Category: Future

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Economics Education Environment Future Politics

A Manifesto of Peopolism

A Manifesto of Peopolism
[pronounced {pee-ah-pol-ism}]

For too long, humanity has boxed themselves into outdated and antiquated -isms that were created to describe different times, different strategies, and different human conditions than those which exist today. The -isms of yesterday are no longer useful – and in some cases have been proven to be deadly but still they are used today despite no longer being accurate containers for the wants, needs, or actual conditions of humanity.

The major -isms used today for the description of socioeconomic conditions are the following: capitalism, communism, socialism, consumerism, despotism, humanism, individualism, isolationism, liberalism, neo-liberalism, nationalism, totalitarianism, anarchism, conservatism, environmentalism, feminism, feudalism, fascism, libertarianism, populism, progressivism, trans-humanism, and finally one that should be an -ism but is not, democracy. All of these -isms are poison because they put you in a box and force you to exist within a framework that in some cases is centuries old. We categorically reject these and all other -isms.

Today is a time like no other. The condition and needs of humanity cannot be described, enhanced, or confined within the definitions of previous centuries. We refuse to be confined by borders, ideologies, religions, or cultural heritage. We are human beings. We are one species, one world, and one people.

Therefore, be it known, that we the people will neither be governed, imposed upon, encumbered, enslaved, nor bound by the faulty understandings and misguided definitions of our ancestors. No person alive today was involved in creating the foundational structures which dictate our very existence. We function as slaves to ideologies and misguided cultural architecture that has proven to be an existential threat to our entire species.The old -isms have forced us to kill one another, to spend our limited time on earth creating profits for greedy monsters, and to have actively taken part in destroying our planet when we should have been reaping the benefits of being alive. The old -isms have made us choose between starving our children or starving other children, between killing or being killed, and between working or dying. Life does not need to be so complex. If you doubt this, simply look at the other living populations we share this world with. They live without ‘jobs’, ‘governments’, or ‘religions’.

We acknowledge that human beings are complex and that in order to maximize all of our individual happiness we need to have a collective set of rules to which we can all agree. For human ‘civilization’ and its many benefits to exist, human needs must be agreed upon and mutually understood and respected. Therefore, and with the understanding of all stated above – we propose a new -ism for our modern age. Change is happening at an ever faster pace and we recognize that it will not be long before these beliefs and ideas sound equally antiquated and perhaps become obsolete.

Yet, we must try to create an -ism for our age, a system that recognizes that we live in a world where automation, artificial intelligence, instantaneous communication from the furthest reaches of the planet, and relationships that transcend the concepts of borders, language, and  culture have created new ways to understand our planet and our respective place on it.

And so – we present this first version of the Manifesto of Peopolism. It is our hope that the greatest minds of this and every generation to follow will embrace and contribute to this new way of existing. It is also our hope that the people of the world will leave the -isms of the past behind and embrace a fluid meaning to existence which respects the rights of all people, all creatures, and all forms of miraculous life to co-exist.

We borrow from the great minds of the past without apology, for this intellectual and philosophical heritage is our true gift from our progenitors – the world that we shape will be the gift we leave to our descendants. It is our hope that it is a welcome gift and not a burden such as that we have inherited. We, the living, have inherited wars, inequality, disease, greed, genocide and more. To some extent, much to our disgust and dismay, we have perpetuated the same. No more. We wash our hands of the horrors of the past and move forward starting with this universal bill of rights.

We, the living, hold these truths to be self evident.

All living things have an inherent right to exist. It is our hope to someday create a living bill of rights, but to start we must focus on our human brothers and sisters. These rights apply from birth until death

All human beings have the right to live without fear.

All human beings have the right to live without hunger.

All human beings have the right to travel freely from place to place so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others.

All human beings have the right to shelter from the elements.

All human beings have the right to medical, dental, and psychological assistance if it can be provided.

All human beings have the right to self improvement through education and training.

All human beings have the right to improve their (and their family or clan’s) living situation through hard work, ingenuity, and  innovation.

