeds. And for good measure we can throw in “paddock-to-plate” informatics, grow-your own movements, single-course restaurants and memory-enhancing fruit and vegetables for senior citizens. We might even re-conceptualise food as preventative healthcare. 

Whatever the nature of our scenarios we must remember three important tenets: inclusion, collaboration and diversity. Transforming something as complex as the food system might be regarded as a fool’s errand. Fortunately it does not come down to the decision of one individual or company for this is a choice point that affects the entire human population. It demands the active engagement of those whose lives are bound up with the system. Collaboration in purposeful change is essential. Diversity of opinion is welcome. Everyone needs to be included in the conversation if everyone is ultimately to benefit.

Given this complexity it is also highly probable that a wide range of scenarios will unfold, driven by different needs in different communities. Allowing “many flowers to bloom” is one way we can overcome the dominance of the present (corporate and agricultural) monoculture. Large supermarket chains may well continue to offer selected brands at a discounted price but that does not stop a plethora of niche alternatives from also emerging and flourishing.

It is also vital not to demonise certain sectors if that can be avoided. Multinational corporations (like Tyson, Cargill and Nestle) and large supermarket chains (like Walmart, Carrefour and Sainsbury) are easy targets compared with television coverage of a fifth generation farming family evicted from their land - especially given the emotive and manipulative nature of the relationship between primary producers and large corporations within the current system. Setting pride, anger and personal circumstances aside we must reach out to all stakeholders in the system. In that way we stand a good chance of preserving the best of what we have while encouraging a more sustainable and just future to emerge that benefits us all. Of course it is a distinct possibility that large corporations will be the last to change as they are driven by legal requirements, particularly in terms of putting their shareholders first, over which they have no control. But that should not prevent us from inviting them into the conversation.

I recently attended and contributed to the 2nd National Sustainable Food Summit in Sydney, Australia promoted by NetBalance and organised by 3 Pillars Network. This extended philosophical statement tries to bring together some of the key themes presented during the summit in addition to creating a framework to provoke further dialogue and alternative narratives concerning a preferred global food system. I have not attempted to summarise all of the topics discussed during the two days, but rather to define a philosophical space that can be used to identify strategic imperatives and actionable pathways into the future. My views are entirely personal and do not represent an official point of view or endorsement of any kind.

The Third Industrial Revolution

Our industrial civilization is at a crossroads. Oil and the other fossil fuel energies that make up the industrial way of life are sunsetting, and the technologies made from and propelled by these energies are antiquated. The entire industrial infrastructure built off of fossil fuels is aging and in disrepair. The result is that unemployment is rising to dangerous levels all over the world. Governments, businesses and consumers are awash in debt and living standards are declining everywhere. A record one billion human beings - nearly one seventh of the human race - face hunger and starvation. Worse, climate change from fossil fuel-based industrial activity looms on the horizon, imperiling our own species’ very ability to survive.

Since the beginning of the Great Recession in the summer of 2008, governments, the business community, and civil society have been embroiled in a fierce debate over how to restart the global economy. While austerity measures and fiscal, labor, and market reforms will all be necessary, they are not sufficient to re-grow the economy. Let me explain by way of an anecdote. Just months after arriving in office, the new Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, asked me to come to Berlin to help her administration address the question of how to create new jobs and grow the German economy in the twenty-first century. I began my remarks by asking the chancellor, “How do you grow the German economy, the EU economy, or, for that matter, the global economy, in the last stages of a great energy era and an industrial revolution built on it?”

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Second Industrial Revolution is dying and that industrial induced CO2 emissions are threatening the viability of life on Earth. What we need now is a bold new economic narrative that can take us into a sustainable post-carbon future. Finding that new vision requires an understanding of the technological forces that precipitate the profound transformations in society.

A New Economic Narrative

The great economic revolutions in history occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems. New energy revolutions make possible more expansive and integrated trade. Accompanying communication revolutions manage the new complex commercial activities made possible by the new energy flows. In the 19th century, cheap steam powered print technology and the introduction of public schools gave rise to a print-literate work force with the communication skills to manage the increased flow of commercial activity made possible by coal and steam power technology, ushering in the First Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century, centralized electricity communication - the telephone, and later radio and television - became the communication medium to manage a more complex and dispersed oil, auto, and suburban era, and the mass consumer culture of the Second Industrial Revolution.

Today, Internet technology and renewable energies are beginning to merge to create a new infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) that will change the way power is distributed in the 21st century. In the coming era, hundreds of millions of people will produce their own renewable energy in their homes, offices, and factories and share green electricity with each other in an “Energy Internet” just like we now generate and share information online.

The establishment of a Third Industrial Revolution [TIR] infrastructure will create thousands of new businesses and millions of jobs and lay the basis for a sustainable global economy in the 21st century. However, let me add a cautionary note. Like every other communication and energy infrastructure in history, the various pillars of a Third Industrial Revolution must be laid down simultaneously or the foundation will not hold. That’s because each pillar can only function in relationship to the others.

The five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution are (1) shifting to renewable energy; (2) transforming the building stock of every continent into micro–power plants to collect renewable energies on-site; (3) deploying hydrogen and other storage technologies in every building and throughout the infrastructure to store intermittent energies; (4) using Internet technology to transform the power grid of every continent into an energy internet that acts just like the Internet (when millions of buildings are generating a small amount of renewable energy locally, on-site, they can sell surplus green electricity back to the grid and share it with their continental neighbors); and (5) transitioning the transport fleet to electric plug-in and fuel cell vehicles that can buy and sell green electricity on a smart, continental, interactive power grid.

The creation of a renewable energy regime, loaded by buildings, partially stored in the form of hydrogen, distributed via a green electricity Internet, and connected to plug-in, zero-emission transport, opens the door to a Third Industrial Revolution. The entire system is interactive, integrated, and seamless. When these five pillars come together, they make up an indivisible technological platform—an emergent system whose properties and functions are qualitatively different from the sum of its parts. In other words, the synergies between the pillars create a new economic paradigm that can transform the world.

The public/private financing of the Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure build-out across the world will be at the very top of the agenda for the international banking and financial community in the first half of the 21st century.

The Shift To Lateral Power

The Third Industrial Revolution is the last of the great Industrial Revolutions and will lay the foundational infrastructure for an emerging collaborative age. Its completion will signal the end of a two-hundred-year commercial saga characterized by industrious thinking, entrepreneurial markets, and mass labor workforces and the beginning of a new era marked by collaborative behavior, social networks and professional and technical workforces. In the coming half century, the conventional, centralized business operations of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions will increasingly be subsumed by the distributed business practices of the Third Industrial Revolution; and the traditional, hierarchical organization of economic and political power will give way to lateral power organized nodally across society.

Lateral power is a new force in the world. Steve Jobs and the other innovators of his generation took us from expensive centralized main-frame computers, owned and controlled by a handful of global companies, to cheap desktop computers and cell phones, allowing billions of people to connect up with one another in peer-to-peer networks in the social spaces of the internet. The democratization of communications has enabled nearly one third of the human population on earth to share music, knowledge, news and social life on an open playing field, marking one of the great evolutionary advances in the history of our species.

But as impressive as this accomplishment is, it is only half of the story. The new, green energy industries are improving performance and reducing costs at an ever accelerating rate. And just as the generation and distribution of information is becoming nearly free, renewable energies will also. The sun, wind, biomass, geothermal heat and hydropower are available to everyone and, like information, are never used up.

When Internet communications manage green energy, every human being on earth becomes his or her own source of power, both literally and figuratively. Billions of human beings sharing their renewable energy laterally on a continental green electricity internet creates the foundation for the democratization of the global economy and a more just society.

Distributed Capitalism

Energy regimes shape the nature of civilizations - how they are organized, how the fruits of commerce and trade are distributed, how political power is exercised, and how social relations are conducted. To understand how the new Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure is likely to dramatically change the distribution of economic power in the twenty-first century, it is helpful to step back and examine how the fossil fuel–based First and Second Industrial Revolutions reordered power relations over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Fossil fuels - coal, oil, and natural gas - are elite energies for the simple reason that they are found only in select places. They require a significant military investment to secure their access and continual geopolitical management to assure their availability. They also require top down command and control systems and massive concentrations of capital to move them from underground to the end users. The ability to centralize production and distribution - the essence of modern capitalism - is critical to the effective performance of the system as a whole. The centralized energy infrastructure, in turn, sets the conditions for the rest of the economy, encouraging similar business models across every sector.

Virtually all of the other critical industries that emerged from the oil culture - modern finance, telecommunications, automotive, power and utilities, and commercial construction - and that feed off of the fossil fuel spigot were similarly predisposed to bigness in order to achieve their own economies of scale. And, like the oil industry, they require huge sums of capital to operate and are organized in a centralized fashion.

Three of the four largest companies in the world today are oil companies - Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, and BP. Underneath these giant energy companies are some five hundred global companies representing every sector and industry - with a combined revenue of $22.5 trillion, which is the equivalent of one-third of the world’s $62 trillion GDP - that are inseparably connected to and dependent on fossil fuels for their very survival.

The emerging Third Industrial Revolution, by contrast, is organized around distributed renewable energies that are found everywhere and are, for the most part, free - sun, wind, hydro, geothermal heat, biomass, and ocean waves and tides. These dispersed energies will be collected at millions of local sites and then bundled and shared with others over a continental green electricity internet to achieve optimum energy levels and maintain a high-performing, sustainable economy. The distributed nature of renewable energies necessitates collaborative rather than hierarchical command and control mechanisms.

This new lateral energy regime establishes the organizational model for the countless economic activities that multiply from it. A more distributed and collaborative industrial revolution, in turn, invariably leads to a more distributed sharing of the wealth generated.

The extraordinary capital costs of owning and operating giant centralized telephone, radio, and television communications technology and fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in markets is giving way to the new “distributed capitalism,” in which the low entry costs in lateral networks make it possible for virtually everyone to become a potential entrepreneur and collaborator, creating and sharing information and energy in open commons. Witness twenty something young men creating Google, Facebook, and other global information networks, literally in their college dorm rooms and thousands of small businesses converting their buildings to green micro power plants and connecting with one another in regional electricity networks.

What I am describing is a fundamental change in the way capitalism functions that is now unfolding across the economy and reshaping how companies conduct business. The shrinking of transaction costs in the music business and publishing field with the emergence of file sharing of music, eBooks, and news blogs, is wreaking havoc on these traditional industries. We can expect similar disruptive impacts as the diminishing transaction costs of green energy allow manufacturers, service industries, and retailers to produce and share goods and services in vast economic networks with very little outlay of financial capital.

Democratizing Manufacturing

For example, consider manufacturing. Nothing is more suggestive of the industrial way of life than highly capitalized, giant, centralized factories equipped with heavy machines and attended by blue-collar workforces, churning out mass-produced products on assembly lines. But what if millions of people could manufacture batches or even single manufactured items in their own homes or businesses, cheaper, quicker, and with the same quality control as the most advanced state-of the-art factories on earth?

While the TIR economy allows millions of people to produce their own virtual information and energy, a new digital manufacturing revolution now opens up the possibility of following suit in the production of durable goods. In the new era, everyone can potentially be their own manufacturer as well as their own internet site and power company. The process is called 3-D printing; and although it sounds like science fiction, it is already coming online, and promises to change the entire way we think of industrial production. Think about pushing the print button on your computer and sending a digital file to an inkjet printer, except, with 3-D printing, the machine runs off a three-dimensional product. Using computer aided design, software directs the 3-D printer to build successive layers of the product using powder, molten plastic, or metals to create the material scaffolding. The 3-D printer can produce multiple copies just like a photocopy machine. All sorts of goods, from jewelry to mobile phones, auto and aircraft parts, medical implants, and batteries are being “printed out” in what is being termed “additive manufacturing,” distinguishing it from the “subtractive manufacturing,” which involves cutting down and pairing off materials and then attaching them together.

3-D entrepreneurs are particularly bullish about additive manufacturing, because the process requires as little as 10 percent of the raw material expended in traditional manufacturing and uses less energy than conventional factory production, thus greatly reducing the cost.

In the same way that the Internet radically reduced entry costs in generating and disseminating information, giving rise to new businesses like Google and Facebook, additive manufacturing has the potential to greatly reduce the cost of producing hard goods, making entry costs sufficiently lower to encourage hundreds of thousands of mini manufacturers—small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) - to challenge and potentially outcompete the giant manufacturing companies that were at the center of the First and Second Industrial Revolution economies.

Already, a spate of new start-up companies are entering the 3-D printing market with names like Within Technologies, Digital Forming, Shape Ways, Rapid Quality Manufacturing, Stratasys, Bespoke Innovations, 3D Systems, MakerBot Industries, Freedom of Creation, LGM, and Contour Crafting and are determined to reinvent the very idea of manufacturing in the Third Industrial era.

The energy saved at every step of the digital manufacturing process, from reduction in materials used, to less energy expended in making the product, when applied across the global economy, adds up to a qualitative increase in energy efficiency beyond anything imaginable in the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. When the energy used to power the production process is renewable and also generated on site, the full impact of a lateral Third Industrial Revolution becomes strikingly apparent. Since approximately 84 percent of the productivity gains in the manufacturing and service industries are attributable to increases in thermodynamic efficiencies - only 14 percent of productivity gains are the result of capital invested per worker - we begin to grasp the significance of the enormous surge in productivity that will accompany the Third Industrial Revolution and what it will mean for society.

Near Zero Cost Marketing and Logistics

The democratization of manufacturing is being accompanied by the tumbling costs of marketing. Because of the centralized nature of the communication technologies of the first and second industrial revolutions - newspapers, magazines, radio, and television - marketing costs were high and favored giant firms who could afford to devote substantial funds to market their products and services. The internet has transformed marketing from a significant expense to a negligible cost, allowing start ups and small and medium size enterprises to market their goods and services on internet sites that stretch over virtual space, enabling them to compete and even out compete many of the giant business enterprises of the 21st century.

Consider Etsy, a brash, web start-up company that has taken off in the past seven years. Etsy was founded by a young New York University graduate, Rob Kalin, who made furniture in his apartment. Frustrated that he had no way to connect with potential buyers interested in hand-crafted furniture, Kalin teamed up with a few friends and put up a website designed to bring individual craftsmen of all kinds, from around the world, together with prospective buyers. The site has become a global virtual showroom, where millions of buyers and thousands of sellers from more than fifty countries are connecting, breathing new life into craft production—an art that had largely disappeared with the advent of modern industrial capitalism.

Connecting multitudes of sellers and buyers in virtual space is almost free. By replacing all of the middlemen - from wholesalers to retailers - with a distributed virtual network of sellers and buyers and eliminating the transaction costs that are marked up at every stage in the marketing process, Etsy has created a new global craft bazaar that scales laterally rather than hierarchically, and markets goods collaboratively rather than top-down.

Etsy brings another dimension to the market - the personalization of relationships between seller and buyer. The website hosts chat rooms, coordinates online craft shows, and conducts seminars, allowing sellers and buyers to interact, exchange ideas, customize products, and create social bonds that can last a lifetime. Giant, global companies mass-producing standardized products on assembly lines operated by anonymous workforces can’t compete with the kind of intimate one-to-one relationship between artisan and patron.

Although still in its infancy, Etsy is a quickly growing enterprise. In 2011, Etsy’s sales topped nearly $500 million. In a recent conversation, Kalin told me that his mission is to help foster “empathic consciousness” in the global economic arena and lay the foundation for a more inclusive society. His vision of connecting up “millions of local living economies that will create a sense of community in the economy again” is the essence of the Third Industrial Revolution model. Etsy is only one of hundreds of global Internet companies that are bringing together producers and consumers in virtual marketing spaces and, in the process, democratizing marketing costs across the global economy.

As the new 3-D technology becomes more widespread, on site, just in time customized manufacturing of products will also reduce logistics costs with the possibility of huge energy savings. The cost of transporting products will plummet in the coming decades because an increasing array of goods will be produced locally in thousands of micro-manufacturing plants and transported regionally by trucks powered by green electricity and hydrogen generated on site.

The lateral scaling of the Third Industrial Revolution allows small and medium size enterprises to flourish. Still, global companies will not disappear. Rather, they will increasingly metamorphose from primary producers and distributers to aggregators. In the new economic era, their role will be to coordinate and manage the multiple networks that move commerce and trade across the value chain.

New Business Models and Jobs in the 21st Century

Germany is leading the way into the new economic era. The Federal Government has teamed up with six regions across Germany to test the introduction of an energy internet that will allow tens of thousands of German businesses and millions of home owners to collect renewable energies on site, store them in the form of hydrogen, and share green electricity across Germany in a smart energy internet. Entire communities are transforming their commercial and residential buildings into green micro-power plants. To date, more than 1 million buildings in Germany have been converted into partial green micro power plants. Companies like Siemens, Bosch and Daimler are creating sophisticated new IT software, hardware, appliances and vehicles, that will merge distributed Internet communication with distributed energy, to create smart buildings, infrastructure, and green mobility for the cities of the future.

The transition to the Third Industrial Revolution will require a wholesale reconfiguration of the entire economic infrastructure of each country, creating millions of jobs and countless new goods and services. Nations will need to invest in renewable energy technology on a massive scale; convert millions of buildings into green micro power plants; embed hydrogen and other storage technology throughout the national infrastructure; lay down a green energy internet; and transform the automobile from the internal combustion engine to electric plug-in and fuel cell cars.

The remaking of each nation’s infrastructure and the retooling of industries is going to require a massive retraining of workers on a scale matching the professional and vocational training at the onset of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. The new high tech workforce of the Third Industrial Revolution will need to be skilled in renewable energy technologies, green construction, IT and embedded computing, nanotechnology, sustainable chemistry, fuel-cell development, digital power grid management, hybrid electric and hydrogen-powered transport and hundreds of other technical fields.

Entrepreneurs and managers will need to be educated to take advantage of cutting edge business models, including distributed and collaborative research and development strategies, open source and networked commerce, performance contracting, shared savings agreements, and sustainable low-carbon logistics and supply chain management. The skill levels and managerial styles of the Third Industrial Revolution workforce will be qualitatively different from those of the workforce of the Second Industrial Revolution.

The lateral scaling of the Third Industrial Revolution shifts the fulcrum of power from centralized global companies to distributed small and medium size enterprise networks. The rapid decline in transaction costs brought on by The Third Industrial Revolution are leading to the democratization of information, energy, manufacturing, marketing, and logistics, and the ushering in of a new era of distributed capitalism that is likely to change the very way we think of commercial life. The Third Industrial Revolution offers the hope that we can arrive at a sustainable post-carbon era by mid-century. We have the science, the technology, and the game plan to make it happen. Now it is a question of whether we will recognize the economic possibilities that lie ahead and muster the will to get there in time.

This article was written by Jeremy Rifkin and is reprinted here with his permission. Jeremy is the author of The New York Times best selling book, The Third Industrial Revolution, How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. He is an adviser to the European Union and to heads of state around the world. He is a senior lecturer at the Wharton School’s Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania and the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C.

Economies of Scope

The competitive dynamics of industrial capitalism are well-known, and they are all about economies of scale. Producing more of a unit enables companies to drive the unit price down and thus outcompete the competition. Multinational corporations and global brands now have very complex value chains, in which various parts of a product are mass-produced in different parts of the world.

Nevertheless, the system has obvious weaknesses. One weakness is that it tends towards monocultures, both agricultural and industrial. An example is the dependence of the Chinese coastal economy on exports.

Because competition drives prices down the dominant western players changed their strategy in the 1980s. They abandoned costly western workers, moved low-profit industrial production to low-wage countries, and expanded the intellectual property (IP) regime using patents, copyrights and trademarks. As Thijs Markus has written, if you want to sell $5 shoes for $150 in the West, you'd better have one heck of a repressive IP regime in place. Hence the need for SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and other attempts to criminalise the right to share.

But there is, of course, a more fundamental problem: the whole system of globalising the advantages of scale fundamentally rests on cheap global transportation and, thus, the continuous availability of fossil fuels. Once the era of cheap oil ends it is more than likely that the whole regime will come tumbling down. Competing on the basis of scale, even if it is still effective today, ultimately can only be played by those who do not care about the destruction of our planet. What game can the others play? Rising fossil fuel prices mean that innovation and competition have to find another outlet.

Actually, it's about inventing another game altogether.

This type of economic transition has played out before. In the late fifth century, as the Roman Empire was coming to an end, Christian communities prefigured the values of a coming era of relocalisation based not on an economy of scale, but on an economy of scope - in which the cost of production becomes lower through shared infrastructure costs.

As the Roman Empire decayed and supplies of gold and slaves became gradually more problematic, the smarter landowners started to free their slaves, but bound them contractually to the land as "coloni", or serfs. Meanwhile, the increasingly taxed and bankrupted freeholders sought protection from the very same landowners. Thus, one side of the equation was localisation, since the system could no longer bear the global scale of the empire. But the new post-Roman system also invented a new system of innovation, based on the advantages of scope, not scale.

Indeed, as the cities were emptying out, the Christians invented monasteries as a new type of agrarian knowledge centre. The Christian Church actually functioned as a global open design community. Monks and manuscripts travelled, and with it the many innovations of the worker-monks. While Europe initially decayed as the remnants of the Roman empire crumbled, eventually, after the first European social revolution in the 10th century, this new system created the seeds for the first medieval industrial revolution.

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, Europe started blossoming once again, based on a unified culture of knowledge. Its population doubled and its beautiful cities, many of which were run democratically by the guild councils, grew again. Peer-to-peer universities were founded in Bologna in the 11th century. This first renaissance was based on economies of scope, a unified body of knowledge that European intellectuals and artisans could build on. The guilds may have had their secrets, but they took them with them wherever cathedrals were built.

The same experience happened in 1989 when isolated Cuba was no longer able to rely on the Soviet system's advantages of scale. The Cuban crisis of 1989 prefigured the current world situation: the country experienced its very own peak oil situation when the Soviets abruptly stopped delivering oil at below world market prices.

While the Cubans initially went back to using donkeys, its government launched several interesting initiatives. It allowed some entrepreneurship by granting more autonomy to local agricultural co-operatives, and mobilised the population's grassroots knowledge. But perhaps most importantly, Cuba created several agricultural institutes with the goal of spreading local innovations. Whatever the other faults of the country's totalitarian system, this open design experiment succeeded beyond all expectations. As documented by Bill McKibben and a number of documentaries, Cuba now produces more nutritious and organic food, using less fossil fuel, because sharing knowledge created economies of scope. Agricultural innovations could spread quickly across the country and be adopted by everyone.

Indeed, economies of scale work well in periods of energy ascent, when the supply of energy is plentiful and increasing, but work less well in periods of energy descent. In these circumstances, economies of scope are needed. These types of economies are exactly what peer production (which encompasses open knowledge, free culture, free software, open and shared designs, open hardware and distributed manufacturing) is all about.

Our current system is based on the belief of infinite growth and the endless availability of resources, despite the fact that we live on a finite planet. Let's call this pseudo-abundance. The system also holds that innovations should be privatised and only available by permission, or for a hefty price, making sharing of knowledge and culture a crime, Let's call this enforced artificial scarcity.

Peer production methodologies are based on the exact opposite tenets. Peer production communities believe that knowledge is a commons for all to share. Therefore no innovation can be withheld from the human population as a whole. In fact, withholding a life-saving or world-saving innovation is seen as distinctly unethical. Peer production designs for distribution, inclusion and small-scale fabrication. Planned obsolescence, which is a feature and not a bug of the current system, is totally alien to peer production logics. In other words, sustainability is a feature of open design communities, not a bug.

So what are the economies of scope of this new age? They come in two flavours: the mutualising of knowledge and the mutualising of tangible resources.

The first principle is easy to understand. When an individual doesn't know something, it's more likely that a community, whether local or virtual, does know. Hence, the mutualising of knowledge and crowd-accelerated innovation are now well-known features of the collaborative economy. But the advantage of scope is created when that knowledge is shared and can be used by others. With this social innovation the cost of production that depends on knowledge can be dramatically reduced.

Take the example of the Nutrient Dense Project. This global community of agrarian workers and citizen scientists experiments with better nutrients to obtain better quality food. They carry out joint research on nutrients in various soils and climate zones, which can benefit not just the participating community but, potentially, the whole of humankind. Strategies based on privatising intellectual property cannot obtain such advantages of scope - at least not at that level. Or take the example of the urban homestead of the Dervaes family in Los Angeles who managed to produce 6,000 pounds of food annually on a tiny city plot. Because they share their productivity innovations many other people have learned how to improve their own lots.

The second principle, of sharing physical resources, is exemplified by the trend towards collaborative consumption. The general idea is the same. I may lack a certain tool, skill or service, but it is likely that someone else in a community has it, and that other person could share, rent or barter it. There's no need to all possess the same tool if we can access it when we need it. Hence the proliferation of peer-to-peer marketplaces.

Let's take an illustrative example: car-sharing. Car-sharing projects can be mutualised through the intermediary of a private company which owns the cars (like ZipCar), through peer-to-peer marketplaces that link car users to one another (like RelayRides), or through public entities (like Autolib, in Paris). But they all achieve economies of scope. According to a study cited by ZipCar, for every rented car there are 15 fewer owned cars on the road. Furthermore, car-sharing members drove 31 per cent less than when they owned a vehicle. So, in 2009 alone, car-sharing diminished global carbon dioxide emissions by nearly half a million tonnes.

What will the new system look like if economies of scope become the norm, replacing economies of scale as the primary driver of the economy? Global open design communities could be accompanied by a global network of micro-factories producing locally, such as the ones that open-source car companies like Local Motors and Wikispeed are proposing.

This would require organisations to organise their material activities in order to minimise the common costs of the various networks and not just in terms of sharing knowledge. In other words, who will play the role that the Catholic Church and its roaming monks played in the Middle Ages? This was not just an open design community but an effective material organisation giving leadership to a whole continent-wide cultural sphere. Do we have a potential peer-to-peer version of this that can operate globally? The answer to this question will be for a future article.

Michel Bauwens is a theorist, writer and a founder of the Peer-to-Peer Foundation. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Asian Foresight Institute. This essay was first published in the opinion pages of Al Jazeera on the 22^nd March 2012 and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.

 

Scuttlebutt - The Dirt on Brown Coal

Last week the state government of Victoria in Australia announced its intent to release more than 430 billion tonnes of brown coal for export to energy-hungry countries such as China, India and Japan. Located in the La Trobe valley, east of Melbourne, these reserves are some of the largest deposits of brown coal in the world.

At face value it makes sound economic sense for these reserves to be unlocked and used to bolster the local economy, especially at a time when other industries are in trouble or face a slow decline. But there are traps for the unwary. 

In the resources pecking order brown coal is regarded as little better than peat. It is a sludge-like substance containing about two-thirds water, one-third carbon, and some ash. Extracted from huge open-cut mines it is used primarily in steam-electric power generation. While none of Victoria’s brown coal is currently exported, around 65 million tonnes is mined each year. Over 90 per cent of Victoria’s electricity is fuelled by brown coal, making Victorians among the most greenhouse polluting people per capita on the planet.

Fifty years ago investing millions of dollars in mines, processing and infrastructure might have been applauded as a visionary way of boosting the local economy and creating new jobs. Today it seems like a sick joke. For this is not merely an economic question but a moral one.

Brown coal is roughly three times more greenhouse intensive per kilowatt hour of electricity than natural gas. Abundant it may be. Clean it is not. In any sane society we would agree to leave it where it is. In the ground.

Let us agree then that we are not sane and move on! If additional brown coal is going to be mined for export there are inherent difficulties that cannot be ignored. The most obvious is its transportation over long distances. This has primarily to do with the high moisture content of the coal, requiring it to be dried or turned into diesel oil or gas prior to export. Setting aside for a moment the fairly crude centrifuge technologies currently used to extract moisture and to compress the coal into briquettes, the technologies needed to convert brown coal into a commercially viable and environmentally-friendly product at scale still need to be developed.

Any corporate investors would need to take this into account. Of course it is feasible that a commercially viable method of transforming one of the world's dirtiest energy sources into a clean form will eventually be found. But I would not bet on it. Clean coal is still a myth. But there are other, far more disquieting factors, which also need to be considered.

