Written by ENRIQUE LESCURE

INTRODUCTION

What is a civilization?

The textbook definition is that it is a complex society characterised by urban development, professional specialisation, symbolic communication forms and a separation between mankind and nature. That definition, however is inadequate to explain what a civilization really is, since it fails to account for how a civilization perpetuates itself and manages to glue itself together.

Ultimately, it can be said that the situationist interpretation of society as a “theatre play” to some extent is true, since human civilization is an on-going process created by institutions which in their turn are constantly being formed by repetitive behaviours and rituals, which are encompassing the social fabric of a civilization and giving it resilience. It is also quite true that such patterns are necessary in order to uphold a civilization. This should not be taken as an endorsement of all norms ever developed by humans, especially as several customs – institutionalised and ritualised racism, subordination, sexism and animal abuse to take a few examples – are imposing various degrees of pain on unwilling participants. Without norms, however, complex societies will not be possible, due to situations arising where individuals may need to sacrifice the interests of themselves and their close kin for other individuals or groups of people who aren’t as closely related. In short, civilization as a concept could be defined as an on-going effort of realising itself.

It could be argued that a civilization concretely depends on three to four interlinked aspects which to some extent shape one another:

• A geographical bio-region which provides areas for settlement and resource extraction. (Aspect Zero).
• An infrastructure which allows human beings to take out a surplus necessary to form the basis for an organised way of life.
• A culture of norms and expectations regarding interpersonal and inter-group behaviour which provide a manner of conflict resolution in tow with a common sense consensus.
• A cluster of internally consistent values which serves to legitimise the status quo and the very existence of the civilisation in question.

This article will focus on the fourth and last of these aspects, in short what constitutes a hegemonic ideology, why a hegemonic ideology is needed, how the current hegemonic ideology – Liberalism – operates, and how it relates to our current way of life and our civilization. And thirdly, I will devote this article to define and elaborate on The Ideology of the Third Millennium, which is the driving value compendium behind our movement.

TL;DR SUMMARY

• Human beings are dependent on food and sleep for sustenance.
• Society arises because it offers humans scale benefits.
• Human beings are however not biologically evolved to organise in large groups.
• Societies need internally consistent value systems from which concepts of justice, arbitration and power could be derived.
• Such value systems can establish themselves in the form of cultural traditions and intellectual systems such as religion, philosophy and ideology.
• Ultimately, the purpose of an ideology is to establish what the meaning of the civilization project is.
• Our current hegemonic ideology, Liberalism, was created during a period when we could not foresee how the biosphere could be imperilled by carefree usage of the planet’s surface and resources.
• Therefore, we need a new hegemonic ideology.
• The ideology of the Third Millennium exists to establish an internally consistent array of ethics integrated within one intellectual system for the future sustainable civilization.
• Our goal is to create a holistic ideological system where the liberties and rights of individuals should be enshrined and protected.

WHAT YOU CAN ASCERTAIN

As a human being, there are only two things you can know the existence of – your own consciousness and an external reality which it (your consciousness) is unable to directly exert total control over.

Your body is not fully autonomous, but dependent on nutrition which it cannot produce on its own, only acquire from external sources. If your body’s intake of water and food is inadequate, it will start to break down and you will eventually die.

Therefore, you need to eat to live. And when you are eating, you are utilising physical surface on the planet, which other species desire too, for they too need to eat – otherwise they shall perish as individuals. As Lierre Keith wrote: “For you to live, something else will need to die”.

I am perfectly aware that statements such as these are not popular or opportune for the young generations in the western world. Our current civilization has done a great work to separate ourselves from the reality created by our patterns of consumerism and resource usage, putting a veil of conscious ignorance between our manner of living and the effects it has on the biosphere.

Now, our movement is as pro-humanity a movement as there ever was. We desire for humanity to thrive on this Earth sustainably, and to secure the existence of a civilization for millennia. We need to eat, but we need to use the surface and space provided to us as wisely and optimally as possible.

To return to the topic of human existence – in order to amplify our ability to survive, we tend to cluster together in communities. We are a social species, and for untold generations humans lived, ate and socialised within the framework of small kinship communities living a life-style as hunter-gatherers. Organising in larger societies demand more complex forms of organisation, which are not adapted to our biological nature.

In short, conflicts that arise within the confinement of small groups can be solved through case-by-case arbitration when the group is a small, closely related band of Palaeolithic roamers. If you start to see emerging communities of hundreds of individuals, some which are not that closely related, you may soon witness the breakdown of society into groups fighting turf wars over living space and resources. This has forced through an evolution over the ages, in most sedentary civilisations, towards institutions – both formal and informal – which regulate and channel human behaviour, interests and passions in a manner which should reduce activities destructive for the continuation of civilization.

Note that most ideologies and treatises written by philosophers and leaders have focused on how to make humans live together and how to regulate the usage of land and property in such a manner that society doesn’t break down.

Modes of control

Most societies generally have three different forms of control which are used to uphold stability and establish norms and patterns of behaviour. In general, control is utilised in order to make the individual act in a manner which is seen as in accordance with the values and interest of greater society (beyond the kin of the individual), even if this manner in question would entail the individual moving against their own interests or the interests of their close relatives. Note that we do not claim that control in itself is something which always should be aspired towards, or that all forms of control are ethically sound.

• Physical control – whereas one or several dominant figures operate through a chain of command, with the power to execute punishments and dole out rewards. The oldest form of control, prevalent since hundreds of millions of years back when animals started to use their size to dominate those smaller or weaker than themselves.
• Social control – when the fear of rejection and the desire to be included within the meaningful framework of a social kinship is putting impact upon the behaviour of an individual. This kind of control seems to be organically ingrained in normally functioning human beings, as any casual observation of a schoolyard would indicate. This form of control is strongly related to cultural mores and is generally providing stability beyond what individual leaders could muster. Could be observed in species of social mammals apart from humanity, especially amongst apes.
• Inner control – externally the simplest and most peaceful type of control, but the internally most complex form since it doesn’t rely of any hypothetical intervention from another party, just their mere existence. The individual here has formed a super-ego, an ideal version of themselves which they strive to realise and which they judge their actions in relation with. For an example, a person may refrain from committing an act considered illegal or immoral, even if there was conceivably no risk of getting caught, due to the sense of disconnect it would create between the idealised meta-identity of the individual and actions violating this idealised image. For example, a person may refrain from taking in possession an object of value found in a remote place, and instead opt to contact the police, even though there is little to none risk of being discovered and chastised by the wider society.

Of course, these three forms of control coexist in most human societies presently existing on our globe, though they vary in composition, emphasis and strength dependent on both societies and individuals. Some rare individuals may only be curtailed by fear of physical retribution, and some equally rare individuals are mostly driven by their inner locus of control.

The Ideology of the Third Millennium views the third form of control as the most evolved, and see in it one of the keys for humanity to achieve inner sustainability. When people strive consciously towards being the ideal they want to see implemented in the world, the amount of discord, self-interest and oppression will decrease – because humanity will evolve towards a more advanced state of existence.

This, however, necessitates a common foundation of values. The system of ethics ingrained into a civilization regarding human interrelationships, proper responses to events and how to show respect and consideration for other human beings and non-human individuals, and the principles from which these patterns are emerging must be consistent, allow for a spectrum of interpretation and be flexible enough to handle new situations. A civilization displaying a wildly varying diversity of ethical systems without the majority connecting to one overarching more is destined to rip itself apart. Right now, there are literally hundreds of different ethical systems throughout our Earth, some of which are diametrically opposed. Often-most, tribal ethical systems use two different sets of ethical rulers – one applied for the tribe and one for those outside of it. Such ethical systems can properly not be attributed as ethics as all, because they are per definition only serving the collective self-interest of one group above everyone else. It is advised to take a stare at Papua New Guinea to realise that the simultaneous implementation of dozens of particularist ethical belief systems on the same geographic space will produce a result which is beyond sub-optimal for all involved parties.

Thus, an ethos for a multi-ethnic, future sustainable civilization needs to be universal. That is not said that all other systems of ethics shall be repressed, but just as under Liberalism, there should be one which is normative.

Why cannot, however, Liberalism be that ethos, as it already is the dominant Ethos of the western world, and indeed is universalist and establish equal rights of all human beings?

ON LIBERALISM

At first glance, Liberalism – the hegemonic ideology of today’s western world – appears to be the best constructed and most consistent of the ideologies until now created, not the least because it has, as Francis Fukuyama evidently pointed out, of the large ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries it’s the only one still widely practiced, while its rivals – Marxism-Leninism and Third Positionism – have largely ceased to exist as rival claimants to the interpretation of reality. If we look at the western world, with a few fringe exceptions, democratic socialism and conservatism can today be viewed not as independent ideologies in their own right, but as outliers of Liberalism which are basing most of their value systems on the heritage of classical liberals and social liberals.

