|
1c Synopsis
There is no salvation for
civilization, or even the human race,
other than by the creation of a
world government.
Albert
Einstein
Abstract
Anyone who has taken a serious look into any one of these three key areas:
(1) The state of the global Environment;
(2) society’s perceived Energy
growth needs VS future supply; (3) Growing Economic and monetary corruption and conundrums, will recognize
that we are on the cusp of paradigm change - a junction, a bifurcation
point. To go past the tipping point
of any one of the three interconnected “Es” - Ecology, Energy, Economics will bring about the end of a 150
year era of compound growth in human-activity that has been primarily
energized by fossil fuels. Contrary
to the most fundamental logic, “growth” has become normalized as society’s
(un)holy grail.
Why have today’s governments, along with the
United Nations, failed to take appropriate measures on this dire
issue? The simple answer is that
they cannot. They cannot now and
they could not 50 years ago when a delegation of national leaders told the
scientists of the Club of Rome
(COR) that they understood the implications of Limits to Growth, but could do nothing about it because the
voters would not let them. This was
explained to me in a letter from a COR founder, Alexander King [ http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/KingLetter.pdf ].
We have a circular governance dilemma that leaves us collectively
locked in paradigm paralysis.
Paradigm Junction is written specifically for individuals
who are alarmed by what their future appears to hold and who may consider
participating in a collective effort to break paradigm paralysis. The Paradigm Junction text suggests the
creation of an expandable sociopolitical economic infrastructure that could
bind together many of today’s localization initiatives and other compatible
social change efforts, utilizing many of today’s institutions, corporations
and laws, but using them differently, while conforming to well-established
cybernetic management principles that are in wide use by today’s leading
corporations.
This Synopsis summarizes the more detailed
technical discussion within the chapters of Paradigm Junction and hopes to make clear that this is a
request for various levels of participation in the Blue Planet Governance project.
Sprinkled liberally throughout this text are
quotes from many wise people whose comments resonate and who have
influenced the ideas presented. An
early version of Paradigm Junction
is available in pdf – see index. Each chapter has a revision number and
may be updated from time to time as required by new or improved data.
What is a paradigm?
Willis Harman states: A
paradigm is the basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing, and doing that
is associated with a particular vision of reality. A civilization’s paradigm shapes how we
see and understand the nature of reality, our sense of self, and our
feelings of social connection and purpose.
John Croft of the Gaia Society, Perth Australia:
Paradigms shape not only our thoughts, but our very perceptions and
experience of life.
Zeitgeist, from
German, has a similar meaning, which is spirit
of our times. Zeitgeist
is defined as the “general intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an
era”….
Peter
Joseph, of the Zeitgeist Movement.
The Gaia
Preservation Coalition (GPC)
The Paradigm Junction Project is an
initiative of the Gaia Preservation
Coalition. GPC was a Canadian
federally registered non-profit organization in 1992. The official registered status has since
expired without renewal because it has become apparent this status will be
irrelevant to any meaningful projects that we might initiate. Since 1992 Gaia Preservation Coalition
(CSG) has mostly been an internet-based discussion and information exchange
group. We have not initiated any
projects to date because no possibilities were suggested that would seem
adequate to deal with the compounding issues that decorate today’s
interwoven social/political/environmental landscapes. Ominous clouds of fear and doubt hang
heavily on the minds of growing numbers of aware observers. When blended with growing concerns around
other developments of the past few decades, this growing angst may act as
an enabling opportunity. It appears
that the time is ripe to initiate the Paradigm
Junction Project in hopes of fulfilling the GPC Core Purpose:
GPC CORE
PURPOSE – as finalized in 1991
To be a gathering place for people who
Consciously acknowledge the human
Predicament and who seek with others its
Resolution through the creation and
Exploration of ideas and actions that move
Humanity toward a more harmonious
Relationship within Gaia.
This synopsis version of Paradigm
Junction is broken into five parts.
Part 1:
Project Intent
Part 2:
Personal Comment
Part 3:
Circle of Issues
Part 4: Overview
and Question & Answers - References
Part 5:
Support for PJP
“What
we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.”
-Theodore Roethke [Wiki]
Part 1:
Project Intent
Blue Planet Governance project
Part 1 Project Outline
Acronyms and definitions:
GPC = Gaia Preservation Coalition
BPG = Blue Planet Governance (alluding to Sagan’s pale
blue dot image)
BPITeam
= Blue Planet Integration Team
Chaordic
organization = A central organization formed by autonomous groups [Wiki]
HA = Human Activity - both gross
human population numbers and resource throughput
MES = Monetary Economic System
MIC = Modern Industrial
Civilization
PJ = Paradigm Junction
The 3Es = Environment, Energy, Economics
Regions = Similar to states, provinces
or small countries of today
UR = United Regions (a
significantly changed United Nations)
[GL] = Explanation in the Glossary
050 APC = 50 years
After Paradigm Change
[4c page7] = More detail in Section
4 Chapter c on page 7.
Paradigm as used in
this booklet refers to the generally accepted: social, political, and
economic world-view held within the expanding group of industrial nations
and many developing countries.
050APC alludes to a
backcast [Section
Four of PJ] of what a sustainable civilization might look like in 50 years if
steps were started today to bring about essential change. The section also
suggests potential initial stages.
The 50APC scenario represents a strawman, or starting point for
group discussion by those who participate in the Paradigm Junction Project.
Core Purpose of
the Blue Planet Governance Project (BPG): [ref]
The project team will develop a planetary management system capable
of moving humanity toward
a more harmonious relationship within Gaia.
Vision of BPG
The era of global tragedy of the commons ends. [Wiki]
The new paradigm begins when Interdependent
Regional Governments unite!
To form a chaordic organization called,
The United Regions
Where coordinated expertise in Earth Science, Human-Nature
and Economics,
Provides Regional Guidance to Maximize Real Wealth:
Real wealth is a
measurement of a robust ecology
and the general health and happiness of the
people!
Mission of BPG
Scientific and psychological knowledge will underlay the dynamically
interactive social/political/economic system with the design goal to bring
the human ecological footprint into dynamic balance with the systems of
life in our small blue planet.
The project team will develop the top tier documentation for the Blue Planet Governance system
capable of meeting our core purpose.
Shared Values
The concept of Blue Planet
Governance is in harmony with the values expressed in the 12 Gaia
personal principles http://gaiapc.ca/#Principles
Our Approach
The project team will take a holistic approach that can bind
together the multitudes of ‘change’ organizations into a one combining synergetic
unit.
Underlying Presumptions
& Observations
1: The human
ecological-footprint is significantly greater than the living systems of
planet Earth (Gaia) can sustain: We
are entering ecological bankruptcy.
It would require 1.6 planet Earth’s to sustain us today – see Ecological Footprint.
2: Today’s large
national governments are not capable of bringing about the needed change.