Firstly we need to think through the impact on local farmers and landowners. The viability and security of the current food system in Australia is increasingly under threat as the effects of climate change are felt. The Gippsland basin in eastern Victoria happens to be one of the richest dairy farming areas in the whole of Australia.

Even so there are many farms on the eastern and western side of the Latrobe Valley which have a mining licence hanging over them. Freehold titles are not exempt from acquisition should the state demand access to minerals underground. This creates massive uncertainty in the minds of the farming community, compromising planning and contributing to the exodus of farmers from badly needed agricultural production.

Secondly it is misleading to believe that many new jobs will be created by such a move. As mining technologies become more sophisticated fewer jobs are needed in the sector in absolute terms. Out of a total population of around 23 million people less than 200,000 work in mining.

Thirdly Australia cannot continue to be complacent about the role resources will play in future economic wealth. Not that overseas demand for coal, gas and minerals is likely to collapse in the near future. In my opinion such claims are merely a distraction. When mapping strategic paths to future prosperity the underlying economic complexity of our industries – or rather the lack of it – is of far greater consequence.

Economic complexity refers to the amount of knowledge embedded in the productive structure of an economy. It is amplified by the social connectivity inherent in markets, networks and business ecosystems that makes us collectively intelligent.

Recent research points to economic complexity as a key factor in the development of nations. Countries whose economic complexity is greater than what we would expect, given their level of income, tend to grow faster than those that are “too rich” for their current level of economic complexity. In this sense, economic complexity is not just a symptom or an expression of prosperity. It is a driver.

In the first Economic Complexity Index [ECI] published this year, Australia ranked 79 out of 124 nations; behind Sri Lanka, Egypt, Indonesia and Vietnam and just ahead of  Pakistan, Cuba and Uganda. In other words the apparent wealth of our nation (as measured in GDP per capita) is too dependent on the export of minerals than on tangible productive knowledge. At a time when the Australian currency is strong and many industries, particularly manufacturing, are struggling to survive, greater efforts need to be channelled into investments and policies that (i) augment and diversify embedded knowledge and (ii) expand tradeable activities in that knowledge.

Countries with a large natural resource assets like Australia can be relatively wealthy without being economically complex. But that wealth can only be sustained as long as those natural resources are there. Something else needs to take up the slack in the long term.

ECI research demonstrates countries tend to move towards an income level that is compatible with their overall level of embedded knowledge. Australia may well have a smart workforce but it is of little value if it is not being continually diversified and used to provoke and sustain industrial renewal.

Logically it is strategic innovation, the invention of new industries and markets, and the deliberate expansion of  diversity in Australia’s export product space, that are ultimately far more critical in creating a robust and enduring economy than short-term windfalls from mining.

It stands to reason that policies aimed at inceasing economic complexity must point to a far greater emphasis on, for example, distributed and open-source manufacturing; e-commerce; micro-engineering; healthcare; bio-agriculture; professional, employment and child care services; clean energy such as solar and wind; management, scientific and environmental consulting; digital arts and broadcasting; gaming; biotechnology; and higher learning, than on the export of mineral resources that add little economic complexity to that which currently exists.

So much for the economic factors. Most conversations instigated by politicians and specialist business interests would end right there, as if the economics of any situation (i.e. investment, productivity, employment and wealth creation) is the only thing that really matters.

Unfortunately this is not unusual. At least since the industrial revolution our society has tended to value only those assets we can see, grow, construct, assemble and measure. Indeed the Western cultural mindset currently driving the majority of global production and consumption as well as international trade, has systematically cheapened and eroded most other aspects of a unique and sacred gift: what it really means to be human.

In all economic debates there remain unspoken, complex, yet usually unresolved issues hiding in the shadows. Topics of consequence that go to the heart of the crises facing a human family of seven billion people. Such is the case with the issue of mining brown coal in Victoria for it is not just, nor even primarily, a simple economic issue.

I have briefly mentioned one of my concerns, namely the sense of profound insecurity being generated by mining leases on struggling farming communities. Such uncertainty is viewed by governments as an adverse yet unavoidable side effect resulting from legal distinctions between private property ownership relative to the assumed superior authority of the state. But it also relates to the sacred duty of any elected government to foster community wellbeing by conserving and protecting the wealth of the commons rather than kowtowing to the whims of sectoral interests.

Such duties are arduous in this day and age for there are many conflicting needs, and at many levels, expressed by the citizenry of any state. Yet it is vital to grasp this particular obligation in the longer term: ensuring the health and prosperity of future generations is as critical to humanity as safeguarding today’s wealth. Perhaps more so. As scientists and economists gather overwhelming evidence that we must combat the toxic impacts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as soon as possible in order to avoid what could become an unavoidable collapse in our quality of life, the ethical question of how long we can go on subsidizing dirty industries fuelled by coal becomes ever more acute.

Naturally this dilemma is excruciating for governments caught in a limbo between the exploitation of resources for commercial gain and their environmental responsibilities. Options seem predetermined when the former tactic allows an incumbent government to appear less reckless than the opposition and thus stay in power longer. It is a delusion of course. But such has become the paucity of political vision, aspiration and integrity in much of the developed world, regardless of political persuasion or explicit cultural legacy.

Another concern relates to ecocide – a reference to any large-scale destruction of the natural envioronment, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment of that territory by the inhabitants is severely diminished.

Because previous generations supposed the planet’s resources to be infinite, that growth was unlimited, ecocide routinely occurs on a massive scale and is getting worse by the day. Proposals to mine the extensive brown coal reserves in Victoria are only one example of ecological devastation occurring around the world; from Canada to the Antarctic and from Bolivia to China. It can be stopped by making ecocide a crime against humanity. Even now serious proposals are being considered by individuals in the UN seeking to create an international law of ecocide that would make CEOs and Heads of State legally responsible for the Earth.

Even if a universal law of this kind is some years off, an assumption I would personally be reluctant to adopt, intensifying public sentiment that environmental conservation is essential to our future health and wellbeing implies an awakening to the blind ecological destruction currently being undertaken by some governments and corporations on our behalf. It would be a courageous government indeed (or an act of sheer stupidity) to ignore such early warning signs of shifting societal values.

But even that should not be the end of the debate. Putting environmental concerns to one side, we should also consider the Victorian government’s proposals for industrial development in the La Trobe valley in the light of our values and culture. In this case public compliance with the case for industrial development as put by government (which has become the agent for big business) amounts to collusion to defraud future generations of their rightful legacy. Effectively we are giving our consent to people who have never been on the land and who have no history or connection to the countryside, legally securing the right to come in and by the very nature of their enterprises leave in their wake a cultural and physical landscape utterly devastated and transformed.

Furthermore, by placing no cultural or market value on the landscape itself we help to destroy a natural asset without comprehending its inherent worth if left intact. As long as there is a promise of money and employment it merely requires permission to proceed. Usually we give this not a second thought. We take it as a given. It is, after all, the foundation of a system in which commerce extracts value and profit in a resource-driven economy. From an indigenous perspective, moved and inspired by quite different visions of life and an orientation utterly removed from the Western tradition in terms of ecological space, any behaviour in which natural beauty can be reduced to a commodity at whim appears to be anomalous in the extreme.

When British explorers landed on the shores of Australia they were totally unprepared for the sophistication of the place - unable to fathom the subtle philosophy and profound intellectual, cultural and spiritual achievements of those early inhabitants. Two hundred years later and we are still unprepared, still utterly incapable of embracing our country’s timeless wonder, ignorant of its songlines and blind to its cosmological resonance as potential future wisdom.

Mining brown coal in Gippsland is an ill-informed folly dreamed up by deluded advocates of an industry that is in decline for more than one reason. But that is not what should really concern us here. My disquiet has much more to do with the inherent lethargy and lack of ingenious alternatives being expressed.

If Victoria is to prosper in a manner that is strategically relevant and enduring, all future pathways must provide a greater degree of economic complexity in our productive capacity than currently exists. Innovation in terms of rural development is important. But the constant digging of holes in the ground is equivalent to playground games.

Australia’s current wealth came from the exploitation of natural resources. Our future prosperity is reliant on a paradigm shift enabled by strategically sophisticated innovation, creativity, diversity and, above all, industrial renewal.

I would like to thank Alain Ruche of the EU for alerting me to the work of Ricardo Hausmann and his team who have been researching the economic complexity of nations for several years. Their work can be found in the Atlas of Economic Complexity at http://atlas.media.mit.edu/book/

A Proper Job

Given the number of books I still feel compelled to write it is indeed fortunate that longevity runs in the Hames family. My father passed away in his late 80’s and mum died at the grand old age of 97. In the end she was blind and a little bit grumpy but utterly alert to what was going on around her.

Mum had many friends to whom she would talk for hours at a time about almost anything that happened to attract her attention. A true scavenger of trivia, she would eagerly regale anyone within earshot, reciting obscure details about everything under the sun – from the best recipe for egg custard to the mating habits of the common cockroach! Mum was never short of an opinion (or three) and remained curious about life right up to her death.

Which is not that unusual, except for the fact that she was forced to leave school at the age of 12 and was taken into service. She subsequently worked as a maid and later as a cook-housekeeper in the south of England until she was well past 50. But although her education was virtually non-existent, she valued knowledge above everything else. She was a simple woman but a wise one.

In her later years the radio became an important link to the outside world. Each day she would listen to the evening news, often making quirky yet startlingly pertinent pronouncements on the state of things. Her view on terrorism was, quite simply, that the world had gone mad. She couldn’t abide Margaret Thatcher and the air would turn blue if she so much as heard her name mentioned. Just a third-rate teacher, she would snort in disgust.

Tony Blair became her pin-up boy. Quite literally as it happens. She had at least three framed prints on her wall. His mum must be terribly proud of him, she would mutter, just loud enough for me to hear. At least she knows what he does! The quick glance in my direction was subtle yet pointed. My mother, you see, had never really understood what I did to earn a crust. She was incredibly confused by the fact that I remained at University for so many years, refusing to acknowledge any distinction whatsoever between the teacher and the taught. So much study can’t be good for your health you know, she would half-seriously taunt. When are you going to get a proper job?

When I eventually started to lecture at Dartington College of Arts her entire demeanour changed. She understood that you see. Teaching was a proper job. My son’s a lecturer, had a lovely ring to it, especially in a village where status and achievement was so important. Years later, when I stopped teaching and writing music to focus entirely on consulting to business, she was totally baffled and not a little distraught. Her worst fears were once again confirmed. Her youngest son was a complete failure!

How often do we rely on preconceived ideas of what constitutes success? Our beliefs and values are shaped by cultural mindsets that resist any rational explanation. How else could I tell my mother what a CEO of a corporation did? How could I explain to her that he might earn many times more than the average worker yet be paid for performance that was mediocre by most standards? That he was no more intelligent than the average university graduate but would often use that intelligence to deceive, control and intimidate others? That his executive team could manage the business without his direct contribution yet the ideas he imposed would often be the cause of unecessary disruption and distress?

Mum would have stared at me as if I had been pulling her leg. Then she might have laughed out loud. But she would have had no hesitation in making an immediate judgement. You’d better tell them to get a proper job, she would have said.

 

A Man Stood in a Metro Station

A man stood in a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written,with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

TRUE STORY
by: Vahdet Yilmaz

The Self-Attribution Fallacy

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1 per cent make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers, across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill. Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers across Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out they blanked him. The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.

 So much for the financial sector and its super-educated analysts. As for other kinds of business, you tell me. Is your boss possessed of judgement, vision and management skills superior to those of anyone else in the firm, or did he or she get there through bluff, bullshit and bullying?

In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses’s scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact on these criteria they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.

The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations.

In their book Snakes in Suits, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare point out that as the old corporate bureaucracies have been replaced by flexible, ever-changing structures, and as team players are deemed less valuable than competitive risk-takers, psychopathic traits are more likely to be selected and rewarded. Reading their work, it seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family you’re likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family you’re likely to go to business school.

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. CEOs now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs.

The rest of us are invited, by governments and by fawning interviews in the press, to subscribe to their myth of election: the belief that they are the chosen ones, possessed of superhuman talents. The very rich are often described as wealth creators. But they have preyed upon the earth’s natural wealth and their workers’ labour and creativity, impoverishing both people and planet. Now they have almost bankrupted us. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen.

What has happened over the past 30 years is the capture of the world’s common treasury by a handful of people, assisted by neoliberal policies which were first imposed on rich nations by Thatcher and Reagan. I am now going to bombard you with figures. I’m sorry about that, but these numbers need to be tattoed on our minds. Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119 per cent, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122 per cent. But between 1979 and 2009, productivity rose by 80 per cent, while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4 per cent. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1 per cent rose by 270 per cent.

In the UK, the money earned by the poorest tenth fell by 12 per cent between 1999 and 2009, while the money made by the richest 10 per cent rose by 37 per cent. The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, climbed in this country from 26 in 1979 to 40 in 2009.

In his book The Haves and the Have Nots, Branko Milanovic tries to discover who was the richest person who has ever lived. Beginning with the loaded Roman triumvir Marcus Crassus, he measures wealth according to the quantity of his compatriots’ labour a rich man could buy. It appears that the richest man to have lived in the past 2000 years is alive today. Carlos Slim could buy the labour of 440,000 average Mexicans. This makes him 14 times as rich as Crassus, nine times as rich as Carnegie and four times as rich as Rockefeller.

Until recently, we were mesmerised by the bosses’ self-attribution. Their acolytes, in academia, the media, think tanks and government, created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other people’s wealth. So immersed in this nonsense did we become that we seldom challenged its veracity.

This is now changing. On Sunday evening I witnessed a remarkable thing: a debate on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral between Stuart Fraser, chairman of the Corporation of the City of London, another official from the Corporation, the turbulent priest Father William Taylor, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network and the people of Occupy London. It had something of the flavour of the Putney debates of 1647. For the first time in decades – and all credit to the Corporation officials for turning up – financial power was obliged to answer directly to the people.

It felt like history being made. The undeserving rich are now in the frame, and the rest of us want our money back.

This article was written by George Monbiot and reproduced here with his permission. The Self-Attribution Fallacy was first published in The Guardian on 7th November 2011 (see www.guardian.co.uk). George's blogs are online at www.monbiot.com

 

 

Food Security on the Menu

A world with 7 billion people, threats from a changing climate and unsustainable resource use are intensifying pressure on humanity and world governments to transform the way food is produced, distributed and consumed. This global issue brings both responsibility and opportunity for Australia.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates 75 million to 130 million people were pushed into malnutrition and poverty when food prices spiked in 2008, and another 40 million joined them after this year's price spikes. There are many regions where large gaps exist between actual and potential production, and an estimated 12 million hectares of agricultural land is degraded each year.

Up to a third of all food harvested is lost or wasted as it is processed, distributed or consumed in our homes. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the problem: increasing temperatures, altered rainfall patterns and more severe weather will lead to dire social, economic and ecological consequences. Vietnam's fertile, low-lying Mekong Delta is already experiencing ingress of seawater.

The global challenge is to increase agricultural productivity and decrease our environmental footprint while adapting to changing climate patterns. We must increase global food production by 2050 by between 30 and 80 per cent while halving our greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.

This is the task facing the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. The commission, chaired by Britain's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, is calling for urgent action by governments, international institutions, investors, agricultural producers, consumers, food companies and researchers. It wants food security on the agenda at the next round of international climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, in recognition of its inextricable link with climate change. The commission's blueprint urges seven key steps:

• Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies.
• Significantly raise the level of investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems.
• Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental effects.
• Target populations and sectors globally that are the most vulnerable to climate and food insecurity.
• Reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic needs are met and foster sustainable eating habits worldwide.
• Reduce loss and waste in food systems.
• Create comprehensive, shared information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions.

I believe Australia will play a unique role in this transformation. Despite our highly variable and challenging climate, many sectors of Australian agriculture have achieved an extraordinary annual productivity increase of 2 per cent or more for the past 30 years. We feed 60 million people each year and we are one of only 15 countries that export more food than we import. The rapid growth of mega-cities in our region will mean growing markets for the food we produce.

Future climate change brings new challenges to lifting agricultural production, but Australia is well placed.

We hold the world record for the lowest proportion of rainfall ending up in river systems, with a staggering 89 per cent evaporating. Our temperate areas have the world's highest year-to-year variability of run-off. By 2030, climate change is likely to cut average river flows by 10 to 25 per cent in some areas of southern Australia. A key driver for achieving rapid adoption of new technologies and practices is partnership between researchers and farmers. Australian agricultural research has a long history of innovation and collaboration with farming industries and communities that can be harnessed to deal with the challenges of food security and climate change.

Across Western Australia grain growers have lifted production through better practices, such as conservation agriculture, despite lower rainfall. In Vietnam, where saltwater is intruding, some farmers have turned rice paddies into shrimp ponds. Our irrigators can now use precision satellite data, soil moisture and evaporation rates to determine precise irrigation times sent via SMS to their phones. Every one of these efforts can be scaled globally.

Real changes are necessary across the global food system if we are to achieve true food security for all. It will mean a shared commitment across society and around the globe.

This article was written by Dr Megan Clark who is CSIRO chief executive and a commissioner for the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. The article first appeared in the Melbourne Age on 23rd November 2011 and is reproduced here with the author's permission.

 

Please Mind the Gap

I am normally wary of statements such as this changes everything. But there is something distinctly attractive about the Occupy Wall Street movement - especially if it is seen as a single thread in a tapestry of increasing social and civic unrest aimed at systematically deconstructing and challenging the more damaging aspects of our civilisational world-system.

The ground swell of civil upheaval we are witnessing around the world (admittedly for a variety of differing reasons) seems to offer the potential for a profound global awakening to the human condition that is probably unprecedented in modern times.

Before Occupy Wall Street any serious conversation about the negative aspects (misdirected power, corruption and discrimination) locked into the global financial system occurred rarely, and only then at private gatherings of cognoscenti or during off-the-grid brainstorming conclaves within left-leaning think-tanks. With little public discussion of the outlandish power of Wall Street and its links to the diminishing fortunes of the middle class it was fair to assume a deeply ingrained and pervasive public apathy. That assumption was wrong.

What had not been fully appreciated was the power of digital information and communications tools, and especially the new social media, to connect and ferment resentment among those who were doing it tough; people who were already feeling the pain from unemployment or from working in a system where senior executives could earn up to 450 times that of the average employee. Couple these factors to an increase in political inertia and corruption and the existential issues of a planet under threat from extreme weather events and climate change and we immediately have a recipe for revolution.

Occupy Wall Street is giving a voice to ordinary men and women who are victims of a world-system that is unsustainable. In fact, it may represent the best hope in years that "we the people" will step up to take on the critical challenges of our time. Sarah van Gelder (editor) and the staff of YES! Magazine claim that the Occupy movement is already "changing everything". In their new book, Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement, they name ten factors to support their thesis:

1. It names the source of the crisis
Political insiders have avoided this simple reality: The problems of the 99% are caused in large part by Wall Street greed, perverse financial incentives, and a corporate takeover of the political system. Now that this is understood, the genie is out of the bottle and it can¹t be put back in.

2. It provides a clear vision of the world we want
We can create a world that works for everyone, not just the wealthiest 1%. And we, the 99%, are using the spaces opened up by the Occupy movement to conduct a dialogue about the world we want.

3. It sets a new standard for public debate
Those advocating policies and proposals must now demonstrate that their ideas will benefit the 99%. Serving only the 1% will not suffice, nor will claims that the subsidies and policies that benefit the 1% will eventually "trickle down".

4. It presents a new narrative
The solution is not to starve government or impose harsh austerity measures that further harm middle-class and poor people already reeling from a bad economy. Instead, the solution is to free society and government from corporate dominance. A functioning democracy is our best shot at addressing critical social, environmental, and economic crises.

5. It creates a big tent
We, the 99%, are people of all ages, races, occupations, and political beliefs. We will resist being divided or marginalized. We are learning to work together with respect.

6. It offers everyone a chance to create change
No one is in charge. No single organization or political party calls the shots. Anyone can get involved, offer proposals, support the occupations, and build the movement. Because leadership is everywhere and new supporters keep turning up, there is a flowering of creativity and a resilience that makes the movement nearly impossible to shut down.

7. It is a movement, not a list of demands
The call for deep change (not temporary fixes and single-issue reforms) is the movement¹s sustaining power. The movement is sometimes criticized for failing to issue a list of demands, but doing so could keep it tied to status quo power relationships and policy options. The occupiers and their supporters will not be boxed in.

8. It combines the local and the global
People in cities and towns around the world are setting their own local agendas, tactics, and aims. What they share in common is a critique of corporate power and an identification with the 99%, creating an extraordinary wave of global solidarity.

9. It offers an ethic and practice of deep democracy and community
Slow, patient decision-making in which every voice is heard translates into wisdom, common commitment, and power. Occupy sites are set up as communities in which anyone can discuss grievances, hopes, and dreams, and where all can experiment with living in a space built around mutual support.

10. We have reclaimed our power
Instead of looking to politicians and leaders to bring about change, we can see now that the power rests with us. Instead of being victims to the forces upending our lives, we are claiming our sovereign right to remake the world.

Like all human endeavors, Occupy Wall Street and its thousands of variations and spin-offs will be imperfect. There have already been setbacks and divisions, hardships and injury. But as our world faces extraordinary challenges, from climate change to soaring inequality, perhaps our best hope is the ordinary people, gathered in imperfect democracies, who are finding ways to fix a broken world.

Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement, Edited by Sarah van Gelder and the staff of YES! Magazine. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011, 96 pages. $6.95 (30% off the cover price when you buy from YES!. All royalties from this book are donated to the Occupy Wall Street movement)

The Heretic's Curse

The Outlier

Throughout my career I have frequently been accused of being a heretic or, possibly more politely, an outlier – a prophet of things to come but hardly pertinent to present imperatives. In the latter context I am supposedly too idealistic. A dreamer, romantic, perfectionist perhaps. But most definitely not a pragmatist. These allegations have been repeated so often and in varying circumstances I suppose they must contain an element of truth.

As I recall they started at secondary school when I insisted on studying both music and science, a bizarre request at the time though not so uncommon today. Actually I recall the expression actually used by my teachers at the time was troublemaker. But troublemaker is close enough to heretic for you to discern a pattern. At university I protested about the incompetence of some of my teachers – although the sit-down strike I organised on the grand staircase of The Royal College of Music just prior to a visit by Her Majesty Elizabeth the Queen Mother was, I confess, a little over the top. It also resulted in my immediate suspension which was not the aim. Notoriety seemed to follow me after that…

When I became a university lecturer, a tendency to take pot shots at the ludicrous rules and regulations that simply got in the way of teaching guaranteed an eventual falling out with the authorities. My entry into the consulting profession was, befittingly, via the path of continuous process improvement, or Total Quality Management. I was recently reminded that the question I most often posed to my peers at that time was How could you not notice the stupidity of this? Which, to allay any suspicion that I was unfairly targeting one individual, was rapidly followed by Are we having fun yet?

More recently the pretentiousness of some of my clients, especially those who should know better, irritated me to the extent that they became the deliberate object for my tacit heretical inclinations. A few political leaders, senior bureaucrats and CEOs have been particularly intent on sustaining the “Hames as Heretic” myth. This is unsurprising. Let’s face it, those that aren’t actually psychopathic can be so….  Oh you know! Out of their depth. Confused actually.

With the possible exception of romantic, none of the labels that stuck express my preferred way of occurring to people - especially with those who do have the authority, capital or influence to actually change things for the better. Yes, I am certainly an advocate of change but it is still surprising to me how even that innocuous tag can strike fear and trepidation where it is least expected, especially in the Board rooms of banks, large mining and chemical companies, industrial military complexes and, naturally enough, the cabinet offices of our elected government representatives.

Of course there are many like myself who agitate for better futures, improving the ways we interact and work with each other, correcting injustices, and treading more lightly on the Earth. But in my old age I am becoming far more conscious of the need to provide my fellow heretics (or troublemakers) with the means to neutralise negativity and even outright hostility. For the value of alternative (oft perceived as dissenting) opinion cannot be under-estimated. Nor must it be silenced.

But herein lies an uncomfortable paradox: foresight gives rise to insights but insights cannot be appreciated without the gift of foresight. What could possibly be the reason to change what one does if there is no change in external circumstances? Heretics do not simply want to improve things. Their passion for change arises from their perception regarding the underlying rationale for change. It is in the communicating of both the need for change and the nature of such changes that the difficulties arise. As Nietzsche famously observed: Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music….

So now I am going to get serious. There appear to be at least five reasons many people cannot "hear the music" to which most heretics dance. These reasons become barriers inhibiting the kinds of renewal (political, social and economic) many of us seek. They have nothing to do with technological invention, infrastructure or investment capital, and very little to do with politics. In fact all five of the factors I can identify are relatively intangible. What they do have in common is an affiliation to the cultural or psychological space within which we have typically responded to shifting ambiguous and uncertain conditions.

Very simply stated these factors are (i) the detachment of ideas from social relations; (ii) fears and apprehension engendered through an apparent lack of control as well as a distrust of other people’s motives; (iii) redundant mindsets; and (iv) the fragmentation of endeavours. Each of these barriers need to be resolved or accommodated in order for change to embed and, as a consequence, for us heretics to die with a smile on our faces. They are stated here purely as an indication of the depth of the problems we face as a species. Not heretics. Humans!

1. Detachment of Ideas & Social Relations
As the umbilical bond human beings have with each other intensifies we become more highly attuned to a global community of mind as an experiential phenomenon. Increasingly we feel an integral part of a cohesive human family. At the same time it can be deeply disturbing to have to acknowledge the harm we keep doing to each other.

When it comes to tangible events and issues, however, the opposite condition seems to prevail. Here, critical matters facing humankind are becoming decoupled from each other in our cognitive analysis of them. We no longer discern their inherent relatedness. On the contrary they most often occur to us as entirely separate issues. But in first seeking that which separates one idea from another we fail to discern and appreciate the key pattern that connects as Gregory Bateson so eloquently put it.

So when we tackle dynamically complex issues (like climate change, natural disasters, population growth or terrorism, for example) we continue to apply the same linear thinking, usually with even greater enthusiasm than before and in the knowledge that our solutions are not working and cannot possibly work, yet fail to go back to the drawing board in order to design a world-system where such undesirable symptoms would simply vanish.

There are some fundamental reasons for this, though I suspect most are by no means as indelibly etched into the human psyche as those alarmists who see the end of civilization looming in the rear view mirror, would have us believe:

Myopia: Because we operate within our own paradigmatic confines we can easily become blind to the obvious, including stuff that really matters. The signs of a world-system in trouble are evident, but only to those possessing sufficient bandwidth to perceive them as such. It is more common for us to be misled, distracted by the many thousands of iterations of just a few seminal messages that smudge clarity and mutate meaning into inconsequential nonsense. This consensual illusion has us believe we are operating with more information when, in fact, we are becoming indoctrinated with less information.

If that were not disturbing enough many warning signs are not appearing on our radar screens, either because they are imperceptible to us culturally, or are showing up only at the intersections of our knowledge. With few exceptions we are no longer in the habit of looking for truth at the edge. Instead our senses are glued to celebrity, scandal, disasters, sensational events conveyed in epigrammatic video clips and ephemeral tweets. Even if we were looking in the right places we lack the tools to bring into sharp focus what we might see there. In other words the territory has changed but our maps and reasoning have not kept pace. We have all become so busy interpreting what is going on from our own, deeply embedded, meaning structures that we have become blind to the obvious, the ordinary and the easily observed.

Despair: Most of us find the complex nature of change incomprehensible. Consequently most of us are out of our depth most of the time - deficient in the capacity to make sense of what is going on at anything more than a superficial level. Worse still, as hype around our most critical issues escalates, our ability to confront important matters is overwhelmed by a belief that such dreadful events can surely not be happening to us. It is simply too much to bear.

The result is that collective cognition shuts down - or diverts to less existential matters, like sporting events, entertainment, gossip and other comforting distractions. This is known as apocalypse fatigue. People suffering from this condition feel helpless to do anything about the issues confronting them. They would much rather ignore any threat to their own existence by acting as if it isn’t true, shrug their shoulders in despair, or turn away from reality simply because it is too dreadful to contemplate.

Ultimately there is only one question that really matters. Whatever happens over the next few decades the wealthy will survive. The four billion or so people who are not so fortunate will be wiped out. Do we really care? If so, what should we be doing about it?