Without dwelling too much on what Liberalism is or from where it is derived, we can state that we define it as an ideology centred upon the individual as a legal subject, and on the idea that laws should be founded on natural, individual rights. All adult individuals are viewed as equal in terms of being citizens and legal subjects. Conflicts between human beings should, in case a party is breaching law or causing injury, be solved within the framework of public or civil courts. A principle of separation of powers shall ensure that the state cannot fall under the power of one individual or faction. Another principle is democracy, that those tasked with government should rule with consent of the electorate and be representatives rather than rulers.

All of these principles, we agree with.

So why do we then need a new Ideology?

Because, there are several issues with Liberalism that makes it ill-equipped to intellectually and empathically deal with our current global ecological crisis. Moreover, some of the way in which Liberalism grade its principles are actually detrimental to our ability to transition the world towards a sustainable future.

• Liberalism sees the individual as the focus and subject of society – the purpose of society is to guarantee individual rights visavi other individuals. However, an individual is not an atomised unit, but a consciousness dependent on a physical support system (a body) which is dependent on nutrients which can only be extracted from external sources (of the individual). If we exclude that reality, we disconnect the individual from the environment and render the environment into an abstraction.
• Natural rights – the foundation of human rights – are based on the protection of property, which is seen as an absolute right. In fact, most classical liberal philosophers derive their philosophy of rights from the idea that all individuals possess natural self-ownership over their bodies. This brings with a number of problems, because multinational corporations – abstract entities really – are given equal (de jure) and more than equal (de facto, since they have more capital and thence time to act through the court system) powers in arbitration regarding conflict with individuals. In several countries, companies poison the water, destroy the air and subject their workers to inhumane working conditions, and the system of property rights are used as an ideological shield to justify their atrocities.
• Rights are seen as being derived from the potential ability to reason, meaning that they are belonging exclusively to human beings. Thus, according to Liberalism, animals are either ‘externalities’ (if being a part of the wildlife), or property (if being domestic), and the well-being of the animal must always be weighed in relation to what damage intervention inflicts on the property rights of the owner. (See the article “Relational Rights”)
• An economy must always primarily be a free market governed by the derivatives of supply and demand. Demand from this perspective is a function of the consumer’s demand curve, which basically denotes their monetary capability to consume. This means that a wealthy German male is seen as having the same right to acquire the ownership of a mechanical clock displaying a doll with an old geezer who can drag down his pants and fart, as a poor Malian woman is having a right to water and rice.
• The environment is primarily seen as a “public utility” at best, since tourists may want “nice forestlands” to visit, and people may demand documentary films. Ultimately, keeping the environment “clean” is seen – again, at best – as another interest of equal regards as continued economic growth, property rights, urban zoning, the interests of entrepreneurs and consumer protection. The judgement regarding the macroscopic effects of a sixth mass extinction is not even present, as authorities are seen as managing a static set of interests in relation to rules based on the values of a disinterested, secular and liberal state.

Liberalism ultimately views the inherently unsustainable form of economic growth made possible by unlimited credit and consumerism as positive, and holds a positive view on consumerism as “liberating” the human being. In fact, Liberalism views the kind of atomised individualist who is the product of 70 years of commercialisation and commodification of our civilization as “the human in its natural state”, free from the inhibitions and social control inflicted by previous societies. This society is also seen as intrinsically desirable because it allegedly is a product of consumer choices. Progress is viewed as a linear curve always pointing to the right and upward, and according to Liberalism everything will always become better, because people in general have longer lives and a higher general income today than 200 years ago (which is true). They then extrapolate from this argument that this rise of global living standards will continue indefinitely, at the same rate as before, and that it will not be affected very much by rising sea levels or by soil deterioration and collapsing eco-systems caused by monocultures. Most of the establishment is aware that a few of the global environmental problems (notably most often mentioned being global warming) are poising a threat… to the current system of perpetualised economic growth that is. For if we “stumble” into a sixth mass extinction event, they realise that what they cherish and love about our current civilization cannot possibly continue.

In this regard, the delusion of the current system becomes apparent – it is like if a human being learning that unless they improve they are going to succumb to cancer is expressing grave concerns about the well-being of the tumour, and fervently denies that the tumour is the root cause of their ailment.

This forms the foundation of our civilization’s doublethink, where officials and leaders are guided through Powerpoint presentations which show how we are killing our biosphere, and later other presentations which show how we are going to increase economic growth. They put up regulations designed to curb emissions, and sign free trade treaties which increase them. And this they do in the sincere belief that they are “contributing to” the salvation of the planet, wishfully thinking that their lukewarm and self-contradictory reforms together with some Wundertechnologie will remove the bad environmental effects from the good system.

There are several reasons that they are unable to move away from the sky castle in which they are trapped. What we need to understand is that these people sincerely believe that the current way, despite its many shortcomings of which they are the first to admit, are convinced that it is the least bad system at worst, and that incremental changes and adjustments can salvage mankind through the crisis. When they hear more radical proposals, they instinctively cower in fear and react with anger, fearful that these radical proposals will scare the powerbrokers away from listening to moderate reform proposals, and are themselves stalked by premonitions of the crimes done in the name of the non-liberal or anti-liberal Utopian ideologies of the 20th century.

Our intention is not to destroy Liberalism, but to create a new Ideology which cherishes and protects the rights and dignity of the human being, while at the same time building its intellectual framework on an evolved, holistic view of our planet based on the knowledge we today have about how we are affecting and damaging an incredibly complex biosphere.

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM – LIFE, LOVE AND LIGHT

At the core of every successful Ideology is a unified concept detailing the ethos and pathos of said ideology, and telling its adherents what – in essence – the meaning of the human civilization is. In short, what the meaning of life should be according to these values. No matter if the proponents of the ideology is aware of it or not, their adherence to their credo is often based, in its rawest form, on the ideology’s conception of a fundamental value. The ideologies which we have had, can often be summarised down to one word. Beneath, you can see how the most successful isms of the 19th and 20th centuries formulated their core values.

• Traditionalism – Hierarchy
• Conservatism – Order
• Liberalism – Liberty
• Socialism – Equality
• Third Positionism – Struggle

Many of the original proponents of said ideologies were themselves unable to comprehend their own fundamental values, in relation to the values upheld by the founders of their rival belief systems. We are not going down that path, and we are very aware that the Ideology of the Third Millennium is founded on one, fundamental value which we believe should be the guiding principle of a self-aware, planetary civilization.

The value of Life.

LIFE, THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE

We humans are living beings, and everything which we pursue in our lives is built upon the fact that we exist, that we are here and that we are alive. All the values, dreams and aspirations which every individual strive for in their own lives, are hinging on the existence of consciousness. No matter what this concept entails, it is necessary for every human being to be alive in order to be conscious, in order to pursue their interests.

Other species are striving towards the same goal of expressing themselves according to their capabilities and limitations. Life, self-conscious or not, seems guided by the desire to express itself. This need to survive and will to thrive have formed our biosphere – from its humble origin in chalky puddles of water or toxic sulphuric gas vents – towards planetary conquest, a symphony of tens of thousands of biomes and ecosystems, constantly transforming, expanding, contracting and inventing through the process of Darwinian evolution. This process, beginning with self-replicating amino acids and eventually birthing humanity, turned the Earth into a living planet – a paradise of colours, scents and songs. From our perspective, every human being has been given a chance to add their contribution to this great symphony – and with our creativity at disposal, there is no limit to the ways in which we could express ourselves.

It should be noted that humanity, despite its great ingenuity, wouldn’t be anything without the beautiful, living Earth which it emerged on once. Without the rivers and lakes, the fertile soils formed by thousands of generations of species, the forests and grasslands, and the animals which have assisted us during our rise, we would never have been able to form a civilization in the first place.

Unfortunately, our Universe is not – in general – well-adjusted for the emergence of complex forms of life. Most of it, 99,999999…% of its volume, consists of a dark, cold void, a few fractions of a degree warmer than absolute zero. Life – as we know it – is dependent on sources of energy. Stars, the fusion power-plants of the Cosmos, are manifold billions, but virtually insignificant in relation to the full volume of space. Around some of these stars, worlds with the capability to support complex eco-systems are situated, and life eventually emerge on them. Many of these worlds will undergo disasters throughout their history, wiping out all our significant portions of their Life again and again. Gamma rays and solar bursts may scorch the surface, meteorites and super volcanoes may blot out their suns, and some planets may even be ejected out from their mother systems, orphaned and destined to wander the cold vastness for billions of years…

And here we are, on our Earth. Five times, Life has nearly been extinguished, and five times it has rebounded, after millions of years of recovery. Humanity has existed for 150 000 years, and the concept of human civilization is a mere 10 000 years old. In relation to that, our latest rebound following the latest global mass-extinction has taken place for the last 65 million years. Life on Earth has existed for 3,5 billion years, though complex life has only existed for half a billion years.

The position of the Ideology of the Third Millennium, is that Life is the foundation for our civilization – and moreover, it is our Credo. It is diverse. It is beautiful. It is a flowing river of opportunities. It is everything. It is the Universe experiencing itself. It has allowed us the chance of standing up over the savannah, and be able to gaze beyond the stars and into our own souls.