All human beings have the right to love and live with the person of their choice, to build a family, and to freely associate with whomever they may choose.

All human beings have the right to live in self-governing communities or groups so long as all members are allowed the freedom to come and go as they choose.

All human beings are allowed the freedom to interact or not interact with others be they individuals, communities, groups, clans, clubs, or municipalities.

All human beings have the right to live on an environmentally safe and stable planet. No human being, group, or municipality has the right to endanger all life on the planet. Protecting our environment needs to be one of the cornerstones of Peopolism.

We recognize and honor the validity of the United Nations Universal Bill of Human Rights so long as the rights above are not infringed.

We recognize that the right to build wealth and legacy is a human desire but history and experience have shown that there need to be limits to wealth.

We do not believe any human being needs to have more than the equivalent of a half billion U.S. dollars. There is nothing that anyone can buy that will cost more and if there is – it should not be available for individuals.

We do not believe in the concept of ‘corporate personhood’ and believe that the super-human lifespans and abilities of globe spanning corporations need to be severely limited. It is our belief that actual stakeholders should be the only shareholders – that is – the communities affected by companies, the users of company products or resources, the workers of companies, and the people whose lives are connected with the business that a company conducts in any way.

We do not believe in rule of nation states, counties, countries, states, or provinces. We believe in the rule of municipalities, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. We believe that it is possible for such ruling bodies to represent the will of the people but that anything larger skews the representation in favor of a few and helps to create elite classes who inevitably use their power to benefit themselves and give themselves more power.

We do not believe in rule by religious authorities though we respect the rights of all people to worship and believe as they choose. Religion and government are terrible bedfellows and inevitably lead to abuse of power.

We believe that people have the ability to rule themselves better in small groups than in large and we recognize that small groups may want to confederate for mutual benefit in trade, jurisprudence, defense, and other human needs. We will rigorously defend the right of individual confederated groups to peaceably withdraw when the decision suits their citizens.

This document is a living document. Today it is written and signed by one. In the future, it is our hope that it is written and signed by all.

 

By my hand on 02/20/2020

 

 

 

Categories
America Economics Environment Future Politics

An Open Letter to America’s Billionaires – Change Humanity’s Future

Dear Billionaires,

I’ve done my best to join you, but so far – I haven’t even gotten close. The reason I’ve tried wasn’t because I want to be a rich guy with a big swimming pool and a fancy car collection. Nor is it that I want any of the other trappings of wealth and power that I’ve seen you exercise. I’m not interested in buying the presidency or colonizing other planets. I’m not interested in eating exotic lizards or putting my name on hotels. No, the reason I’ve been playing and failing at your capitalist game is because I can see how glorious our species and our world could be – I can see how desperately we are failing at creating a utopia and frankly, I’m surprised you don’t see it. If you do see it, I’m surprised you haven’t done anything about it. The attempts that I see you guys engaging in – largely seem focused on just creating your own personal gilded utopias – and frankly, I just don’t get it. Don’t you guys see that if you improved the condition of everyone – it would improve your own condition that much more? Hey, let go of your wallet’s money bags, you don’t need to worry, I’m not talking about redistributing wealth. You know and I know that a wealth redistribution scheme wouldn’t work out that well for most people – it would just be a refiltering of wealth to the top again.

No, I’m talking about actually building fucking utopias. You are the first humans in history to have the resources, the power, the technology, and the opportunity to actually build utopian civilizations. Why are you fucking around with politics at all? You have the ability to go around all of that. You have the ability to hire the best talent, the greatest minds, the most visionary thinkers. You can take the best ideas the world has ever known and build upon them, expand them, and implement them.

The utopian communities and communes of the 19th century, the cooperatives and communes of the 1960s, even the Raj Neeshi city in the 1980s in Oregon – all of these were built with less than any of you earn in a month. There are people willing to volunteer, there are people willing to work, there are people willing and desirous of living in a different type of society.