There are very many contributing reasons for this, but paradigm paralysis [Wiki] is likely the best
summary of our malady. (See parts 3 & 4 for more detail)
3: Without a peaceful,
viable transition plan, war or revolution will only speed disaster.
4: To institute a
paradigm of sustainability all we need are existing and well-tested
technologies and procedures, many of which have been developed within the
past several decades. Combined, they
can open a brief window-of-opportunity to bring about a guided reduction in
gross human-activity. Some of these developments are:
4a – The widespread use
of dynamic systems as a means of management, or process control, sometimes
called cybernetics;
4b – New communications
techniques enabling interested individuals to exchange views and wisdom,
and promulgate recognition that humanity’s only viable option is to
overcome paradigm paralysis and to change our course into the future;
4c – Scientific
advancements enabling measurement of the state of Gaia, the state of the
economy, the level of human well-being, happiness and real human wealth
(not fiat $$);
4d – Advancements in
understanding human nature, human spirituality, elements of human
happiness, etc.;
4e – The development of
safe, affordable and effective birth control.
4c – The development
and acceptance of a chaordic
organization [page 23] as a central agency that operates
on behalf of highly autonomous entries that have common interests that
cannot be dealt with independently.
Banks, airlines, sports teams, nations have all created a chaordic
organization as an essential coordinating hub for their activities. Such relationships are sometimes known as
Holon/Holarchy arrangement.
5: There is growing
citizen unrest at all levels, from the grass roots level up to regional
blocks.
5a – A generation of
informed young people who are totally disenchanted with their
future prospects within the existing paradigm. Evidence of this is shown by:
localization initiatives, The
Zeitgeist Movement, the Occupy
movement, the Degrowth Movement, Idle-No-More,
and a growing number of calls for radical change by high profile
spokespersons from many fields, especially earth scientists and political
science.
5b – The massive and
growing economic inequality gap is fostering resentment at all
levels.
5c – Decades of corporate hegemony have reduced
our democracies to the point of being described as totalitarian according
to prominent observers such as or Naomi Wolf, or as Professor Sheldon Wolin puts it, we can vote, but we have no
viable options - TINA.
5b – In the past few
decades there has been a resurgence of separatist movements globally. One reason for this is explained by
seasoned political observers such as Gar
Alperovitz who conclude that large nations, such as USA, Russia, or Canada are
far too large to be well governed by a central government – and yet most US
states are too small. In his ‘2011
book, American Beyond Capitalism,
Alperovitz summarizes growing localization efforts. In his 2014 ‘What Then Must We Do’, he argues that a Region, suggests the optimum size for governance of the people
and the lands within.
6 – To deal with today’s complex array of
issues, especially the critical,
Tragedy of the Commons, the most likely approach will be for Regional
governments to create a chaordic organization, perhaps called the United
Regions (UR). The United Regions
would interact with cooperating global Regions to deal with global issues
that can only be dealt with in a coordinated global effort, as out chapter
header suggests -Blue
Planet Governance.
7 – To deal with the
complex array of Regional issues the most likely approach will be for
governments in the new paradigm to operate in accordance with the
principles of a viable dynamic system.
This would be similar to the approach used in most transnational
corporations using the principle of subsidiary [Wiki], as used by manufacturers
of complex products such as automobiles or spacecraft. The systems
approach enables companies to embrace diversity, be modularly
expandable, with each separate module as self-sufficient as practical –
meaning maximum autonomy at the
lowest practical level.
(See Q&A Q1) [Ref] and see http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/BPG/2b-DynamicSystems.htm
8 – There is a growing
recognition that the means of exchange of goods and services - the money
system and its controlling agency - has been, is now, and can continue to
be a dynamic cross-cultural regulator of human activity. Today this dynamic regulator is largely
under control corporate banks that are transfixed on growth. The
most critical element of the Paradigm Junction proposal is that the
issuance and control of the world’s money must be under the guidance of a
science oriented agency such as the proposed United Regions (UR), a
chaordic organization;
9 – A large percentage
of MIC (Modern Industrial Civilization) products and energy usage are
wasted or unnecessary, likely over 80%, as assessed 30 years ago by
economist JW Smith. This
difference could provide a significant energy buffer as human activity is
reduced while sustaining a significant level of infrastructure complexity.
10 – Most complex dynamic
system have: fixed components; non-controllable variables; and controllable variables. All need to be identified in order to
diagnose today’s defective system elements and begin dealing with the
primary fault(s). To date, with very few exceptions, all initiatives by the
United Nations (UN), national governments or NGOs have failed to direct
their efforts toward the controllable variables that are the primary
cause(s) of the problem. To deal
only with secondary symptoms guarantees the continual failures we observe.
11 – Of the 3Es, the
economic system will likely crash first, hopefully before reaching non-reversible
tipping points in other critical areas, such as global warming. Economic breakdowns could open leverage points. Energy issues may be a compounding
trigger and offer other leverage points.
We need to be prepared.
Outreach Groups:
We will need to reach
out to the thousands of splinter organizations who already recognize the
dead-end nature of today’s governance and who promote localization and
maximum trade and commerce within the local region.
Reach out to the dozens
of existing separatist movements.
Reach out to
individuals for support of the PJP possibilities in a wide variety of
categories, and also to those who simply endorse the concept.
Reach out to those
among the very rich who recognize the short term nature of today’s glaring
income disparity and environmental dilemma, to encourage them to use some
of their fiat money to establish essential technological infrastructure
elements for eventual operation within the new paradigm and monetary
system.
Strategic Opportunities – Rapid
response group
As the future turns into the past both disaster and opportunity will
arise. The disasters must somehow be
accommodated and turned into opportunities.
Rather than acceptance of disaster
capitalism, as named in Naomi Klein’s The Shock
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, [Wiki] the BPIT
( Blue Planet Integration Team) will search for any bright side
opportunities.
The scenarios of
section 4, the 050APC envisioning section of Paradigm Junction, are offered as a straw man example for the BPIT = Blue Planet Integration Team to use as
initial guidelines when developing more detailed infrastructure essentials
and procedures. The existing 050APC
design can be significantly improved with the combined wisdom of others who
are comfortable engaging in future design.
There are likely
thousands of individuals capable of making valuable contributions to either
the BPIT (Blue Planet Integration Team) or some of the
many other needed portfolio tasks.
Gender balance will likely create the best results.
End Part One
Part 2: Personal Comment
Paradigm Junction Project
Part 2: Personal Comment
The text of the booklet, Paradigm
Junction, has been written by an Engineering
Technologist whose career path visited a wide ranging variety of
dynamic systems in troubleshooting, design, and auditing existing
systems. Some of these were
electromechanical systems, and some process control systems that include
humans in the loop where human-nature and group dynamics are important
parameters. Bio at http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/BPG/1e-BioOfWriter.htm
About 30 years ago,
after an epiphany-like experience regarding humanity’s exponential growth,
I suddenly recognized that there will be a great discontinuity between our
recent past and our future. I
started a period of reading, information exchanges and writing. My continuing disappointment is that
there appears to be no coordinated effort up to the task of dealing with
humanity’s perilous overgrowth situation.