Therefore, we mean that the founding imperative of a Planetary Civilization should be to uphold Life as the highest principle – that Life is the highest value of our Cosmos and that worlds with capability to host complex life are the most cherished material entities in the Universe. This means that we have an obligation to design our civilization in such a manner that we allow Life to flourish and multiply.

Our current civilization is – as you well know – not built upon these principles. Rather, it is founded on the maxim that short-term economic growth should be upheld indefinitely and be so positive as possible for the next quarter of a year. Those defending Life under this current system must beg on their bare knees to gain attention, must flatter and scrape before the powers that control the resources and must almost apologise for having the nerve of existing in face of the self-evident principles of fractional reserve banking and consumerism, because their suggested alterations may well hurt the prospects of continued economic growth. In fact, those forces who care about the future of life on Earth often have to resort to studies which claim that environmental soundness is good for economic growth, for example regarding tourism.

Proponents of the Ideology of the Third Millennium are ready to have a civilised dialogue and seek a discussion about an incremental transition towards a sustainable future, but we will never apologise for the desire to save our biosphere. For us, Life is not something which shall need to plead for its right to exist. Our manner of destroying the oceanic eco-systems through trawling and to turn half the planetary land surface into mono-cultures and significant portions of it into concrete wasteland is not even objectively good for ourselves in the medium to long term, since we are undermining the foundations of human civilization. It is beyond doubt that our current way of managing resources and surfaces is parasitic and is turning Life into Death, which is fundamentally against all our principles.

We believe in Humanity, and that we are able to form a truly planetary culture which can create a prosperous and thriving existence for our species while upholding a sustainable relationship with the biosphere on which we all depend for our sustenance. We also believe that this is not only a possibility – it is a duty for our Civilization to uphold sustainability and to see Life as the highest value, consideration and meaning of its existence.

LOVE (EMPATHY)

The future civilization should not be founded on the fear of force or exclusion, but on respect for human beings. Human beings are expressions of Life, and are each endowed with rights and duties towards one another and towards humanity as a whole. When we form communities within the framework of this new, sustainable civilization, they need to be based on a non-aggression principle which is based on the respect for Life rather than property.

In the heart of this principle is that human beings have a right to live, from the moment that they are born. That is the right which is the fundament of all other rights. From this follows that human beings should not be exposed to force, threats of force or intimidation with the purpose of creating distress. From this also follows that all human beings have a right to nourish themselves, to have a space where they can sleep and do their needs in private, to be able to clothe themselves and to have equal access to the public spaces of their communities, as well as free right to travel.

The exception to this is when human beings have committed acts of violence and have victimised other individuals. They may be restricted from having full access to the community, but may not be wilfully physically injured or put under treatment with the purpose of causing physical or emotional distress when they have already been neutralised. Every human being does however have a right to self-defence.

All human beings have a right to a say in matters where they are affected by the decisions of others, whether individual, communitarian, judicial or global. This includes communities, which should have power to influence decisions regarding the usage of land and resources which will affect their livelihood in one way or another. People have the right to form and utter political, religious and social opinions, in public and private, and to form voluntary associations.

Animals have rights to the extent that when human beings, individually or collectively, are imposing their will on animals, and directly or indirectly are affecting the natural behaviour of the animals, the decisions should be made in a manner of respect towards the animals and a desire to the extent that is possible protect their ability to pursue their natural behaviour. If their natural behaviour cannot be guaranteed, procedures involving unwilling animal participation should be discouraged. Human beings do however have a right to self-defence if they are attacked by an animal.

When we make decisions in order to transition our civilization towards sustainability, many human beings will see their interests injured – which is inevitable. The process of transition must be moderated in accordance with these rights to ensure that all human beings, even those for various reasons being vehemently opposed to the transition, should have their rights, as defined above, guaranteed and respected. Any future systems must be designed in a de-centralised manner which seek to have independent bodies which would seek to it that the transition towards sustainability and the management of our civilization is conducted in a manner that safeguards human rights and dignities.

Property is however not an extension of a human body, and when operations are damaging to other human beings or the environment, forceful action to stop the abuse cannot – as long as it doesn’t involve the physical injury of the property owner – be considered a violation of human rights. The property owner does have a right to challenge the forced management of their property, and their other rights may not be infringed upon by such an intervention, and should be ensured.

We do not view rights as propertarian, but as relational, and for those interested we have written a previous article on the subject.

Regarding duties, we see to it that there are negative (strong) duties, to not destroy biomes or damage the biosphere, to not commit wanton acts of cruelty towards other individuals, to not cause distress to other human beings and to not display indifference in regards to events when others are being subjected to suffering. There are also positive duties, to uphold Life and support what makes Life thrive, to show empathy towards one another and towards animal life, and to contribute to the new planetary civilization.

These duties are however not compulsory, and it is by far worse to police a fellow human being regarding their active conduct regarding positive duties. Instead, those who feel strongly about these ideals should by themselves act as a light for the world and make a positive example out of themselves primarily. A foundational principle of our way is that introspection and inner control shall gradually phase out primitive forms of outer control, and that we actively should strive to form our culture in such a way that we evolve towards a state where few if any are still subject under the individual governance of base instinct.

This does not entail that we desire humanity to evolve into the Vulcans of Star Trek, or the dispassionate Jedi of Star Wars. We desire that humanity embraces its full potential, both collective and individual, and strive towards an open community where no one shall be compelled or forced to conform to a certain kind of fad or thinking. Emotions shall not be repressed, instead we must focus on understanding our emotions and being able to separate ourselves from them when necessary.

LIGHT (ENLIGHTENMENT)

We have established the Ethos of our future civilization (Life), and the manner in which we must relate to one another (Love). This segment is devoted towards discussing, not how our institutions should be governed (that is a matter for The Design, not The Ideology), but rather after what principles decisions should be made.

The Ideology of the Third Millennium does not proscribe any particular policies on the micro-level. As long as policies strive towards social and ecological sustainability and do not exert harm on individuals, there should be a foundation to discuss the form of their execution in relation to the goal. A few “ideologies”, notably obscure far-left isms such as “Maoism” and “Hoxhaism” have been quick to proscribe singular, specific policies as core tenets of their ideology, for example collective farms, mass organisation, the creation of low-quality steel through home furnaces and the genocide of bird populations using loud things. Critique of these policies have often been interpreted as vicious attacks as the ideologies themselves. We, the proponents of the Ideology of the Third Millennium do not believe that an Ideology should or even can point towards any specific policies, or establish policies at all. Rather, our Ideology should influence our policies in regard to what we are striving towards, and what we may not do in the pursuit of them.

However, what we can establish is the principles under which policies should be evaluated and enacted. These principles are built on Enlightenment, namely that:

• Decision-makers, elected representatives or the citizenry are expected to deliberate upon the desired goals of a hypothetical policy.
• When these desired goals have been expressed, groups with expertise in the fields pertaining to the desired goals should be introduced into the process and produce, amongst themselves, scenarios under which these goals could best be realised to the lowest cost for the communities and for the environment.
• Ideological and political considerations (apart from human rights and sustainability) must not be utilised when the expert groups are establishing scenarios and measuring them. The policies must be judged according to the scientific method.
• The expert groups need to conduct their study of the policies in a transparent manner, and both the summaries and the full report must be publically available. They must also present the proposals to the public in good time before a vote, and the public must be allowed to give their input.
• The community must make sure that the public understand the policies which are introduced.
• The policies must be introduced in a democratic manner.

The scientific method cannot establish normative goals, nor can it state anything about what morality our civilization should adhere to. However, it is the least bad of the methodologies we have at our disposal currently in how we are ascertaining facts and are relating to reality whenever something should be built, renovated, introduced or legislated.

For the opposite form of procedures, we can ask the reader to view the proposal of the current US Presidential Administration to build a southern border wall. Instead of carefully deliberating on how to achieve a policy objective (decreasing illegal immigration), the Administration has founded its mandate on the implementation of a goal which has not been studied or analysed by experts.

Enlightenment does however entail more than how policy processes are shaped.

It is imperative that the citizenry is educated. Rather than speaking about raw knowledge regurgitated through an educational system of the industrial public school variety, we are talking about a state of existence where the people should be able to reason in an informed manner about policies and values, be able to understand and critique arguments based on principles rather than opinions, where a majority would be able to recognise instances of psychological manipulation, the exercise of flawed arguments and to discard appeals to passions such as anger, sexual arousal, fear and pride. We strive to move even farther, and create the environment for future generations that would recognise and thwart attempts to subconsciously affect them through the use of marketing.

Our current civilization is partially built on the opposite foundations. It is informally seen as a right to attempt to affect the cognitive functionalities of the public through misleading or implicitly dishonest advertising. The forces of consumerism has strived to create an environment where people are increasingly under the control of their baser needs and instincts, in order to reduce the inhibitions to the indulgence of spree-shopping. In short, the foundations of a liberal, rationalistic civilization is challenged from within by advertisement and entertainment industries which together are working to make the public more stupid and more susceptible.