Exclusion: The occidental mind is supremely rational, responding best to deductive logic which it values over alternative methods of knowing. Accordingly those of us in the West have been conditioned into building and dissecting structures one piece at a time. We have been taught to analyse and measure critical dimensions before applying problem-solving techniques to re-engineer those parts under stress.

Using this logic results in solutions ranging from the brilliant to the commonplace. Method, on the other hand, remains consistent - dependent upon ranking and available resources. So one or more parts of a structure (those perceived to be the weakest links) are improved while other parts are ignored. When we see deterioration in different parts of the structure we switch our attention to those elements and ignore the parts we were working on.

While we in the West have become very adept at this kind of structural reductionism we have neglected to develop similar expertise in the design of resilient and enduring systems. Our greatest weakness is in applying deductive logic to every challenge facing humanity. By excluding alternative ways of knowing, including indigenous wisdom, we are requiring all other cultures to engage through the ideology of the occidental mind should they wish to participate in their own survival.

Overload: We are assailed by all kinds of information every hour of our waking lives. It has been known for some time that too much information causes a condition known as sensory overload. This produces disorientation and a lack of responsiveness as well as lowering our ability to make accurate predictions.

Not only does sensory overload make it more difficult for us to express and comprehend complex systems, constructing effective long-term solutions becomes even more problematic when we are exhausted by the very information that might have the solution embedded within it.

Displacement: We have developed an uncommon ability to shift or assign blame. It’s someone else’s problem is a conditioned reflex most commonly acquired through our instruction-based, rather than inquiry-based, educational methods. As we are routed into careers, social memes, and classes, we develop a highly refined sense of what is in our purview. We seek public sector solutions to our wantonly excessive consumption. We rely upon government intervention when our sick and aging need care. We look to the police for community relations. We look to the clergy for morality. Regardless of evidence showing a lack of cognitive alignment within our collective transmuted accountability someone else should remains our dominant modus operandi. 

And then, when these systems fail, we animate them with our projections of an accountability that they never accepted in our opening premise. By focusing on the role of leaders and obsessing on artefacts of hierarchical structure we have lost our moorings on citizenship and personal responsibility within community. In reality we are the problems we project on others. But then we, too, are the capacity to solve the same.

2. Fears & Apprehension
In spite of a highly controlled machinery of denial, misinformation and propaganda pervading modern society a growing minority of people vaguely comprehend the seriousness of our predicament. A few are even trying to do something about it as can be seen by recent civic protest and social unrest. But having a partial sense of a situation beyond our control has also encouraged society’s communicators to go to town in ways that exploit our growing sense of angst and that are detrimental to longer-term planetary solutions.

For example, some journalists have leapt on discrete issues to push their own frenzied (often negative, cynical and commercial) self-interests. As a consequence most memes dealing with the contemporary human condition are conveyed via a strange mix of edgy fear coupled to competitive dogma rather than from a sense of hope, inspiration and abundance. It must be said that some recent strategies by celebrity politicians and well-meaning activists have also unintentionally contributed to an overwhelming feeling of helplessness that has much of humanity in a vice-like grip.

3. Redundant mindsets
Most of the seeds responsible for today’s rampant damage across so many sectors of society were sown during the industrial revolution. Those seeds (which economic historian Niall Ferguson identifies as the Protestant work ethic, democracy, medicine, consumerism, competition and the scientific method) all exhibited a way of thinking that was uniquely occidental in their approach to economic growth, innovation and development. According to Ferguson they were ultimately responsible for the success of Western economies. Unfortunately these same “killer apps” have recently culminated in blatantly exploitative mechanisms of production – variants of the capitalist ethos that have become driven by greed and are designed to promote the acquisition of wealth above any other goal. I have no doubt this development will turn out to be the Achilles heel of capitalism.

Unfortunately many developing states, including China , have started to emulate this model, or hybrids of it. But because of the exponential demand for food, water, energy and goods from the seven billion people who inhabit this planet, a perfect storm of economic and social flaws inherent in the original design is about to break. In spite of this, all relevant societal memes are predicated on the notion that the rational occidental mindset, values and beliefs (including that of competitive conduct) hold the key to societal renewal.

From a Western perspective this is hubristic narcissism at its worst. Western views of progress (often embedded in technological positivism) already border on the irrelevant in most non-Western traditions. Future solutions to the civilizational problem must of necessity "integrate and transcend" current mindsets if they are to be effective. That means giving an appropriate voice to those cultures, along with giving credence to alternative economic and social modes of development, and elevating the importance of universal cooperation.

The political inertia we see all around us does not spring from apathy or any lack of a desire to change but the prevalence of competitive behaviour and the lack of collaboration. Competition traps us in circumstances where it is expected that we fight others in order to safeguard our own narrow, parochial interests. Thus the lack of any real political leadership is first and foremost the result of us succumbing to an obsolete economic paradigm with its associated suite of constraints concerned with preserving the national interest.

The fact is we are beholden to mechanisms, from the nation state to the G20 and even the United Nations, that effectively hinder collaboration on a planetary scale. Conventional wisdom maintains that we are fundamentally competitive social beings. Most biological evidence points to the contrary. But this is part of the paradigm we must shatter in order for the communal needs and interests we all share to shine through.

5. The fragmentation of endeavours
If the lack of a unified vision or platform for change is a serious issue then the splintering of any common strategic focus and alignment are huge contributing factors to a demoralizing diffusion and dilution of energy. Currently there are myriad discrete and well-meaning initiatives, strategies, campaigns, movements and media all vying for our attention and funding across a range of theatres. Such diversity is overwhelming and a distraction in its own right. There is also far too much talk and not nearly enough inspired leadership for action attached to these ventures.

The key will be to find strategic acupuncture points that liberate new energy flows that concentrate and embed entrepreneurial passion and innovations within the world-system. A critical element in this regard will be investment capital for renewal. The injection of capital and resources from business and high net worth individuals is still channeled overwhelmingly into old ‘sunset’ industries and interests, including the servicing of war and conflict which is the world’s most highly profitable business. Two things must change:

1. Firstly new business models must be invented to challenge prevalent assumptions governing investment, value and profitable exchange, ultimately making it more attractive to invest in things like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, charitable agencies and alternative governance systems
2. Secondly, however inconceivable or idealistic it might seem, we must wean ourselves off military combat. Peace is a prerequisite for societal renewal. We cannot create peace by practising warfare.

The Heretic’s Dilemma

So here is our poison chalice. For the first time in recent history we are faced not with a simple problem requiring a simple solution, but with a fiercely diabolical human condition – a world-system so immensely and dynamically complex that even the most sophisticated reductionist thought, coupled to rational evidence and the most incredible breakthroughs in technology, are totally insufficient to correct the unintended consequences of our defective design.

Heretics are often at the forefront of envisaging what can and should be done (in terms of systemic renewal) yet insist on using old tools and old thinking to communicate both what we perceive to be the predicament in addition to the potential solutions to that predicament. The alternatives, neither of which I can possibly recommend, are either to rein-in one's ambitions for change in compliance with a status quo that resists all attempts at renewal, or continue to use technological positivism and the unambiguous myths of human progress to make extravagant claims regarding the "inevitable fusion of man and machine" that, ultimately, create even greater anxiety in a system already burdened with uncertainty.

Of necessity we must devote far greater effort into designing entirely new approaches to communicating these matters or continue to suffer the consequences of being pushed aside as an irrelevance. The first task will be to address the cultural and psychological barriers that allow so many of us to cast aside both fierce logic and unbounded intuition in favour of blind habit. Little attention is being paid to that task at the moment.... 

Final thoughts

Come to think of it, who would actually choose to be a heretic? If I could go back to my school days, with the wisdom that comes from hindsight, perhaps I would choose to study music or science. But then again, I might just miss all the provocation and the notoriety. So.....

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you cannot do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Apple Computers

Occupy Your Mind

Regular readers will recall it is my occasional habit to reprint articles of particular consequence in The Hames Report. In that spirit I recently asked my US-based friend and colleague Dr David Martin if I could print a piece he had just published on his BlogSpot Inverted Alchemy. He did not hesitate.

But then I read this important piece again. And again. I realised that merely reprinting David’s article would not satisfy the insatiable desire I had to elaborate on some of his most critical points. Consequently I am publishing David’s article in italics below and then making some further comments of my own.

Returning from Salt Lake City to Charlottesville via Chicago provided a suboptimal venue to listen to the audio of Ken Wilber’s interview conducted by my friend Todd Goldfarb. It turns out that cheap courtesy headphones from a hotel gym have no sound dampening value to overpower the engines on a CRJ-700. The good news was that the audio quality was so dreadful that I had to concentrate. So, I sat next to the window, focused on the ground passing below and listened to Ken describe the passage of humanity’s transitions. And it was in the observation of the millions of acres of industrial farmland over which I was passing at 38,000 feet that I settled in on the puzzle: Is it possible to perceive human transformation as a first person actor or are evolutions of consciousness only discerned in retrospect?

Let me provide a bit of background. Todd and Ken were discussing the notion that we are on the edge of a new inflection of the human experience. This edge is, in part, defined by previous inflections (from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to modern to post-modern, etc.) and has several particular characteristics that are noteworthy. In his description of the ‘Integral’ transformation, Ken suggested that, in contrast to previous inflections, rather than rejecting past human narratives, a hallmark of this inflection is the explicit inclusion of wisdom and experience from all previous epochs. And, for a moment over Iowa, I found myself trying to reconcile this vision with the reality from which I had just come.

You see, I had just been at a board meeting where I had heard representatives from one of New York's leading investment banks talk about the merits of fixed income investments and had heard them discuss the fact that they were encouraging investments in revenue-based instruments (like water) rather than debt issued by cities and counties. After all, they argued, even unemployed poor people have to drink! The neatly groomed fields below me, the echo of merchants peddling water as a safe investment, and Ken all converged in an unholy trinity between Cedar Rapids and Oxford Junction. I can recall the moment. Ken was in the middle of one of his many “never before in human history” generalizations…

Who do we think we are? We have got a real problem. I have described with effusive affection my respect for Karl Popper on numerous occasions so I will not belabour his criticism of our Occidental hubris again. As I have commented in my recent posts on the Occupy movement, what I find most disturbing about our present consensus delusional state is the intersection of our belief that we access information and our resulting belief that we’re informed.

Has capitalism ‘worked’ when:

1. The largest communist country on earth actually owns a controlling interest in our debt and supplies a considerable amount of our consumables

2. There has never (since the Land Act of 1820 and the Morrill Act of 1862 to our modern military, technology, and service profit-subsidized government procurements of today) been a phase in US history where we actually had open, unsubsidized free markets; and,

3. Our income distribution and growth is at its all time greatest asymmetry?

Has our social conscience evolved when:

1. Ken Wilber describes our evolution past slavery, for example, at a time when there are more humans (per capita) in slavery today than at any recorded period of history

2. When we continue to promote 19th century narratives about wisdom traditions ranging from Egypt to Peru to Mongolia without consideration of the possibility that these civilizations actually may have out-engineered our self proclaimed modern marvels; and,

3. When ‘hope’ and ‘change’ has led to more remote control assassinations than the notorious Bush / Cheney regime?

It would be lovely to imagine a world in which we would hold ourselves to an abiding commitment that ‘evolution’ might actually involve some notion of improvement. Improvement of the means by which we interact with the Earth. Improvement in the manner in which we engage cultures diverse from our own. Improvement in how we assess the qualities of ourselves and our ecosystems. Improvements in how we engage in dialogue and discourse holding genuine respect for alternative points of view.

Alas the evidence shows us that we seem to be more drawn to evolution that involves the selective repression of ever larger numbers of voices – voices who have long memories and have alternative views to our own. Is humanity at a tipping point or are we walking past the masses from whom our ignorance has extracted humanity?

The fulcrum around which a real tipping will occur will be discerned when it is set into place by the hands of all tribes, communities, families, and peoples. We will know it by their presence; not tell them in their absence.

If one explores below the surface of this highly considered response to an experiential dilemma the implications in David Martin’s cautionary thesis appear to me to be profoundly disturbing. Not only do they call into question the degree to which we are actually sentient individuals (in comparison, say, with herd animals possessing relatively uncouth instincts and unvarying habits) they also point to Occidental “maturity” as a delusion in which many of us are still trapped.

This may be partly to do with the hubris arising from our recent technological prowess and subsequently assumed moral authority – though the latter (if it ever existed) is clearly in a state of rapid collapse today. It may even have something to do with the so-called six “killer apps” (i.e. competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic) identified by the economic historian Niall Ferguson as an explanation for the West’s prominent (now declining) position in the global world-system over the past 300 years or so.

More ominously, I suspect, is an ingrained belief that those of us with an Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage are somehow smarter, wiser and creatively superior than others. This is not just arrogance. It is intensely foolish. Yet if we needed evidence we have only to recall the number of occasions during the past half century where assumed Occidental superiority has led to our military powers trampling over the cradles of our civilisation in Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East. As David Martin queries: Who do we think we are?

I am reminded of some research undertaken by professor Robert Sternberg at Yale University who undertook and extensive study of stupidity, which he identified as a lack of applied wisdom rather than the absence of intelligence. Sternberg argued that specific aspects of life as a smart person actually cultivate stupidity. In other words that it sometimes takes a really smart person to do something truly stupid.

Sternberg concluded there are four main tendencies that lead us into this quandary:
1. Egocentrism – the fallacy whereby we foolishly come to believe that because we are so smart, the world does and should revolve around us
2. Omniscience – the fallacy whereby we foolishly come to believe that part of the reason the world revolves around us is we know much more than we do, or even all we need to know
3. Omnipotence – the fallacy whereby we foolishly believe such knowledge makes us invincible. We can do whatever we want and get away with it
4. Invulnerability – the fallacy whereby we foolishly believe we can get away with it because our intelligence makes us invulnerable to attack and even to criticism.

We move into a very vulnerable space indeed when we are either too smart (believing we know everything we need to know and that we can get away with any act) or too dumb (to realise we lack the cognitive capacity to recognise and overcome our stupidity). I suspect one of these characteristics are present in the majority of people occupying leadership roles today.

Of course the worst possible scenario would be if the world were led by really stupid people. However the situation gets almost as ludicrous when smart people use their intelligence or influence to quarantine themselves from the very feedback that would appraise them of the reality of a situation. This is commonplace in the corridors of power.

Furthermore, if we have already arrived at a point where we believe other people, or nations, or cultures, or social groupings, are less capable of defining a collective future for humanity and that consequently it is incumbent upon us to re-establish a future in which our failing social, economic, political and commercial systems continue to endure, then our collective stupidity is profoundly entrenched.

Like David Martin I fail to understand how we can imagine our society (i.e. we are implicitly referring to the so-called developed world remember) has reached the zenith of its evolution as a civilised global community, and that we are consequently approaching an inflection point that will enable us to include and transcend all previous experiences and knowledge, when we still reach for the sword before the pen; still fiercely exclude those who hold differing beliefs to us; still feed an industrial war machine that can easily annihilate humanity; are still fearful enough of the unknown as to worship primitive deities; still innately disengaged from the natural environment that sustains all life; still arrogant enough to believe our ways of knowing outweigh alternative epistemologies; and still bound up with our own overwhelming sense of individual pride and self-importance.

The single, most important, feature for enabling intentional evolution is expressed within David’s final paragraph. He says: The fulcrum around which a real tipping will occur will be discerned when it is set into place by the hands of all tribes, communities, families, and peoples. We will know it by their presence; not tell them in their absence.

Because of our tendency to deliberately exclude others we are not at a global tipping point by any stretch of the imagination. For that we need a critical mass of the world’s citizens to be able to convey new possibilities within a fresh narrative for humanity arising from a higher consciousness and sense of self-awareness. That will be a new human story.

In contrast we are still content to perpetuate ideas, principles, models and values that were outmoded long ago. Can anyone really state that our collective state of being (our empathic consciousness) is more advanced than that which existed fifty years ago?

That is not to deny a palpable feeling of anticipation, articulated by many in words and deeds and expressed in the Occupy Wall Street and other similarly motivated movements, that numbers of concerned people in Western society may be coming out of their hubristic slumber and awakening to the realities of the human condition. They may be challenging the linearly-constrained models that are still in play across our society and that have given rise to astonishing affluence and opportunity on the one hand and ingrained poverty, hunger, injustice and inequity on the other. They may be standing up and shouting “enough is enough” and that we must craft new intentions regarding our relationship to each other and to planet Earth if we are to survive the extinction of our species. But all of this in no way adds up to a universal tipping point.

I grew up in the United Kingdom immediately following World War II. Through my public school education I was inducted into a Western empirical culture that strongly believed in its own superiority and invincibility. As I became more accomplished and comfortable in that social milieu it did not dawn upon me that I was illiterate when it came to alternative cultures. Only later did I begin to comprehend that I existed in a bubble of blissful ignorance.

Vast numbers of people are in a similar state today. In an age of unprecedented travel they do not journey far from home. Their views are parochial. They watch the kind of infotainment on television designed to keep them docile, content and compliant. Inducted into a way of life they do not challenge they have little conception of what poverty or hunger (for example) actually means. Nor do they really appreciate the freedom, democracy or liberty they supposedly have in abundance.

As an Australian living in Asia while working across the Global South I am constantly dismayed and frustrated by the continuing conceit I perceive in the US-Eurocentric view of how things are and how they should be. Occidental traditions are relatively young in comparison with the great Amerindian, Indigenous, Oceanic, Indic and Sinic cultural mindsets. The sooner we are able to embrace these alternative traditions and benefit from their wisdom the sooner we may reach a genuine tipping point for the authentic advancement of humanity. That will be the moment we are able to shift from involuntary to intentional evolution. I hazard a guess that a shift of this nature, entailing a new inflection of the human experience, will not be triggered from those trapped in Western mindsets. In fact you can bet on it!

Disrupting How it Was

Unusually I have settled down to watch the evening news on television. I am astonished (and yet not) by the way the Gaddafi regime has simply crumpled under the force of people power. It sets my imagination racing as to what might be next in this unpredictable and rapid escalation of social unrest.

I am also fascinated by some of the more conservative reactions we are witnessing to what are essentially peaceful civic protests. Evidently some powerful interests, including once-venerated institutions and current power brokers, feel sufficiently threatened to suppress outbreaks of pure democracy such as these, particularly when they occur outside the established norms. We will return to this idea shortly.

In a recent speech Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), advanced what he called five global imperatives for the future of humanity. In brief they were:

1. Sustainable development (including lifting people out of poverty and advancing economic growth)
2. Prevention of conflict as a framework for international cooperation
3. Building a safer and more secure world by standing up for democracy, human rights and peace
4. Supporting countries in transition
5. Working with and for women and young people.

He also intimated, probably justifiably from his perspective given the hubris and empirical habits of some Western nations, that this was an opportunity for all countries to set aside their differences and narrow, short-term interests, in order to cooperate in addressing humanity’s long-term needs.

Anyone who knows the man would immediately appreciate the sincerity behind Ban Ki-Moon’s proposed forging of a common agenda aimed at ensuring peace, prosperity, freedom and justice. On the surface these five imperatives appear to be a consistent, well-intentioned vision, possessing all the gravitas one expects from a person in his position.

However behind the integrity of one individual there skulks a lumbering behemoth, an international agency in utter disarray and diminishing relevance. Looking closely at the language used in Ban Ki-Moon's statement I am inclined to challenge whether such imperatives are a genuine plea for a coherent societal metamorphosis - or just another of those ill-fated public-relations exercises that appear and evaporate so frequently from within our various political and diplomatic theatres.

Personally I doubt such grandiose aims can achieve anything much, at least within the framework of global officialdom; certainly no more nor less than has already been tried with other initiatives like the Millennium Goals, for example. But on what basis can I possibly make such a claim?

I am puzzled and constantly irked by five recursive issues:

1. Is sustainable development really possible if it includes both conventional approaches to economic growth as well as saving the natural environment? If not should we be designing new systems with new intentions, new priorities and a new language?
2. Is democracy as it is currently conceived and practised the only philosophy capable of building a safer and more secure world? Or are we at risk of using democracy as a virtuous substitute for something far more viable?
3. If these imperatives genuinely offer the opportunity to shape the world of tomorrow by the decisions we take today, what is it about the decisions we are currently taking that have failed to create the world we most desire?
4. If one necessity really is to liberate women and young people why is that demographic not already sufficiently represented in the forums convened for making the decisions that will create the future?
5. Are those individuals and institutions currently in positions of influence the right people and institutions to instigate and lead change? In that context is the UN the most appropriate agency to be tackling societal transformation? If not what alternatives should we be crafting?

Naturally all of these questions demand comprehensive consideration and plausible answers. There are undoubtedly numerous, equally valid, strategic questions one could pose. But for me the crux of the issue is to be found in my fifth and final question. Those responsible for making today’s decisions are the same people in the same institutions who designed the world-system to function as it does. They populate NATO, the UN and the G20. Imagining these same individuals and institutions can design a system capable of achieving such different outcomes is tantamount to believing in the tooth fairy.

But let us review the situation, keeping in mind reality and truth have become mutant hybrids in this continuously morphing world. In order to contemplate the contextual implications of my question, we must set modern society, in all its various dimensions, against the broader sweep of our civilisation’s past 2,000 years. That is not an easy thing to do. Individual and collective realities are determined and shaped by our “window” (weltenschaung) on a world that is so dynamically complex it is almost impossible to hit the “pause” button on any aspect of it long enough for it to become clearer to oneself, let alone others. To make matters even more complicated every discrete “window on the world” comprises implicit yet unique sets of filters driven by instinct, volition and transitory emotions.

For example, if you are the kind of person that trusts the boundaries drawn unerringly on maps, if you believe political ideologies endure in abstract purity, if you imagine that national agencies still shape international diplomacy and that elected representatives control a nation’s destiny, then you may find this question offensive or simply crazy. What “was” factual in the past, you might argue, remains intact today.

If however, you believe like me, that no two nations are alike (some prosperous and in decline, others impoverished yet making astonishing advances; some vulnerable to the forces of change, others inexplicably resilient; a few (such as the US) posing as empires alongside empires (China) posing as nations; city states such as the Vatican and Singapore; countries in name only like England, Scotland and Puerto Rico; and even a territory such as Palestine that has no universally-agreed state mandate as yet) and that, as a consequence, it is all but impossible to propose an all-encompassing definition of the nation state, then you could be forgiven for perceiving current globalised conditions as being closer to those that existed during the Middle Ages. Albeit on acid or cocaine! In that context my question would be entirely relevant.

But let us play with this notion and bring these two contrasting weltenschaung together. Viewed through a polyocular lens contemporary society is incredibly messy, yet also astonishingly abundant and diverse. Power functions asymmetrically in different ways via multipolar interactions that constantly wax and wane. A few transnational corporations are wealtheir than many nations, their entangled relationships an unseen manifestation of contemporary power. Even pluralistic social networks and online activists can wield considerably more political influence than national governments these days, which find themselves trapped in unending antiphonic modes of reaction and readjustment. Unlikely conjunctions of public and private interests generate novel yet potent forms of innovation. Entrepreneurial billionaires influence the agendas of social enterprise and fund others directly… This topsy-turvy world exists like a thinly-disguised membrane over the more Matrix-like world of competitive global trade and international policy making with which we are more familiar. But that is not to imply that it does not exist.

In this extraordinary multifaceted global milieu conventional borders and standard taxonomies have become almost meaningless in some contexts - yet remain immutable frameworks in others. Multinational organisations and universal governance structures such as exist within the UN can appear neutered in such chaos. What have been proven to work in situations of dynamic complexity are: (i) coherent whole-of-system designs with intimate alignment between the various components within the system (ii) greater levels of connectivity and collaboration at a local level (ii) more fluid, temporary and adaptive policies and activities, (iii) much less formality so as to increase the speed of learning and change. And these factors, of course, are precisely why I question whether the UN (or any equivalent agency) is responsive and adaptive enough to elicit rapid universal cooperation at scale.

Having described the incredibly convoluted nature of the context in which we find ourselves (that is the contemporary human condition) we can now bring greater degrees of granularity to my question as it concerns the nation state.

Actually an agreed definition of the term nation state remains elusive. Let us suppose the state is the government and its institutions, while the nation is the summation of the relationships we have with others who live in close cultural, ethnic, linguistic or geographical proximity to us and with whom we choose to identify. The nation state is the marriage of these two (partly discrete yet intimately braided) ideas.

Now let us consider how, over the course of the past 65 years at least, national devices for homogeneity (via partisan ceremonies and rites) versus statist mechanisms for coordination (via civic and political engagement) plus control (via protectionist legislation and administration) have often subverted the potential for these two ideas to harmonise in ways that would enable continuing relevance for the nation state as a mechanism of viable governance.

Over the past two decades there has been an explosion of social activism aimed at overturning one or more aspects of the status quo. We have witnessed extremes of nationalistic fervour (US patriotism after 9/11) and brutal oppression (Libya under the Gaddafi regime). We have watched the Burmese generals edge towards openness as their activities came under critical scrutiny, while other militaristic regimes have entrenched their hold on power still further in a myopic yet ultimately futile resistance. Online protest websites such as GetUp! have become commonplace. Meanwhile a growing tide of civic upheaval in mainland China is balanced by the emergence of extreme right-wing fundamentalism in the US.

Where there is oppression of any kind people will eventually rebel. The unprecedented social and financial interconnectedness of our times (facilitated in large part by new digital media) allows humanity as a whole to express outrage at the many blatant inequities and injustices perpetuated within our current economic and political systems. At its source, the universal cry for renewal as expressed through movements like Occupy Wall Street or contrarian online information sources such as Alternet (for example) can be compared to the widespread civic disruption spreading like a bush fire across the Arab world. There are at least four pertinent system-wide characteristics to note:

1. Civic disruption, wherever it has occurred, has generally been greeted by jubilation from a surprisingly broad range of citizens - irrespective of education, conventional allegiances or supposed embedded differences (such as ethnicity, religion and gender)
2. Traditional rules of organisation, intervention, diplomacy and negotiation (including making concrete demands and statements of objectives for example) are being avoided, wisely I believe as instruments such as these would merely accord further legitimacy to the ruling elites
3. In each case, sooner or later, the predictable response of the state has been to repress further civil disobedience by deploying police or military force to "end" the protest
4. Civic unrest (the overt strategy of a universal movement resisting categorization or a fixed identity but demanding whole-system change) is escalating. It is not going away!

In these acts of subversion or solidarity (depending upon one's point of view) the supposed raison d’etre of the nation state is being shaken to the core.

The UN currently comprises 193 member states. The invention of the modern sovereign nation in or around the 19^th century was designed (and further refined within the framework of globalisation) as a mechanism for protecting discrete interests and furthering explicit agendas - most often those of the elite within each nation. Because of this history it should come as no surprise that the inclination of the nation state apparatus is to compete with other nations (in ideas, politics, trade, commerce, crime, religion etc.) rather than to cooperate. We have seen precisely this predisposition play out during COP15 meeting in Denmark where the overwhelming scale of the task to overcome nation state and sectoral interests dashed any hope that we could craft a simple, universally-binding, consensus to lower carbon-dioxide emissions and thus combat climate change. The schemes some governments are pushing are still grounded in obsolete notions of scarcity, competition and economic growth.

While one could argue that this competitive inclination of the state served society well enough during the industrial age, contributing enormously to productive efficiencies and the creation of individual wealth, it is hardly an energising idea for our times. Recent events and new technologies have exposed its inability to adjust to contemporary realities fast enough. It has grown corrupt, stale and lethargic.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II the state’s interests started to align more with the motives of wealthy industrialists and corporations than with the needs of ordinary citizens. The promise of protecting and nurturing civic life and human rights (through the provision of education, employment, health and security) started to unravel and, as that occurred, the gap between the rich and the poor widened exponentially. Now the state found itself liable for a range of escalating inequities that became even more glaringly obvious with the advent of new information and communications technologies. Today, for example, it is commonplace for CEOs of major corporations to earn salaries many times that of their employees. Investment bankers who do not directly contribute to the productive economy take home millions of dollars each year in bonuses. Yet (until recently at least) we have quiescently accepted that non-sensical, obscene reality as a necessary evil. It is not!