There are thousands of worthy efforts, but no holistic framing
structure that could integrate these diverse efforts into a synergetic
system with a practical goal. It
seems that no effort to date has targeted the primary drivers of the Circle of Issues at the root sources
of our dilemma. (There are limited
exceptions to this.) A wicked-problem [GL] cannot be dealt
with by piecemeal efforts especially when key driving issues are, in general,
avoided.
In order to envision a
relatively controlled paradigm shift, it has been necessary to design and
draft versions of Paradigm Junction
that deal with the primary interconnected issues. Another step has been to identify those
components of our existing MIC (Modern
Industrial Civilization) that are, and will continue to be, essential
within an MIC with a viable goal.
Future planning also
needs to address the interlinked energy and ecological issues while
sustaining the essential manufacturing sectors of MIC, even though overall
complexity and energy usage will eventually be significantly reduced. Economists like JW Smith suggest that 80%
of todays’ MIC production is wasted or unnecessary. This gives us a large
energy buffer during a planned human-activity reduction, when flow energy
could carry the load.
Speculative thinking
along these lines is sometimes referred to as a Post Normal Science. [Wiki]
Post-Normal Science is a concept developed by
Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, attempting to characterise a
methodology of inquiry that is appropriate for contemporary conditions. The
typical case is when "facts are
uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent". In such circumstances, we have an
inversion of the traditional distinction between hard, objective scientific
facts, and soft subjective values. Now we have value-driven policy
decisions that are 'hard' in various ways, for which the scientific inputs
are irremediably 'soft'.
I play contract bridge
from time to time. A long time ago I
took some lessons from an instructor who made a rather off-the-cuff point
that I think is very important both at the bridge table and in pondering
escape routes from the human predicament.
He said, when you find that you have arrived in a very bad contract
that seems impossible to make, do this: Examine your hand and the exposed
dummy hand, and then envision a combination of remaining cards in the
opposition players' hands, even if quite unlikely, that could possibly
enable you to make the contract: And then proceed to play as if this were
the reality. And sometimes it
is! It seems to me that this
approach is an appropriate philosophy as we begin the PJP. To apply this line of thought to our
common predicament, a successful paradigm transition would likely require a
sequence such as this:
- The BPITeam will be
successful in gathering a critical level of support from at least a few
sectors of global society before irreversible tipping points of any of the
critical 3E categories.
- That the fiat debt-based money system
bubble will burst before the others. This event could trigger a rapid rise
in interest about the fledgling lifeboat regional units that have a basics
monetary system to facilitate trade.
In the ’68 book by Buckminster Fuller titled, Operating
Manual for Spaceship Earth, the author
comments on the nature of the spaceship:
Spaceship Earth was so extraordinarily well
invented and designed that to our knowledge humans have been on board it
for two million years not even knowing that they were on board a ship. And
our spaceship is so superbly designed as to be able to keep life
regenerating on board despite the phenomenon, entropy, by which all local
physical systems lose energy. So we have to obtain our biological
life-regenerating energy from another spaceship, the sun.
This is an important line: “.... not
even knowing that they were on board a ship.” Today’s governance is blind to this
insight. In the envisioned 050APC
scenario the ship metaphor is translated in the operation global governance
in a chapter named, UN Wheelhouse.
http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/4c-UN-Wheelhouse.pdf
In the 050APC scenario the ship’s instruments contain scientific and social
data needed to guide the ship toward a clearly defined future destination
in the sea of time. The destination
will be reached when human population is less than carrying-capacity, and
scientific data shows that, Earth
Overshoot Day, has changed to, Earth
Payback Day [G].
Wheelhouse heading changes will be promulgated
through to the relative autonomous regions of the world primarily by
monetary flow-control based largely on resource wealth data from within the
regions.
Today we can call the ship Titanic. The ship’s
captain and crew are not trained to deal with the problems at hand. Surely it’s time to relieve them of duty
– and rename the ship, Gaianicity.
Here are two
quotes from, The Anarchist By Irving Louis Herewitz,1964:
Page28 –
The great Anarchist Peter Kropotkin, Modern Science and Anarchism ‘1912
stated: “There is no point at which
anarchism is absolutely right. It is in considering the study of social
institutions as a chapter of natural sciences; when it parts forever with
metaphysics: and when it takes for its method of reasoning the method that
has served to build up all modern science and natural philosophy. If this method is followed, errors into
which into which anarchists have fallen will be easily recognized. But to verify our conclusions is only
possible by the scientific deductive method on which every scientific
concept of the universe has been developed.”
Page 166 – It is impossible to
legislate for the future. All we can
do is vaguely guess its essential tendencies and clear the way for it.
In his ‘88 book, Dream Of The Earth, Rev. Thomas Berry tells us that we need a
new story from which to take our collective guidance:
The industrial context in
which we presently function cannot be changed significantly in the
immediate future. Our immediate
survival is bound up in this context, with all its beneficial as well as
its destructive aspects. What is
needed, however, is a comprehensive change in the control and direction of
the energies available to us. Most
of all we need to alter our commitment from an industrial wonderworld
achieved by plundering processes to an integral earth community based on a
mutual enhancing human-earth relationship.
This move from an anthropocentric sense of reality and value to a
biocentric norm is essential.
British cyberneticist Stafford Beer, a
socio/political systems designer, built a primitive cybersyn system the early ‘70s for the Chilean
government. This led to the
overthrow and assassination of President Allende by a US-fostered
coup. From his earlier book, Designing
Freedom, Beer wrote:
I am
proposing simply that society should use its tools to redesign its institutions, and to operate those institutions
quite differently. You can
imagine all the problems. But the first and gravest problem is in the mind,
screwed down by all those cultural constraints. You will not need a lot of
learning to understand what I am saying: what you will need is intellectual
freedom. It is a free gift for all who have the courage to accept it.
Remember: our culture teaches us not intellectual courage, but intellectual
conformity.
Members of the w BPITeam w ill need to have the intellectual freedom to utilize
the tools available to us during our narrow window-of-opportunity. As suggested by Beer, very many existing
institutions can continue to operate much the same as they do today, but
will do some things a bit differently.
About 20 years ago I spent an evening with
Stafford at his home in Toronto and we carried on conversations by phone
and fax for about a year.