We need to strive towards the opposite, not by filling the heads of the public with knowledge which they cannot at present utilise, but by teaching the populace what knowledge is, and what intellectual tools there are at disposal to properly use knowledge. We desire to and must work to create the foundations for an enlightened people armed with the ability to reason and utilise logic for the ends of protecting their interests and the interests of the planet.

IN SUMMARY

The Ideology of the Third Millennium is centred around Life as the highest value, social and ecological sustainability as the goal and the protection of individual rights as an imperative. It is also essential that policy formulations are separated from notions, prejudices, opinions and politics and are undergoing a universal process where expert groups transparently should present proposals to the public.

It differs from the current hegemonic Ideology of Liberalism in the following ways.

• Liberalism sees the Individual as an atomised, abstract unit endowed with rights derived from their (human) rationality and from property rights (initially being seen as being God-given).
• The Ideology of the Third Millennium sees the individual as a consciousness in possession of a physical body which needs nutrients, sleep and intellectual and emotional stimuli.
• Liberalism sees property rights as the foundation and model of all rights.
• The Ideology the Third Millennium sees that rights arise from relationships, and whenever a human being is interacting in some capacity with another human being, both parties are having rights and duties in regards to one another. Animal have rights when human beings are affecting their ability to pursue their natural behaviour.
• Liberalism believes that the laws of supply and demand are the highest good in the realm of economics, and that they are the basis of economic policy. The environment is seen as an external factor and a special interest at best. According to classical Liberalism, human well-being is subjective and a wealthy person’s desire for a third car is at worst equal to a poor person’s desire for rice.
• The Ideology of the Third Millennium seeks to it that we should strive towards a functioning biosphere, to ensure the well-being of future generations, while ensuring that no human being must live under a certain minimum level measured by objective standards.
• Liberalism sees the highest good as the unimpeded right of the individual to live their life as they please, within the context of a civilization based on exponential growth and consumerism.
• The Ideology of the Third Millennium sees the highest good that we build a Life-centred civilization, where each and every human being is free to express themselves within the constraints imposed by the needs of the biosphere to thrive.
• Liberalism views it as so that all human beings are entitled to their opinions and prejudices, and that individuals, political parties and maybe more than anyone corporations have the right to manipulate human perceptions with misleading advertisement and propaganda.
• The Ideology of the Third Millennium views it as so that all human beings are entitled to possess the intellectual tools that make critical reasoning possible, and have a right to be intellectually armed against manipulation.
• Liberalism sees the western civilization of post-1991 as the End of History and the culmination of human endeavour.
• The Ideology of the Third Millennium sees it as our duty to build a civilization which upholds as its highest value Life, as the highest goal a sustainable planetary biosphere able to sustain future human generations, balanced with a need to ensure that humanity could – individually and collectively – thrive within the constraints imposed by the planetary carrying capacity.
• Liberalism and the Ideology of the Third Millennium agrees that human rights need to be defended, and that human beings have a right to influence decisions affecting them, to voluntary association, freedom of movement, of faith and political conviction and to have the right to partake in and refuse to partake in political activities. Both ideologies agree that there should be an independent judiciary body and a freedom of information.

The first goal of the Ideology of the Third Millennium is to be a platform for public education, with the goal of establishing a global consensus regarding the following issues.

• That Life on Earth is the highest single value for humanity.
• That we have a serious ecological crisis regarding climate, soils, freshwater reserves and biodiversity.
• That the three criteria established by the Earth Organisation for Sustainability are the minimum foundation on which any future worth the name could be built on.

The goal should not be to ban or censor divergent opinions, but to ensure that 66% of the global majority understand the reasons behind and support this consensus, and that it is necessary for humanity surviving with dignity on Earth.

QUOTES

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“We possess the power If this should start to fall apart To mend divides To change the world To reach the farthest star” Ronan Harris, VNV Nation, the Farthest Star

“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.” Sir David Attenborough

Written by ENRIQUE LESCURE

“If fear should win our hearts

Our light will have long diminished

Before it reaches the farthest star” ~ Ronan Harris, VNV Nation

My name is Enrique Lescure, and I am a board member of the Earth Organisation for Sustainability – EOS, and has been active within the network since 2007.

Maybe it could be seen as pretentious to say that we – we who are alive today – perhaps are the most important generation that has lived during the era of humanity on Earth. That the decisions that we make – or not – during our lifetime, will affect life on Earth during hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of years?

Our planet has gone through five mass extinctions during its life, the last one caused by a meteor hitting the sea at the Yucátan Peninsula 65 million years ago. It ended the age of the Dinosaurs and led to the rise of the mammals as the dominant terrestrial forms of life.

While I am writing this, almost all eco-systems on our beautiful planet are put under an unfathomable stress. Complex ecosystems are replaced by mono-cultures. Heavy metals, chemicals and particles are poisoning air, water, earth and organisms alike. The rise of CO2 has been caused by emissions of fossil fuels into the atmosphere. The seas are dying. The quality of the soil is being destroyed. If this development continue, it will spiral into a sixth mass extinction event.

I am sure that you who are reading this know about this.

You also probably do know that this is caused by the current civilization that we have created.

The question is: How should we solve this?

Answers are varying. Politicians are speaking of bans, taxes and subsidies. Businesses and scientists are speaking of technical measures. Grassroot organisations are speaking of solving local problem. The complexity of the issues can seem overwhelming.

Though all these issues are really symptoms of a main cause.

What is then that main cause?

The main cause is that we have created an ecologically and socially unsustainable civilization, founded on a debt-based monetary system dependent on exponential growth. Today we are using around 135% of the renewal capacity of the Earth.

We must solve all issues with climate change, sea destruction, heavy metals and mass deaths amongst animal and plant life, and each of these problems present an enormous challenge for all of us.

The main challenge however is to reduce our usage of resources from 135% to below 100%, which means a level where the biosphere can start to recover after decades of exploitation.

I was aware of many of these problems already when I studied at high school.

Thus I started to explore ideas aimed at solving the environmental deficit we are experiencing today. I started to see that the green movement relied too heavily on changing the behavior of the individual, as well as changing details of how the systems are working today. The alternative green forces, anarcho-primitivists, deep-greens and eco-fascists, were on the other hand focusing on misanthropy and on unrealistic visions of a pre-industrial world.

At the end, my search led me to establish contact with students, engineers and researchers from many countries, who shared similar ideas on how we should proceed. Our goal was aimed at creating a realistic, tangible model on how to combine a high-tech civilization with social and ecological sustainability.

Thus we created EOS – the Earth Organization for Sustainability.

EOS was founded as a research- and grassroot network, producing a blueprint for a hypothetical sustainable civilization. This is a (well… relatively) short text called “The Design”, which is describing our ideas.

Our thoughts are the following: We are aiming to create a model for handling the Earth’s resources in a more rational and ecologically sustainable manner. In short, this proposed model is based on a) a continuous survey of the global renewal capacity, b) that all human beings get to own a share of this renewal capacity, c) that they from their share can allocate their resources to what they want to be produced for themselves, d) and that the production is determined by where the consumers are allocating their shares.

In short:

• There is a ceiling that limits how much we can use – the renewal capacity of the Earth.
• All human beings are entitled to an income floor and an income ceiling.
• No products that people are not actively asking for should be produced. This also means a radically lowered amount of working hours.

We are not aiming for a command economy, but for a libertarian, de-centralised and federated system characterised by common communication networks. Neither do we want no growth, as growth in income and living standards under a system as it is proposed by us would be a result of environmentally friendly applications and more efficient ways to utilize resources.

How realistic is our model then?

As a research network, our approach is moving towards applying scientific methodologies on socio-economic systems. Therefore, our goal is to work together with local communities, associations and groups of individuals and test aspects of the design to see how well it works in the real world, to change or scrap what doesn’t work and evolve organically.

Ideally, we aim to also strengthen local communities to increase local resilience and together form a model that can bridge the ecological crisis awaiting us, and help humanity move towards a more evolved and mature civilization.

The most important foundation of our work is that we are striving towards a sustainable world, and that we during our journey are basing our work on ethical methods that strengthen human rights and diversity.

We can all together create a civilization based on sustainability and human creativity, a stable foundation for the values which our descendants one day hopefully will spread beyond the stars.

My question to you is: What should we – humanity – become, and how should we become?

Written by ENRIQUE LESCURE

In 1991, the scholar Francis Fukuyama claimed that history had ended, and that the future would only be directed towards defending and expanding the predominant system in the Western World, which he considered was the potential highpoint of human advancement. Already 25 years later, history has proven him not only wrong, but – dare I say? – double-wrong. The ascent of new technologies is quickly making the predominant governance systems unravel and become obsolete. We are today not only in the process of transforming Civilisation, but also the very concept of “Humanity” itself. However, we are also – perhaps more rapidly – in the middle of a process to cause a Sixth Mass Extinction amongst species on the planet.

In short, we are living in the most important period of the history of our species.