Against the broader background of societal change, old institutions, their stewards and recipients, will whither and die - much more rapidly if they cannot shift course to reinvent inbred assumptions and transcend past habits. While the UN has had some limited success with cooperative ventures in certain diplomatic theatres, (peacekeeping for example) the degree of collaboration required to create a worldwide common agenda of the form Ban Ki-Moon envisages is simply unprecedented. The assumptions and habits of this massive organisation are gravitational in their inability to adapt quickly. Different or more aspirational goals are probably out of reach for the organisation at this juncture.

But while I harbour serious misgivings that the UN is an appropriate forum for whole-system change, the fact is no other formally-instituted forum currently exists that has sufficient credibility (and thence buy-in) from the world’s citizens. That is also the reason we are going to see an increasing number and intensity of insurgencies and demonstrations around the world. In that regard all eyes must now be on Syria, Yemen, Bahrain... In the future it might well be the US or China - for nothing and nobody is immune when revolutions take hold.

The exciting prospect such revolutions open up is for the emergence of new kinds of imagined communities that are at once more strategically appropriate and systemically viable for the issues humanity is needing to confront. The greatest danger is that we will avoid our destiny, repeating history and failing to learn from vital lessons regarding human nature under stress.

The UN was originally conceived and established to help sovereign states deal with distinct problems for which it had conspicuous (indeed obvious) solutions. It now finds itself increasingly out-of-touch in a world-system experiencing cascading organisational collapse. Indeed even the notion of a coherent international community seems more and more antiquated in a multi-polar universe where a variety of influential hubs, private corporations, fluid networks and gated communities coexist in a hyper-complex ecosystem. The world map of circumscribed geographies no longer accurately represents this fragmented reality. In this environment the very concept of the nation state is under threat – unless it can revitalise its penchant for competition in a manner that targets global issues (especially those identified by Ban Ki-Moon) rather than traditional national rivalries.

Meanwhile, weighed down by bureaucratic inertia, home to technocratic hordes more intent on setting targets and establishing new agencies than resolving complex issues or transforming society's relationship with itself, the UN exists because it does - not because it actually does anything transformational. Faced with wickedly complex issues in an increasingly borderless world (and largely incapable of perceiving the links in this world-system) the latest tendency has been to proclaim every issue - including food, energy, climate, population, health, terrorism and poverty - a matter of international security. This is a great ploy for fund-raising but not very useful for resolving complex, multidisciplinary dilemmas.

At a time when the UN is struggling to find its role in this messy, fracturing world, where no two states are the same and more diverse modes of governance (and indeed democracy) are emerging across all levels of society, Ban Ki-Moon’s task is not an enviable one. Of course it is always easy to find fault with a list such as his. However I suspect not much thought has been given to the implicit assumptions behind these imperatives nor, indeed, what it will take that is contrary to what is already being done – by the UN and similar bodies.

The greatest danger always is that the usual suspects will continue to do what they have always done, perhaps with more enthusiasm or resources than before, expecting that the results will be different. Or, if I was more cynical, that they will appear to be trying to change things when their actual motivation is to maintain the status quo. This concern applies equally to aurocrats and dicatators as it does to democratically-elected representatives. Indeed the leaders of the so-called "free" world are as culpable as those anywhere. That is the more disturbing concern.

Old King Coal: A letter to my grandchildren

Dear Eglantine, Addie, Bodhi, Rafael, Roman and little Mia (who is still preparing for her entrance into the world)...

I am sitting at home in my study in inner Bangkok looking out over Sukhumvit. Most of the central plains of Thailand are inundated with flood waters. It is raining heavily and the run-off from the north is fast encroaching on the city’s canals. The death toll currently stands at 289 and the economic cost is already running into billions of baht. At this stage 187 districts in 26 provinces are still under water, causing untold misery to more than 2.2 million people. Many citizens have been hording goods and supermarket shelves are now emptied of bottled water, rice, meat, fish and other staples. Watching the unfolding drama over the past few days it is so evident that officials are powerless to do much against the forces of nature. Parts of this city are sinking at a rate of 3 centimetres annually. It is no longer difficult to imagine a time when Bangkok becomes the Venice of the East once again!

Meanwhile my thoughts are with you, my grandchildren. In our sun-burnt country the government has been congratulating itself on passing legislation that puts a price on carbon. The bill is intended to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is crucial if we are to combat global warming. It has been a struggle to get this far. But don’t be fooled. The legislation is all but meaningless - full of exceptions and loopholes that encourage the maintenance of the status quo in those very industries that should be at the forefront of the transition to a carbon-constrained economy. The new law cannot possibly wean us off our irrational dependence on oil, gas and coal. It does not promote investment in the adoption of cleaner energy. In fact it does quite the opposite.

Like Thailand, Australia is in the front-line of global warming. Yet most politicians, their staffers and economic advisers do not really comprehend what is happening to the climate system on our planet. Indeed there are still those in parliaments around the world who remain convinced that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy or possibly a hoax perpetrated by the scientific community. Special interest groups and corporate money have hijacked the agenda, finding one excuse after another to keep polluting Earth while profiting from their activities.

Which is why I want to say sorry. I am sorry because my generation has failed you miserably. We have not been courageous enough to acknowledge our failure nor humble enough to take urgent corrective action. I am deeply ashamed to admit this to you and I realise I cannot expect your forgiveness. At the same time I want you to know that I did my personal best to draw attention to the reckless stupidity of my generation’s imprudent and arrogant intransigence.

Occasionally I have glimpsed hope. In far away places like China, Brazil, Africa and South East Asia my words have had significant impact. Prominent community and business leaders, government officials and parliamentarians have been gracious enough to listen, to reflect and to act on the basis that, even without complete knowledge, it is wise to take precautions when it comes to a complex issue like climate change.

In our country of Australia these same words have fallen on deaf ears – mainly it seems (ironically) from those who have been charged with the responsibility to lead. I have been branded an outlier. An alarmist. Even a heretic. Such labels are not personal, you must understand. People are simply afraid. When all is said and done there is nothing more terrifying for a leader than the imperative to act without any certainty about what to do. My powers of persuasion have been inadequate to overcome addiction to a system in which considerably more value is put on immediate economic benefit than on your future health and well-being. No other case can be put to those who value money more than human life. They remain oblivious to their ignorance and selfishness and we should not expect that to change. This means you must take matters into your own hands. You cannot wait for governments to act or for business to change.

So the legacy I pass on to you, my beloved grandchildren, is far from the abundant, promising one I inherited. It has been poisoned by rampant materialism, in-built obsolesence, and a culture of declining frugality. To make matters worse our thirst for material goods is aided and abetted by a vast public relations machine inciting us to buy more and more stuff we do not really need.

In 1945, the year of my birth, there were barely 2 billion people inhabiting our planet. The future for humanity was one of hope and optimism. Later this month, somewhere on the planet, a child will be born. He or she will become the 7th billion citizen of planet Earth. Yes the six billionth child is only 11 years old. By the time you leave university there will be 8 billion of us, all struggling to achieve a better quality of life, a dream that has become all but impossible to achieve - even in the world's most developed countries. The huge demographic shift in the human population since the end of World War II has had a devastating impact on the environment. A tidal wave of humanity is migrating into the cities. Crushing poverty is everywhere. We are locked-in to human-induced atmospheric pollution (from carbon dioxide, methane and aerosols) that will trigger more frequent and extreme weather events. Nutritious food, potable water and energy are becoming more scarce. Sovereign indebtedness and social inequalities put entire nations at risk. And if all of that wasn’t terrifying enough we are beginning to witness the collapse of life-critical ecosystems necessary to provide for our future well-being.

Yet amongst all this chaos the most affluent of us tenaciously aspire to even greater wealth and greater power. If this situation persists the demand on Earth’s finite resources will be excessive, conflict will increase and climate refugees will be counted in the millions!

I hope you will appreciate that, like many others, I did not realise how much damage I was doing. But now, having lived what many of my friends in Soweto, Belo Horizonte, Chennai and even Shanghai would term a profligate lifestyle, squandering so many of the vital resources you will need to ensure a healthy, stable and secure existence without so much as a second thought, I see that my extravagant ways have made things very problematic for you. It is not just me you understand. All of us with knowledge are culpable. Politicians and their advisers, industry leaders, courts, the media...

Politicians are paid to protect us but also to safeguard your future well-being. Instead, they repeatedly lie to us, cheating you of a secure future by advocating phoney carbon offset schemes, spinning fairy tales about “clean coal”, setting ineffective targets and legislating in ways that allow the dirtiest, most toxic, industries to continue polluting the atmosphere. Why? Because far too many people are profiting financially from our addiction to fossil fuels.

With leadership in abeyance, any pretence of a moral imperative quickly fades. In a situation where there is such a dearth of honest leadership from those in power there is no question that many corporations will feel free to continue plundering and scarring the environment, driving species to the point of extinction, ignoring grievances from local communities and writing off the destruction of nature as inconsequential to their mission. Driven purely by profits I have no doubt their intention is to extract every last drop of oil and gas from tar sands, shale and tundra. Unless, that is, the community rises up as one and demands that they stop committing ecocide.

The media is even more guilty of intergenerational crime. Instead of advocating the truth they routinely wheel out a few of the usual cranks and crackpots to cast doubt on the integrity and validity of scientific knowledge. As a consequence our most eminent scientists have become wary of giving policy advice to governments for fear of being labelled impractical idealists, dishonest or incompetent.

And even as the science community struggles to find better ways of communicating the urgency to those who have their heads stuck in the sand, we are racing towards an impending catastrophe that is not of your making and can still be avoided. This is my generation’s bitter legacy to you. You are now left with the problems we have knowingly created.

The real tragedy is we already know what must be done. Furthermore we have the technology to turn things around. The coal, oil and gas industries argue their continuing relevance based upon cost and availability. As far as the latter is concerned they are correct. There are vast amounts of coal still in the ground. But if we factor in the incalculable damage done by coal to people and their health, in addition to the various subsidies and licences granted the coal industry, it is patently clear that half-truths, subterfuge, vested interests and apathy on our part are the only things keeping “Old King Coal” a merry old soul.

Preventing runaway climate change and thus avoiding ecosystem collapse is avoidable if you act quickly. But you will need political will and huge amounts of investment capital. You must also be prepared to fight for your future. Peaceful civil resistance may yet be needed to overcome organised opposition from the fossil fuel lobby.

Here is what you must do. Stop mining coal as quickly as possible. Recent estimates point to around 170,000 deaths annually world-wide from coal burning-based electricity generation. It is by far the most dangerous fossil fuel in use. Phasing-out coal emissions and moving to solar, wind, thermal as well as 4^th generation nuclear energy (together with greater energy efficiency) is the safest and least costly route to a sustainable planet. But you cannot stop there. You must also outlaw hydrofracking, strip mining, mountaintop removal and similar ecologically-devastating practices. Find ways to limit or extend the use of conventional oil and gas. Restore the world’s forests and oceans. Impose strict mining constraints on unconventional fossil fuels such as methane hydrates and tar sands. Finally, but most importantly, reject the loophole-ridden “cap and trade” game in favour of a comprehensive “fee and dividend” system. No exceptions and no trade-offs. Only by these means can each citizen choose how to change their living habits so as to become more sustainable.

Alas there are many people with special interests who will try to stop you, stall progress and create other distractions. Possibly they do not have grandchildren. Or perhaps they are so selfish that any integrity they once had was sacrificed on the altar of money long ago. Be prepared for a huge outcry from the fossil fuel lobby. But do not be deceived by their crocodile tears. Eradicating fossil fuels as rapidly as possible will create more jobs, generate a far healthier economy, restore a safe climate and evolve a sustainable planet for you and for your children.

Massive change of this kind is your last chance. I am sorry it has come to this.

With love to you all

Grandpa.

Synchronicity, Myth, and the New World Order

Looking out upon the horrid ruin we seem to have made of the planet, in spite of the kind hearts and good intentions of the vast majority of human beings, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some nefarious force has hijacked civilization, driving it towards ends that serve almost no one.

If we are headed for a future that no one would consciously choose, it stands to reason, some say, that we are not choosing; that something else, unfriendly to human welfare, is choosing for us.

Deeper study of certain pivotal events in history strengthens this conclusion. The official explanations of the Kennedy assassination or 9/11 are riddled with contradictions that are difficult to explain. Ominous coincidences pile up and make patterns, pointing toward a conscious agency orchestrating these events toward sinister goals. Diving deeper, one discovers patterns of patterns that ultimately coalesce into an alternate history of the world.

The alternate history explains world events as resulting from the machinations of a powerful, dark cabal of secret organizations comprising the global elite: the banks, wealthy families like the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, non-official organizations like the Bilderburg Council, organized crime, shadowy agencies within the government, secret societies like Skull and Bones and the Freemasons, and so on. Behind them all is a group even more secret, comprising the true rulers of earth, who count even prime ministers and presidents among their puppets. Some theorist say that these Illuminati who hold the reins of power are human beings; others say that they have extraterrestrial allies, or that this group is controlled by, or consists of, ETs. Their goal, it is said, is to impose a New World Order (NWO) in which their dominion is complete.

In addition, the dark cabal that rules the earth is purported to have powerful secret technologies at its disposal. Weather control, mind control, energy weapons, artificially created diseases like Lyme and Swine Flu, and other near-magical technologies enable them to destroy any opposition and control us in ways we barely suspect. Always they are seeking to impose new forms of tyranny, to extend their dominion over mind and matter.

The purpose of this essay is not to debunk conspiracy theories or uphold the dominant historical narrative. Rather, I will advance a third explanation that respects and transcends both. Most critiques of conspiracy theories dispute the author's evidence, logic, and sources, and impugn his sanity, intelligence, or integrity. I will not do that. While such critiques often have merit, they tend to go after the low-hanging fruit: the sloppiest authors, the weakest points of their theses, the most easily explained of their evidence. Giving the best of the genre a fair reading, however, the impartial reader realizes that something strange is going on.

Moreover, the NWO conspiracy theory, whatever its flaws, bears some important truths. For one thing, it speaks to our sense that there is something deeply wrong in the world, something that is right in front of our faces yet that we are too blind to see. The NWO hypothesis feels validating and liberating. In the end, though, many people find it to be disempowering; as I shall describe, it subtly feeds into the mentality behind the very same conditions that it aspires to change. It robs us of our power and helps maintain the status quo. How does this happen, and how can its liberating potential be realized? To answer this question, let us begin with a meta-level critique of the NWO thesis, and conspiracism in general, a critique that opens the door toward integrating both the NWO and the dominant narrative into a larger framework.
 
The Futility of Control

Are there really ultra-intelligent, ultra-competent people on top whose plans actually work and whose technologies actually succeed in molding the world to their plans? Or are the elites of our civilization as confused and scared as the rest of us, responding to events that, at every turn, take on a life of their own? The futility of control is written into the fabric of reality. Complex non-linear systems such as a body or a society are inherently unpredictable. Of course, those in power try to maintain control and often wreak awful damage in so doing, but generally speaking it is events that control them, and not the other way around.

Conspiracy theories ascribe a degree of competence, foresight, and efficiency to the controlling organizations that is generally foreign to human institutions. We live in a civilization built on control, on the idea that we can order the world through material and social technology and, once we perfect those technologies, win the war against nature, against disorder, against uncertainty. But in fact, the world is messy, chaotic, and unpredictable, and no matter how tightly we attempt to orchestrate events, control slips through our grasp like mud through a clenched fist. We are immersed in an ideology that says that with the next technological revolution, with next medical innovation, or the next set of comprehensive regulations, finally we will get all the messy variables under control and live in an orderly, secure world.

The conspiracists agree with a defining precept of our civilization: that the world is fundamentally amenable to control. They think that this power to control has been turned toward evil, but do not dispute the technocratic doctrine that society and the material world can be endlessly improved through the methods of science: gathering information, making plans, eliminating variables, applying force, and so on. To believe that the NWO conspiracy is even possible is to conform to one of the primary motivating and justifying beliefs underlying totalitarianism. The NWO believers are not as radical as they think.

We have been betrayed. After centuries of sacrifice on the altar of technological development, we harbor a deep disappointment and anger. We export that anger onto the Illuminati, or whoever it is that has robbed us of The Future. Surely this technological utopia exists - it has only been withheld from us, and the technologies of paradise turned toward nefarious ends. But the real problem is deeper than that. It is the paradigm of control itself that causes us to sacrifice everything in pursuit of a mirage.
 
The Dynamics of Command

A staple of conspiracy theories is the idea that "President Obama is a puppet" or that, "Even David Rockefeller is taking orders from higher up." So let us look into the social dynamics of hierarchies. For someone to obey orders, either the command-giver must have direct physical power over the subordinate (for example, a literal gun to the head), or both commander and commandee must be embedded in a social institution that legitimizes and enforces the command. An obvious example of the latter is the army. When a colonel gives an order to a major, the latter obeys not because he is afraid the colonel will beat him up if he refuses, but because both are part of a web of (mostly implicit) agreements. Ultimately, if he doesn't comply with the order, someone (say military police) might beat him up or imprison him, but that happens as well because the web of agreements includes consequences for violating them. We could say that colonel, major, military police, and the rest all share a common "story of the army".

What about the global conspiracy? What social institution exists that would legitimize orders issued to David Rockefeller or Barack Obama? The story of the army is embedded in larger legitimizing stories that ultimately encompass the legitimacy of the government, the value of money, an interpretation of history, a system a values and morals, and more. What infrastructure exists that would allow direct hierarchical control over Obama or Rockefeller? Hierarchies cannot exist in a social vacuum. They require a system of indoctrination and acculturation along with numerous supporting institutions.

Consider, for example, the idea that the World Trade Center towers fell due to demolition charges placed inside the buildings by government operatives. For them to be willing to do this, they would have to exist nearly in a separate social universe, inculcated with values very different from those of the rest of society. Contrary to the impression given by Hollywood movies, people don't commit acts like this out of pure unreasoning evil. They do so in conformity to a culturally-embedded world-view. I could see how Islamic Jihadists, inflamed by radical imams and outraged by the devastation that American imperialism has wreaked on their society, could hatch a plot to strike a blow at the "Great Satan". But what would it take for American demolitions experts to commit mass murder against their own compatriots? What would it take for you, dear reader, to do it? What kind of alternate education, acculturation, indoctrination would you have to go through to commit and then keep secret such an act?  Who would administer this education? How would the operation, and the whole educational and support infrastructure around it, be kept secret from the rest of society? Are the low-paid works in building security, or the majority of decent folks at the CIA or NSA in on it too? Basically, for a conspiracy of this scale to exist, there would have to be an entire parallel society hidden within our own, complete with a full set of parallel institutions to create people with a very different culture among us.

Reread that last sentence through a metaphoric lens for a hint of where this essay is headed.
 
Psychological addiction

I have noticed that conspiracy theories have a very strong emotional appeal -- at least to some people. Believers like to think that they are impartially choosing their belief because they are more rational, more intelligent, or more open-minded than all those benighted, deluded "sheeple" out there. Two people look at the same set of facts and draw different conclusions. Is that choice a function of intelligence and reason? Or could it be that we choose interpretations to meet psychological and emotional needs?

One indication of the emotional appeal of conspiracy theories is their addictive nature. When I visited the conspiracy state of being some time ago, I found myself constantly checking certain websites, and feeling a kind of gratification at each discovery of some new outrage. Other than that, it was a very dark and heavy state of being that I visited, full of gloomy cynicism and a superficial feeling of superiority that didn't even fool myself. I've heard from people for whom this became a full-fledged addiction. They spend hours every day reading about the machinations of the New World Order, and go through intense withdrawal whenever they miss their "fix". 

Believers spend lots of time getting "informed", but do they really act upon that information? Some do, I suppose: they move to an armed compound in Idaho or hide gold coins in their basement. But most go on with life as usual. How are they any different from their neighbors? Their eyeballs linger over Alex Jones' website rather than NPR's, but to what end? They may believe themselves to be among the canny, righteous few, fighting against evil on behalf of the ignorant masses, but mostly they do nothing. Like any addiction, addiction to conspiracy websites or the closely related end-of-the-world websites disempowers people, and actually helps maintain the status quo.

Belief in conspiracy theories is not one of several emotionally coequal world-view alternatives. It is part and parcel of an emotional, psychological, and spiritual state of being. That state of being is a victim state. The belief that events are controlled by malevolent people far more powerful than ourselves, that any attempt at change is futile in the face of the tremendous powers arrayed against us, leaves no alternative but to carve out a small, safe realm of rebellion-in-private. If there were indeed a global conspiracy, it would be quite happy with this result. Paradoxically, then, we might say that the idea that there is a global conspiracy is itself a lie propagated by the global conspiracy.
 
Non-falsifiability

One of the most common criticisms of conspiracy theories is that they are non-falsifiable, since any contradictory evidence can be written off as a fabrication, a false trail, or so forth.  A conspiracy, moreover, must be well-hidden -- lack of evidence is itself evidence! What is less frequently acknowledged is that the alternatives to conspiracy theories are very nearly non-falsifiable as well. Anyone who comes forth to expose a conspiracy can be labeled a fraud or a madman, and nearly anything can be written off as coincidence. We are faced, as we are so often in life, with two narratives that can, with perhaps a bit of stretching, account for all of the facts. How then to choose?

Much as we would like to think otherwise, evidence and logic cannot bring certainty. Nor, as numerous social psychology experiments demonstrate, are they the primary determinants of our judgments and choices. Despite the epithets hurled back and forth, neither side of, say, the 9/11 conspiracy issue is stupid. Critics of conspiracy theories paint their proponents as naïve, unsophisticated, and guilty of obvious selection biases and a host of elementary errors in research and logic. I have found such critiques unsatisfactory. They certainly apply to the worst of the genre, but not always to the best.

Reasonable people can, depending on their vantage point and life situation, look at the same set of events and form different beliefs about them. These beliefs then become a filter that determines what they see and, indeed, what they look for. It is as if they enter separate but parallel realities. As we shall see, there is more to this appearance than meets the eye.
 
The War against Evil

Among conspiracism's psychological payoffs that it provides someone to blame, to hate, and perhaps to fight in a world of otherwise incomprehensible injustice and horror. Paradoxically, even though it casts us as victims of super-powerful conspirators, it also provides a kind of control. After all, if the source of evil in the world today is the conspirators, then the solution is quite clear: expose and remove them. If there is no conspiracy - if, for instance, evil is endemic to the world or an emergent property of organizations - then we are even more helpless. Even if as a practical matter we cannot hope to defeat the conspiracy, at least we understand why things are the way they are. We know a solution, even if it be out of reach.

That solution, to put it succinctly, is to conquer evil. Conspiracism offers an external evil and thereby exculpates us from our own complicity in the awful things happening on earth today. We can think, "If only I were in charge, I would run things very differently than the New World Order Illuminati, because I am a decent person, not evil like they are."

The paradigm that sees human affairs -- and even cosmic processes -- as a war between good and evil has deep roots, originating with the first agricultural civilizations. It was then that the concept of evil arose, mirroring the growing oppositional relationship to nature implicit in the taming of the wild. Rather than being seen as integral parts of the whole, such things as weeds, wolves, and locusts became threats to human well-being and the object of extermination campaigns - campaigns that are still with us today. The chaotic forces of nature were identified with evil, while good was associated with the bringing of order to nature and to human affairs. If only, someday, our control over nature and society could be complete, the thinking goes, then good will reign on earth and suffering be minimized or even, with nanotechnology and neuro-engineering, eliminated. Evil will have been conquered.

When new political movements come to power, they often bring with them the idea of eliminating evil. Whether it is the Nazi Holocaust or the Stalinist purges, the result is usually bloody, regardless of how evil is identified. In other words, the idea of evil begets evil. We may add, then, a second paradox to the one above. In the war between good and evil, a great weapon of the forces of evil is the notion that there is a war between good and evil.

Conspiracism gives new guise to a very old thoughtform (that the horror of our world is caused by forces of evil) that is becoming obsolete. We can see its obsolescence both in our changing attitudes toward nature, which no longer hold it as an object of conquest and exploitation, and in newly ascendant spiritual beliefs that emphasize the integration and transcendence of dualities. In social psychology as well, a new movement called situationism contends that the totality of our external and internalized circumstances, rather than some disposition toward good or evil, determines our choices.

In fields as disparate as physics, psychology, ecology, and spirituality, people are understanding that what happens "out there" is intimately connected to what happens "in here"; that self and world are interdependent and mutually co-constructed. A dark conspiracy controlling world events mirrors the same inside ourselves. When I say "ourselves" I don't mean some people and not others and certainly not us good guys. I mean you, me, and everyone.

Herein may lie an important truth encoded in conspiracy theories: not a factual truth, but a mythological truth. There does seem to be a conspiracy running inside my psyche that keeps me enslaved to fear and greed; that indeed possesses technologies of mind control; that presents the whole world through a filter of lies; that is associated somehow with the reptilian part of my brain; that manipulates me to serve an agenda inimical to my authentic happiness. Everything that the Illuminati are purported to do to the world, we do to ourselves. Could it be that when we see an evil cabal controlling the world, we are actually seeing the projection of our own egos?

And, because our collective institutions mirror the prevailing psychodynamics of our time, could it be that story of the New World Order conspiracy, despite its flaws, gives us a window onto some important truths about our society?
 
The Matrix of Synchronicity

The aforementioned shortcomings in the New World Order (NWO) hypothesis are not cause to dismiss it entirely, for the nature of the flaws points to some deep truths. The conspiracists are onto something, something that is actually even more radical - and far more hopeful - than they imagine. So let us consider a riddle: If there is no conspiracy in the normal sense, then how to explain the evidence pointing to one? Let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater. When you look into the Kennedy assassination, or the history of suppression of unconventional energy technologies, or the cancer industry and the criminalization of alternative therapies, or any number of other issues, it sure can look like a conspiracy. If there isn't one, then we must discover some third explanation that doesn't turn a blind eye to some very incongruous events.

You may not think there is any such evidence. You may think that the well-documented human capacity to make meaning and perceive patterns where none exist is sufficient to explain the conspiracists' conclusions. After having read a fair amount of the literature with an open mind, I find that explanation too quickly dismissive. Even discounting the considerable selection bias that filters the evidence presented in conspiracy books, many of the coincidences remain striking. Moreover, there is something uncanny about the facility with which certain events lend themselves to conspiracy hypotheses. It is as if they are begging for it; for example, Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald before he could talk in court about his motive for assassinating President Kennedy. It looks like a conspiracy. It smells like a conspiracy. But is it a conspiracy?

Previously I suggested that perhaps when we see conspiracies, we are seeing a reflection of something inside ourselves, building stories and imposing patterns onto reality. But perhaps there is more to the story. What if, in addition to predisposing us to see patterns that aren't there, our emotions and beliefs actually attract experiential data that fits them? What if, for example, the psychic energy beneath conspiracism organizes events to fit into a conspiracy pattern, so that it looks like a conspiracy even if there are no actual conspirators?

Consider some of the events surrounding 9/11: numerous military exercises that very day that tied up and confused a military response; blatant contradictions in official accounts in the near aftermath of the attack; suppression of the air traffic control logs for the flights; suppression of contradictory news broadcasts and their removal from news site archives; the miraculously quick identification of the hijackers despite the fact (at least according to some websites) that their names never appeared on the passenger manifests; the subsequent anthrax attack using anthrax from a government bioweapons lab; the 9/12 "Bin Laden Airlift" that evacuated members of the family from the United States, and so on. Each of these, on their own, admits to an innocent explanation. But to say that their confluence is mere coincidence strains credibility. One is tempted to conclude that these events must have been orchestrated somehow.

But what if they are coincidence - but coincidence isn't what we think it is? Perhaps coincidence is not random, but orchestrated (not by a conscious human agency) into patterns that conform to certain belief systems and meet certain psychological needs. As illustrated earlier, people with certain emotional or psychological needs are attracted to conspiracy theories. Well, the reverse might also be true: patterns of events that look like conspiracies are attracted to needs that exist in human society. Together these form what we might call a "matrix of synchronicity" that is grist to the conspiracy mill.