You have the power to create the way human civilization will function for the next ten thousand years. You have the ability to buy towns, cities, states, islands, countries and to create new forms of human civilization. Forms that actually work – or forms that fail and pave the way for the forms that will eventually work.

Why have none of you bought a town and found the people who are willing to live in it and build the future? I can’t understand why you focus on golf courses and eating steaks and just building your bank accounts bigger when you could be creating ten thousand years of the future? Nobody will remember most of what you are doing in two hundred years, if anything at all.

I appreciate some of what Elon Musk and Bill Gates and some others are doing – but by working within the framework of governments they can only fail. Why not start at the smallest level and build the next level of governments? Why not start with the municipality, build the coalitions of them, and then move forward?

Why not create ‘Dream Spaces’ where visionaries and artists can expend their energy doing what they do best instead of finding the time to follow their purpose between 50 hour weeks of drudgery? Why not use your wealth, your power, your achievements – to truly change the future. Build a town, select the residents, establish a new system – not capitalism, democracy, communism, or dictatorship – something new, something truly revolutionary. Why not create a viral form of human existence that defeats all the known -isms? Why not build a garden of eden and fill it with people who share your values?

Maybe you guys are doing this and keeping it all secret – seems like that would be a hard secret to keep. Maybe you just don’t care and want to fill your time living with more steaks, more rounds of golf, more pussy or dick, more yachts and jets – but you have the opportunity right now to do so much more. I think you should take it.

Also, I think you know this, but, you should probably not waste any time. It sure feels like your time is running out quickly. You may have 99.9% of the wealth, but there are still nearly 8 billion of us and life isn’t getting any easier for most of us – in fact – most are steps away from desperation. Everything has failed the rest of us – and unless you can find a way to appease us, win us to your side, or kill us all – we are probably going to be coming for you very soon.

I hope you decide to change the world and the future.

I’m going to keep trying to make my way to where you are – because in our system – I can’t see any other way of doing what I’ve mentioned above. If I get there, I’m going to show you what I mean – if not, I hope you show me.

Categories
Economics Future

Get Ready to Get Screwed!

I mean, technically, we’ve all been being screwed for a long time but things seem to be ramping up a bit. Here is what is coming:

1) Election meddling

2) Totalitarian attempts at refusing to lose election

3) Complete stock market meltdown

4) New ‘dot-com bubble’ explosion – tech and startups are about to stop getting huge cash infusions and no more rounds of ‘do crazy shit even if it doesn’t make money’ seed money.

5) No Deal Brexit

6) A new war in the Middle East involving Turkey, Russia, Iran, Saudi, Yemen, Israel, Iraq, and when hundreds of thousands innocent people are murdered the USA and Britain. It will start as Turks vs. Kurds and escalate to Sunni vs. Shia and then into oil control

7) Chinese are going to reach a boiling point and pull the economic nuclear option by selling all the US debt they own and crashing the US dollar

8) Another huge refugee crisis

9) Don’t forget accelerating climate change

10) More shootings in the USA

 

So, the moral of the story is. Be grateful that none of that is happening today (yet).

Categories
Future

Reflections on Sept 11th 18-years later. Dominators and Cooperators

The problems in the world can be traced to one group of people – no, it’s not an ethnicity, religion, or nationality. It’s a mindset.

Dominators. Dominators are those who believe they should be able to force the world to do what they want. Not just single people but communities, states, nations, and even the whole planet. This mindset has created every problem we face in the world.

Terrorism – people who were dominated and learned the dominator behaviors. Terrorism is literally the act of attempting to force the world to do what you want with fear and intimidation.

Colonialism – people at a higher level of technology dominating people with a lower level of technology

Racism – the attempt of one group of people to assert dominance over another group based on skin color (same for nationalism but with nationality)

Global Warming – attempts to dominate nature with catastrophic results

And the list goes on and on – it’s September 11, 2019 – 18 years since the terrorist attacks. A child born that day becomes an adult today. Things have only gotten worse since that time. We’ve all lost. We’ve lost our freedom, liberty, privacy, time, money, and mental health. We’ve lost lives. We’ve lost democracy. We’ve lost our minds.