One keen observer would note that most of the things written of in 19th century science fiction was realised during the 20th century. Aeroplanes, submarines and space travel have all come into fruition. 20th century science fiction heavily focused on computers, androids, biotech and government by corporate entities, all things which some may argue we are rapidly advancing into today. And not yet a fifth of this century has passed as of yet!

It is therefore not surprising that transhumanists – adherents of the goal that Humanity should strive to break limits imposed on it by nature and biology – are seeing the current world in a very positive light. A human life-time however is short and fraught with dangers, and the comfort of living in a western society makes us ill-equipped to deal with accidents and setbacks. We are all one car crash, one assault, one case of terminal cancer away from death – and in a culture where Mythos has increasingly been marginalised, death is looming as an end to individual existence.

Partially, our media can be blamed for creating an atmosphere of fear, and not only for terror attacks, but for AIDS, diabetes, bad cholesterol levels, breast cancer and fats. Most middle-to-upper-income westerners, not only transhumanists, are today investing in healthy lifestyles, with the goal of prolonging the life as long as possible and die as healthy as possible too.

Many transhumanists are critical of the Green Movement, which they view as luddites, aiming to withholding technological advancement from longevity technologies, wanting regulations which hamper Capitalism and desiring a scale-down of the opulence of contemporary Western Civilization. From a Transhumanist perspective, the Green outlook is seen as bleak and pessimistic, driven by a goal of envious and petty limitation of the human spirit. And why not? – the Transhumanists are right. New technologies are already being developed which when implemented will transform human existence.

However, the Greens are also right.

Since 1975, humanity is using up more resources than the Earth can renew every year. At the current rate, we are consuming 1,4 times more than what the Earth can produce in terms of biomass every year. Species are disappearing at a rate thousands of times the normal, and even with genetic samples in zoos and in frozen labs near the Poles we would not be able to reintroduce them, simply because we have destroyed their ecosystems which they depended on for sustenance. The main cause for this destruction is not pollution, but out-crowding by monocultures, pastures and wood plantations. In the spirit of Ricardian efficiency, we have systematically turned symbiotic eco-systems into linear mono-environments existing solely to sustain ever-growing human cities.

Ardent, single-focused transhumanists may ask what the deal is, claiming that virtual environments could replace real environments and eventually provide a virtually (excuse the pun) identical experience of watching millions of flamingos taking off into the air in the Okavango Delta. This analysis builds on the idea that humans today are no longer dependent on the environment, and that we can and should treat it to maximise our outcome. Such an attitude is however misdirected, and is – I would argue – a greater threat against the ideals of Transhumanism than “luddites”.

Disturbing the climate trajectory of the atmosphere threatens to create a sea level rise which will displace four fifths of the current human population. It is possible to build and maintain polder systems to stave off the seas, but that will cost a significant amount of resources. If we ignore poorer countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt, which may need assistance in order to construct sea walls, there will soon be hundreds of millions of climate refugees, which will cost even more resources. The climate, however, is not our only serious challenge.

By virtue of our intense farming methodologies, we have currently destroyed one third of the soils on land, especially in the most densely populated regions, but also in Europe and the United States. Currently, global agriculture is mostly dependent on artificial fertilisers which are based on non-renewable sources.

Finally, we have utilised groundwater reserves in an irresponsible and short-sighted manner, and are in process of depleting one third of the world’s groundwater aquifers. If we continue with business as usual, any costs which we need to pay in the future to sustain our civilisation due to current and future waste will be far higher than otherwise.

One can say that the irony of think tanks that strive to put brakes on or outright halt environmentalism is that the only result would be a by necessity far more radical and far-reaching environmentalism in the future. The truth is that saving the biosphere is really not about saving the biosphere – it will eventually recover, whether it takes one million or ten million years. Saving the biosphere is about saving Human Civilization.

And I am convinced that we can do that – but only together. Ultimately, Transhumanists and Greens are aiming for the same goal, human survival in dignity on Earth. And both can learn a lot from one another. Technologies such as 3D-printing, vertical farms, seasteading, remote surgery and even longevity can all serve to improve the environment. Transhumanists, on their side, would need to learn of the grave situation that we are facing today – a convergence of different environmental crises which are threatening to undermine the very fundament that we all are dependent on.

The Earth Organisation for Sustainability one can argue is a fusion of Green and Futuristic thinking. We aim for a high-tech sustainable Civilization on Earth, where we should be able to reach our highest potential without running our culture on an ecological deficit. We believe firmly that we can act as bridge between forces that might believe themselves more disparate than they actually are.

Introduction

The advent and rapid acceleration of information technologies have opened up increased opportunities for inclusion and participation, as well as making possible more de-centralised and autonomous methodologies of administration, project leadership and resource management.

The principles envisioned by the organisation named Technocracy Incorporated were based on the regimented industrial and managerial processes dominant during the first half of the 20^th century, when the most powerful information technologies were television and radio, and when the most advanced and rational form of management was the tayloristic factory floor.

While the EOS have always found Energy Accounting a fascinating model to develop on in terms of a future system of resource management, we initially found the forms of management organisation envisioned by the US-based organisation to be outdated, and to a certain degree authoritarian or with the risk for falling into authoritarianism. Instead, the EOS has, through the Design document and its articles, proposed a system of autonomous Holons consisting of highly specialised and competent volunteer members and professionals.

A large part of this is not only a matter of a difference in managerial and ideological traditions between the eras, but also in terms of emerging technologies. Within EOS, within the scope of our means, we are utilising these new technologies and managerial systems to maximise our current resource base.

What this article will discuss is not the internal structural management of our organisation, but rather how the introduction and implementation of technocratic thinking as an integral cultural aspect of collaboration within a future sustainable global civilisation. The rise of the Internet, and its continued growth towards its full potential, can aid in the creation of a diamond age of humanity, but currently – in the United States and many parts of Europe – we are experiencing the ascent of mutually hostile echo chambers, digital tribes building on their own narratives and feeding on a sense of acute threat from rival tribes. This coupled with an increased acceptance of mob justice and trial by popular opinion can, if we are not careful, tumble some of the most technologically advanced societies on Earth down into chaos. That is an unacceptable situation, not only in itself but especially in relation to the convergence of crises we are finding ourselves in today.

No matter what level of governance we are talking of, local, regional, national or global, and no matter what communication system we utilises, it stands clear that the technocratic virtues must be a part of the future discourse, if we want to have a future that is, and must balance the creative democratic tendencies.

In order to preserve and build on the framework that underpins the principles of liberal democracy, these virtues are crucially needed today when every person with a cell-phone is not only a consumer of information, but also a potential producer.

This is going to be the first in a series which will elaborate on the role of technocratic principles both inside our movement and in society at large.

TL;DR summary

• The existence of the Internet and its communities has empowered the average person to become a creator of content.

• Traditionally, information has been produced by central nodes and divulged in a linear and vertical manner.

• Today, information is more and more produced locally, and is interactive in the sense that articles, videos and sound content can be commented on, reused and reproduced by the audience, which also can interact with the creator.

• We view this development as mostly positive, since these platforms allow for people to create and organise.

• Sadly, the Internet has always been abundant with disinformation, grand conspiracy thinking, medical and pseudoscientific quackery, rumour-spreading, incitement to violence and especially ethnically based conflict paradigms.

• Since the Internet allows the user to utilise time as they want, increasingly people are drawn, both by their own volition and by search engine algorithms which adapt to the search pattern of the user to find their preferences, and thus invariably echo chambers are created.

• These environments existed at their infancy already during the 1980’s, but with billions of users today, billions are exposed for disinformation or information with an alternative slant.

• Censorship and pre-approval by panels would in the short term diminish the challenge, but create slower and more cumbersome, bureaucratic platforms, and are also potentially a threat against dissenting voices and whistleblowers who might possess information of which there is a genuine public interest.

• The risk for a breakdown of civic order and an acceleration of destructive behaviours due to abuse of the Internet should not be ruled out – previous technologies such as Radio and the Printing Press have both been utilised as platforms for instigating genocide.

• We argue that many of the infant diseases we are seeing within the user base of the Internet is rather attributable to the dumbing down effects of Television and Marketing.

• It stands clear that we need a culture of authoritative knowledge and fine-tuned critical thinking skills, an increased awareness of biases and preferences and – apart from an improved general knowledge of scientific topics – that the knowledge and application of the scientific method should be ingrained into the human civilisation.

• The technocratic virtues are not only useful in this regard – they are essential.

• Ultimately, we need a Technocratic Cultural Revolution.

Different types of information technologies

All types of technologies can be subdivided into several categories. Within engineering for example, we can see a clear difference between construction materials and engines as disciplines. Within information technology, we can see a stark difference between a film camera and a microphone, where one is focused on the visual realm and the other on the audial.

There are other types of categories as well, more subtle than the obvious ones. There is a difference between an old cell phone and a new one in terms of functionalities. There are also varying brands of cell phones.

The type of categorisation system we will be focused on for this segment within the realm of information tech would be distributed contra centralised information systems.