This possibility opens up even deeper problems, however. For one thing, it inverts traditional scientific notions of causality, resting wholly in the realm of the Aristotelian "final cause," the teleological explanation of, "It happened in order that..." That a constellation of events could just happen, without design, yet accomplish something seemingly purposive, is profoundly disturbing to the reductionism-steeped mind. For there to be design, we think, there must be a designer. From this perspective, conspiracism is actually not very radical at all. While appearing to occupy opposing poles of opinion, conspiracy believers actually agree with their conventional counterparts on a deeper issue: that overwhelming evidence of a conspiracy means there is probably a conspiracy. They merely disagree whether such evidence exists.

My disagreement with conspiracism is of a different sort. I accept (at least more than the skeptics do) much of their evidence, and I accept that it looks like events have been orchestrated by a conspiracy. But for the reasons given, I find the New World Order myth just as unsatisfying as the conventional point of view it merely draws specious signals from random noise.

I want to emphasize just how radically mind-twisting the matrix-of-synchronicity explanation really is. I am saying: "These patterns of events are drawn to history because we need them to flesh out conspiracy theories and give expression to the psychological energies driving those theories." It is as if events organize themselves around some kind of field that makes them appear to have a causal linkage even when they do not.
 
Shadow Realities

A second and related problem that the matrix of synchronicity opens up is, if anything, even more deeply challenging to our way of thinking. For here is another thing on which sceptic and conspiracist secretly agree: that there is an objective fact-of-the-matter as to whether a conspiracy exists. One side thinks it does and the other thinks it doesn't, but both agree that either it does or it doesn't. Both, in other words, agree on the doctrine of objectivity: that there is a reality out there, a set of events that actually happened, and that while our knowledge of them may be incomplete, the events themselves happened or did not happen independent of our knowledge of them. It is only a matter, then, of finding out the truth, the facts.

That both sceptic and believer share this doctrine is unsurprising, for it lies at the very foundation of the scientific method. We try to find out the way things really are, what really happened. Such locutions reveal the unquestioned assumption of objectivity.

But what if this assumption is false? What if there is no independently existing reality "out there"; what if reality is a dialogic construct between self and other?  I will not go to deeply into the philosophic history of this idea, except to say that I am not propounding solipsism and am well familiar with the classic refutations of it. For the present purpose, suffice it to say that perhaps conspiracies occupy an intermediate ontologic state, what one might call a shadow reality. They exist in a realm less real than, say, the U.S. Congress, but more real than Batman or Santa Claus.*

The realm in which the New World Order (NWO) conspiracies exist has its own history, its own logic, its own emotional complexes, its own experiences. The more one enters that belief system, the more experience confirms it. These confirmations can be very tangible: illness from chemtrails, sightings of black unmarked helicopters, discoveries of unidentifiable implants, anonymous death threats, and so forth.

I once had a conversation with a leader in the 9-11 Truth movement, a very credible, emotionally stable, down-to-earth woman, generous, broad-minded, intelligent, and full of good humor. She related quite a few strange experiences that happened at the peak of her activism. Once, she was pulled over on the highway by a squad of seven police cars, taken into custody, and then released hours later with no charges, no explanation, and subsequently no admission that it ever happened. She also received a strange package in the mail filled with Russian documents. We would like to think, either, that these events were orchestrated by some New World Order operative as a warning, or, that she is confabulating or consciously lying. What I'm saying here, however, is that perhaps these events were attracted to her because she had entered quite deeply the reality in which such things happen.

Let's take it further: What of the secret operative? Does he exist or doesn't he? Well, perhaps he too has a shadow existence: he exists in the shadow reality of the NWO, but not in the broadest consensus reality. What if the operative is, say, an insurance agent, who sometimes blacks out or is taken over by an alternate personality and does inexplicable things like take his grandfather's Russian papers from his attic and mails them to a random address that just so happens to be my friend's? A leading conspiracy writer, David Icke, comes close to saying this when he states, "...often the most significant operatives in the Illuminati hide behind apparently 'ordinary' lives while dictating the agenda and attending human sacrifice rituals." Could it be that these operatives are hidden, by their ordinary lives, even from themselves?

What if you went to ask the police officers who pulled her over, and they claimed with all apparent sincerity to have no memory of it. But suppose one says, "That's funny, something you said sounds familiar - I think I had a dream about this." Then, under hypnotic regression, he recalls just the incident the woman describes. Is this a "real" memory? You inquire further and find that several of the officers had a "missing time" episode that day. It seems like they pulled the woman over and then forgot about it. Was there some conscious agency that compelled them to do so? Or was it just a piece of the aforementioned matrix of synchronicity?

Following such questions, we eventually might develop doubts about what it means to say that my friend "really" was pulled over by seven police cars. We might look at the police record - did such an incident happen? We find no record. Of course not - it has been expunged. But maybe we do find a record, that disappears the next time we check. Maybe we, as investigators, get sucked down the rabbit hole: the more we investigate, the more evidence we find, but it is only ever enough to confirm it to ourselves, not to others. When we try to convince others, the documents we need are unavailable, key sources mysteriously disappear or change their story... We begin to wonder about our own sanity. We seem to be living in a world in which the conspiracy exists for us, but not for most other people. Yet it is not all in our heads - real things are happening to us.

It is as if the events are happening for you, but not for me; that in one universe, the police raid really did happen, and in another universe it did not - and both these universes coexist on earth. Steeped in the doctrine of objectivity, we would like to think there is a "fact of the matter", an absolute reality in which it either did or did not happen, independent of our knowledge. But perhaps reality is not like that. Perhaps reality is relational, co-created, and never just "out there."

The shadowy nature of these down-the-rabbit-hole realities comes through in certain conspiracist writings that refer to reptilian alien races, the true puppet masters, who control the Illuminati from the fourth dimension. This reference to the "fourth dimension" encodes an implicit acknowledgment that these beings don't "exist" in the three-dimensional Cartesian matrix of our objectivity-based worldview. They occupy an intermediate state, again, somewhere between Michael Jordan and Santa Claus.

Another clue lies in the common NWO belief that a gigantic network of tunnels, secret bases, and entire cities lies beneath our own, a whole parallel world. Is their existence literally subterranean, or is it, rather, subconscious? Or neither/both? When you go looking for them, you find them; or perhaps they come looking for you if you are in the right psychological state. You find mysterious maps, ominous references, eerie stories from retired Department of Energy officials. But, if you approach the matter from a different mindset and a different state of being, you find nothing unexplainable. The maps have other interpretations, the former officials seem not credible. For you, there is nothing to find. You occupy a universe in which it doesn't exist. Paradoxically, the conspiracists and the sceptics are both right.

In most organizations I have encountered there is a conspiracy of silence that hides the organization's true goals. This secret, shadow organization is nearly coextensive with its visible constituency, meaning that we are each members of the conspiracy to enslave humanity; we are victims and perpetrators both. At one time or another, all of us have contributed to the "reptilian agenda" of maximizing power and control over others. This agenda has a personal and a collective dimension. Personally, it is the egoic, even psychpathic behavior projected onto the secret rulers of the world. Collectively, it is the propensity of organizations, even those founded with great and sincere idealism, to succumb eventually to the service of their own survival interest. Their stated mission becomes an afterthought, a justification for their secret purpose of self-preservation. Certainly on a metaphorical level, the New World Order hypothesis is true. Follow it down the rabbit hole and it becomes not only true, but also real.

The divergence of reality and truth is confusing to the objectivity-steeped mind. To further confuse matters, shadow realities can have effects on each other. It is just like a quantum experiment in which each possible state of a particle has an effect on an observable system, even though when a measurement is taken, the particle is found to occupy only one of those states. In other words, the mere possibility of it occupying a certain state has physical effects.

In a similar way, perhaps our world occupies a superposition of states, one of which is the NWO state, and we can see the interference effects of that state even without its being "real". Its reality, and that of the conventional explanation as well, is indeterminate. It is only when we begin to investigate that we collapse the wave function and enter into one or another shadow reality.
 
The Mythic Truth of the New World Order

However rational and evidence-based we like to imagine ourselves to be, ultimately our beliefs are founded on faith. Few readers of David Icke actually do the footwork that would be necessary to verify his sources, and his sources' sources, many of whom, indeed, are already dead. If the NWO conspiracists are correct, then everything we have been told is wrong. For some, this is profoundly liberating; for others it is deeply disturbing. The former are predisposed to believe; the latter to reject; this predisposition then clothes itself in facts and evidence. Thus it is that facts and evidence rarely change anyone's mind - they are symptoms and not causes of our beliefs. It is only when life-changing events alter one's predisposition that room becomes available for new beliefs.

Our beliefs, and the states of being underlying them, do evolve and sometimes shift dramatically. This happens especially when for one reason or another, one's world falls apart. Because we live in a time of mounting crisis, the world is falling apart for more and more people, and the unraveling of the old certainties will only accelerate in coming years. At such times, we occasionally face a moment of choice, in which we can decide what to believe. But, recognizing that evidence alone is insufficient to guide belief, how are we to choose?

I suggest that we choose a belief, and the corresponding psychological state accompanying it, based on how well it aligns with who we truly are and who we want to become. This doesn't mean to ignore evidence, for quite often anomalous events can show us that our personal mythology is cracking apart, and that we are ready to moult. It does mean to consider how each belief-state feels, what it implies about the world, about human beings, and about oneself. How does it affect the answer to the question, "Who am I?" What needs does it meet? How does it hurt? What emotions does it evoke?

You can take a few moments to sit with an article from a conspiracy website like Project Camelot or 9/11 Truth, and then with a debunking article from CSICOP, and notice the ways in which each feels gratifying, offensive, reassuring, or threatening. Then I invite you to do the same with the third alternative that I offer in the essay.

This third alternative preserves the mythic truths of the New World Order hypothesis, truths that lie outside its interpretive framework. Here are two of them:

1. A nefarious power, inimical to human well-being, manipulates the course of human events from behind the scenes, seeking the total control of every human being.

Rather than an evil Illuminati, could that power be money? Some say that a global elite controls humanity via the money system, but could it be that it is rather the money system that controls the global elite? I'm sure many of you have known the feeling of being enslaved to money. The wealthy are not exempt, and indeed, possessing more of it, are even more deeply enslaved to its logic. It is truly an "invisible hand," a force that "makes the world go round." Moreover, the end toward which money compels us is one of misery and ugliness: the destruction of nature and culture, community and health, and all that is beautiful on earth.

Even those we might consider most culpable for the injustices and despoliation of our world act with little awareness of what they are creating. Whether they are hedge fund managers seeking to maximize a number (profit), or political leaders seeking to further "American interests," the reality behind these symbols is obscure to them. They are victims of their own propaganda, doing harm while sincerely believing to be doing good. It is easy to believe this of people in the middle and bottom of the pyramid, the ignorant and the duped. It is harder to understand how it could apply to people at the top, yet it is equally true - if not more true - of them. They are among the most hopeless dupes of all.

Money is not the only candidate for the nefarious controlling power. Various ideologies and their corresponding being-states, in particular those I call Separation and Ascent, are even more deeply responsible. They create a culture, and a self, that seeks to maximize security, predictability, and control; to measure and quantify the world; to eliminate risk and establish liability; to extend property rights and legal codes into every corner of life, and to monitor everyone and keep track of every thing. The destination of such a program is none other than what the conspiracists fear: a totalitarian "one world government."

We might say, then, that it is not those at the top of the pyramid that control the rest; it is the pyramid itself that controls all. But this pyramid, this Tower, built of the defining myths of our civilization, is evidently crumbling before our eyes. I am not necessarily saying, "It isn't the Draconian races, it is the money system (or the myth of Separation)." Rather, these refer to one and the same thing, viewed through a different lens. In one reality, it is money, in another it is the ETs.

2. We are subject to technologies of mind control that hold us in thrall.

New World Order conspiracists posit the existence of futuristic mind control based on alien technologies, beamed from the communication infrastructure, riding upon cell phone towers, television transmissions, and so on, or transmitted via occult symbology, subliminal messages, and neuro-linguistic programming techniques. There is truth in this, but the truth is deeper than the conspiracists realize. Television stupifies us not only through its content, but through the ability of the medium itself to usurp the image-making capacity of the brain and create intellectual dependency. Advertising and, more subtly, the narratives of the mass media condition our thoughts and desires, so that we become afraid of freedom and nearly incapable of rebelling. But these technologies are rather clumsy and overt compared with the way that institutions of our culture, by their very logic, limit the range and manner of our thinking. Education, science, religion, medicine, parenting, and the legal system all condition us to think in certain ways. But the most pervasive and powerful mind control technology, so ubiquitous as to be unnoticable, is undoubtedly the language itself.

Can we overcome dualism, when our language is rife with it? Can we transcend separation, when our language assumes it in its very structure? By their very existence certain words limit us to thoughts that subtly serve the status quo. For example, when I say that reality isn't what we think it is, by using the word "is" I reinforce the very independently-existing reality that I am trying to deny. More generally, as a system of signs, language distances us from the reality it is supposed to represent, allowing us to more easily treat the world as other. Sometimes, during meditation or mystical experience, the veil of language lifts and the richness of the unmediated world is revealed, and along with it the depth of our thralldom.

Again, even as it reaches its extreme, the system of mind control is crumbling. The devaluation of language that I discuss in The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies has engendered a pervasive cynicism, a discounting of all speech, that renders the tools of mind control increasingly ineffective. So inured are we to a world of image and hype, that we believe little of what we are told. Switching to the NWO lens, we might say that the Illuminati are panicking, desperately ramping up their mind control efforts to less and less effect.
 
A New Story

There are many other mythic truths, and variants of these, that could be added to the list. To me, they carry a resonance that transcends interpretation. Here are a few to play with: "The institutions of power are carrying us toward a secret and horrible destination." "Many among us have been programmed through trauma to serve this end." "The servants of the conspiracy look and act as normal people - you can never tell who they are." (And maybe you could be one of them and not even know it.) "All that we think is real is an illusion." "Invisible shadow institutions lie hidden within the visible ones and serve purposes different from, or even opposed to, their stated purpose." The New World Order story dresses these mythic truths in its own language, and in so doing provides a valuable service, giving people access to them.

At some point, however, the story that was once enlightening becomes confining. As I have explained, conspiracy theories eventually bring most people to a kind of despair, even paralysis. When that happens, when the NWO story has run the course of its usefulness, it helps to have a new, larger story to step into. 

The new story says that the abiding intuition that you have carried perhaps your whole life, and which drew you to conspiracism in the first place, is true. The world is governed by a secret power that holds us in bondage to no good end. But the conspirators are not others, they are we, you and I and everyone. A secret agenda of domination and control has existed in nearly everyone, and a world embodying that agenda has congealed around us, attracted to the dark, reptilian energies we have harbored. The good news is that these energies have nearly run their course, as the world of control breaks down and the campaign to conquer and dominate all other being founders on its own consequences. Just as Voldemort was unable to possess Harry Potter because he couldn't abide the love within him, so also is the ruling power of the world unable to abide our growing realization of our connectedness. Love, the felt experience of oneness, is spreading as the walls of separation come down. They never were sustainable. Today, even the most deluded - the power elite - are beginning to recognize that. The reign of the Illuminati is nearly over. That is seems to be reaching unprecedented heights only bespeaks the imminence of its demise, the extreme of yang giving birth to yin.

The war of good versus evil was never anything but a lie. The concept of evil is perhaps the greatest servant of evil. "Is there such a thing as evil?" I was once asked. "Before you asked, the answer was no. After you asked, the answer is yes." But ultimately, evil and its expression as the New World Order, or as I would call it, the process of Separation, has like all other things its purpose in this universe. We embark on a journey of separation in all its forms, we reach its extreme, and we come back to Union at a higher level of complexity, enriched by our journey. To adopt one last time the vocabulary of the New World Order myth, we might say that the reptilian overlords or the Illuminati have fulfilled their purpose. Though some might try to hold onto it a little longer, sooner or later they will accept that their time is over, and they will bow out of service.

The greater truth, though, which contains but does not contradict the lesser, is that the Illuminati, the Reptilians, are you and I. On this level too, what I have said is true. Can you not feel the obsolescence of that part of you, the part that endlessly seeks to control the world, to dominate others, to maximize egoic self-interest? Is it not increasingly evident that its efforts have created only misery? Is it not apparent that, no matter how hard you try to remedy its failure by intensifying its efforts, its ultimate failure is assured? For all of us, the time is coming for that part of ourselves to bow out, so that we can step into service, into trust, and, collectively, into the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

* Note to Santa and the Caped Crusader: please don't take offense. I'm only invoking your names for rhetorical effect, not because I actually doubt your existence.

This essay was written by Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition, and is re-printed here with the author's permission.

Stepping Into Abundance - A letter to my children

On June 12^th 2011 at precisely 3.19pm in the afternoon at Bangkok’s Samitivej Hospital my tenth child (and your new brother) struggled into the world. After a gap of seventeen years I find myself a father once again.

This morning Nico clearly recognised Suna’s face for the first time and beamed directly at her. It was a moment to treasure - at once exhilarating and sobering. For it reminds me of the importance of purity, compassion and hope in a world littered with shards of despair.

Given the combination of modern health care, a nutritious diet and the elimination of many chronic diseases (and barring any unforseen accidents) this latest addition to our family can expect to live at least to the ripe old age of 100 years. This means he could well see in the year 2110, alongside his burgeoning stock of young uncles and aunts!

Yet this baby’s coming was not always so sure. He is a miracle child, not least for the fact that I am getting on in years and that his mother first fought cervical cancer and then endured an ectopic pregnancy before Nico finally made his presence known to us. Nevertheless he is a blessing - as each of you were in your own way and each of your own children continue to be.

Like any father I am immensely proud of you all. Yet I have also been saddened by the qualities I have observed in our family from time to time, traits that struck me as entirely self-serving yet somehow symbolic of the way the world crashes in on us rather than how it could ideally be.

I am not in the habit of lecturing you – nor of writing epistles of this kind. My preference has always been to give you the freedom for self-discovery while trying to shield you from the many traps and excesses that would otherwise besiege you. I tried. Mostly I failed. But that’s another story. I have been in the process of writing my autobiography for some years now. Because I was absent for much of the time you were growing up I want to tell you about issues and events that have been warped out of perspective - more by circumstances than by intent. But that, too, is another story.

People around the world constantly seek my advice about the things that matter to them. Occasionally huge deals and vital relationships hang on the reliability of my counsel. And if that counsel is so useful to governments, corporations and entrepreneurs perhaps it is equally useful to you. Perhaps there are a few scraps of wisdom I can pass on before I become too befuddled by age and senility sets in.

Next month I will be 66 years old. I still awake every morning with a sense of curiosity and joy for what the day has in store. But when entering the final stages of an abundant life it is also fitting to look back at the paths one has taken, reflecting on a journey shared with friends and those you have loved. My journey has been so rich, in large part due to each one of you. At the moment of my death, whenever that is, I will have few if any regrets. That is not to say my time on Earth could not have been easier. I have borne my fair share of hardships. There are always ups and downs to deal with but a sense of utter despondency has rocked me on only three occasions.

The first dealt me a blow from which, if I am really honest, I never fully recovered. The father I worshipped, the first to pick me up whenever I fell, the one person in the whole world who could do no wrong, suddenly vanished from my life. I was eight years old. There was no warning. I never saw him again. That incident shattered me. Invisible to others, the grief of that moment still resonates deeply within me.

I suppose you never really recover from such traumatic experiences. You learn to adjust to the pain. And time does heal to some extent. But what saddens me most is that I can never adequately explain to you how the shock of his sudden departure haunted every minute of every day during the time your mother and I made the agonising decision to live apart. Our relationship had eroded over several years such that there was no trust, no mutual respect left anymore. Our love, once so all-embracing, had simply run its course. There was to be no turning back.

Of course I never had any intention of leaving you. I loved you. You were my world. The legacy of my personal sorrow emanated from the growing realisation that my father had not loved me. This fact tore at my soul as I desperately tried to deal with the manner in which fate was to take hold.

Most of you are more familiar with the ensuing set of events as you were caught up in the tragic unravelling of what initially appeared to have given our family strength. After Valerie and I separated, longing for the life she had been denied by emigrating with me to Australia, your mum returned to England’s West Country at the first opportunity. I concurred with her wishes not fully realising at the time how impossible it would be for me to maintain a healthy, caring relationship with you all. For an otherwise intelligent person that degree of shortsightedness cannot be excused.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. On the rare occasion when it became possible for me to venture half way around the world to see you I was greeted with empty stares and open hostility from you, the people I loved most in the world. More times than I care to remember I made the return journey to Heathrow in floods of tears, stopping frequently lest I caused an accident from my uncontrollable sobbing and blurred vision. At least I did not leave you as my father had left me. A convenient rationalisation of course...

The third situation occurred much like the first. It struck cruelly, with no prior warning. Contrary to what you had been led to believe, I met Elizabeth a month or so after I left our family home in Orangeville and moved to Melbourne, where most of my work was located at the time. Our relationship was always very special which is why we remain good friends today. I was aware Elizabeth nursed concerns about being with a much older man, especially a driven workaholic with hypertension and dangerously high levels of cholesterol. At the time you all openly resented her which ripped into her generous and loving heart in a way you could not have known.

Seven years into our partnership Elizabeth had a brief affair while she was studying in Shanghai. At the time we tried to brush it off but decided to try and have a child as a way of resuscitating our relationship. It might have worked had not all Elizabeth’s anxieties re-emerged when she tragically miscarried our baby during a road trip in India. Just weeks later one of my closest friends died from a massive stroke. Rob was the same age as me. The foreboding was gathering and as I delivered the eulogy at Robb’s funeral my instinct warned me of some impending threat that would be beyond me to salvage. Sure enough that evening Elizabeth admitted she had fallen in love with someone she had met on one of her previous trips to China. He was her age. There was no contest. She left for Beijing two days later. I was devastated as were her family and all our friends. Unlike me they had had no inkling of the imminent change in our relationship.

I cannot recall receiving much sympathy from any of you. Even after nine years of seeing how happy I was with Elizabeth in my life some of you were probably elated by this outcome. It served me right for leaving our family. It was poetic justice after all.

Once again an act was drawing to a close and a new one beginning. The following days were a nightmare. Wallowing in self-pity I seriously considered suicide. My life seemed so futile and such a failure on so many counts. It was as though any meaning had shrunk to a pinpoint that was rapidly receding into an infinite blackness.

Fortunately one of you was there to console me. I don’t think I have previously conceded how you brought me to my senses Rosie - simply by being there. But as the veil of sadness slowly lifted and I began to focus more lucidly on my life’s true purpose I made a solemn vow: instead of sacrificing my personal happiness to meet the expectations of others, I would now do everything in my power to ensure my own happiness first. I would never again allow circumstances to dictate my path. Nor would I tolerate my personal well-being to be hijacked, for whatever purpose, in the future. I felt I had earned this.

I had made a similar vow the day before my thirteenth birthday. Back then it was a naive pledge to live an extraordinary life; not to be dragged down by the parochial banality I saw surrounding me at the time.

Little did I realise that within weeks, in a country I had never had any desire to visit, I would meet an inspirational woman and that my priorities would instantly change in ways I could never have imagined possible. There is always a sliver of light at the end of the darkest tunnel.

In any family there will be those who choose not to read moralistic correspondence from their parents. Some of you may even wince at my transparency. But my preferred way to express deeply-held thoughts and emotions is through my writing. So why do I think what I have to say is important enough to lay bare my feelings and reveal my innermost thoughts to you at this time?

There are several reasons but mostly it is because of my love for you and a desire that you feel able (compelled even) to lead happy and fulfilling lives. I also want to share with you some lessons I have learned during the course of my life in the hope that you can each extract just a little bit of wisdom that might be helpful to you when times are tough and when it seems nobody understands or cares about your suffering. There are four lessons in particular that are worthy of reflection:

1. Become more than just you

While every atom of our individual life experience is intensely magnified for us and remains the filter through which we view literally every aspect of reality, our persona often remains vague, skewed and frankly inexplicable to others – even those closest to us. We assume we know who we are and that identity is as clear to others as it is to us. Ultimately, though, we are the only ones blessed with such enlightenment. In this regard I am reminded of some wonderful words by the Sicilian poet Salvatore Quasimodo. It is one of my favourite poems: 

                        Everyone is alone on the heart of the Earth

                        Pierced by a ray of sun

                        And suddenly its evening.

You will have your own interpretations of this poignant poem symbolising life’s brevity. For me it puts into awe-inspiring perspective how insignificant are our individual hubristic masks. The conclusion I draw is that only by letting go of our delusions of self-importance can we adopt true compassion towards others and thus see the world more distinctly. I have learned I am nothing as an individual. Transcending egocentric and narcissistic ways leads to the realisation that I only exist in communion with others. My voice only makes sense in relationship.

2. Focus on the future

We are all nostalgic for the past at some stage in our lives. This need is perfectly illustrated by the recent spate of photos from the Hames archives we have been frantically posting on Facebook these past few weeks. Photographs are beautiful artefacts describing who we once were. But the resulting memories can also be seductive lies. Recent scientific studies into the chemistry of the brain reveal an astonishing phenomenon: memories are not fixed but reconstructed each time we recall what happened. This is not simply a matter of perception although emotions clearly play a role in what we remember. The startling reality is that we continuously compose and play with alternative drafts (intricately embellished versions of the truth) to match our shifting assumptions, inclinations and circumstances.

As time passes favoured versions of what happened fuse and reify in our minds until they assume the status of incontrovertible truths. For each of us you understand. Your truth is not necessarily my truth. Another’s version will be different again. There are always multiple shades of grey and unaccountable discrepancies even when two objective witnesses recount a shared experience within seconds of the event. There is never a single immutable truth. It is multiple. To think otherwise is to be profoundly deceived.

Where does that leave us in terms of the past? Many people prefer to live in the past. They find comfort in that. For me the wiser course of action has been to accept the imperfections of memory and to live with future uncertainties rather than to fret about past ambiguities that are probably irreparable. It has always seemed to me one can put one’s energies into the crafting of better futures or remain haunted by the ghosts of resentment, regrets and lost opportunities.

3. Cause no harm to others

Hurting people is the easiest thing in the world to do. Inflicting pain and distress on others can often be deliberate. Pure vindictiveness motivated by the basest of human values. At other times possibly just self-defence, thoughtlessness, or a temporary lapse in human decency.

Of course war, conflict and competition have been a part of our social fabric from time immemorial. Thus we can easily rationalise the damage we inflict on others. Over the course of my life I have tried to find reasons that might justify causing harm to others. I can think of none. Although the scriptures of all monotheistic traditions teach us otherwise, for me there can never be an excuse that justifies such brutality and pain. Of course we have become singularly adept at dredging up one reason after another to justify the most blatant of atrocities, whether it be the protection of freedom, democracy or human rights. In the end all conflict is driven by the politics of greed, power, envy and corruption. Hard as we might try we cannot escape that unpalatable fact.

Perhaps I am an idealist. I am undeniably a pacifist. I really do believe that our civilisation can not survive if we continue to wreak unrelenting destruction on each other and our environment. We must find alternative ways to resolve and transcend our differences. Humanity’s real need at this juncture is to step into abundance. We must nurture a far deeper appreciation of each other as a single human family rather than perpetuate a continued fracturing of community based upon trivial and cosmetic differences.

4. Forgive past transgressions

Finally we need to engender a capacity to forgive others without any expectation that our impulse to forgive will be reciprocated. After Nelson Mandela’s release from 27 years of detention as a terrorist his messages and actions were consistently true to this sentiment. His mere presence at events like the Convocation honouring him at Harvard, a university that had staunchly supported the apartheid regime, signalled a refusal to be bound by past wrongs. At that convocation Henry Lewis Gates spoke of Mandela as always being a free man. It was the man’s freedom from any need or desire to seek reprisals that shone through.

More recently after the massacre in Norway that killed 74 innocent citizens the mayor of Oslo, Fabian Stang, proclaimed to the crowd of 150,000: We will punish the guilty. The punishment will be more generosity, more tolerance, more democracy. Such magnanimity is overwhelming. But nothing expresses better what it means to be human.

If these four tenets or moral impulses are true for humanity why should they not also be true for our family? The great dilemma in all of these lessons is simply to point out the ephemeral nature of our existence, the great mystery of it all, and my desire to restore love, empathy and respect within our family.