Buddhism tells us that fighting hatred or anger with hatred or anger is always a way to lose. We can’t all be good buddhists or christians and love our enemies – but there is a practical way to overcome these problems. It’s been there all along -waiting for us. Cooperation.

Cooperating with each other, cooperating with the planet, cooperating between nations, states, and individuals.

The problem, of course, stays the same. The dominators. The dominators have an unfair advantage. Here is how it works:

Cooperator + cooperator leads to cooperation – everyone wins

Dominator + dominator leads to domination – everyone loses except single entity that dominates the rest

Dominator + cooperator leads to domination – everyone loses except single entity that dominates the rest

Whenever a dominator (individual, society, company) encounters a cooperator (individual, society, company) the cooperator is faced with a choice – be dominated or become a dominator. This dilemma leads to a world that is increasingly ruled by dominator behavior and entities. It becomes increasingly hard to even think about cooperation.

Many have tried to overcome this Catch-22 and few (if any) have succeeded. If they have succeeded, they do so by existing outside the notice of the dominators. Secret societies of cooperators and esoteric sufis. And all it takes to destroy them is notice by a dominator and the will of that dominator to do what dominators all do – to dominate.

I believe there is a way out of this mess. I believe it is the way out of all of our messes. It’s a way that we don’t have the will or the fortitude to take because it will be messy and ugly. On that morning 18-years ago, we were presented with horror and tragedy but we were also presented with opportunity – an opportunity to not respond to domination with domination – but we failed. We created a hellish world of never ending war, violence, and domination on the political, economic, and personal levels.

What is the way out?

Cooperation. Those who are cooperators need to join hands, join forces, and join hearts. We need to clearly state what is acceptable in a cooperative world and what is not acceptable in a cooperative world. We need to make a declaration of independence from domination and dominator behavior. And then – the hard part that we must do or we will fail. When a person, a company, a country engages in dominator behavior they need to be totally and completely stripped of everything. Stripped of money, stripped of family, stripped of diplomatic status, stripped of resources, and on an extreme individual level – stripped of life. This is our only way out of the downward spiral we have become trapped in.

How do you recognize a dominator? Easy. They are in it for themselves and don’t care about the cost to others, the cost to the future, the cost to the planet, or the cost to humanity. Dominators must be destroyed or completely disempowered. We cannot out-dominate the dominators, we can only destroy or disempower them completely. It is the only way.

Categories
Antichrist 2020 Future

Top 10 Reasons to Vote for the Antichrist in 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections

Antichrist 2020 T-Shirt

1. You think kids should be in cages and families don’t have the ‘right’ to stay together when they seek asylum

2. You hate abortion for any reason unless it’s an abortion of a non-white or non-American person

3. You believe white people are naturally superior to non-white people and Americans are superior to non-Americans

4. You believe that Americans are special in comparison to other people, especially white Americans

5. You don’t care about methods, only about results – especially when it comes to your 401k

6. Lies don’t bother you – as long as they support your moral position

7. You support Israel and Jewish people but only until all the Muslims are gone

8. Global warming is a part of God’s plan for Armageddon

9. You’d rather be ruled by Russia than by a black or non-white president

10. You can’t wait for Jesus to return and join the Republican Party

 

God Bless America

Wear your support for the Antichrist in 2020 proudly

AntiChrist for President

Categories
Future Politics

The USA has fallen

I hope that I am wrong but it appears that my country is no more. The rule of law no longer applies in a country that was once a nation of immigrants but now puts immigrants in concentration camps.

The president of the USA is a racist criminal who has used hush money and intimidation to keep the women he has raped or abused from speaking with the press. He has colluded with foreign governments to seize power, attacked American institutions, and destroyed the very bedrock of our system – the system of checks and balances. With the assistance of his corrupt allies in the Senate and the House he has stacked the Supreme Court with corrupt criminal justices and destroyed the balance of power. He has turned our national independence day holiday into a parade of self-aggrandizement and is daily increasing his use of racism, lies, and xenophobia as political tools to secure his hold on the government.