• A centralised information system is characterised by one or several central nodes that is transmitting information through sub-nodes vertically and linearly, which the end-users receive as consumers of information, with a limited to non-existent capacity to interact with in any substantial manners apart of that as receiver. Examples could be bureaucracies, churches, traditional corporations, early radio, Television.

• A distributed information system, on the other hand, is characterised by an environment where all receivers have the capability to be nodes in their own right to a certain extent. Examples: writing, postal systems, amateur radio, the telephone network and the Internet.

Of course, most distributed systems are not truly distributed in the technical sense. Postal systems, telephone networks and the Internet are all dependent on nodes which may be fully regimented or centralised, or simply limited in regards to their number in relation to the number of users. To take the Internet as an example, there are a limited number of ISP’s – eliminate them and the Internet is taken down. But Internet is truly de-centralised in its characteristic that every consumer potentially is a producer.

This presents opportunities which are well-known, and challenges which are less investigated.

One analogy would be a previous information revolution, namely the invention and application of the printing press during the 15^th century in Western Europe. Prior, books had been rare and pamphlets a de-facto monopoly for the Catholic Church and the worldly rulers – because only they could afford the scribes, and every manuscript had to be copied for hand, which meant that it was comparatively easy to control the production and distribution of texts, while it subsequently was quite difficult to administrate a region due to the time consumption and inefficiency in reproducing the same document.

While the advent of the early printing presses did not de-centralise the production of information that much, they did much to de-centralise the reception. Previously, priests and heralds had divulged the information to the public, but with mass production of books and pamphlets the market grew and the power could eventually become less centralised, especially in regard to spiritual matters. The Catholic Church had for centuries been the wealthiest institution in Western Christendom, and apart from utilising legal and physical means of silencing dissent against the Trinitarian doctrine or against Church policies, the Church had a huge benefit in comparison to lone dissenters or heretics who before the application of the printing press had to painstakingly copy all of their texts physically, often with a clear danger to their lives.

With press houses, dissenters like Martin Luther and Jean Calvin could mass produce their texts faster than Rome could react, and thus avoid prison or the stake. The Printing Press amplified the voices of those with a message, and equalised their impact in relationship to the resources of the Papacy. This can be compared to today, in regards to whistle-blowers like Wikileaks, and their effect upon the policies of superpowers.

By removing or at least downplaying the role of priests in acting as interpreters of spiritually themed messages, Martin Luther set the stage for the German Peasants’ War and one and a half century of instability culminating in the Thirty Years’ War, the until then bloodiest conflict Europe had ever seen. Regarding the Peasants’ War, it could partially be said to have been a result of the Bible becoming accessible to laymen preachers who reinterpreted the scripture to justify a rebellion against the feudal order and for the destruction of the prevailing class hierarchy in early 16^th-century Europe.

With fewer Bibles and no printing presses, it is doubtful whether these rebellions would have had such a destructive impact (it should however be stated that the foundations for these rebellions were not new technologies but rather injustices and famine years taken together, and peasant rebellions had happened throughout the Middle Ages when printing technology had not even been in its infancy, such as Wat Tyler’s famous rebellion during the early reign of Richard II).

Stating that, the printing press made it easier for dissidents or malcontents to organise, and for seditious writing to spread, as well as distributing rather than concentrating power. Therefore it also contributed to the chaos in the then Holy Roman Empire for more than a century.

The rise of the trolls

One of my acquaintances once said, that if our civilization would be wiped out tomorrow, and aliens would receive transmissions from the early 21^st century worldwide web, they would find that most of the content consisted of pornography and cats, so they would think that we as a culture probably were very interested in the act of procreation and that we worshipped feline deities.

The Internet, due to its distributed nature, provides every user with an abundance of platforms from which the user can spread information and interact with others. This has created many useful academic tools and platforms, such as search engines, torrent sites, platforms such as Wikipedia, Khan Academy and video hosting communities such as Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion.

Another facet of the Internet since its release has been that it easily could provide anonymity, and the opportunity for users to create fake identities. While this has had some positive effects in individual lives, for example for abuse victims, it has also led to a thriving environment for disinformation and the dissemination of false rumours intended to be used for self-serving or purely malevolent ends.

Yet another type of disinformation all too readily received by millions of people have taken fertile ground on the Internet, namely the spreading of different types of woo and the various snake oils spread by self-declared medical experts who at the same time – for purely selfish ends – are trying to discredit mainstream remedies (who by themselves might not be perfect or underdeveloped or overpriced, but which are produced within processes which at least aim to control their effects on the human body and the environment).

Add to it the conspiracy and alternative reality communities, which increasingly are forming their own self-referencing loops, with connections to climate change denial and largely (for this particular moment in time) right-wing politics on the fringe, and their quite impressive growth rate.

Now, these three tendencies of disinformation are increasingly being merged together into a toxic brew. For example, conspiracy communities like Infowars are increasingly peddling snake oil supplements, while those who traditionally mostly have sold woo increasingly have begun peddling conspiracies, and while the trolls of the 90’s and the 00’s were mostly engaged in their activities out of boredom, trolling today have become increasingly professionalised in order to stir up emotions for economic and political gain, and are starting to have both short-term and long-term effects on politics.

Even the most ludicrous ideas are being spread like wildfire – for example the Flat Earth community has seen an enormous resurgence. Today there are actually people who are gaining considerable earnings on selling Flat Earth beliefs to willing acolytes.

Having said that, just like the Anabaptists of the 16^th century and the advent of the printing presses, the concerns which are feeding support for the more polarising segments of the political spectrum are real, even if the proposed solutions may be both reactionary and ludicrous. For a reference, see the article Globalism contra Nationalism previously published here.

Given that, imagine an alternate world where the Internet never was released to the public, and the effects of populism and polarisation would probably take a slower hold (at least in Europe, in the United States right-wing talk radio expanded rapidly already during the 1990’s). It would be a world where information would travel slower, but also one where the conspiracy theories have not gained the enormous traction of today.

One must see this as a trend, and the bucket does evidently still roll down the slope. The ferocity of the polarisation and the creation of echo chambers, both on the left and the right, driven – ironically – by hyperdemocratic impulses of self-replication and the organic spreading of memes, is today leading to a rapid fracturing of communities throughout the developed world.

Unimpeded, this process could end with situation reminiscent of the civil wars suffered by Colombia, beginning with La Violencia during mostly the 1950’s. When political opponents start to view one another as enemies who cannot be understood, the room for civic discourse shrinks and an increased readiness to take to force establishes. It can seem far-fetched today, but there is a possibility that we could see large-scale democides take place inside western nations within ten years, if society continues to fracture between political, ethnic and sectarian groupings.

The Response

The powers that be are obviously in a state of growing fear of losing control of the narrative, possibly both for genuinely altruistic reasons (preventing a collapse of order and future genocides), and also for pragmatic reasons. After all, there are agendas which obviously will impact parts of the population negatively in the short run (neoliberal reforms, free trade agreements which reduce the capability of states to conduct economic policies, trying to avoid characterising certain forms of crime in shapes which may stir up tensions between groups) but which the establishment largely is convinced will create a better future for everyone in the long run. These sentiments are understandable. Ultimately, any kind of establishment must primarily ensure to keep a certain type of equilibrium, and any loss of stability does not only threaten the establishment but also the entire population, often most those dissatisfied groups who most loudly call for reform.

A number of policies have been enacted, both by states and by private entities, in trying to curb the growth of this polarisation. Other policies have been proposed, but not enacted. Here are a few examples:

• Many online newspapers have removed their comment fields, after the comments became dominated by a minority or majority of voices filled with vitriol and negativity, often related to subjects such as foreign policy, immigration, trade, security and integration.

• Facebook has been pressured by European governments to remove certain pages which may violate anti-extremism laws in European countries.

• Youtube are increasingly demonetizing popular videos with politically controversial content or which are selling conspiracy beliefs.

• There has been detailed proposals such as CleanIT which aims to control the Internet.

• Cryptocurrencies are increasingly seen as a threat.

While these initiatives could be seen as laudable in combating certain tendencies, they often fall short of curbing the excesses. In Sweden, most newspaper comment fields were closed already during the last decade, yet that reaction has not changed the trend – instead the frontline has moved towards communities like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

With the ascent of Darknet and of Cryptocurrencies, and when non-western regimes are increasingly supporting fringe political movements and the conspiracy world in the west, it stands clear that polarisation will intensify. It has done so during the much illusory recovery of the 2010’s, and it will probably increase even more after the next Great Recession. There is an ever increasing risk that civil strife can move from the web communities and out on the streets due to this polarisation.

It should be noted that the legislators often are one to several steps behind the technology. The CleanIT proposal for example states that forum moderators should play a vital role in reporting and combating extremism on Internet, but during the 2010’s the importance of discussion forums have continuously diminished. Equally, the plans drawn up today to diminish and marginalise these tendencies will undoubtedly be of limited success simply because the Internet of 2018 can become an entirely different concept than the Internet of 2017.