For most of history human beings have based their actions on an hypothesis that scarcity pervades society. This is the creed that led to competitive behaviour. Why competition even underpins our health, welfare and education systems. Some of us win, others of us lose. This is a law of nature we are told. But it is nothing of the kind. It has been fabricated through self-interest and envy. I have watched it insinuate itself into the cracks that are even now splitting our family apart and I want it to stop. For whatever reasons, perhaps through collective amnesia, we seem to be missing a deeper appreciation and love of each other.

I have often been an absent and ineffective father. I readily concede that my work (to evolve society to a new consciousness) has frequently assumed priority over mere family matters. That was wrong and I hope you will find it in your heart to absolve me. My intentions were always virtuous. But to put the conscious evolution of humanity above that of caring for my own family was wrong.

My love for you is that of a father for any child. It is unconditional and will never falter. I had always naively assumed that I too would be loved unconditionally by you, my children. It was not to be. I am aware one or two of you believe I lack morals – although you are often slow to judge your own deeds. And a couple of you take me as a soft touch, assuming that I’m not quick-witted enough to comprehend the fact that I am being taken for a ride. That is no big deal. It is no doubt par for the course. But it pains me to think that the respect you should express for each other has taken a nose-dive in a family that was once so close.

My health is good and I expect to be around for many years yet. However it is important that you take note of what I have written here, even if you later choose to ignore it.

I have taken great care to be as open and as precise as I can be. So I would urge all of you to take responsibility for healing the wounds that have festered in our family for far too long. Try putting aside blame and half truths. And if it doesn’t work the first time keep trying.

At the very least I would hope we can all put the scars of the past behind us in order to focus on a future of mutual obligation and respect. Nothing would please me more than seeing each of you relate in ways that restore a strong sense of family unity. Equally I would love to see you repair ties with your mother - if only in a spirit of compassion. She sacrificed a lot for you. But she needs your love these days far more than ever before.

Above all I want you to embrace my youngest son and your new brother with all the love you can muster. He deserves to be held in our hearts as you all are held in mine.

With all my love

Dad

Thinking for a Change

The dilemmas facing humanity have become so complex they can only be resolved by comprehending the situation from a higher level of collective consciousness. Once that new state of awareness has been reached, however, we will be able to choose a profoundly different evolutionary path to that recently pursued with such self-interest and short-sighted enthusiasm.

Disruptions to the way planet Earth works, particularly those induced by the ingrained habits of seven billion people all aspiring to similar levels of affluence, can no longer be ignored. At some stage myths must give way to truths if disaster is to be averted.

As Paul Gilding points out so eloquently in his recent book The Great Disruption there is plenty to be positive about. But only if we think differently and more deeply about the human condition and rise above those beliefs and practices that have become an impediment to genuine progress.

Three priorities have surfaced from the fog of scientific evidence, propaganda (and sheer mischief) surrounding issues like climate change. First, policies aimed at putting a stop to unsustainable activities must be scaled up. Second, smart technologies must be applied to the underlying causes of our problems rather than to their symptoms. Third, we must reframe our thinking to embody entirely new possibilities for reimagining what we do (that is both socially desirable and economically feasible) and how we do it.

These priorities are as relevant for business as they are for governments and civil society. The time has long since passed when business could simply mind its own business. Indeed many of the institutions and practices conceived within the 19^th century model of industrial economism, a model that initially brought such affluence to so many, appear now to be steering us down a path to ruin. I am aware that it is impossible to prove such a thesis. But nor do I intend waiting until I have evidence I am correct.

There are many alternatives available to us, ranging from cleaner, adaptive industries and smarter, benign practices to fewer toxic raw materials and biomimicry as a model for organizing and innovating. Most of these alternatives are preferable to what currently exists. However we need to let go of old prejudices and fears that the future will inevitably be worse than the past if such new options are to be implemented quickly. This is the prime lesson informing Gilding’s thesis.

All of which is easier said than done of course. Tackling any one of these imperatives would be difficult enough. Finding ways to adopt all three presents a formidable challenge, not least because the customary ways for administering human affairs have shifted responsibilities to others. Deliberately reframing our thinking to escape the gravitational pull of the past will demand an expansive emancipation of mind, liberation from obsolete ideologies and dogma, and a collective, progressive and audacious awakening to higher levels of consciousness concerning our shared purpose.

Changing behavioural patterns is relatively easy. We do it all the time. Government policies, corporate marketing and public relations campaigns all effectively play on our desires or fears in order to manipulate how we behave. But whereas most present-day marketing efforts are commercially orientated, using psychology to escalate consumerism - even where prosperity without economic growth would be a more sane goal in today’s circumstances - we are failing to use those same mechanisms to endorse the reduction, re-use and recycling of our most precious resources. Clearly much has still to be done even in that regard. But changing our underlying beliefs is far more difficult.

Ultimately though, permanent behavioural change will stem from the structural redesign of our most life-critical systems – particularly those in which human beings interface with nature and with each other. It is often forgotten that all systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get. That is why natural systems remain so resilient.

The problem is that none of our social systems have been designed to consciously evolve. We are, quite literally, trapped in the past. That is precisely why our thinking has to change. In effect we must become architects of our own evolution rather than pawns in a game we assume to be controlled by others.

The inevitable transition to cleaner, low-carbon sources of energy (like solar and hydrogen for example) together with the use of smarter, more efficient, distributed networks that reduce the amount of energy we use, will eventually enable the complete eradication of toxic fuels. At the same time the industries spawned from this transition will generate untold wealth. Designing a sustainable and secure food system capable of providing nourishment for seven billion people or more is also desirable – and readily achievable. Re-engineering the fundamentals of the global economy to eradicate waste, promote equity and protect the resources we all share is also realistic.

But there is a catch. Before the trapeze artist leaps into space he must step off the platform on which he is standing. Systemic reinventions of this nature requires a strategic, emotional and “transcendent” commitment to the new story in addition to an appreciation of systemic design that is rare, so devoid of integral intelligence has our conditioning become.

In terms of systemic design and renewal there are two crucial keys to success. Both rely on our capacity and willingness to reframe our notions about what really matters, to boldly step into new ways of knowing and being, and to openly engage with others in that metamorphosis.

The first key is the ability to imagine and communicate an alternative social “meme” (together with compelling narratives) that supersedes more utilitarian goals – at least encompassing happiness, love and compassion in healthier balance with material wealth and well-being. This key unlocks hope and restores fairness. The second key is the ability to elude the curse of knowledge that traps us in an industrial past and allows us to make significantly different choices about the future. This key unlocks a sense of new possibilities and restores trust.

Unfettering an economy based on value exchange in the context of abundance (rather than one of compounding debt in a framework of financial scarcity, for example) could emancipate new forms of enterprise employing many more people than today’s sunset industries. Using renewable sources of energy to establish industrial ecologies that transform and adapt to a warming planet is far wiser than defending the past in an attempt to protect that which could destroy us. [Industry lobbyists take note!] Likewise, accessing peer-to-peer digital media to invite the collective expression of policies and even constitutions (instead of putting our faith in the increasingly detached whims of a few elected representatives) might provide a platform for a far more democratic and empathic society. And so on…

Such strategic choices become possible because of the most fundamental shift in human history: the emergence of a mode of inventiveness (comprising intelligence, foresight and wisdom) that allows new ways of being, thinking and doing to be envisaged and, through cooperation and invention, to be attained.

No doubt humanity can flourish. But only if we learn to transcend obsolete beliefs and fears to engage in deeper conversations that (i) include all salient features of the system we desire to create, (ii) anticipate the intended and unintended consequences of those desires, and (iii) lift the human spirit out of the mire of believing the past cannot be surpassed and that our situation is dire and will only get worse.

In facing a range of complex dilemmas it does us no good to continue to deny the truth. The global outlook is tense. Natural disasters, the spiraling cost of food, geo-political conflict and the collapse of natural systems all seem to herald an end-game in which the extinction of our species is conceivable. We are witness to cascading failures in the systems that support life. Family incomes are being squeezed. We try to do more with less. Politicians focus on trivia. Simple things seem not to work as well as they once did. We fret about how best to survive the present even though we care passionately about the planet and our children’s future.

Yet the solution is in our own hands. Burying our heads in the sand and ignoring reality will not help. Quarantining ourselves from reality we begin to lose the thread of affiliation that otherwise nourishes and sustains us. We cannot isolate ourselves from the truth however hard we might try. It only aggravates our anxieties.

Over a century ago an ambitious geo-engineering project was implemented. Responding to a major planetary issue of the time two German scientists, Haber and Bosch, made nitrogen-rich fertilizer available to farmers, thus significantly increasing the annual amount of nitrogen fixed on land. The unintended consequences were catastrophic: the human population mushroomed exponentially.

But having created the problem we must live with it. By participating in the actuality of our predicament we can restore hope while exploring practical pathways into the future. Our starting point is not the changing of a light bulb nor the purchasing of a more fuel-efficient car. On the contrary renewal begins with a sense of responsibility to each other and to the planet. Re-envisaging a new purpose for humanity must now become our prime goal. We must think big for a change.

A Moment In Geological Time

The sun rose again this morning. Looking out of my window, eighteen floors above the streets of Bangkok, I still see familiar skyscrapers punctuating the horizon. And as the ambient noise of human activity begins to cut through the lazy dawn it is clear that life is going on much as before.

Or is it? Something extraordinary is happening. You can almost feel it in the air. I do not mean the imminent arrival of my son Dominique Oliver Hames into the world, although that too is very special. I am not talking about an Armageddon following the return of Jesus Christ to Earth in a “rapture” moment or the likelihood of aliens observing us from afar even though there are possibly billions of planets, some just like ours, in the Milky Way. I am not referring to the waves of civil disobedience that have been sweeping across the Arab world of late, mixed reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden, the cascading failures of a global monetary system based upon compounded debt, nor even the inexorable rise of China and the corresponding economic and moral collapse of the US empire.

On the contrary I am suggesting a phenomenon that will have us scrambling to re-write textbooks and re-examine the most deeply-embedded of our hypotheses concerning human identity and purpose.

It turns out we are living through and contributing to a defining moment in geological time. As incongruous and as unlikely as it seems, the human species has become a force of nature, the sheer scale of our activities reshaping the Earth’s surface and the natural processes upon which all life depends. Unlike fateful events of a transitory nature this intervention actually does change everything! Not necessarily for the worse as many claim, although the final outcome is far from certain and probably will be for some time.

A number of leading Earth scientists have suggested this is happening from observing a set of life-critical, natural, recycling systems. For example, carbon and nitrogen cycles are both speeding up. While natural fluxes of carbon dioxide are many times larger than the amount put into the atmosphere each year by people burning fossil fuels, the effect of human intervention is disproportionate. It is possible that even a small increase can can cause a catastrophic tipping point to occur in the climate system. A recent report by the International Energy Agency now suggests human intervention in the carbon cycle will generate global heating of between 3 and 5 degrees celsius over two or three generations. That posits a degree of global chaos for which we are not at all prepared. 

Over the past century the nitrogen cycle has accelerated by almost 150 per cent. Although some of this increase is accidental it has mostly arisen through a deliberate attempt by scientists at the end of the 19th century to increase the supply of nitrogen fixates into the food chain. The Haber-Bosch process harnessed the atmospheric abundance of nitrogen to create ammonia, which could then be oxidized to make the nitrates so essential for the production of artificial fertilisers. Unfortunately Fritz Haber and his associates failed to anticipate the scale of unintended consequences flowing from this early attempt at geoengineering. Their intervention increased the human population by a quantum!

There are numerous other salient factors to be taken into account which arise from an acceleration in these natural cycles. The oceans are acidifying and warming faster than predicted. Sediment flows in the world’s great deltas, home to hundreds of millions of people, are eroding faster than they can be replaced. Seasons are shifting. Water supplies are threatened by retreating glaciers. Extinction rates are higher than normal. The Arctic ice shelf is melting, puncturing the permafrost and allowing vast stores of methane to leak into the atmosphere for the first time…

Human curiosity, possibly more than a sense of responsible stewardship, obliges us to enquire into the source of such shifts. It is actually quite simple. We have become Creator, architects of our own evolution, not only at a nanoscale level of genetic and cellular manipulation but at the macro level of geological shifts. In effect humanity’s disruption, modification and acceleration of natural processes has triggered the age of homo sapiens. The Anthropocene age has dawned and there are important consequences to consider.

The evolutionary clock is ticking loudly. As hard as we might try we cannot wind back the hands. Returning to a more reassuring or comfortable past is ethically untenable as well as an impractical illusion. Instead we must learn to live wisely with our creation. At a minimum this means safeguarding the continuing viability of life-nurturing systems - such as clean air and pure water; halting the rampant despoilation of natural ecosystems - such as the rainforests and the oceans; prioritizing our most critical needs (like nutritious food, love and happiness) more prudently and transparently; enhancing environmental, social and institutional resilience; commissioning new technologies responsibly; and creating an ecology of mind grounded in appreciation, abundance, sufficiency and collaboration.

Simply put, it is time to let go of past frameworks - and with it the fears, superstitions, protocols and practices that constrain potential and set us against each other – to design a future capable of generating sufficient well-being and prosperity for everybody. That objective will be impossible to achieve through incremental or cosmetic changes to current ways or fiddling at the inconsequential fringes of the existing paradigm. We need an archetypal metamorphosis: a suite of profound transformations  that will shift human praxis from competition to cooperation, from economic growth to well being, from inequity to integrity, from despair to hope and from inward-looking interests to a planetary consciousness.

I find the idea of metamorphosis, resulting from positioning human development at the centre of the natural sciences rather than some kind of peripheral sideshow, genuinely inspiring. On the one hand it sounds simple and obvious. Indeed it is. But in order to accomplish a panarchical transformation of such ambition and scope we would need to initiate a wave of societal innovation, the audacity of which is unprecedented. For what we are proposing here is nothing less than an awakening to a conscious human evolution where human purpose and intent is reconceptualised at its most fundamental levels. At the same time a transfiguration of this nature would presumably offer profound alternatives to the popularly held view (of a synthesis between biological and digital life forms) proposed by some overly-enthusiastic technocrats as the most likely future for our species.

Consciously designing a world that can comfortably accommodate ten billion people will require all the empathy, compassion, ingenuity and imagination we can muster. What I am intimating is a contemporary renaissance of humanity and the human soul possibly unlike anything we have previously envisaged.

Just as the natural world is working differently as a result of our presence, so the world we are creating will need to operate differently from the one which effortlessly accommodated two billion people at the end of World War II in 1945. We have to adopt ecological design criteria and alternative governance methods; invent more aligned, responsive and adaptive institutions based on an appreciation of the need to conserve our common wealth; find smarter ways of producing life’s necessities by working with nature rather than against it; reduce waste; establish an economy in which prosperity is decoupled from corruption and motives of greed or self-interest - all the while embedding efficiencies to ensure that our planet can continue to provide abundantly for us all and not just the privileged or wealthy few.

In that context it is vital we seek to transform how we think - about our relationship to the planet and to each other. This will require a profound transition of individual and collective consciousness. That is the extent of the task facing us. The scale of this challenge is astonishing.

To comprehend the dynamic complexities entailed in such a transformation we can use the carbon cycle, which I referenced earlier, as a typical example of the entangled nature of the issue. You are probably already aware of the claims being made by our leading climate scientists. But I will restate some relevant statistics if only to ensure you are up-to-date with the most recent science.

According to the International Energy Agency, Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount in 2010, reaching the highest carbon output in recorded history. Not even the financial crisis, considered by many observers to be the most serious global recession of the past 80 years, has done much to curb rising emissions. The eminent economist Nicholas Stern, noting this fact, stated that the heating resulting from increased emissions "will disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict."

In spite of an extensive and prolonged search from numerous sources I have found no credible information that is seriously at odds with this prediction - apart from the banal observation that we cannot possibly know for certain. This being the case, in order to avoid the most damaging effects of global heating annual energy-related emissions will need to be no more than 32 gigatons by 2020. If emissions in 2011 rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule. This would make it all but impossible to keep the rise in global temperatures to within 2° Celsius, the tipping point, many scientists believe, before exponential feedback loops lead to abrupt, asymmetric and potentially irreversible changes to the climate system.

I confess that I find this news terrifyingly bitter-sweet. As the room for maneuvering contracts by the day, urgent action is still not forthcoming – even when it comes to the relatively less painful implementation of energy efficiencies through reduction, re-use and recycling. Instead, the reverse seems to be happening. For example, since the earthquake and tsunami damage to the Daiichi reactors at Fukushima earlier this year several countries have been re-evaluating nuclear power. Germany has seemingly declared a halt to its nuclear reactor programs although it had been on the verge of doing so for some time. Japan is teetering on the brink of electing to go down a similar path. Community paranoia over nuclear energy has been evident since the accidents at Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986). Yet it is one of the safest forms of electricity generation. It also happens to be one of the major technologies for producing electricity without carbon dioxide. The gap left by scaling back the world's nuclear facilities is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels, at least in the foreseeable future. Some of these can be made cleaner, that is true. But they remain damaging to our climate in spite of the reassuring messages being disseminated by the oil, coal and gas lobby.

Then there are locked-in emissions to consider. About 80 per cent of the power stations likely to be in service in 2020 are either already built or under construction. Most of these are fossil-fuelled power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early. So they will continue to emit carbon – possibly for a further 40 years or so.

Add to all of this the fact that the significance of climate change in international policy debates is being taken less seriously than it was a few years ago, mostly as a result of intensive lobbying and fear mongering from certain sectors of the business community, and that developed nations have really only managed to reduce carbon emissions by importing goods from countries like China, and we have a recipe for catastrophe. At least without a shift in consciousness….

It is worth repeating here that it is not just global heating caused by increasing amounts of carbon in the air that is of concern but how climate is intricately linked with other life-critical systems. For example, we are witnessing an unprecedented rise in the cost of staple foods like rice, grains and potatoes. Food is getting more expensive as successive grain harvests fail. Unless urgent action is taken to reform the global food system the cost of these staples will more than double within 20 years, forcing many more millions into poverty. Half of that increase will be directly caused by global heating while the remainder will be the result of a combination of factors including geopolitical conflict, soil erosion, a scarcity of arable land and water for irrigation, and access to affordable energy.

But let us step out of our linear thinking habits to incorporate ever more salient data. If we pause to examine the entire contextual system of human behaviour in the environment over a period of several hundred years (the panarchical relationship) the picture of cascading problems becomes much more evident. Take the sum of around thirty environmental trends (including for example, ocean acidification, worsening oxygen levels in large cities, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, desertification, falling water tables, declining fish stocks, or methane venting from melting icecaps) and we can plot exponential deterioration over at least the past 75 years. It is clear our species is changing how nature works. There is no other feasible explanation.

When I was born there were just under two billion people on the planet. Later this year the figure will have grown to seven billion. By the end of the century it is likely to exceed ten billion. In spite of such ballooning population growth our desires and behaviours have not changed one iota. We still aspire to become more affluent than our neighbors. We still rely on technology to solve our problems. We still wait for a crisis before we act. We still delegate our responsibility for each other to those less capable than ourselves. I have no doubt that unless excessive consumption is outlawed, which is highly improbable, marketing gurus will continue in their obsessive quest of getting us to buy more and more stuff from manufacturers being urged to produce more and more goods, a large proportion of which will eventually go to waste.

The truth is there to see. Yet even now, against such dire scenarios, politicians and industry lobbyists in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world's last remaining reserves of fossil fuels in the name of corporate profits and economic development. Furthermore they all seem to be willing to fight each other for resources that will pour even more carbon into the atmosphere, thus pushing the climate system into unknown territory.

How can this be? If it was simply the storyline to the latest James Bond movie we would applaud such imaginative fantasy and gasp at the implausible stunts. But Dr No and Spectre are no more than naive delinquents in this political playground. This is real. No repeated denials or political posturing is going to make it all vanish. Science is telling us that nature has limits and that we need to dismantle the fossil fuel industry (as it is currently structured) as fast as we possibly can. We cannot win. Yet we persist, choosing to ignore science, preferring the hubris of inaction and denying the risk to future generations and to the poor who have few means to protect themselves from the impacts of a changing climate.

It appears we are not fully awake to this reality but sleepwalking. Sleepwalking towards a crisis that is of our own making and that might still be avoided – if only we were more sensitive to the dangers and can see the wisdom of changing our minds about how we choose to live our lives.

Nor is being awake the only issue. As I have repeatedly said, changing our minds entails a shift in consciousness so that we perceive the systemic nature of the risks confronting us with greater clarity and can take appropriate and rapid corrective action. Only then will we be in a position to transcend potentially catastrophic consequences. In view of the implacable nature and recklessness of those who continue to pollute the atmosphere I wonder if this is really possible, especially in view of the increasing urgency of our predicament, given that individual epiphanies must necessarily occur along with any collective shift of consciousness.

After the debacle at the COP15 climate change talks in Copenhagen (and in spite of scientists warning us that climate change poses the greatest threat to our species in its history, that we are running out of time, and that we may even be facing the prospect of our own extinction) it is clear that many political and business leaders are inept at dealing with complexity. Moreover the majority are ill-prepared to tackle intertwined issues that would loose them votes or profits. Leadership has become a lost art. Disregarding autocrats and the existence of ingrained corruption in most sovereign states, nearly all representatives of the modern world-system are either unwilling or incapable of putting aside self-interest for the common good. Meanwhile public awareness will increasingly lead to frustration and protest. More attuned to the truth, yet distressed by its existential nature, communities around the world are increasingly opting to vent their anger and bemusement in various forms of civil disobedience and protest.

But if we are bemused by the extent to which human behaviours are causing climate change, concerned by the lack of clarity concerning the potential impact of continuing fires, droughts and floods on our lifestyles, and puzzled by the lack of concerted and coherent government action, at least let us be clear about one thing. We the people, social witnesses to official dithering, scare-mongering and apathy, are no longer the revolutionaries. Nor for that matter are the scientists, environmentalists or outliers crying out for societal transformation via a shift in consciousness. In this instance the real radicals are those political and industry militants, together with their benefactors, who refuse to relinquish their financially-driven motives, who will go to any lengths to protect their collapsing ideology and who mindlessly insist that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy designed to bring down capitalism. In due course this open defiance of rationality, coupled with a reluctance to put the common wealth before individual profit, must be called to account. Through inaction and hubris these radicals are pilfering the prosperity and viability of future generations. They are now the anarchists and their selfish sedition must not be allowed to succeed.

But how can we overcome such a compelling force when most of the investment capital required for securing even easy gains (e.g. the rapid advancement of energy efficiencies in conjunction with the deployment of proven renewable technologies) is stashed away in the vaults of governments and corporations fixated on quick profits, big profits and gratuitous homage to obsolete economic theories?

For me the real crisis facing homo sapiens is not climate change per se, nor any of the resulting effects articulated above, but the erroneous set of assumptions about human nature that condones excessive production and consumption at a time when the impact of such behaviours on those who do not have access to similar resources and opportunities are self-evident. Most of these assumptions, with their emphasis on individual self-interest and competitive materialism were laid down during the 18^th century Enlightenment. They have been taken, incorrectly as it happens, as fundamental to human endeavour ever since. Indeed these beliefs are trotted out with tedious regularity as the primary defence and rationale for globalisation. It is worth examining how these assumptions are flawed in today’s context. 

In his topical book The Empathic Civilization US economist and futurist Jeremy Rifkin is unequivocal about this issue. Human beings, he says, are naturally empathic. It is built into our biology. Yet most of our assumptions and hence our business, social and governance institutions, are founded on an entirely different set of cultural and behavioural norms. Namely, that we are intrinsically competitive. “In 19^th century Europe this impulse regarding human nature was mindlessly embraced by the newly-conceived sovereign states where they were commonly perceived as autonomous agents entangled in a relentless and never-ending battle with other sovereign states in the pursuit of material gain and the protection of its citizens.”

Rifkin notes that recent discoveries in neuroscience and child development (for example mirror-neurons - nerve cells that enable human beings and some other species to feel and experience another's situation and emotions as if they were one's own) pose a credible challenge to these long-held assumptions. The detection of mirror neurons suggests we are social and empathic creatures after all and that we constantly seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows. This view also happens to reinforce observations made by Russian zoologist Pyotr Kropotkin who, barely 25 years after Darwin’s pioneering work, observed cooperation within and between species in the icy tundra of Siberia. Such discoveries overturn many of our previous beliefs concerning human motives. The growing scientific evidence that we are a fundamentally empathic species has profound and far-reaching consequences for society.

Uppermost in any ontological re-framing of the human condition, Rifkin postulates, is the proposition that human evolution can be measured not merely by the expansion of supremacy over nature “but also by the intensification of empathic connection to a broader diversity of living beings.” Throughout the sweep of human history we have seen successive technology revolutions leading to leaps in economic prosperity. They have also brought about shifts in consciousness, which has then led to further technological advancement… This cycle has also been accelerating until today’s scientific innovations have the potential to change paradigms in decades rather than over centuries.

Once again Rifkin’s assessment is precise. “Forager-hunter societies relied on oral communications and their consciousness was mythologically constructed. The great agricultural civilizations were, for the most part, organized around script communication and steeped in theological consciousness. The first industrial revolution in 19^th century Europe was managed by print communication and ushered in ideological consciousness. Electronic communication became the command and control mechanism for arranging the second industrial revolution in the 20th century and spawned psychological consciousness.”

Like Rifkin I have no doubt that today’s distributed technologies, peer-to-peer social media and the potential for cleaner, renewable, open source energies, will create an opportunity for human civilisation to transcend current dilemmas by virtue of the most momentous evolutionary step we will ever have taken. By abandoning parochial self-interest and embracing an appreciative sensitivity towards the diverse richness of life we will step into a new epistemology (a biospheric consciousness) where the depth of social intimacy and interaction will become both the primary design principle and central nervous system for a new pangaian society.

With good fortune and foresight that giant step might also steer the human narrative away from fear to one of hope and inclusion. In an age where information frequently overwhelms us, where faith has been torpedoed by its own institutions, where we can design, manufacture and acquire more or less anything we can imagine, and where our access to a range of mind-blowing experiences is virtually unlimited, we lack just one thing: an overriding sense of purpose for this Anthropocene age.

Why have we been given the skill to invent technologies that enable instant communication and constant connectivity? Where is the real added value? Is it just to be entertained or to hasten commercial exchange? Surely not. But what additional benefits are created, over and above material gain? What (if anything) in all of this nourishes the human soul or our deep desire for empathy through connection? What is the transcendent purpose that extends beyond mere tribal or religious affiliations and national identity to embrace the whole of humanity? And how should we engage with this? 

Along with these unknowns there are many reasons to be optimistic. Transcending the civilizational worldview can help create a new global ethos in which the rich and diverse variety of relationships comprising the planet’s life-sustaining forces can harmonise and come into a new equilibrium. It can move us beyond the disconnected, self-interested and utilitarian ideals that burden our daily lives with matters of ultimate inconsequence. It can rise above the state-dominated geopolitical mess we have fashioned to allow new forms of planetary management and governance to evolve. Above all it can restructure our lives to become more collaborative and empathic.

 

Forget the Facts

The sea hare is a gelatinous lump ordinarily found grazing on coral reefs, home to many far more eye-catching creatures. Nonetheless, the one captive in the aquarium at Heron Island Research Station, on the Great Barrier Reef, provides a mesmerising spectacle as it chomps through great bouquets of red algae plucked from the reef flat and delivered fresh each morning by a young marine scientist.

''We used to have two hares in the tank,'' she explained, ''but when there are two, they just shag continuously, fail to eat, then they die.'' We conclude that herein lies a powerful warning about the risk unrelenting pleasure-seeking poses to any species aspiring to long-term survival.

I've been thinking a bit about the sea hare this week while observing the fallout from the Climate Commission's report, The Critical Decade. Wondering, too, about primitive human biology, about what factors interfere with our survival instinct - fear, fun, greed, legacy, even good old distracting lust.

The report is a powerful enunciation of what science now knows about climate change and the risks it poses. That the atmosphere and the oceans are warming, ice is being lost from glaciers and ice caps, sea levels are rising and the biological world is changing. ''We know beyond reasonable doubt that the world is warming and that human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary causes.''

In the nuanced language of science, it doesn't get much stronger. As the American scientist Naomi Oreskes has observed, ''History shows us clearly that science does not provide certainty. It does not provide proof. It only provides the consensus of experts, based on the organised accumulation and scrutiny of evidence.'' And here we have it.