End of Part 2, Personal Comment
<<<>>>
A few references:
Personal home
page: http://members.kos.net/donchism/index.htm
>>
Regarding Spaceship
Earth here’s an interesting essay:
Captain Paul Watson on
Spaceship Earth
http://energyskeptic.com/2013/passengers-killing-crew-of-spaceship-earth/
>>
Regarding the psychological drivers of
consumerism see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOKl04TWVsU#t=58
>>
Regarding
US-orchestrated over though of governments throughout the world:
Another Year, Another Coup
Attempt In Venezuela
By Andre Vltchek http://www.countercurrents.org/vltchek170215.htm
Or John Pilger’s The New
Rulers Of The World
>>
Regarding
cybernetics:
Ashby W.R. (1958) Requisite variety and its
implications.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Books/AshbyReqVar.pdf
>>
An entry in the International Encyclopedia of Communication - 1997
Klaus Krippendorff University of Pennsylvania
http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/Cybernetics.pdf
>>
Stafford Beer and the Humankind Future:
“Firstly, it is
actually possible to redesign the institutions of government according to
the principles and practice of cybernetics. These are not wild dreams.
Secondly, there is a long way to go in dismantling bureaucracy, and I shall
discuss the problems of effecting change later in these talks. Thirdly, the
possibilities propose an urgent task for our next meeting: to discuss the
impact of such scientific advance as this on the status and freedom of the
individual.”
http://ototsky.mgn.ru/vsm/
End Part 2
Part 3:
The Circle of Issues
Paradigm Junction
Part 3
The Circle of Issue
To almost any good
suggestion about what we should do about the human predicament, the
generally valid answer is yes! – But you can't do this because of that! Here are a few elements of the highly
interactive circular dilemma defining paradigm paralysis:
* Human activity growth
is designed into today’s human-created system:
*The UN cannot help because its principle support comes from Nation
members;
*National leaders cannot help because they need the support of
voters;
*Humans tend not to like radical change, and....;
*Voters are highly influenced by their access to energy, i.e., money;
*Most voter's money comes from a corporation directly or indirectly;
*Corporations are designed to make money for their shareholders;
*The historic banking cartel has fostered a debt-based monetary system that
will
collapse without continuous
economic growth;
*Universities appear to fail to teach holistic overview or systems-thinking;
*80% (estimate) of humans have no interest or aptitude in long term or big
picture issues;
*However, gross Human activity (including the 80%) is now highly
influenced, by monetary flows
and monetary flow control could become the prime regulatory tool if
science-based governance;
*But monetary flows are
controlled today by corporate banks – the flow must always grow;
*Back to the beginning…..
It is useful to look at the combined elements of the human predicament as one big problem. (The problematique, as coined by the Club Of Rome.) It is the interactivity of the element
that makes it a wicked problem
[GL]. Therefore all elements must be
dealt with or accounted for in any solution. Also, each significant system element
must be identified as: variable; not variable; human-controllable, or
simply affected by our human-activity – which is actually a long-term
variable.
CIRCLE
CENTER
Gaia – Not
human-controllable
At the center of the circle of issues is our only
home, a sun-energized planet with lands and oceans and a thin atmosphere
enabling complex systems of live to evolve.
But today the balance of sun’s energy IN to energy radiated OUT
ratio is now disturbed by human activity, causing Global Warming and associated negative outcomes.
Human Nature – Not
human-controllable – but somewhat manageable
When governing ourselves we need to accommodate the good, the bad and the
ugly because the mix of our wide ranging psychological characteristics is
unlikely to change soon. However, we are relatively programmable by
external suggestion and forces.
Religions and our current corporate driven governance take full
advantage of this using a wide variety of well-honed techniques. Nevertheless, we are not all the same, as
explained by social psychologist Stanley Milgram who states: “We are puppets controlled by the strings
of society. Yet what is also true is that not all puppets jump when their
strings are pulled.” I find it
useful to us an 80/20 guideline – 80% do this and 20% do not. But the line between do and don’t do is fuzzy and variable.
It is genetic variation that enables evolution and it will also be a
vital enabler of revolutionary social change – our survival as a species
likely depends on it!
TOP LEFT, in purple
The Money System – Human
created and controllable
Corporate Control of the debt-based money system:
Money, as a means of exchange of goods and
services, is an essential tool to facilitate any form of civilization
beyond hunter-gatherer. Regarding
tools:
Man makes many tools and uses them effectively
in various fields of his activity, but he is always exposing himself to the
tyranny of the tools he has made. The result is that he is no more master
of himself, but an abject slave to his surroundings and the worst thing is
that he is not conscious of this fact.
–
By Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen philosophical writer in
1949
All organizations can be seen as human-created
tools. A few examples are:
religions; governments; games, corporations, and even the concept of land
ownership. Anthropologist Gregory
Bateson refers to these tools as abstract
deductions.
[2a page 9]
http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/2a-TheTriad.pdf
Here are more wise words about the money tool that
requires total redesign:
The few who
understand the system will either be so interested from its profits or so
dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.
~Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863
<<>>
James Galbraith’s statement to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, 2010.
I
write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught
since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the
financial crisis. Concepts including “rational expectations,” “market
discipline,” and the “efficient markets hypothesis” led economists to argue
that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect
their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that
widespread fraud therefore could not occur. Not all economists believed this
– but most did.
<<>>
I believe that banking institutions are more
dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. – Thomas Jefferson 1860
<<>>
Money plays the largest part in determining the
course of history.
– Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto (1848).
<<>>
Let
me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.
– Mayer Amschel Rothschild
(1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild.
<<>>
More at http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-money-masters/
Krugerman on the persecution complex of the 1% - Tim Perkins
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/opinion/krugman-paranoia-of-the-plutocrats.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
A three hour documentary about money magic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDtBSiI13fE
Historic economic meltdowns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis#Prior_to_19th_century
Albert Einstein once stated, No problem can be
solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world
anew. The task of the BPITeam am is to collectively see the world anew and then create the
architecture of a Gaia-centric science-based money system. Many observers have indicated this is
necessary. Riane Eisler offers the definition of wealth used in our BPG
Chapter header, and is expanded in section four of PJ: Real
wealth is a measurement of a robust ecology and the general health and
happiness of the people.
The tentacles of the money cartel either influence or take advantage
of all other blocks of the Circle of
Issues. The old Pogo adage, I have seen the enemy, and
it is us!, needs to be rephrased:
“I have seen the enemy, and it is the 1%
of us!” The rest of us are pulled by the strings.
The tragedy of the monetary system is dealt with at: http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/3a-MCP.pdf
RIGHT
SIDE, in yellow - from the top
Limited Regional Autonomy – Human-controllable
When explorers first started planting their nation’s flags on foreign soil,
the golden rule prevailed (Those with the gold, get to rule). The human tool of land ownership, already
entrenched in Europe, became the norm in the colonies, as individuals and corporations
staked their claims to the bewilderment and alarm of the aboriginal people
of the lands. (Mineral rights, another story!) As Reverend Desmond Tutu aptly put it: When the
white man came, we had the land, they had the bible. They asked us to bow our heads and pray,
and when we looked up, they had the land and we had the bible!