One underreported process is the move towards mesh technology, which would make the Internet more independent from both broadband providers and ISP’s, eventually leading to it being virtually impossible to strangle or regulate, unless you would want to strangle electricity itself.

Besides, repressing a dissenting voice, no matter if it calls for humanity to run underground to protect themselves from Nibiru, would inadvertently lend credence to said voice. Note for example how Holocaust deniers are using the fact that Holocaust denial is illegal in France, Germany and Austria as “proof” that they are oppressed truth-tellers.

Moreover, while the temptation to regulate what people would be exposed to on the Internet is providing a certain allure, it is at this point in time probably one of the most destructive and authoritarian tendencies. If the system is granted the legitimacy to legally or socially block and destroy dissenting voices belonging to one or two disliked political opposition groups (yes, even insane malcontents are a form of political opposition), then it is granted the power to repress movements which aim to help the world moving towards the necessary Transition.

We must not forget that parts of the current supranational establishment, consisting of financial institutions, multinational corporations, think tanks and governments, are vehemently opposed to the recalibration of human civilization towards a sustainable future, because they can only think forward for the next six months of continued exponential economic expansion, not being able to comprehend the long-term damage of the current system on our planet.

It is very possible to imagine if voices which call for the transition towards a more sane and sustainable world order would gain traction, that these will be exposed for the most blatant, criminal, violent and immoral suppression from the forces invested in the prolongation of the current, unsustainable, status quo.

That is why it is essential to defend the Internet.

Given that, while defending the Internet as a platform for the transparent dissemination of useful information, knowledge and expertise, we must be ready to wage a two-front war against disinformation too. We would claim that the frontline should not be secluded to the Internet itself, but rather span through the entire community.

In short, in order to safeguard the mechanisms of Democracy, we will need to employ the traits and ideals of a Technocracy when finding ways of discussing the solution of real problems.

Combating Idiocracy

Most of the problems associated with fake news, conspiracy theories and echo chambers have actually predated the Internet, and been an intrinsic characteristic of western culture which has blossomed since the 1920’s, especially within the world of advertisement and mass media – I am of course referring to the type of advertisement, pioneered by Eduard Bernays, which strives to manipulate people’s subconscious by subtly making them associate eating fried potato with family life, or owning a Porsche with possessing a woman in a red bikini.

In fact, the blame for the uncritical attitude many netizens display towards whatever video they happen to click up on Youtube can be partially blamed to the Internet’s predecessor – Television – which has created and encouraged a culture of passivity and reception, where the brain’s inherent reaction is to shut down and just allow information to seep in. Television also greatly amplified a culture of “irresponsible market democracy”, where channels struggle to find the lowest common denominators amongst the targeted market groups. This created a loop where culture was inadvertently moulded, by legitimising and even lionising stupidity, idealising simplified reasoning and a short attention span. While schools have generally struggled to produce engaged and responsible citizens, Television has – unintentionally – worked to create an army of drooling zombies, readily and passively manipulated by programmes which rather than encouraging critical thinking are encouraging a weirdly alluring mixture of enticement and cynicism. One has only to look how History Channel and Discovery moved from interesting but possibly somewhat dry and professionalised topics to shows about Nostradamus, Aliens and Mermaids.

Open the Pandora’s box of the Internet for generations that have been intellectually passivized by the telly, and the result would have been the one we are seeing today.

In order to successfully fight the hydra of confirmation biases, fake news feedback loops and increasingly enclosed and aggressive online environments characterised by conspiracy thinking, we need to challenge the existing western culture where entertainment – no matter of what objective quality – is sanctified in relationship to its popularity rather than its content.

Television has taught us that Geordie Shore, Bachelorette and Big Brother are equally valid choices as Nova, Planet Earth and Cosmos, because they are equally if not more available, and also that consumers have a right to be entertained and not challenged. If a programme is boring, a consumer may just zap towards another channel which is entertaining.

It is not surprising then, that consumers who go on the Internet find that Alex Jones is more entertaining than CNN, that Naturalnews.com is more entertaining than Phys.org, and that when provided with a “market of self-declared truths”, people will choose the truth which they feel most positive towards and which challenges them the least.

Of course, people have been manipulated before by unscrupulous political agents, but it is hard to deny that four to five generations have had their critical faculties and even their logical thinking skills systematically eroded by being exposed to Television.

If it only was for Television…

Those unlucky enough to dwell in cities would always when they travel down to the city centre or to the supermalls be exposed to billboards, neon signs and advertisements designed to hack into their subconscious, transform their values and make them more pliable to impulsive behaviour in terms of their consumption. Consumerism as a way of life is dependent on tearing down people’s critical faculties.

For a person who is conditioned to be swayed by depictions of beautiful people, of bombastic music and a false sense of meaning and narrative provided both by blockbusters and by mundane Coca Cola advertisements, a film like this could have an impact.

Humanity today possesses a power tremendous and terrible. We have the power to destroy the biosphere, to alter the climate, even to instigate nuclear winters. Yet, for the last generations, we have almost consciously created a culture striving to tear down inhibitions and self-control, to make people more impulsive, more promiscuous, more easily swayed by emotional messaging and – most crucially – without filters to critically access information.

Currently, parts of the establishment seem to strive towards a “middle ground” position, where people should be able to critical analyse RT, Press-TV or NaturalNews.com, but be more or less open and uncritical towards CNN, Coca Cola or McDonalds, in short – install selective locks to prevent people from accessing information from market operatives with agendas seen as destructive. That position can be construed as hypocritical, for why should it be seen as more immoral to advertise for Infowars-approved “Caveman” pills than for Coca Cola? At least the detrimental health effects of Coca Cola are well known by everyone. Advertisement is simply “fake news” that are somehow acceptable and seen as a cornerstone for society, even if the stated purpose is to make people buy things which often are destructive for their health and minds.

Apart from the blatant hypocrisy, any attempts to infuse “selective rejection” in a population conditioned to react primarily by emotions may slow down the breakdown of the concept of objective reality, but will fail short of achieving the goal. Despite the best efforts of public education, the concerted efforts of dumbing down the population has evidently been succeeded beyond the wildest dreams – if anyone would have wild dreams about an Idiocracy.

If there is a connection between consumerism and the rise of the “alternative facts”-community, then we must confront the fact that the culture that have emerged for much of the latter half of the 20^th century is melting down because of its own inner inconsistencies, and that we would need a cultural revolution to move away from consumerism and the deification of ignorance.

A Technocratic Cultural Revolution

Technocracy can be construed as “rule by the skilled” or “rule by skill”. I would state that most systems to a certain degree have carried the first characteristic, including our own. After all, most states in the world today have a civil service which politicians are obliged to listen to, and most power plants, hospitals, railways and airports for example are (quite luckily!) administered by professionals. In some countries, notably Germany and Austria, the department ministers are expected to be experts within their notable fields, for example a minister of infrastructure should be an engineer of some form.

The second aspect, however – Rule by Skill – is notably absent from the discourse and is seldom employed. There is a difference between skilled and skill after all, namely that while the first is describing an individual with certain characteristics who is given formal position because of these characteristics, the second is describing that these set of characteristics should define the entire system of management and the entire culture.

This is a central and essential distinction.

Because even if a person has the right education and has achieved the professional level acquired for managing certain sectors of a community, what if said individual decides to make a decision based on flawed, simplified or non-complete information. Also, too much emphasis on the qualifications of a decision maker can be used to shut down relevant critique against said professional.

What I would argue is that there are a few Technocratic Virtues which would need to be embedded in the culture, and the more democratic a system is, the more horizontal and de-centralised it is, the more it would need these virtues.

These virtues are:

• Authentication (as defined by the EOS Board Member Lilium Carlson)

• Self-reflection and awareness of one’s own biases, as well as one’s own emotions and reactions when confronted by material that challenges one’s instincts

• Evidence-based policies

• Scientific transparency

• Public knowledge of the Scientific Method

• That the public is armed with the knowledge to identify and disarm attempts at manipulating public opinion.

The System of Public Education

It is absolutely crucial that children, probably from the age of ten, are challenged with epistemology, learn to identify fallacies of reasoning (such as strawmen), and learn to understand and utilise the Scientific Method, including Occam’s Razor. It is also essential that teachers themselves are acquainted with these methodologies and taught to properly being able to distribute tools necessary to acquire critical thinking skills.

Two examples: In fifth grade, we were exposed to a teaching methodology in “democracy and critical thinking”, where the entire class was to form a circle of chairs. The teacher then would ask the students what they thought about controversial subjects, such as bullying, steroids, drugs, racism, dictatorships and war and reason about it. Needless to say, the level of analysis was usually on the level that “war is bad because it hurts people”. While true, such a class I would claim fail to achieve the stated goals since it doesn’t provide any tools for the student to employ their critical thinking skills.

Later, in high school, a ruckus developed on school because some students were reading far right websites on the school library. The responsible teacher for our class decided – contrary to the recommendations of the school – that the students in the class should focus on two news and how four different newspapers created a narrative around these news, and also to speculate why the newspaper presented the news with that narrative. The newspapers in question were Aftonbladet (Social Democratic), VK (local newspaper, ind. Liberal), Proletären (the newspaper of the Communist Party) and Info-14 (ind. National Socialist). That teacher repeatedly taught us to critically examine all sources and ponder about the agenda of those responsible for publishing the news.