So how do you respond to such confronting news? Do you weigh the credentials of the speakers, study the evidence? Or do you switch it off, turn the page, scream and shout? According to psychological research by the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale University, your reaction either way will have little to do with the strength of the arguments or the calibre of the science. It will have everything to do with whether it gels with, or offends, your deep-seated views about morality and how the world ought to work.

Yale law professor Dan Kahan's ''cultural cognition of risk'' theory attempts to explain public disagreement about the significance of empirical evidence by plotting individuals on two scales of cultural belief: individualists versus communitarians, based on the importance people attach to the public good when balanced against individual rights; and hierarchists versus egalitarians, based on their views of the stratification of society. Simply explaining the science to these audiences, he finds, will only serve to wedge the two sides.

The sliding scales are not unfamiliar. Think Tony Abbott as the archetypal suit-and-tie individual hierarchical - values clustered around free-market enterprise, personal achievement, industry, regard for authority (though not, it seems, scientific authority), traditional family, personal freedom; and Bob Brown is out there as your sandal-wearing communitarian egalitarian, protesting that pretty much everything Abbott cherishes damages all he holds dear.

Put a scientist in front of an audience of individual hierarchicals saying that global warming is high risk, and only 23 per cent of the audience will buy the speaker as trustworthy and knowledgeable. Same message, same scientist, and 88 per cent of egalitarian communitarians nod their heads.

Have the same author change tack to argue that warming is no great drama, and the Abbotts now lap it up (86 per cent), and the Browns wander off (46 per cent). The well-oiled machinery of manufactured denial knows how to push all these buttons.

Yale's audience testing finds the only factor likely to interfere with our psychological gatekeeping is if someone within our ''camp'' - someone we perceive as sharing our world view - says something unexpected. (Hence the reverberations in industry and markets when BHP chief Marius Kloppers last year urged rapid action to put a price on carbon emissions.) In short, evidence from someone you identify with will sway your view; science - facts - won't.

Same as it ever was, maybe. But new media helps us contrive a self-affirming information bubble, an echo chamber in which only our own beliefs are broadcast back to us. Debate in the US on the Yale findings prompted the reflection that our instincts in this regard mean - as one political scientist observed - ''we are not well-adapted to our information age''.

The findings also confirm that for all our modernity, tribal leaders remain critical. Leaders of all persuasions - political, religious, industrial, social - have immense power in influencing responses to the most diabolical of problems.

In the foreword to a new book debunking scepticism of science - Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand - Oreskes argues that fear is the major driver of denial. ''Fear that our current way of life is unsustainable. Fear that addressing the issue will limit economic growth. Fear that if we accept government interventions in the market place … it will lead to a loss of personal freedom. Or maybe just plain old fear of change.''

As economist John Kenneth Galbraith observed, all great leaders share one common characteristic - ''the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time''.

This guest blog was written by Jo Chandler. It was first published in the Melbourne Age on Saturday 28th May 2011 and is re-printed here with the author's permission. Jo Chandler is a senior writer for the Age and the author of Feeling The Heat, which tracks climate field scientists.

 

Second Chance

Today President Barack Obama announced the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. After eluding capture for almost ten years, and following months of top-secret surveillance and detailed planning by the Pentagon, he was killed by a member of the US military's SEAL Team Six - with some reluctant assistance (or perhaps none at all) from the Pakistani government. Reaction to the news of Bin Laden’s death (at least in the West) appears to be one approaching almost total euphoria. That is understandable. For many people justice has at last been done. But it is not quite as simple as that.

Before we get too carried away we should take stock of a global system in which little has fundamentally altered. While the iconic value of Bin Laden’s death is self-evident it is by no means a strategic game-changer. In some respects it is irrelevant. Like the many-headed mythical Hydra of Greek mythology Al-Qaeda has spawned a global network of agile affiliate enterprises hell bent on disrupting lives and causing havoc wherever they can. While this ideologically networked group of fanatical offspring may still pledge symbolic allegiance to the Al-Qaeda “brand”, myriad smaller cells increasingly act autonomously, receiving nothing in terms of financial or logistical support from the parent organisation.

The death of Bin Laden may well provide an emotional setback for some of these terrorist groups and their interests. But to a great extent his messages and influence were already discredited, even in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Indeed the most radically anti-Western polemic (even from Muslim religious leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran) categorically rejected the Takfir doctrines pursued by Al-Qaeda’s conservative leaders years ago. Far more pertinent are the peaceful protests currently sweeping across the Arab world. These uprisings have shown young people everywhere that liberation from persecution and serfdom is in the hands of those who seek it. The so-called Arab Spring has made Bin Laden’s darkly doctrinaire views utterly irrelevant to all but a few hardened zealots.

The genesis of terrorism goes back centuries of course. It has been part of the human condition throughout recorded history. On September 11, 2001, however, human progress seemed to descend into an altogether darker void.

But as most of the Western world watched in horror at the scenes being played out on the East coast of the US a far deeper tragedy was unfolding – a tragedy which some of us are still trying to express and from which recovery is by no means certain. For the tragedy to which I refer is the folly of man’s inhumanity to man, the utter futility of conflict and the mindless calls for vengeance. This is the deeper tragedy, arising from our most primitive instincts, we must all ultimately confront.

The images of 9/11 are incised into the mind. Like the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, everyone has a story of where they were that fateful day. Yet now, when one chapter closes and we look with hope towards a future where we can all live together in peace, the real legacy of 9/11 hangs like a shadow over our civilisation.

Ten years ago Al-Qaeda's high profile figurehead provided the US administration with the pretext to commence its calamitous hostilities across the greater Middle East. Predictably Washington's wars provided terrorist outfits everywhere with new recruits and burgeoning support as well as prolonging a cycle of violence that appeared to know no end. Today, once again, Osama Bin Laden presents us with the pretext to think again - but to do things differently this time.

Fresh opportunities have emerged and we must seize the day. The choice is stark. We can persist in our bloody and humiliating way to continue prosecuting this so-called “war on terror” – a war without end, executed in a mood of compounding fear and desperation and from which the most sane among us accept it will be impossible to extract victory. Or we can reimagine our collective purpose and the relationships we most desire with our fellow human beings by celebrating the integral nature of what it means to be compassionate human beings.

If we set our minds to it we can envisage a far less violent and more tolerant future. For example we could enter constructive dialogue with those whose views run counter to our own, seeking to include and transcend differences, rather than waging war as an economic imperative and as a knee-jerk reaction to difference. We could build schools and hospitals rather than expand our arsenals. We could make innovative technologies and medicines available to those less fortunate than ourselves rather than continuing to deny them the most basic of life’s necessities.

I recognise that will take courage and a spirit of generosity that we will need to consciously nurture. But surely that is what leadership is all about? Besides there are far more serious, potentially catastrophic, failures we need to attend to with a similar level of passion and commitment: food and water shortages, climate change, pollution, declining oil reserves....

Of course to pursue peace rather than conflict is not solely our decision. Similar opportunities to think differently and to change direction have been afforded others, particularly those in countries like Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been ravaged by war. It is quite feasible, for example, that leaders of the Taliban may now be more receptive to negotiating some form of power-sharing arrangement in exchange for closing terrorist training camps and curtailing the use of their lands for the export of terror. It is equally possible that the focus of the powerful US industrial war machine will shift to Pakistan, especially given the level of support and protection Bin Laden possibly received from certain sectors of the Pakistani intelligence and military communities.

Whatever happens Bin Laden’s name, his aura and his perceived martyrdom will continue to resonate for a few years yet. In the long term, however, it is not the hunting down and slaying of one man that matters but rather the various autopoietic transitions taking place across Arab and Muslim societies. The most effective power is that wielded through peace. Ordinary people protesting peacefully against oppression and injustice will eventually close history’s page on Al-Qaeda’s particular brand of terror.

In the meantime we have a profoundly important role to play. We must do our utmost to ensure these transitions occur peacefully and compassionately, even if our own current “brand” of democracy is not the end result. Putting an end to the excessive waste, collective insanity and moral failure of endless conflict by eradicating the militarisation of democracy is the most important challenge facing us. If we cannot change our priorities there can be no hope for a brighter future. The war-mongering of old empires will continue to impede real progress by turning the world upside down.

A Tale of Death & Resurrection

As I grow older, more tolerant of a variety of cultural mindsets, more accepting of diverse views, faiths and belief systems, I detect an alternative wisdom reaching out to me with a persistence that has become irresistible. This wisdom is at once profoundly unsettling and intensely reassuring. Indeed such ambiguity makes it tough establishing which of these effects is the more authentic. An unresolved tension between them seems both palpable and necessary – a finely-poised attractor between contradictory forces that redefines human purpose and meaning.

I cannot lay claim to this being a new wisdom, though it manifests as such to me. I am deeply aware that human empathy and a benevolent ethos arise from a common impulse, innately grasped by many indigenous groups, for example, and which I will refer to as communion for simplicity’s sake, and that contemporary science as well as various social experiments have validated its critical importance to the future of the human species.

This wisdom is hard for me to fully digest and even more difficult to describe; partly because it emanates from emotionally charged convictions I find awkward expressing but also because of its relatively ineffable nature - a genesis arising not from Cartesian logic or rationalism but from a common bond illuminating and reflecting the sacredness of life.

Traumatic incidents during childhood (my father deserted me and my mother when I was eight years old and the suffering of losing the person I idolized most still intrudes upon my life in so many subtle ways) led to my avoiding any expression of intimacy with others lest these were misinterpreted, exposed my vulnerability, or were seen as a sign of weakness. But no longer. For some considerable time I have felt the compulsion to speak my mind. I have been branded a heretic, zealot, contrarian, amateur and an outlier. I suspect none of these were meant as compliments.

The world into which I was born, immediately following the second World War, was one of a strange and disquieting serenity – at least to a young boy growing up in rural England. After a century or more of unbridled nationalism and six years of bloody conflict across Europe and Asia a feeling of cautious optimism prevailed. Naturally life was still tough for many, including my family. We were very poor. In England at the time there was food rationing and recovery was slow at first. Gradually, however, a new normality emerged. I mostly recall unpretentious pleasures: train spotting at Uckfield railway station, harvest picnics in the fields at summer’s end, carpets of bluebells in the woodlands, gathering mushrooms in the misty dawn, cricket matches on the recreation ground, charcoal burners in the woods, itinerant gypsies in their brightly painted caravans, growing currants, raspberries and strawberries in our allotment and waving to the Breton garlic sellers as they cycled through the village...

In 1945 there were fewer than 2 billion people on planet Earth. Jubilation of having achieved victory in a war that shattered the ceremony of innocence dominated newspaper headlines. Confidence was at an all time high. There were scars to get over, their recovery assisted by the new movies celebrating heroics and creating myths that willingly distorted the truth. The futility and savagery of war received scant attention. A few people started to protest over the threat of a nuclear Armageddon but there was no mention of global warming, climate change, population growth, unsustainable consumer trends, endemic poverty or state terrorism. Early warning signals of an impending disaster went unnoticed. The future looked bright.

The distraction provided by wealth creation and the acquisition of goods grew exponentially. Affluent parish elders distracted ordinary men and women by organizing coach excursions to Brighton or Bognor Regis for those who had no other means of taking a holiday. Meanwhile big business, backed by a resurgent advertising industry, turned its attention to manipulating a gullible public and facilitating an explosion of productivity.

The stage was set although few people recognized this at the time. Distraction came in the form of peace. And possessions. From a situation where even sugar and meat were in short supply we rapidly moved into a situation where literally anything could be manufactured and bought. Televisions, automobiles, fashionable clothes, exotic fruit, vacations and experiences. Tools and gadgets to fulfill every possible desire began to saturate the market.

To be well-to-do back then meant owning a farm, small business, or having a car and being able to commute to the nearest town. School, too, seemed pleasurably humdrum. All the world’s problems had been solved. I sat in geography classes facing maps of the world where most countries, or so it seemed, were colored pink. The pink of the British Empire upon which the sun never set. A world in which anything now seemed possible and where certainty insinuated itself into every crack and crevice of community life.

Of course that world no longer exists – if it ever did. For the most part it was a comforting illusion. But one issue now dominates the future of human progress – an existential and potentially disastrous issue that few people saw coming. A global population fast approaching seven billion inhabitants, most with aspirations of increasing material wealth based on assumptions of continuing economic growth, had to be set against a progressively volatile context in which deteriorating environmental conditions, higher food costs, less available energy, escalating socio-economic and geopolitical failures and iniquitous gaps between the rich and the poor formed a potentially catastrophic fusion.

Today the situation is clear. The condition we created, deliberately and without conscience, is forcing us to face a new destiny. It now exposes the vulnerability of our thinking and points to the need to embrace an appreciative communion of interconnectedness and cooperation in stark contrast to more conventional mores and expectations (habitually driven by greed, envy, scarcity, competition and fear) resulting from the globalized system of industrial economism.

Seeing a new reality demands both foresight and conviction around a renewed purpose and intent. Accepting this as essential to human progress is tough enough. Redesigning society in order to practice a more appreciative collective wisdom is an entirely different proposition. Transformation and reinvention are pivotal as is the acceptance of physical constraints and finite natural resources. This, in turn, means relinquishing many of the assumptions we have long held regarding what is fundamental to human prosperity and what is not, what value we should place on economic factors in comparison with health, relationships, cultural well-being and contentment, and what is viable praxis rather than simply foolish habit.

So how does this wisdom of communion manifest? I can only speak for myself. I am more conscious of patterns, more able to map connections between scraps of information that were previously disparate, that seemed relatively unimportant at the time, or that somehow I simply convinced myself to discount. I recognize that sets me apart from many others, although I sense a growing affiliation around such wisdom.

Accordingly I and those of a similar outlook and persuasion are becoming more attuned to a reality (and its consequences) that many others seem unready to accept, unable to perceive or simply shy away from for fear of its more confronting implications. It is as though a veil is suspended between them and the improbable reality of a future existence in which it becomes both possible and desirable for all living beings to share equally in Earth’s available resources in a sufficient, altruistic and loving manner.

In truth my gradual awakening to an alternative wisdom, enabled by the thinking of new friends as much as personal reflection, has become a burden to me as well as a privilege I feel bound to honor. It is also a challenge I cannot avoid. As the birth of my new son, a gift in every sense of that word, draws closer I am conscious of an expanded sense of self and my purpose in life. This expanded consciousness goes far beyond anything I have previously experienced. It has transitioned me into a more empathetic and loving state uniting emotion with cognition.

The truth is never enough of course. Immunity to the reality of the human condition (through the spin and widespread deception of a vigorous public relations machine) is so inculcated in society it is easy to live an illusion and ignore contradictory evidence. But as each day reveals more of a truth that will determine our fate on this planet, I also feel more and more frustrated by the status quo and a greater compulsion to do something (anything) to disrupt thinking-as-usual.

In my view it ultimately comes down to fairness and morality. The critical domain requiring our unconditional attention comprises those established patterns of globalized production, distribution and consumption that have become utterly unsustainable - given the changing context. The mode of economic thought we take for granted, indeed blindly insist on pursuing, is enshrined within this exploitative system. At its extreme it is epitomized by the US model of capitalism. This model, so easily corrupted as we have recently observed, is an expression of rules based upon assumptions that are deeply flawed though seductive, nevertheless, in the overall scheme of things: namely that scarcity and competition drive human behaviour and that continued economic growth is necessary in order to maintain the social order.

Those last three words the social order are crucial to any proper comprehension of the situation we are facing. The rules as applied are crafted quite deliberately to benefit a small sector of society - namely the wealthiest individuals, corporations and nation states. It is a relentlessly iterative and untenable formula: by fostering competition for business and trade between countries, corporations pay lower taxes and produce more goods for consumption on world markets. Thus economic growth drives material wealth simultaneously mesmerizing entire communities and resulting in an unprecedented psychological lock-in to excess, greed and waste. Coincidentally it also destroys many of the social, cultural, environmental and spiritual conditions vital for human contentment, health and well-being while undermining the rights of workers and marginalizing the poor who remain slaves to this system.

We are only just awakening to the veracity of our predicament. Since the 1920’s a well-oiled public relations machinery, arising from an unholy alliance between governments, the media and corporations, and exploiting Freud’s research into our psychological motivations, has manipulated public opinion, keeping us compliant customers instead of alert citizens. In the words of Walter Lippmann it has “manufactured consent” and it has done this extremely efficiently by playing to our unconscious desires.

Sadly the mass production and consumption of goods we are taught to want but rarely need has instigated the crises we see all around us today – from the rising cost of food, to ethnic conflicts, the provision of energy from finite resources, the impact of a global monetocracy upon indebted states and individuals, the despoiling of the natural environment and the criminal practices of dictators, autocrats and unprincipled politicians and industrialists.

The need to speak out has become overwhelming. A new narrative is required; one of hope and happiness rather than hate and humiliation. Imagine what the world might look like if the rules were designed differently. If, instead of competing on the basis of scarcity, we were to encourage collaboration to generate new knowledge, grow uncommon capabilities and share skills within a spirit of abundance and self-sufficiency. Of course competition would still exist, but in a transformed setting governments and corporations alike would compete in providing economic and socio-political security, low taxes on ordinary wage earners, a decent education and a healthy and sustainable environment.

Most of today’s grassroots social activists and young entrepreneurs are desirous of such a shift. Furthermore they now possess infinitely more computing power on their laptops and iPhones than the entire US government had at the time of the moon landing. All we actually require is to generate trust, unity and a sophisticated appreciation of how best to liberate this new moral energy of communion in order to achieve success.

If collective power can be wielded with empathy and integrity, with coherence and conviction, corrupt and unsustainable practices will be dealt a death blow and elected officials will be kept honest. We will not need to jump through hoops in seeking common ground with those that currently ride roughshod over our humanity or despoil nature in pursuing their own selfish ends. We can change the world. I know it. You know it. So what is stopping us?

New Windows onto New Worlds

Hypothesis:

Set against the rich tapestry of mankind’s evolution on this planet our current era seems increasingly to be characterised (at least through Western eyes) by escalating disquiet on so many different fronts. The scent of suffering and uncertainty hangs eerily in the air - the hint of fragrance perceptible only to those who have become attuned to a gnostic sensitivity informed by cross-cultural meme assimilation.

A feeling that our world is spinning even further out of control is made all the more palpable by three overwhelming factors:

1. Asymmetric affluence in the post-industrial world compared to the crushing poverty, inequality and injustice experienced by citizens elsewhere.
2. Western petulance and hubris that allows empires in decline to believe it is their exclusive right to resolve all their autogenous problems - even if they had the capacity to do so, which they do not.
3. Our willingness to reject serious public discourse in lieu of distracting media commentaries that divert collective attention via a squalid mix of sanitized news, entertaining pap and a seemingly endless parade of celebrities behaving badly.

Linear progress itself has become a dangerous delusion. One has only to reflect on the news headlines that bombard us throughout our waking hours: an unremitting nightmare of horror, corruption, ecological catastrophe and the spiralling costs of even the most basic elements required to sustain life – cheap food, potable water and plentiful energy. In all of this turmoil human empathy has gone missing. Purer intentions have been lost. We are in thrall to materialism; obsessed by economic and political power in ways that could easily wreck our way of life - if the past collapse of previous civilizations is any judge.

The future is indeed grim if we remain adrift in circumstances that threaten to undo everything beneficial, abundant and beautiful we have struggled to establish.

Unknowingly perhaps, but frighteningly real nevertheless, our collective actions have spawned almost perfect conditions for the mass extinction of Homo sapiens. The truly terrifying spectre is that we have developed an awareness to know this is the case as well as the intelligence to do something about it. But is it too late for wisdom to prevail?

Over the coming decades we will need to redesign the material basis of our civilization. We have no collective cognition of how to do this. There are no narratives in the archives of antiquity to which we can refer. There is no process flow chart. No rule book. No training manual. No compass directing us towards more desirable futures.

Nor is there much leadership evident as yet. Indeed the very premise of hierarchical leadership may alienate the impulse required of us to transition. The few rare cases of politicians, bureaucrats and business tycoons who do care appear traumatised by the extent, scale and complexity of the problems facing us. Like rabbits caught in the headlights, their inclination is to wait and to wonder, or to make attempts to be seen to be doing something but with little aligned commitment and action. Astonished by global forces they happily unleashed, particularly their systemic nature and fickle twists and turns, most leaders seem paralysed within the here and now of “business as usual”. Except now there can be no such thing.

As a consequence their reactions are typically confined to an evasion of long-term issues, a denial of the limits imposed by physics and an assumption that we are all witness to the same truths and aspire to similar goals. Denying realities that resist conventional analysis they choose instead to quibble about today’s trivia in a concern to protect national interests, dithering and chattering about matters that are ultimately of little consequence.

But wait. Perhaps we have been looking in the wrong places for workable solutions. Despair, after all, does not loom large in humanity’s chronicles. The human spirit is far too resilient and adventurous for that. Optimism and hope can spread its wings given the chance.

Already an emerging consciousness is evident in certain quarters, particularly among the young who are not weighed down by the gravitational pull of the past and also in parts of the world relatively unsullied by the crushing dominance of the prevailing materialism of the civilizational worldview. This is especially apparent in parts of Asia and across the Global South.

In pockets around the world a cadre of enlightened, purposeful and interconnected individuals is emerging. Many of these people live in places where their voices have been hard to hear above the din of imperially mandated bluster. Their ideas, often transcending discrete cultures, ideologies and history, have been routinely excluded from mainstream debate because of poverty, geography, ostracism and oppression. Which is insane. Their unique experiences can help us comprehend what needs to be done and we need to listen loudly to propositions that offer genuine alternatives to the overbearing Western paradigm that locks us into a cycle of endless economic growth, escalating production and excessive consumption.

But in order for these new voices to be heard, their ideas incorporated into global dialogue and their advice acted upon, we all need to think differently. Innovation has to embed at the level of human purpose and needs to be reflected in society’s institutions. Only then might we create a context that allows us to see differently. And seeing differently is necessary if we are to behave differently.

Releasing us from the shackles of current dogma will not be easy. The way forward cannot be found in finely-tweaked approaches to political convention, competitive states or bullying nations - even less in continuing to dominate nature or ignoring the impact of seven billion people on the Earth’s biosphere. On the contrary it will mostly likely be embodied within yet-to-manifest knowledge – at the interface between past, present and possible, in what I refer to as epistemological foresight.

Epistemological foresight implies reaching back into past patterns as well as forward into future possibilities in more integral and substantive ways. Integral hindsight and integral foresight are warp and weft - part of the same dance: we need both in order to liberate the wisdom that lies within the expanded now of new consciousness.

Epistemological foresight has rarely been used as an enabler of intentional evolutionary design and it is no accident that the overwhelming narrative in today’s society is one of futile blandness. Foresight as most commonly practiced (with its emphasis on coherent trends and its appropriation by pop science, engineering and technology) oscillates between tedious logic at one extreme and seductive clairvoyance at the other. Too many futuring projects remain prisoners of convention. Why?

For one thing foresight has become just another instructional toolkit. It is no longer transformative, either in form or content. Furthermore it has become paralysed by a cognitive paradox: we seek to understand an indistinct future using patterns and metrics decipherable only from past performance. Our basic tenet, that we are able to discern future signals of consequence, even defining their characteristics, assumes a humility evidenced by few foresight practitioners. Therefore our ability to anticipate significant inflections and signals relies far too heavily on the recognition of past patterns – the antithesis of foresight!

The great French 20^th century philosopher Henri Bergson asserted that the tools of the mind become a burden on our imagination when the environment that made them so necessary no longer exists or has morphed into something quite different. I believe we have unwittingly allowed the practice of foresight to fall into that trap.

It follows that the future praxis of strategic foresight offers us a rare opportunity to create unique value through demolishing orthodoxies that are well past their shelf life while liberating new wisdom. Whatever form that might take, and whatever tools are used for that purpose, we must remain mindful that the ultimate goal is (a) to design engaging methods for imagining viable pathways that (b) shed light on how we can make provision for the future needs of humanity (c) in ways that lead to more intelligent, resilient choices and through the demonstration of more coherent, empathetic collaboration than has previously been possible.

Epistemological foresight[i] (a deeply resonant framework for comprehending and reacting to panarchic[ii] relationships at a paradigmatic level in which intuition and reason are interwoven across individual and collective levels of human experience) offers us one such pathway. But only as long as we remain open to the implicit systemic and existential challenges this framework introduces. The most difficult of these challenges is the need to transcend the civilizational worldview to which most of humanity unconsciously subscribes in one way or another.

Epistemological Pathologies

The civilizational worldview is as natural to us as the air we breathe. We are unconscious of any other framework. And while some of us may resist certain facets of this worldview at an instinctive level we still respond autonomically to its general principles - an implicit framework guiding meaning-making and which we assume to be just a normal part of being human. In effect it is the life-condition we discern, experience each day of our lives, and in which we are immersed from birth.

This worldview has endured at least since feudal times and possibly much longer. Along the way it has been reified by sundry beliefs related to human purpose and capability, tested by competing ideologies and sustained by five moral impulses.[iii]

These theories, ideologies and impulses have been progressively moulded into a set of deeply ingrained tenets defining what the majority of humanity believes to be real and consequently incontrovertible truths concerning the human condition:

1. A ruling power elite serviced by a cooperative yet subservient underclass of slaves or serfs

1. Wealth and power acquired by the elite at the serfs’ expense and protected via (state) political, military or policing mechanisms
2. An all-encompassing religious or mythical structure (in which the elite are commonly depicted as representatives of a deity or divine beings) typically used to manufacture consent
3. An industrial war machine viewed as a crucial, often principal, driver of the economy and in which all aspects of production are controlled by the elite (through such things as language, access and skills acquisition etc.)
4. Sport, entertainment, education and media are used as a social distraction in ways that help maintain compliance within the social order
5. Nature and the environment are exploited as a “god given” right
6. An irresistible narrative within society based upon competition, indifference and scarcity - rather than cooperation, empathy and abundance.

This set of seven attributes does not imply a universally applicable monist integrity. On the contrary our worldview is a chameleon, changing its tone, color and intensity according to its surroundings or, in a social context, its culture. But the critical thing to appreciate is that this worldview was invented by us. It is a social construction and, as such, can be remodeled - if that is what we want.

Consequently a more profound dimension of the worldview that we must take into account is the variances that occur within and between different cultural mindsets. The fact that we do not take these mindsets into account most of the time is one of the most glaring reasons for transcultural misinterpretation and international follies.

Of course taking cultural mindsets and their associated value systems into account can complicate matters considerably. Let me explain. There are three overriding lenses in our current world-system: these are the Occidental, the Sinic and the Indic mindsets. Each aspires to perceive knowledge accurately yet interprets truth, beauty and goodness in different ways.

The Occidental mindset, for example, overwhelmingly sees reality as a logically explicable system of physical artifacts, calibrations and observable phenomena. This mindset has been dominated by scientific rationalism, in spite of the philosophical outcry cautioning us that this viewpoint only illumines a path to perdition. Indeed the German writer Goethe claims in Urfaustus that putting one’s faith in Newtonian principles is tantamount to selling one’s soul to the devil.

In comparison, the Indic mindset sets far greater store on iterative cycles of internal reflection and spiritual transcendence, the prominence accorded to the relationship of the individual soul to the manifestation of external phenomena amounting almost to an ecological metaphysic. The Sinic mindset is different again, cherishing balance in all things – the feminine yin and the masculine yang preserving a delicate equilibrium between extremes.

There are other secondary mindsets that were once considerably more important in locally circumscribed situations than they are today in a global context. The ancient Amerindian, African Ubuntu and various Indigenous mindsets, for example, hold far less sway in today’s world, largely because they signify values, relationships and ideals that do not sit comfortably with our addiction to material wealth and scientific progress. These islands of humanity serve as critically disregarded laboratories where gender, social order, symbiosis and persistent narrative can still inform many of our inquiries. For that very reason we should be paying much more attention to them, specifically in terms of how we might develop a greater consciousness of evolving to a less exploitative worldview where communities can live in harmony with each other and nature. But that may take a radical metanoia on the part of society at large.

Finally, to make things even more complicated, there are subtle hybrids that blur the granular distinctions between mindsets - as in the recent amalgam of the dominant contemporary mindsets across much of Asia, resulting in part from globalization as well as the (intended and unintended) remnants of imperialism.