As in a monopoly game, historic economic cycles of
boom and bust led to land ownership eventually shifting into fewer and
fewer hands. Centuries ago feudalism
with absentee landlords eventually led to revolutions. Today’s absentee landlords are generally
corporations, able to extract minerals or food crops with little or no
benefit to the regional people and usually to the detriment of the local
environment. This must change. It is the region’s local people who have
attachment to and a close relationship with the land, its waters and
ecosystems.
Are the conditions ripe for revolution?
Gaian or Human well-being is Not a
Strategic Goal – Human-controllable
For Modern Industrial Civilization
(MIC), today’s corporate money leaders continue to use the nebulous Gross National Product as bottom
line goal to the peril of the living systems that sustain us. Our existing MIC is a dynamic system
without a viable goal. The dynamic
ingredient of time will cause any such system to crash.
When you have to classify the very capacity of the
Earth to support life as an "externality", then it is time to
rethink your theory. --Herman Daly--
False Concept of Wealth –
Human-controllable
Virtually every level of human-activity is effectively regulated by the
money tool, controlled by a few of – the 1%. Money in hand enables us to buy some real
wealth, which is usually a product related to food, goods or a human
service such as health care or entertainment. For the vast majority of us, personal
spending is limited by our monetary income.
Where women are free and equal, procreation choices are influenced
by financial considerations. Even
corporations and governments limit spending based on their bottom
line. Credit, or borrowing computer
generated fiat money, enables spending beyond one’s means while one’s
interest payments on non-existent money from the debt-based system further
increase the fiat $ wealth of the banks.
As economist John Kenneth Galbraith once famously
observed, “The process by which money
is created is so simple it repels
the mind.”
Money is historically the master regulator of
human activity, making the title of William Edghahl’s ‘09 book, The Gods of Money, very
descriptive. It is past time to open
the curtain and dethrone 1% while we create a transparent monetary system
that can become a controlling element of a science-based, dynamic
governance system.
A few faults of
today’s governance covered at: http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/BPG/3b-ParadigmFlaws.htm
THE
THREE BOTTOM LINE ISSUES, in green
Fossil Fuel Depletion – Human
controllable
The discovery of fossil fuels energized the explosive growth in human-activity
of the past two centuries. But the
energy flow rate seems to have plateaued, as long ago predicted by
geologists such as King Hubbert, creator of the Hubbert Peak graphic [Wiki]. The
cheap and easy fossil energy is gone, and now it comes at the cost of ever
greater energy to find, extract, ship and process. [C Hall,
EI:EO] In financial jargon this is called diminishing returns.
Corporate absentee-landlords frack and degrade our
lands to add a few more years to the engine of growth, while exacerbating
the ecological disasters of the next two green blocks.
Global Warming – Human
activity caused
Even if there are factors other than human
activity, there are no other credible reasons for the spike at the end of a
historical graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This issue is not just a game-changer, it
may well be the game-ender.
Biodiversity Depletion – Human
activity caused
As above, the dire nature and cause of this issue is likely well
understood by anyone who may read this.
(Google Biodiversity Loss)
THREE HUMAN NATURE ISSUES, in pink
Human Nature – is not an integral part of social design – Human-controllable
While human nature is not part of social design, it plays a major role in
shaping corporate agenda to promote growth in resource throughput. For example, the consumer-generation, and Christmas-gifting have been carefully
crafted by corporate media to take advantage of vanity, short term
self-interest and peer-pressure.
Regular fashion/style changes along with manufactured obsolescence
and throwaway products are some of the many tricks, orchestrated through
deceptive and targeted advertising.
Using techniques honed fifty years ago by the tobacco industry, the
self-interest of fossil fuel giants now foster the FUD industry – Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt – to sway the gullible public
into the comfort of believing that environmental warnings are not real.
Books such as Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, delve into the ways
we are manipulated.
The social design of a sustainable society would
blend human wants and needs with practical availability. It would focus on the concept of, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics
As If People Mattered (a 1973 Schumacher book). A similar thought category, recently
labelled as our trust horizon by
Nicole Foss, is summarized here by James Kunstler:
As the economy contracts, Americans are gazing at
the “Trust Horizon” for big government. On the other hand, more people are
forging their own trust networks at a very local level. Topics include:
local currencies, bartering, small transport networks, basic local
healthcare and permaculture initiatives.
http://kunstlercast.com/shows/kunstlercast-190-the-trust-horizon.html
When voting at the national level, your vote is
worth one in many million, whereas voting within a significantly autonomous
regional government would have greater personal meaning and impact. On the more personal side of this
concept, family and friends are the most meaningful to us, and then local
community and regional issues which can be of personal concern. National voting?, not so much. [2a page 3]
Compexity Overload – isolation of issues – Not
human controllable
Renowned cosmologist Carl Sagan wrote:
We live in a society
absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly
arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That’s clearly a prescription for
disaster!
A short Sagan
video explains why a change
toward dynamic Blue Planet Governance
(BPG) is essential to our survival!
While Sagan’s quote refers only to science and
technology, the same applies to the shadow world of economics, banks, money
creation and self-interests that affect cultural processes. Regarding the combustible mixture that
Sagan speaks of, the explosion actually began in slow-motion as the
industrial age first lit the fuse of the fossil-fuel bomb: and rapid growth
in human activity became a normalized element of the paradigm.
Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the
equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." R. Emmett Tyrrell in The American
Spectator, September 6, 1992
Within this paradigm there continue to be no
governmentally-implemented feedback mechanisms to limit growth, even when
the general well-being of the environment and the people are negatively
affected by growth-related issues: This is a defining element of addiction [2a page5].
This issue is also summarized as Jevon’s
paradox. About 1865 an
economist called Jevon observed that smog from coal heating and industry
had causing health concerns: This had fostered a new industry based on ways
to improve furnace efficiency, hopefully to clear the air. But Jevon found that: Any
increase in energy supply from any source or by any method, such as
improved efficiency, will cause the economy to grow; and this will further
increase the economy's energy demand! Jevon’s paradox remains
valid today as arctic nations tussle to see which one(s) get to extract the
rich oil reserves that are becoming available because of catastrophic
global warming – full speed ahead toward the ice berg!! Jevon’s Paradox is purely a management
issue, but our primitive form of governance has no viable goal and it has
no feedback mechanism to limit growth regardless of the eventual outcome.
But as noted at the beginning of this synopsis,
even when a group of national leaders understand the fundamentals of limits to growth, paradigm paralysis
cannot be broken because it includes the general public who display a
rigor-mortis-like resistance to change
– that is, resistance to change
without clear cause. However,
governments are quite capable of making a rapid shift in public attitudes
when the need can be shown to be related to national sovereignty or
security, even if it requires a false-flag operation to sway the masses to
support a war effort. Now it gets
personal!