The chances of him stepping down if he is defeated in an election he and his allies have already rigged decreases daily. His increased use of racism, sexism, and lies demonstrate how his confidence in being untouchable has grown. Those who still think that there will be a fair election or that he will step aside if he loses are delusional. They are holding on to a past that no longer exists and a system that has been destroyed by his every action.

The United States of America is no longer. These are the Coerced States of Trumpism. The chilling chants of ‘Send them Back’ at his campaign rally last night in reference to four Congeresswomen who have stood up to him and called him out on his fascist policies, the concentration camps, and his prejudice and racism are like the sound of a bullet shot into the base of a prisoner’s skull. The inability and unwillingness of the Congress and the media to stand against him will go down in history as an ugly moment when the ‘American Vichy’ showed their true colors.

There is a deep and disgusting ugliness that has taken control of the USA. I am afraid that things are heading nowhere but towards greater horrors. Those who stay and believe in the things that once made America the beacon of the world (honor, dignity, equality, opportunity, fairness, justice) will be forced to make a choice – collaborate or fight. The wiser choice may just be to take our cue from the hateful hordes crowding into Trump’s rallies – it might be wisest to simply find a way to leave.

My country is dead. I hope I am wrong, but this corpse smells increasingly putrid.

Categories
Future

Things Have Gone Terribly Wrong for Humans

Listen apes,

We’ve messed up in multiple big ways and it’s time we face the facts. First of all (because I’ve always heard it’s best to start a critique with a positive) we are amazing creatures. We have figured out how to harness fire, electricity, magnetism, and the elements. We have figured out where we are in the universe and in a very general physical sense – what the universe is, what we are, and what everything else is. We are conscious and among the animal kingdom we appear unique because we can do things like decide not to eat even when we are hungry. Some of us anyway…but think about that – no other animal we know of can say “I’m hungry, but I’m not going to eat right now” That’s pretty amazing.

The problem is that we seem to have let all of this go to our head and on top of that, we seem to have taken some really bizarre turns in regards to how we do things. I’m going to flat out call what we are doing ‘unnatural’ and ‘obscene’. What are we doing?

Well, first of all – we are shitting where we eat in a big way. Not only that, we are shitting where we grow food, we are shitting where we sleep, we are shitting where we drink, we are shitting all over ourselves and each other. We are destroying our planet – we are turning farm land into parking lots and golf courses. We are turning the water into one giant plastic goop ball. We are turning the air into a poison soup. We have destroyed a large number of ecosystems, driven large numbers of species into extinction, and we have abandoned the idea of taking care of each other and instead just shit all over each other, don’t help each other out when we can, and in many cases actively create bad situations for those around us.

I can hear you (because I hear me) saying “But wait, what about all the good things we do, what about the charity, what about this and this and this…” Yeah, that stuff exists, but it’s not the priority. It’s like a way to make ourselves feel better about this shit. It’s a way for exploitive billionaires like Rockefeller, Gates, etc to make themselves feel better about all the shit they have dished out and stolen. We may not like it, but that’s what it is.

So, what went wrong? What screwed things up?

I’m not positive but I see one big issue that sort of sums up everything. We have abandoned the idea of collectivism. We gave up on the idea of ‘what is good for all of us is good’ and we instead adopted the idea of ‘what is good for me is all that matters’. In short, selfishness seems to have gone viral and to have become the acceptable norm to our ape species.

It’s exemplified perfectly in American capitalism, American entertainment, American exceptionalism. I’m not saying America is the problem – but we represent the problem on a bigger scale and an uglier plane than anyone else.

The problem however is much bigger and much older. Have you ever asked yourself why you have to work to live? Birds don’t have to do that. Raccoons don’t have jobs. Monkeys don’t have time sheets. You know what has to work to live? Farm animals. They are either producing something or they are getting eaten. Pigs, chickens, cows, horses. No one has a pig farm just to take care of the pigs or just because it is fun.