Thus a multitude of different interpretations and understandings can materialize from societies functioning within differing cultural mindsets – to the extent that extreme behavioural divergence between them is often evident even though the worldview itself, we must always remember, is a shared phenomenon.

So, depending upon our cultural upbringing and mode of induction into the modern world-system, as well as an individual’s developmental stage of consciousness, we will inevitably perceive, translate and respond to any crisis within the civilizational worldview through a distorting lens and with an intensity that differs from one society to the next, reflecting deeply implanted cultural attributes.[iv]

Because of this we also have a tendency to apply differently nuanced operating models (including the language used to express priorities and principles) to policy, governance, organizational and management issues that may give the impression of contradictory interests and needs. This impression is part illusion and part fact. A reality check can be undertaken by comparing such apparently conflicting interests with how the five moral impulses play out in each case. These checks invariably surface basic needs and habits that are universally applicable to the human family, irrespective of other incidental and local factors.

It is only comparatively recently that there has been any rigorous critical appraisal of the civilizational worldview – something almost unattainable from within. But there are now sufficient numbers of highly complex, interconnected, escalating, seemingly irresolvable problems created or nourished by this worldview, that are leading many thoughtful individuals to question how much longer its entropic nature can persist before unraveling into chaos. This is not whimsy but a grave epistemological issue and one best suited to exploration through epistemological foresight.

Given diverse crises facing humanity[v], particularly the perfect storm of intersecting economic, energy and environmental issues, we are reluctantly coming to terms with the proposition that there are indeed fixed limits to orthodox models of growth and development it would be wise not to ignore.

The human condition cries out for an alternative paradigm - an ecology of mind crafted to be intentionally viable and resilient and based upon design criteria that will make provision for the needs of humanity as a whole rather than pandering to a wealthy minority. The case for a new design, together with the process of letting go of stuff we still take for granted, becomes apparent when we look at just one of the many crises facing us. Consider this passage….

A Case in Polarization: The Environment

Eleven of the past fourteen years have been the hottest on record. The Nepalese leadership recently held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest in order to draw attention to rising temperatures that have dramatically reduced snowfall over the roof of the world. The government of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying Indian Ocean nation. In Bolivia, glaciers that hold the nation’s water supplies are rapidly dwindling. The Arctic is melting so fast the ice cap is likely to have disappeared by the end of the century. Even East Antarctica, long stable, is now losing ice.

Elsewhere drought, floods, earthquakes and fires wreak havoc. Deforested peat lands in Indonesia are drying out and burning and the future of the Amazonian rainforest is similarly endangered. In parts of Australia drought and flood, once cyclical, are now considered a permanent condition. Rivers everywhere, including the mighty Ganges, an inextricable part of India’s physical and cultural landscape, are drying up, leaving only desiccated earth and dust bowls. The marshlands between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, fabled site of the Garden of Eden, a land so rich in soil and water that it would quench the needs of its dwellers throughout eternity, emits the unmistakably pungent stench of a dying ecosystem.

Meanwhile the massive floods that killed hundreds of people in the Philippines this past summer are becoming the norm. Nor are such extreme weather events confined to the tropics or the polar regions. Agriculture in the United States was ravaged in 2010 by droughts in Texas and California, heat waves in Louisiana and Nebraska, floods in Minnesota and torrential rains in Illinois.

In Venice, a major trade hub and maritime power in the Middle Ages and still one of the most idyllic cities in the world, the number of permanent residents is hovering at around 60,000, having halved during the past fifty years. Why? Because Venice is sinking into its own foundations. Bangkok too, once romantically referred to as the Venice of the East and my home for the past six years, is sinking into coastal mud at an alarming rate of up to three centimeters each year.

Marine life, too, is being killed indiscriminately. Only 10 per cent of all large fish (both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and large ground fish such as cod, halibut, skate and flounder) remain in the sea. Toxins and pollutants combined with current rates of ocean acidification could potentially deprive future generations of all wild seafood. We are now causing species to become extinct faster than they are being replaced.

On every continent desperate nomads are migrating further and further from traditional homelands, many of them inhabiting the vast urban metropolises which are now home to over 50 per cent of the world’s population. As many as 200 million people are destined to become climate migrants by 2050, destabilizing the global economy in a process that will inevitably result in escalating poverty, inequality and conflict.

As far as we can tell, this précis of accelerating climate change is not hyperbole but, on the contrary, a fairly measured evaluation of the contemporary predicament. When filtered through the rational lens of Newtonian physics and Darwinian evolution we observe a cataclysmic canvas. What is not commonly understood, and even less frequently stated, is that all these visible symptoms of a society and a planet in a state of distress are the predictable consequences of how we have deliberately designed things. They are a result of the civilizational worldview working as it was intended.

But is this the only truth? And, if so, is it adequate to comprehensively explain what is happening to the human species and to Earth? Is this depiction of an environment in stress the only possible interpretation? Let us examine the evidence more deeply through the lenses of different cultural mindsets.

1. The Occidental Lens: Environment in Crisis

To any reasonable witness schooled in the scientific method and Cartesian logic, no other reading can be put on the evidence. Pure reason demands that we construe the testimony as a crisis out there – a crisis located within the environment. That is what we know. All else is of little consequence.

But what if this is an inadequate or even an inaccurate image of reality? Could we be overlooking something significant by focusing only on what can be observed? Might there be vital information hidden within the collective gestalt for example? Much depends on where we choose to look - and through which lens.

At face value we interpret the evidence as a disturbing account of an environment in an acute state of collapse. Moreover, the causes look suspiciously anthropocentric. However, the subcutaneous code reveals an even more alarming prospect; namely the advancement of a morbid pathology where nature is perceived to be the problem to which we must urgently respond. But what should the nature of that response be? What treatment could possibly be effective in the circumstances?

The rational Occidental mind reacts instinctively in the belief that if technological thinking caused this problem then technology can also solve it. As a consequence we get caught up in predictable attempts to achieve a universal consensus through international legislation: laws, rules and processes designed to mitigate perceived threats by cutting the consumption of natural resources, slowing pollution from fossil fuels and adapting infrastructure. Is that a sufficient or even a sane response given that these attempts, too, seem to be failing? Or is such an impulse to regain control over nature merely hastening our self-destruction?

If our most basic hypotheses about how the universe works are correct then the various courses of action we see all around us, especially from governments as well as organizations like the UN, are probably sensible. If, however, our assumptions are categorically wrong (and there is a growing body of opinion that this is the case) nothing less than a fundamental change of mind concerning how we perceive reality is required. For without such a deep-seated metanoia it is highly improbable that more epistemologically appropriate solutions will emerge.

Let me be clear. The data contained within the statement we are examining are not untruths, although sometimes the hypothesis as conveyed may seem propaganda-like, especially to climate change cynics. On the contrary, the passage actually uses visible events to express a crisis in precisely the terms one might expect from the Occidental mindset: a series of observations with associated metrics, calibrations, statistics and analysis, all trying to make sense of the most subtle of changes in the external environment. My anxiety is threefold:

1. Surveillance stops short at a critical juncture between sensing (what is going on) and making sense - in other words the opportunity to bring fresh insights from alternative epistemologies and different stages of consciousness into strategic prominence is ignored
2. We impatiently disregard information hidden below the surface of our perceptions even though the process of meaning-making can be far more profound at the levels of cognition and emotion
3. No attempt is made to integrate information from our individual and collective inner worlds – all attention is focused on the external world.

Also of concern is the content and tone of messages that play into the dominant media meme[vi] vis-à-vis climate change - one that is increasingly projected onto such subject matter through alarmist, at times almost hysterical articles, opinion pieces, websites, television news, cinematic fiction, summits and conferences. Containing a range of disconcerting details, statistics taken out of context and dumbed-down opinion, the green meme of impending human catastrophe has become the dominant global narrative within the context of our relationship to the environment and, not surprisingly, it is generating anxiety and paralysis within communities. Indeed it is a first-rate example of what happens when awareness of any situation is amplified but without any prior thought being given to the consequences of such raised awareness in the collective psyche.

Not surprisingly this meme underpins many of the scenarios saturating our waking hours - choking optimism and playing to our fears, doubts and superstitions in ways that abandon any sense of a better future. Scenarios depicting positive outcomes are scorned or considered irresponsible by the merchants of doom and gloom.

In this psychotic state almost everything about the past (including, of course, the socio-economic platform that gave rise to affluence and to modern lifestyles) takes on a romantic perspective, while almost everything about the future is couched in depressing terms. Regrettably our nostalgia for the past is a seductive lie. It merely engenders apathy. Instead of aspiring to fresh goals we do everything in our power not to lose that which we once had. Energy dissipates right there!

As a consequence zero-sum games remain the actuality. Entangled in a transition we never intended and hardly thought possible, one that threatens to depose some of our most fundamental tenets and over which we have seemingly less control by the day, we are traumatized by an ominous sense of foreboding and the ennui of uncertainty.

Instead of embracing an energizing potential for renewal, especially the possibility of attending to inequities generated by increasingly predatory forms of capitalism, we descend prematurely into melancholy, grieving for the sacrifice to come and striving to avoid the pain of disassociation. In most cases that just means carrying on with life, turning a blind eye to worsening forecasts and devastating events, doing what we can to protect our own parochial interests, and all the while putting our trust in promises of further economic expansion and growth when that is clearly the root cause of our current mess. How absurd!

In these circumstance is it really any wonder vast numbers of citizens just switch off, get angry, or try to deny the limits inherent in nature that stare us in the face? Why should it surprise us when individuals search for ways to evade discomfort and to conserve, or even improve, their present life-style? Why should we all not join those climate prosperity advocates who fearlessly seek to create even greater wealth from this crisis without so much as questioning the flawed foundations underpinning the notion of endless growth? Should we continue to belittle and censure those who simply hanker for the conspiracy theorists to be correct and the scientists wrong? Is it not human nature that we should turn our backs on a future seemingly devoid of any optimism or joy?

2. The Sinic Lens: Environment in Discord

Realizing that an existential ideal is harmonious existence, we observe that the course of industrial linearity (the extraction of resources, the industrial fabrication of consumables and the single-use throw-away mentality inherent in modern notions of consumption) is dissonant with phenomenology in the natural order.

For those systems long starved of methane and carbon dioxide, the thinning ice-sheets are breathing life back into organisms that humanity has misunderstood or ignored in terms of their role and consequence. Algae, viruses and bacteria bloom in a world filled with chemicals released by unconsidered acts. 

Our response can be dual. On the one hand, we can see the emergence of these reinvigorated terrestrial forms as symbians with whom interaction can be positive. It is conceivable that the structure and energy of these dynamic agents can align with ours in abundant cohabitation. On the other hand, we can view these energies as alien intruders and choose to oppose their emergence. While evolution cautions that the second path is unlikely to prevail in the long view, rallying around a common defense is a timeliness component of species-evident values and, as a result, may serve as an impulse to aggregate in community.

Beyond duality we can choose a more transformational pathway, embracing the role of imprudent acts which triggered this dissonance but seeking pathways to re-establish harmony. This may mean remediating our unconsidered acts, having acknowledged them as such, as well as our complicity in their invention. It may also mean uniting in acts of reconciliation that connect us more aptly in our eleventh-hour efforts to develop a considered response to our unconsidered, collective neglect. 

One can see this view in conflict in the past decade of economic and social activity in the People’s Republic of China. In the wake of the Kyoto Protocol discussions, China attempted to bridge its growing role as a world power with the post-imperialist concessions afforded in the aging paradigm under the moniker of developing nation.  In response to perceived need for power, industrial scale agriculture, and projected evidence of achievement, the Three Rivers Gorge scheme became a “coming of age” project. Sold simultaneously as ecological (non-polluting) energy as well as evidence of engineering mastery, China chose an iconic symbol of power explicitly from nature – in this case, a river.

However, discord challenged the project from the outset. Irreplaceable cultural heritage was flooded. Communities were displaced. Technology to harness power was largely supplied by foreign entities. Scant attention was paid towards the environmental cost of production (entailing vast concrete and steel consumption) or utilization (a toxification of vital waterways threatening the health of millions). 

Against the pollution of the waterways, however, has emerged a concerted effort by Chinese scientists to derive biofuel options from the various algaes that now blight the coastal waterways. Developments on algal agriculture, bacterial biodigesters and the like have emerged as centers of excellence in a country that seeks to balance Occidental metered growth with Sinic scaled engagement.

3. The Indic Lens: Environment in Dharmic Cycle

The world is as it is and we learn from our experiences. Humanity has come to the concluding stages of a process of awakening and passage through this dark stage is necessary if we are to reawaken with a new sense of being at a higher level of consciousness than before.

Prior to the industrial period we were not given the opportunity to acquire the value of reflective stewardship. Thus our understanding was compromised. Instead, our experiments with violence and with conflict (often amounting to trivial aggression over resources and territories and dominated by an imperial desire to kill, maim and impoverish for the selective opulence of a few) have come to mete lessons on those who saw themselves as beneficiaries of unconsidered systems.

These lessons must be embraced, instilled with the energy we previously released in callous and abusive behaviour, but in ways that express new models of engagement and relationship. Such is the path to enlightenment.

Those intoxicated by possessions and trapped within the current manifestation of reckless consumption will perish. But, in an awakened state, humanity will emerge more aware.

Perishing (should we embrace the process) will manifest as the eclipsing of those behaviors and memes that have dishonored matter, energy and spirit and the emergence of a refined engagement of the same in a new fashion. Perishing (should we enter into conflict with the process) will manifest as a violent retribution from matter, energy, and spirit abuse where the elements themselves will persist in destroying that which is triggering the immune response.

There is no path that does not involve destruction and there is no path that will not give rise to rebirth.

Many countries across Asia and the Global South are demonstrating collective responses that evidence the patterns emerging from the Indic mindset. In India itself, the retrofitting of compressed natural gas (CNG) in public transport vehicles in Delhi and throughout metropolitan centers has led to an immediate improvement in air quality the likes of which have occurred in few other places.

In the space of two years, pragmatism and public investment aligned to improve the air quality and living conditions of all as evidence of a notion of shared stewardship of the air. In post-Apartheid South Africa, resource management (including metals, gems, and energy) became the fulcrum for re-engagement of a national dialogue on resource stewardship and, through this context, social reconciliation was integrated into economic engagement. In Fiji rejection of colonial influences led to the provocative realignment of social order and systems.

Ironically, modern expressions of Indic philosophy include stark post-colonial reflexive social challenges in almost every incidence. However, as one examines these and other cases, what emerges is a clear prioritization on community and family accountability, in stark contrast to the abdication of such priorities for some apathetic caretaker state. This by no means suggests that bureaucracies are not flourishing and grossly ineffective in these states. But it is important to perceive the growing recognition of the role of the community unit rather than the collective apathy of displaced responsibility.

Intentional Evolution:

And so it seems there are far more inspiring alternatives to the enervating cynicism, uncertainties and increasingly shrill revelations of impending disaster that flood the Occidental mind daily. Stories that offer hope and intentions that chronicle a brighter future for all.

Human civilization is certainly in a state of transition. Indeed we may have reached a developmental crisis point, one that necessitates a redefinition of what we interpret to be progress. Yet while we can only analyze past transitions, the future paradigm still remains ours to invent. Along with technological revolutions, socio-economic crises offer exceptional opportunities to move to higher levels of evolution. We just need to be able to see the promise of societal renewal with greater clarity and conviction, which is why epistemology (the framework of understanding within which we make meaning) becomes so vital.

Contextual dynamics both establish and reflect dominant belief systems in the culture. An appreciation of context becomes particularly critical when so many of the ideas and institutions defining Western culture appear to be breaking down. This is the case today. It is the ideal time to be learning from diverse cultural traditions as an alternative to insisting upon the validity of a superior Occidental mindset, which is simply a delusion.

The Sinic and Indic traditions, as well as the various indigenous mindsets, enable an entirely different quality of reaction to the environmental crisis than that afforded through the Occidental lens.

Possibly the most profound transition in history, one that has taken hundreds of years so far and is still far from completion was the move away from pious notions of an infallible maker (or supreme being) to the concept of scientific materialism. Here it is the physical world that really counts. This shift required an across-the-board abandoning of deeply imprinted fears and fallacies. Predictably it led to the modern obsession with material goods and the acquisition of personal wealth. But evolution cannot stop there. We must move beyond even that phase of understanding.

Among the most vital of contemporary principles is the rejection of the idea of the world as a machine and the adoption of the world as a living system. The transition towards a new society instilled with such a fundamental ontological shift appears most likely to lead to a new holistic consciousness that integrates both science and spirit. Yet the practical realities of governing a global population of seven billion people still lag far behind conceptions.

In the past at least part of the problem was our inability or unwillingness to engage with really big issues (such as environmental degradation or property ownership) in any meaningful or constructive manner. Our inclination to delegate vital decisions to others (whether to dictators, monarchs, professional managers or councils of elected representatives) was deemed pragmatic. And our intransigent aversion to experience reality through an others perspective allowed us to live unconsidered lives. In reality this represented a disquieting social apathy – an ingrained passivity that is extremely difficult to overcome today. What is more it often allowed corruption, misconduct and oppression to thrive, to which we then turned a blind eye for fear of attracting still further repression. Many communities still suffer from that indifference today.

With the advent of today’s sophisticated communications systems and online social media, however, there can be no excuse. People are able to speak out and air their grievances, wielding power in ways that were previously out of the question. Dictators and governments fall at the hands of people power. Today, the voice of every citizen can be heard. Individuals can contribute to a global community of mind (a collective intelligence for change) should they wish to do so. Indeed some pundits argue the case that it is impossible to remain quarantined from such participation, given the potency and insidious nature of new social media. Furthermore, social networks help create the collective consciousness we so urgently need to reboot civilization.

In attempting to address the inevitable impacts of our hot over-crowded planet on individual lifestyles the application of such crowd-sourced intelligence, supported by all the innate wisdom and expertise we can muster, is vital. But whereas collective intelligence urges the immediate deployment of smart technologies, a shift to clean energy and the rapid phasing out of toxic products and practices, sagacity entreats us to pause, to shift the conversation, to pose uncommon questions that are missing from the current dialogue.

Some of the more important questions we should be pondering are not even on the agenda. While the greatest threats to humanity and to our environment seem to be that nothing is done, that the wrong things are done too quickly, or that too little is done too late, the greatest threat to our social well-being is that we act without wisdom.

The most urgent questions for humanity no longer focus on discrete issues and their impact but on how we can adapt and evolve to changing conditions, lessening the damage wherever we can and exploiting opportunities that are bound to emerge and delaying more serious consequences. There are two philosophical questions we need to answer: how can we tread more lightly on this planet and how can we preserve for future generations what is uniquely beautiful and inherently precious about our world?

A Critical Role:

So far our response to these questions has been depressingly inadequate. On deeper, more spiritual issues, such as how we can accelerate our capacity to adapt to the laws of physics in ways that enable more sustainable relationships, with each other and with the Earth, there has been a deafening silence. It is within this context that the role of foresight becomes critical. But the field itself will need to evolve in the following ways:  

1. Foresight practitioners must awaken to their role as curators of authentic integral experiences. Active self-reflection in the quest towards self-mastery has to be a pre-requisite for evolving foresight theory and praxis. It is only when mastery is fully understood that “higher altitude” questions around deep design can surface and be transparently explored. If an important part of our work is to facilitate the intentional evolution of society we need first to engage in that project at a deeply intimate and personal level. Viewing self as a mechanism for transition needs to be part of the process of bringing greater clarity, depth and rigor to the field and its efforts.

2. We must also ensure that foresight invites the possibility for identifying the true nature of individual and collective pathologies as well as putting forward solutions that are systemically viable and strategically resilient in a context that is morphing by the minute. The former demands integral intelligence, uncompromised by filtering and compartmentalized thinking. The latter requires a genuine blend of systemic consciousness and imagination coupled with commercial pragmatism and entrepreneurial flair.

3. Foresight must shift from its obsession with technology and uncomplicated issues to encompass a broader mix of higher altitude observations concerning the purpose of humanity, the provisioning of resources to accommodate the needs of an escalating global population, design criteria for social change, disparities between affluent and less privileged individuals and communities, and the rules and conventions that exacerbate division, competition and conflict within society.

4. Tools and methods must arise from philosophy, embracing both collective insights and expert opinion in an attempt to transcend obsolete knowledge in the co-design of new wisdom. This will take an expansive process of collaborative inquiry blended with curated transformational narratives that probe far more deeply into our inner belief systems and collective cultural traits than has hitherto been considered relevant.

5. The facilitation of foresight must move from conventional spaces into immersive environments. These decision theatres must be capable of (i) vividly visualizing dynamically complex patterns and data (ii) mapping the intended and unintended consequences of decisions (iii) simulating and modeling alternative solutions, and (iv) prototyping and stress-testing systemic designs.

6. Whole-system, collaborative inquiry and design conversations must take pre-eminence over other misused and increasingly hackneyed foresight methods. This is critical if we are to really engage a broader clientele in understanding that emergent patterns in our systems are simply the product of the way the system has been designed to function. Reframing symptoms (as frequently occurs during the crafting of scenarios) is a distraction, inadvertently shifting attention away from fundamental causes. Redesigning whole systems however (and, more importantly, the intentions informing that design) and we begin to solve the actual issues and dilemmas we are trying to grapple with on the surface – in addition, quite possibly, to resolving many other related concerns.

In a similar vein, scenarists must develop the capability for curating experiences in real time. They will need access to a range of relevant models and theories-in-play in order to guide, provoke and compose a seamless dialogue that includes and transcends prior knowledge.

It is also worth noting that when we are preoccupied with discrete technical issues and observable trends (as typically happens, for example, when scenario methods and technology roadmaps are adopted) our tendency is to converge around explicit goals we want to achieve or explicit futures we want to avoid.[vii] This is a mind-trap. Being overly attached to a particular outcome, especially one linked to a so-called focusing question, can deceive us into believing that the goal itself is of greater import than the desired end-state. As evidenced by the fact there is so much insipid and uninspired strategic thinking in corporate life today, this attachment can drag us further away from any deeper intentions we might long to embed in the system.

7. Foresight can no longer simply be about the future. It must pull information from past and future states into an expanded now of new consciousness. In this way the field of strategic foresight itself can be expanded, becoming genuinely transformative and therefore more strategically significant. This is the emerging field of epistemological foresight.

Future Pathways:

An elemental distinction between societies is whether they accentuate the spiritual or the physical realm. Within pre-literate communities these were (indeed are) identical. Throughout the late 19^th and 20^th centuries, emboldened by globalized trade and technological innovation, others eagerly embraced the Occidental mindset. Today we sense a less-fractured world, united by a common purpose, edging towards a more unified, all-encompassing mindset in which science and spirituality, as well as our internal and external worlds, strive to fuse once again.

What is evolving today, however, is not the individual but the composite organism of humanity. Even so, until we fully comprehend we are all part of a single living ecosystem, that we are all intimately connected to the Gaian biosphere that gives us life, and that cooperation and not competition is the key to our future existence, we will most likely continue to butcher each other and despoil the planet.

When a society accepts specific answers to recurrent questions from a particular body of knowledge, they commonly turn to that same source for other truths about reality. In the Middle Ages people asked the local priest or to the Church to help them resolve problems in their daily lives. Prior to that it was the village shaman or the witch doctor. When science eclipsed religion we turned to technologists for the answers. Now it is time to turn to the custodians of integral foresight and to more holistic, integrated and authentically human states of being. Epistemological foresight is the key to a deeper, more intentional design, of a unified society living in harmony with its environment.

We have been watching with increasing dismay the tragic events unfolding in Japan and Libya. As witness to these events who can doubt we are poised on the cusp of fundamental change? This moment in world history is unique. Exceptional times call for exceptional responses and not simply more of the same. Yet uniqueness of the type now warranted only emanates from higher levels of  intentionality - a collective consciousness intensely focused on integrating and transcending past paradigms and poles of thought.

Many argue that foresight methods have played a critical role in the development of modernist thinking - especially in encouraging us to imagine and rehearse what we would do should future realities turn out not to match our best-informed guesses. And they are correct. But we still remain trapped in prisons of our own invention, which is why these same foresight methods require radical philosophical and operational upgrades if they are to remain strategically relevant. The future of foresight is at stake.

Without valid foresight we put in jeopardy both the highly sophisticated nature of our society as well as its more pragmatic capacity to produce and distribute life’s necessities. One might perceive this threat as a potential collision between fate and desire. In that context, risks appear to have emerged as a direct result of the way we think - about our needs, our rights, our aspirations and our interactions, particularly relative to each other and to the planet.

Now we must think again. And differently this time. Not only through different lenses but also from a variety of altitudes. Epistemological foresight can help us move beyond the civilizational worldview by integrating and transcending current ways of thinking and doing as we re-imagine our collective state of being.

Over the past few centuries our world-system has advanced incredibly and in so many different ways. Today, those fortunate enough to be living in the developed world enjoy levels of material wellbeing that was unimaginable even a few years ago. At the same time much of what was once fresh and beautiful about humankind has ossified into a rigid shell - homogenous, pitiless, seemingly devoid of empathy, wonder or love. Bloated from excessive consumption, exhausted by pointless conflict, we await an emergency that will cause the blueprint of a new society to emerge from the imaginal cells of our deepest communion - like the metamorphosis of a chrysalis into a butterfly.

Perhaps global heating is that emergency - or will swiftly become so if government inaction persists. Yet all crises offer us a plethora of possible ways forward. Some paths lead to a better future for humanity as a whole. Others, and I fear these are the pathways we are intent on pursuing, chart a course that lock-in current divisions and convictions – especially the paradigmatic impulse linking progress to continuous economic growth and development.

We know that broadly defining a better future, one that is healthier, sustainable and more abundant than present actualities, is critical to human progress. But what do we imagine when we speak of better futures? What do we find inspiring? And how does a better future stack up with what we already have and what we believe we may be about to lose? These are critical questions to ponder as we take the first tentative steps within a new consciousness of possibilities.

In the past we have frequently quashed or undermined our capacity to substitute imprinted assumptions and beliefs for something far more viable and compelling. But we cannot wait any longer. It is time to open new windows onto new worlds.

There can be little doubt that the transcendence of the civilizational worldview, with its prejudicial constraints, exploitative traits and profound injustices, is the most vitally compelling yet audacious key towards unlocking such new windows. Impending societal collapse demands alternative options, visualizations, memes and strategies. And that is precisely the opportunity offered by epistemological foresight.

---

[i] Epistemological foresight in this context is the all-encompassing domain of human consciousness, experience and knowledge. It includes the various ‘integral’ theories put forward by contemporary scholars like Ken Wilber, Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo and Ervin Laszlo as well as those in other, more ancient traditions but also goes beyond these by stepping into alternative ways of knowing that are not constrained by orthodox technological rationalism

[ii] Panarchy is the framework in which systems, including those of nature (such as forests and oceans) and of humans (such as capitalism and governance) as well as combined human-natural systems (such as institutions that govern the use of natural resources) are interlinked in continual adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal.

[iii] These five foundational moral impulses are best depicted as (i) it is wrong to hurt people (ii) justice and fairness are good qualities (iii) allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues (iv) people should respect social hierarchy (v) purity and sanctity are good while contamination and pollution (and their associated character traits of greed and lust) are bad. Note that different cultures and groups bring different weightings to these shared five moral imperatives.

[iv] Extensive empirical research in the field of developmental psychology has shown that our ability to step into new epistemologies and to view reality through multiple lenses, perspectives and cultural mindsets, unfolds through nested stages. One of the reasons we struggle to see and appreciate alternative points of view is that we may be in an arrested state of awareness that literally prevents us from seeing and understanding more. The dance between our individual developmental stages and the evolution of a civilizational worldview with its various cultural mindsets further advances the need  for integral foresight, especially as it starts to draw attention to the interplay between intentional evolution at the level of both individual and collective levels of consciousness

[v] The four major crises facing humanity are crises of consciousness, behaviours, cultures and systems

[vi] An idea originally proposed by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, a meme acts as a vehicle for conveying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Memes can be regarded as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate mutate and respond to selective pressures.

[vii] I am using the term “outcome” as applying to a number of resulting changes we wish to experience within a system rather than that experience in its totality which I prefer to define as a “desired state”