Unfortunately, universities don’t help deal with
this complexity issue - they are sometimes referred to as specialization
silos, and also they are growing evermore dependent on corporate
financing. Within the general public
there are many specialists and practitioners of all the fields necessary to
orchestrate a viable paradigm change, but to date there has been no central
plan, or committee to act as a central hub to make the pieces fit
together. It is the task of the BPITeam
to begin this process.
Human enchantment with, and devotion to,
abstract deductions – Not human-controllable
A short quote penned by George Lakoff:
The notion that people will give up irrational
beliefs when presented with solid evidence is itself an irrational belief,
unsupported by the evidence.
The glaring aspect of Lakoff’s observation most
relevant to this discussion is the pervasive belief that the last 150 years
of exponential growth can and must continue, even though a cursory look at
solid evidence clearly indicates this is impossible. Many governments now respond to this with
various tools to discredit or deny science, similar to an addict in fierce
defensive denial of his or her addiction.
Three decades ago the UK’s Margaret Thatcher used the phrase, TINA, There Is No Alternative to
growth. And she was right, because
the growth model allows no alternative!
It is this alternative
that the BPITeam must develop before the Economics component of the 3Es enters total meltdown and the
computer numbers that represent multi billions of fiat $ wealth disappear
forever. If we are ready, when this
chaotic transition period does occur it can be seen as a time reminiscent
of biblical Jubilee [4e page 5], when all debts are forgiven and lands
are redistributed and the irrational growth belief is broken – the addict has bottomed out. And it is not likely to be brought about
by evidence, but by abrupt situational change as the banks go down.
The economic meltdown can provide the opportunity
for crew-change on Spaceship Earth,
providing that there has been widespread acceptance of the shadow
government’s regionalization initiatives, and compatible local currencies
established.
With 7+ billion humans now on aboard, we cannot
afford to lose all of our technologies, even though very many are not
essential. It is the job of one of
the outreach teams to work toward establishing these essential technology
pools that will be required to sustain the tenuous period civilization
loses segments of today’s complexity.
Human nature is covered at: [2a page 4] http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/BPG/2a-TheTriad.htm
HUMAN
ACTIVITY, top right in purple
Human Activity now beyond Gaian limits: – Human-controllable
The resource throughput component of human-activity
can be regulated by intelligent government regulation. Economist JW Smith speculated that MIC
could operate quite satisfactorily with an 80% energy reduction if we use
what we need, rather than perceived needs and sheer waste.
Regarding the population component, a common
wisdom among naturalists is that when any species finds a rich niche
environment, overgrowth and die-off will occur. Humanity’s rich niche has been high
energy-content fossil fuels and we have followed nature’s dead-end pathway
as if human reason did not exist.
Industrial nations often promote population growth to provide the
labour needed to facilitate growth to provide low-cost labour. Large families are fostered by
pro-natalist religions based on tenets dictated centuries ago. And also, we inherit nature’s strong
impulse to procreate.
And yet we observe population decline in some
nations. A scan of national
population growth data shows the highest rates of growth are in counties
where pro-natalist religion and/or poverty are dominant factors. Countries with low or negative growth
rates tend to be relatively affluent, socially-oriented, societies where
women are educated, free and equal.
This suggests that the dire human population issue is principally a
management issue, not a genetic imperative.
On
November 12, 1936 Winston Churchill grew so exasperated with the continuing
failure of Britain to prepare for Hitler’s onslaught that he charged in a
speech to the House of Commons: “The government simply cannot make up
their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his
mind. So they go on in strange
paradox, decide only to be undecided, resolve to be irresolute, adamant for
drift, solid for fluidity, all –powerful to be impotent... the era of procrastination,
of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients of delays, is coming
to its close. In its place we are
entering a period of consequences.”
Now that we have entered the period of
consequences,
Are we ready to enact?
End Part 3:
Part 4:
Overview and Q & A
Overview and Q & A
Paradigm Junction Project
Some of the following questions have actually been
asked and some are simply a lead-in to explain envisioned details about
social, political and economic change as described in greater detail in the
scenario of 050 APC (50 years After Paradigm Change)
Q 1: Why
is it essential that overall governance operates as a dynamic system?
The simple answer is that a dynamic system, has a
viable goal, it measures progress toward that goal, and it provides dynamic
feedback to adjust human-actively levels in order for the goal to be met in
the future, while sustaining relative social order. All of these elements are needed, and
they form the basic elements of a dynamic system [2b].
A longer answer: Although not widely recognized as
such, nature’s way of integrating a diverse array of parts into a
functioning whole uses dynamic system principles. In any system this process provides a
massive synergy gain over the sum of component parts. It requires an energy source and it has a
goal. Examples from nature are
plants and animals, each with its multitude of integrated component parts
and sub-systems functioning semi-autonomously to achieve the goal. The goal is to survive as an individual
in order to propagate the species.
None of the subsystems can survive outside the body, and the body
cannot survive without the subsystems, although a robust system has some
built-in redundancy. This is a symbiotic relationship.
Many human made machines have some dynamic system
characteristics, i.e., toilets, cars, any automated process, etc.
Successful corporate conglomerates utilize the same basic cybernetic
principles to manage sub-system human groups such as branches, or internal
divisions, such as Engineering and Manufacturing: Sometimes included are
independent subcontractors that must also meet the Quality Assurance requirements of the prime contractor. Individuals working within these
semiautonomous sub-system groups tend to be more productive and happier
than individuals that would be as just one small cog in a much larger
wheel. Two-way feedback keeps all
informed of the goal and the variations from it. Some of today’s large multinational
corporations employ more people than some small countries. The corporate
goal is profit and will do whatever it can to survive. The goal of BPG is
long-term survival within a modified form of MIC using dynamic systems
principles.
Chapter 2b is about dynamic system [http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/2b-DynamicSystems.pdf].
Because plants and animals operate as dynamic
systems, earlier revisions of PJ used, Governance
by Natural Processes (GNP) in the header. But we changed to, Blue Planet Governance (BPG) because the image of home planet
being just a small blue planed floating in space tends to resonate with the
human spirit. We thank the late
cosmologist Carl Sagan for the image and ideas that it inspires.
A short Sagan
video explains why Blue Planet Governance (BPG) that
incorporates science guided feedback on human activity is essential to our
survival!
The existing arrangement of nation, state, city,
county, of today’s global MIC, is system-like, but in many ways does not
meet the requirements of a viable
dynamic system. The most glaring
fault is the insane goal of infinite growth, driven by major feedback loops
promoting growth. In today’s world
the division of power evolved out of feudal times, and founding
constitutions remain cemented in place today, even though changed physical
realities dictate they are no longer appropriate – leaving us stuck in paradigm paralysis. The original regulatory authority of
national governments has been significantly eroded by years of corporate
hegemony, enabling corporations to have massive influence in overall
governmental management: Systemically speaking, this is a fatal flaw. This shift in control is described in the
titles of two books: John McMurtry's (U of Guelph), The Cancerous State of Capitalism and David Korten's When Corporations Rule The World.