We’ve turned ourselves into agricultural products – or rather into products. It started with farming – serfdom, chattel slavery, share cropping. Then it moved into manufacturing, commerce, banking, government. You either produce or you die. You work or you don’t get the chance to live. Think about it and you will know it is true.

I hear you ‘…but it’s always been that way…”

Are you sure about that? Even if that were the case, does that mean that it’s the way it has to be forever? In the process of making ourselves into domestic animals – we’ve given up on decency, we’ve given up on taking care of each other, we’ve given up on patience, we’ve given up on fun, fulfillment, and frankly – on living.

There are alternatives. There are alternative systems. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are alternative ways of being.

I refuse to be a farm animal. What about you?

Categories
Future

We are cockroaches

Humans have filled every nook, crevice, and cranny of this beautiful planet. Our presence has almost never been an improvement over what was there before us. We chop and burn, blow up and pave, and hunt and exterminate wherever we go.

Ultimately, we are like the cockroaches in Hawaii. You find them everywhere – inhabiting this beautiful landscape and filling in whatever space they can find. We ruin things. We’ve ruined our own mode of existence – over and over.

And yet, unlike cockroaches – we have this incredible desire within us to create things of beauty. In front of me is a beautiful 150 year old rocking chair, lovingly made by some unknown person’s skilled hands. It’s just a chair in my house that we all sit in from time to time. It once belonged to the Episcopal Arch Bishop of California – I bought it from an incredible estate sale in Coos Bay, Oregon for $50.

I don’t suppose that cockroaches have anything so beautiful, nor the desire to preserve it, enjoy it, share it – even if some strange cockroach were to produce a work of art.

Art is what makes us better than cockroaches. Dance, song, poetry, fiction. The expressions of our souls. Art is the evidence and the making and appreciation of art is the one defense that can be presented to the court of our continued existence.

It is only if we can tap into that and bring it to the forefront that we will continue in any meaningful way.

Categories
Future

All Americans are Now Mentally Ill

I’ve come to the conclusion over the past few months, that almost all American’s currently living or in the work force are, on some level, mentally ill. This is not a scientific study, it’s simply an opinion. Personally, I am diagnosed with PTSD and high anxiety, due largely to my time in the U.S. Marine Corps. The diagnosis came as a relief, because for years, I have suffered from it, without knowing what it was, how I got it, or how to deal with it. Both therapy and lots of reading have helped tremendously in dealing with the symptoms. For nearly twenty years, I self medicated with alcohol – which sometimes worked and sometimes made things much worse – not a good course.

In telling friends about my situation, many of them confessed to having their own mental illness or dealing with depression, anxiety, nervous disorders, bi-polar disorders or having therapists. Others said they suspected that they had something wrong with them but hadn’t had the chance (or the money) to seek therapy or a diagnosis. Most of these people – who confessed to being on medications, being in therapy, or being diagnosed – were among the most sane people I know! These were not a bunch of nut jobs (I mean, technically, I guess we all are – but you know what I mean).

A few days ago, I watched a bizarre road rage incident where a mother with kids in the car was screaming obscenities out her window at another driver in a Costco parking lot. A few months ago while I was sitting at an outdoor table drinking coffee – a crazy person charged me and demanded that I stop following him or he would kill me. When I told the police they told me the guy was harmless and that if I insisted they would file a report but that it would be wasting everyone’s time and they would release him shortly after picking him up. The police officer said similar things happen hundreds of times each week in my city and he is more concerned dealing with daily road rage and increasing gun violence….

A few weeks ago, I tried to help a veteran college student. I agreed to use my new business (the one I’ve invested my life savings into and worked on tirelessly the past eight months but which is still in the startup stage) as a project. We used my company, my data, my research, my experience, my hard work for most of the past year to draft a product market summary.

It was a mistake. Frankly, I found myself doing most of the drafting on the project. I showed up to the meetings when the student didn’t. When I asked him to attend a meeting to look for technical talent, he didn’t go. I tried to set up meetings and was brushed off by him. I was having some doubts about working together, but I liked the guy and since he was a new father, I wanted to give him an opportunity. I wanted to have him work with me.