Section 4 of PJ presents a backcast, the reverse
of forecast. It is looking back from
the future 50 years after paradigm change.
To graphically illustrate what governance systems might look like
after 50 years of progressive steps, below is a simplified graphic of what
Global Governance could look 50 years after Paradigm Junction finally
occurs.
This figure is extracted from more detailed
Figures 5, Chapter 4b Dynamic Societies, and Figure 6 Chapter 4c UE-Wheelhouse.
The blocks called Regions of the world in 050APC represent the lands of the world, where
all the people live. These
significantly autonomous Regions are likely to be quite different in
geographic size, in human population numbers and in cultural
underpinnings. As the transition
from the obsolete paradigm begins in early 21st century, many of
the Regions may begin as the relatively small countries of Europe, of
Africa and South America. Many
Provinces of Canada and the States of USA may also be starting points. But eventually borders would likely
change when adjoining Regional governments agreed that it would be mutually
beneficial to do so because of cultural or geographic realities. For example, North America might have
several Regions featuring aboriginal cultures.
During initial development of these
Regions it is likely to be a chaotic process over many years. The initial
push for change will come from today’s accelerating groundswell of social
unrest from educated young people with many calls for localization and to become more self-sufficient, or locally
autonomous. But if they do not have an embryonic shared vision of a longer term
goal and a plan to get there, a viable cohesive end result would be very
unlikely.
A useful philosophy of the PJ-SOS team
will be to: Build it and they will come!
The large greenish circle is the United Regions
(UR), a chaordic organization create by Regions of the world. It represents a vastly changed United Nations (UN).
The State Of
Gaia (SOG) section gathers science based data from all corners of the
world is processed to establish ecological well-being guidance data.
The Human
Activity Index (HAI) section gathers data on human well-being,
including indices of human happiness and on the state of corporations and
social infrastructure.
The Global
Standards (GS) group deals with refined data from the other departments
and it processes this feedback into legal and regulatory rules and
guidelines. The rules for
human-activity within “the commons” are established here. They also establish the basic legal requirements
for Regional membership in this common global market place. And they establish recommended guidelines
for human responsibilities and rights.
The blue oval, UR Defence, enforces the rules with
the commons, and is the arbitrator of last resort in interregional
disputes.
The green oval, the Bank Of Gaia (BOG) regulates the supply of money quantity and
flow rate in each Region of the world, based on each Region’s Wealth Factor assessment [4e
page7]. As noted in the Rothchild
quote above, “Let
me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” Human-activity levels have been, and will
continue to be, influenced by affluence, or monetary flow control and where
Regional governments take a lead in helping their citizens make informed
decisions in both human procreation and resource throughput.
The scientific, legal, economic, political and
statistical personnel of the UR are elected by Regional governments, or
perhaps, Association of Regional governments.
To begin the dynamic processes, only a few
regions, or splinters of regions, will be necessary to form the expandable
nucleus for others to join after agreeing to essential platform elements of
Blue Planet Governance (BPG). At
the beginning stages, it will be rather a “pretend” dynamic process, still
heavily dependent on Modern
Industrial Civilization (MIC) in its current form. As support for BPG grows, elements of the
dynamic system can begin to “test” processes to be ready when a critical
number of regions adopt BPG and eventually start the dynamic governance
engine for real.
Within the proposed BPG system there is likely to
be a great deal of variation from Region to Region. Some may wish to maintain historic
cultural or religious traditions. As
a chaordic mix, it is likely to be more robust as a result of the overall
diversity within the root networks.
But they all must adopt the acceptance criteria and agree to
participate in its essential processes to become members of BPG (see Q2).
Details at:
http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/4d-TheViewFrom050APC.pdf & http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/4e-DynamicFlows.pdf
These chapters
provide greater detail of how the overall dynamic system could be developed
and how it might operate.
The brief summary below underlines the primary
elements of the dynamic BPG system:
The goal is to reach the
point when the human ecological footprint is small enough to enable Gaia to
renew.
The means of regulation
is by monetary flow control.
Measurements continually assessment of the state of Gaia, the state of the
economy and the state of human wellbeing.
Feedback levels are determined by the short-term rate-of-change in human
activity needed to minimize chaos and human suffering (maximum human
happiness) while respecting the long-term needs of the Gaian mother
system, and also with regard to available energy and other
essential resources.
Without rapid implementation of a science-based
regulated system there is virtually no possibility of a viable future for
today’s young generations.
Q2: What are the criteria for Regional
membership in BPG?
Before answering, it is necessary to understand a
few other familiar human-created tools that need to change for systemic
compatibility.
-Creation of BPG will be a Jubilee-like event. [Wiki] A
new form of money will be issued as a commodity-based
monetary system rooted in real
Regional wealth. The commodity
package consists of a variety of wealth-factors such as: a Region’s
capability to capture nature’s flow-energy (erroneously called renewable energy); or have
manufacturing or research facilities; or to be stewards of large areas of
untouched nature; or to have institutes for education; to produce food
sustainably; etc. The wealth factor
scaling system is such that both urban and rural are able to coexist
symbiotically. [e4 page 7]
-The monetary limits for each Region are regulated
by the UR Bank of Gaia, based on
that Region’s (auditable) wealth-factor assessment.
-Corporate or private ownership of the commons
must change to Regional stewardship of their
commons. Regions may make renewing
lease agreements with corporations [4e page 2];
-Corporate shareholding will change from ownership
by private individuals, to corporate ownership by Regional governments [4e page
3];
-All citizens receive basic livable income
regardless of earned income [4e page 5].
There is a ceiling on an individual’s total income.
-The local Bank
of Gaia keeps tabs on all money in circulation, including individual
savings.
-In order for Regional governments to have maximum
autonomy and influence over their human-activity levels, Regions have some
of the powers that are normally at the national level in today’s
world. For example, a Region’s
digital currency is not directly compatible with the currency of other
Regions, but is suitable for direct local trade only. Cross border exchanges are facilitated
through the local Bank of Gaia. Regional governments may wish to limit
trade with some Regions for various reasons. Trade is prohibited with areas of the
world not within the BPG network.
Illegal immigration is prevented because non-residents have no means
of monetary exchange within any Region other than where they are a
citizen. [e4 page 2]
With these changes in mind, here are the proposed criteria that a
region must agree to prior to membership in BPG. [4e page 2]
o To operate a Regional Government in accordance with democratic
principles;
o To participate in Regional wealth measurement and reporting;
o To operate a Regional Bank of Gaia (BG-R);
o To accept Gaia$ as the only means of exchange of goods and
services, except direct neighborly barter.