I offered him the chance to buy in and purchase equity in the company – he suddenly lost his demeanor of normalcy and accused me of being a secret agent trying to entrap him. Seriously. He told me he was running a background check on me. He called the police to inquire about me. He told me he thought it was suspicious that I was building a company based on an idea he’d had but done nothing with long ago.

He became a lunatic and then we had to stop working together.

I am running into absolutely batty people everywhere I go. It’s like they are simply waiting to meet me so that they can lose their minds. Maybe I’m contagious. The only conclusion that I can draw is that virtually all Americans are now mentally ill. Which, if you think about it – explains a lot.

Categories
Economics Future

The State of the World – March 2019

I’ve been very busy for the past month and I haven’t written anything here. Of course, that’s no surprise to anyone – we are all very busy. Very very busy. Especially in the United States and other developed countries. Personally, I think that’s by design – I believe it’s a massive control mechanism based on the model of ‘idol hands are the devil’s work’ or to put it more clearly ‘busy people don’t have the time or energy to create problems by rocking the boat’. Our busy-ness (business) is a control state’s dream come true.

I admittedly have a problem with thinking – I think too much. My brain never shuts down but just chews and chews and chews on things and carefully observes what comes out of the cud. Mind you, I’m not saying I’m a genius or above average intelligence (I don’t believe I am), I’m just saying that I have a problem with being cerebrally inclined and where most people can shut that annoying part of their human-ness down and watch a good sporting event or let some annoying event slide off of them – I don’t seem to possess that capability – although meditation definitely helps.

But back to the world. We are moving rapidly towards a massive societal change. I think of it as humanity being in lifeboats from a sinking ship on a giant river. There are only so many boats for the survivors to get on and we’ve occupied them – our boats have careened towards a massive split in the river – the current has picked up considerably – some boats have gone to the left, some have gone to the right, and some have stayed in the center – we know that there is danger ahead on all courses – but we aren’t sure what it is.

The middle course, the human tendency towards totalitarianism and massive control and exploitation seems to be carrying the bulk of us. Totalitarianism always ends with an explosion and a huge loss of life. So, let’s just say that for those on that path, the channel narrows and pours down into a deep chasm at the bottom of which is a huge deposit of raw sodium (which explodes on contact with water). Most on that course won’t survive.

On the right is total free market capitalism – a very small number have followed this because it is scary and loud and disruptive and dangerous – there is a big waterfall at the end and it cascades down to a paradise that ends with humanity achieving all that it dreams of – but it’s almost impossible to reach because every time a stream gathers some force – it branches off towards totalitarianism – ‘protectionism’, ‘protected capitalism’, ‘controlled markets’ and more.

On the left is what I call cooperationism – this is another paradise branch of the stream with a healthy world, healthy people, and all of the ills of humanity solved through cooperation – but of course, the tendency towards totalitarianism creates things like ‘war communism’ ‘centralized control’ and other ‘we’re smarter than you and will decide what’s best for you’ systems.

So, the bad news is that humanity is heading towards a 98% chance of full totalitarianism and the explosion that follows – there is virtually no chance for our survival. The good news is that there has never been such a great chance that we can fix ourselves and our way of thinking. Do I think we will? No. Do I hope we will? Hell yes. There are many small streams which are running towards paradise scenarios.

People are finally rethinking cars and ‘reinventing the wheel’. People are looking at the planet as what it is – a giant spaceship that carries all of us through a dangerous universe. I believe that more and more people are starting to see the very real possibilities and power of working together despite cultural differences.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us in March of 2019. We are on the verge of a tyrant seizing power in the United States, the peaceful cooperation of Europe seems to be crumbling with Brexit, the world has been so degraded by our actions that we have somewhere between 20-100 years before it is uninhabitable for us, unemployment is down and servitude is up, and – finally – there are technological disruptions coming on such a massive scale that the old apple cart is going to get blown up. We don’t have a choice about changing – we will have to.