(There was a period of overlap in the early days as the blown bubble
of the fiat$ standard drifted into oblivion.)
o To publicly express total Regional wealth as Wealth Per Capita (WPC);
o To hold public training sessions to explain why some ways of
doing things must be vastly different from the way it was done BPC (Before
Paradigm Change). A few of the new
concepts will be, no private land ownership, money will be interest-free,
and a basic living wage for all who accept Regional citizenship. The 12
Personal Gaia
Principles are offered as
guideline material.
The general management of a Region could be very
much like the management of a corporation with an elected president and
board of directors and a quality assurance section to audit key data flows,
and keep the dynamic systems functional and in compliance with GNP
standards.
“We hunger for communities of meaning that can
transcend the individualism and selfishness that we see around us and that
will provide an ethical and spiritual framework that gives our lives some
higher purpose.”
— Michael Lerner, The Politics of Meaning
Q3: How could corporations function within such
an environment?
Many corporations will remain essential providers
of goods and services in the operation of the changed MIC. This includes
cultural and entertainment enterprises, a requirement for a generally happy
society that has significantly more leisure time than before, now that
automaton works for community well-being rather than private corporate
shareholders.
Suppose that, at a given
moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of
pins. They make as many pins as the
world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the
same number of men can make twice as many pins. Pins are already so cheap that hardly any
more will be bought at a lower price.
In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins
would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else
would go on as before. But in the
actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are
too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously
concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much
leisure as in the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half
are still overworked. In this way it
is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all around
instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?
Bertrand Russell
In Praise of Idleness and Other
Essays - 1935
Corporate operations will be somewhat different at
the management levels but at the worker level there will be virtually no
change, except for the peace of mind that if their job becomes redundant,
they will always have a living wage, as determined by their Regional
government.
Regional governments of the world are the
corporate shareholders. They buy or
sell shares much like today’s stock market.
Corporations will remain in a competitive world where leaders and
workers add to their basic income, although unlike today it would be to a
limited degree [4e pages 3 & 4].
Many goods and services will be provided by non-profit
corporations.
The business of agriculture is likely to require
more manual labour than before fossil fuel phase-out began.
Q4: How
does monetary flow-control regulate human-activity?
The resource throughput side of human-activity has
been, and will continue to be, limited by the amount of money in
circulation. The first stage of
regulation will be set by the UR Bank
of Gaia, based on that region’s wealth factors and their population [e4 page
7]. Those Regions with a positive wealth
factor balance will have more money per capita than those with a negative
balance.
Monetary transactions and accumulations are
transparent, with all of a region’s money being accounted for at any given
time.
A Region’s total money is always expressed as
Wealth Per Capita (WPC), as a reminder that general wealth is inversely
proportional to human population.
Regarding the gross population issue, it is up to
the elected Regional government to influence procreation decisions. Local peer pressure can be a strong
individual motivator. Also, Regional
governments will be motivated to foster action because it is likely that
Regions not making an effort to achieve a reasonable wealth-factor balance
will soon lose the ability to trade with other Regions. It’s a matter of survival! [4c page 6]
Q5: A: How long would it take to get to the goal
of having an overall human footprint
sustainable within Gaia?
B: What would the global human
population be?
This is discussed at [4e page 6].
Answers to questions A and B are not knowable with much
accuracy. The key information needed
now is that most regions of the world will likely find that their
wealth-factor assessment data will indicate they are overpopulated, and the
human numbers must be reduced for long term survival. Therefore, the dynamic regulation should
be set to encourage reduced births.
If a one-child-per-female policy were adopted globally, it may take
70 years to reach the goal.
Q6: How would BPG deal with regions that refuse
to share their resources?
Membership in BPG is voluntary and requires
continuous compliance with basic requirements. However, interregional trade agreements
require the goodwill of both parties.
A symbiotic relationship cannot be a one way street.
Q7: How do groups of BPG Regions deal with
areas of the world with no interest in joining?
There may be a few self-sustaining aboriginal
communities which should be left alone and protected. For other regions, BPG governments simply
do not trade with them. But it is
likely that the UR will need to maintain a distributed military force for
many years to protect the global commons from poaching, and protect
prosperous Regions from invasion by other parts of the world.
Q8: Wouldn't a "sustainable"
society have to live only on naturally-occurring
vegetation? Extraction
of mineral resources is "unsustainable," because
sooner-or-later, one is going
to run-out of whatever one is digging for. Complete
recycling of minerals is
physically impossible.
Eventually extraction of non-renewable resources
would need to end. But there could
be a rapid large reduction in energy and resource usage, perhaps 80%, if
corporate driven waste was ended. As
total population is slowly reduced, and products are designed for a long
useful life, the need for new extraction would be vastly reduced.
Today’s essential task is to redesign the
sociopolitical structures in order to ensure that our next generations will
have the opportunity to scientifically assess and deal with these issues
when they occupy the wheelhouse of spaceship Earth. Our generation may still have a chance to
end the growth paradigm with a relatively soft landing. Let us do our part!
End Part 4, Q & A
~~~
Part 5: Support for PJP
Paradigm Junction Project
Support for PJP
If a viable society is ever to emerge out of the
moribund growth paradigm, PJP will need a wide range of acceptance both
from individuals of any age and from the many existing compatible group
initiatives seeking pathways that might lead to a sane and sustainable
future.
Besides simple endorsement of the concept of PJP
for the ray of hope it may provide, to begin the process we need a group of
individuals with a variety of skills who will cooperate in online
development of first steps toward laying out the organizational
infrastructure of GNP.
Please note:
The ideas laid out in the 050APC scenarios are offered as an example of a
dynamic system for governance that appears to work on paper which attempts
to accommodate at least some common features of human-nature. This should be considered a starting
draft: Scrutiny by others will no doubt find significant room for change
and improvement.
To begin the development process, the Yahoo list
serve gaiapc.ca will be the primary discussion channel.
For now, please send an email to donchism@kos.net to indicate your level of support of PJP
and an indication of what part of the world you are from.
For example:
Level One:
Please add your name as supportive
of the Paradigm Junction Project.
Level Two:
Volunteers are needed to assist
with the Paradigm Junction Project
. Let’s discuss possibilities.
Level Three:
Provide a
quotable comment on thoughts about the Paradigm Junction Project.
{In a paragraph or two}
<<<>>>
Index to all chapters of Paradigm Junction
at http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/1a-Index.pdf
A poem by Dr. Karen I. Shragg ---
~~Think
Like a Tree ~~
Soak
up the sun
Affirm life's magic
Be graceful in the wind
Stand tall after a storm
Feel refreshed after it rains
Grow strong without notice
Be prepared for each season
Provide shelter to strangers
Hang tough through a cold spell
Emerge renewed at the first signs of spring
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky
Be still long enough to
hear your own leaves rustling.
This and other relevant offerings in Chapter and Verse http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/5b-ChapterAndVerse.pdf
<<<<End
of section>>>
Back to Index http://gaiapc.ca/PJ/BPG/1a-Index.htm
Next Chapter: The New Story
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