Of course, we were high school students, not ten year olds, but I still find it heartening that our teacher dared to ask us examine controversial material and discuss it from an analytic rather than moral perspective.

Overall, the education system must also more emphasise for students how advertisement often is a form of mind warfare employed in the service of hacking the brains of those exposed for the material. The students should of course as well be enlightened about the important role played by Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann in forming the current western civilization, which in reality is not much older than the second half of the 20^th century.

Media

If we should have a chance to re-establish a discourse of sanity in the public space, media must become a tool primarily for information and less for entertainment. There must exist public service, but the role of public service should primarily be to act as a facilitator of useful knowledge and of the current political, social and ecological situation of the Earth.

Regarding independent media outlets and actors, each agent wishing to market their ideas and opinions must state what their agenda is, what outcome they wish to see for the future, and what beliefs they hold regarding why their narrative is superior – rather than to try to sneak in a preferred narrative without the users being notified what they are exposed to.

Moreover, platforms such as Wikipedia and Reddit must be strengthened, and connected with video hosting websites and traditional media platforms in order to provide a foundational global reference system which should work as a baseline and a foundation for the dispersion of News, especially in regards to eyewitness accounts.

Academia

Ideally, as many lectures as possible should be published on video hosting platforms and be made freely and transparently available in MP3 and MP4 format, and ideally even subtitled in the most widely understood languages.

An online index of academic papers could be established, to provide an improved peer review system where not only those who subscribe to narrow academic journals or are students or researchers may get hold of crucial new information.

Bottlenecks which constrict access to information may – for the moment – be perceived as monetarily necessary, but actually both serves to move against the effective execution of the scientific method and the rapidness with which new technologies and discoveries could be accessed.

Advertisement

It would probably be an advisable policy to ban commercial advertisement in public spaces as a first step. There is a profound difference between advertisement on billboards in a city centre and TV- or Internet advertisement. Generally, people are not compelled out of necessity to watch TV or surf the Internet (even if the latter is discussable people can still choose to avoid websites with advertisement). Most people who live inside or in the vicinity of cities must however – often on a daily basis – travel to places where they are bombarded with commercial advertising without their active or passive consent.

Moreover, all products should be compelled by legislation not only to honestly display their impact upon the environment, but on the human body as well.

The Internet

Possibly, rather than asserting a website’s notability from its popularity, search engines should rather focus on a form of peer assessment, from established institutions. For example, if a website – take for example NaturalNews.com – is interested in marketing alternative medicine, then medical websites and universities should be available to recommend that website or write statements which decides its notability. Also, notable websites which frequently spreads false or misleading information should be able to be given warning labels judged by the reactions of the other communities. This would create self-regulating algorithms.

Notice that this model of affirmation and authentication is what the EOS advocates should be used as a self-regulatory mechanism within the Technate as a whole as it is being established.

While still in its infancy, the Pro-Truth pledge which this website has ascribed to could be a beginning of this process.

The role of the Individual

We must foster a spirit of self-reflection, introspection and awareness within individuals, regarding – without self-judgement or self-hatred – biases, preferences and what thinking might be rationalising rather than rational, in short to what regard we are limited by wishful thinking and how we can move above ourselves to try to see our own preferences and our own agenda, and how the world lines up from that point of view. This is something which must be ingrained in the entire community.

The Scientific Method and its role in culture

One of the foundational principles of our Ideology is that the Scientific Method is the least worst methodology if one wants to assess facts about the real world. We should strive towards a popular culture which emphasises that empiricism, rationalism, peer review and authentication are crucial tools for solving problems. Often, popular culture relies on narratives which glorify brawn, emotions and violence as problem-solving tools, which could have a detrimental effect upon public understanding of reality.

Religion

While religion is an essential factor in the mental well-being of billions of people, provides them with a sense of meaning and fulfilment, and also often inspires people to take care and make a positive impact in the lives of their fellow human beings, it becomes a problem when religious leaders choose to interpret scripture to assert that it may provide facts about the material world. It must be more emphasised that religious scripture primarily should be seen as allegorical, which was how people during the pre-modern day generally viewed those writings. Fundamentalism must be combated, because it is dangerous for individual, public and global ecological health.

Limitations

Science and the scientific method cannot define morality or ideological values, they can merely point towards a method of attaining evidence and employing it in the service of the individual and the community. A technocratic cultural revolution must not strive towards fetishisation of science – i.e scientism, which merely replaces one dogma with another. Moreover, within the rational and atheist communities of the two latest decades, there has been a tendency to denigrate and mock opponents, instead of understanding that they merely are victims of a dumbed down culture.

Positive Radicalism

We cannot ignore the inherent unsustainability of the current system, both in terms of culture and in terms of its resource management in relation to the Earth’s biosphere. Why we should fight against woo, alternative facts, climate denial, grand conspiracy thinking, Flat Earth and Young Earth creationism is not because they are a threat towards the current status quo.

On the contrary, these beliefs are in fact supporting our current status quo, some of them quite literally so (climate denial), while others are merely doing it by virtue of their distractive abilities – because they provide the public with readily made false consciousness’s which serve to passivize and divide the public.

We must neither forget that even those who speak facts, sometimes speak of carefully selected facts in order to mislead and provide people with a false sense of security. One example are the cornucopians, proponents of divulging the facts that absolute poverty is diminishing, that literacy is going up, that population growth is decreasing and that some environmental problems are diminishing. While these are all facts, they are presented in a manner which seems to be intended to make the public have faith in the current system, in the current form of globalisation and in that current global agendas, like the Paris Agreement and the UN goals – if implemented – would serve to adequately bring sustainability to our planet, and that exponential growth and sustainability are possible to combine.

Thus, the cornucopians are to a great degree far more dangerous for the well-being for the planet than climate denialists or proponents of the Lizardmen theory. For while the latter are generally gaining traction amongst those disenfranchised and without education or influence, the cornucopians are mostly attracting members of the managerial classes.

The goal: Establishing a consensus

We must establish a consensus that the scientific method should be the guiding principle in attaining solutions, that everyone should be capable of utilising the scientific method, that all policies should be evidence-based, and that the major fact of our age and era is that a Sixth Mass Extinction Event is coming unless we move towards a sustainable future, which we only can achieve if we fulfil at least the first of the Three Criteria.

Conclusion: Transparency instead of Censorship

If we are going to summarise this article, we should state that the growth of the alternative facts community is attributable to the culture of entertainment created by Individualistic Consumerism. If people define their identity after their consumption patterns, it was only a matter of time before they would start to choose their sources of news and education to fit their own personal beliefs – thus nullifying the very purpose of education itself.

Instead of trying to delegitimise and de-platform the purveyors of nonsense and disinformation, we must rather delegitimise the notion within ourselves that we can choose our own reality.

We must systematically uproot and destroy that idea, by ruthlessly bringing it to light and attacking it. This is not because we hate the individual’s freedom to choose, but because everyone is needed – and everyone are needed to be sane in our day and age, with the Mass Extinction approaching. Disinformation and distractions serve to weaken humanity’s resolve in the face of this existential crisis.

Instead of viewing information primarily as entertainment, we must view it as an integral part of a system existing to safeguard the survival of Humanity and of Human Civilization. Therefore, it is of essential importance that each citizen should be empowered with the tools to critically access information and understand the scientific method.

Introduction

Collapse is highly probable out come given our current socioeconomic system. If we want to avoid a collapse, or failing that, be able to rebuild after a collapse we need to be proactive in building an alternative, sustainable, socioeconomic system. 

The Collapse is Coming

It looks like we are heading for a collapse. Millions of species could go extinct [1, 2, 3] as global warming reeks havoc of our environment. Scientist have been warning of this for decades [4], yet we haven’t actually done anything about the problem [5, 6, 7]. Yes, we have made some token efforts but what we have done so far is like painting the façade of a rotting building green. Looks good but doesn’t actually do anything about the problem.

This heading to collapse should make a lot of people who want an alternative, sustainable, moneyless, socioeconomic system happy. Shouldn’t it? After all, the argument goes that we will be unable to build such a sustainable, socioeconomic, system without a collapse as the current system will act in such a way as to prevent any other system from emerging. Jacque Fresco used to be quite fond of this argument [8].

But this all could depend on what we mean with “collapse”. A collapse could just be an economic phenomena like the Great Depression in the 1930s. But it could also be more severe than that such as Easter Island, Mayan, or the collapse of Anasazin (Ancestral Puebloans) society [9]. These latter collapses are more of interest than a financial collapse like the Great Depression. The Great Depression resulted from one part of the system collapsing where as the collapse of the Mayan civilisation, Easter Island, and the Anasazin society all involved environmental factors; the inhabitants over expolited the environment. “Over exploiting” the environment is more like what we are doing today. So, any potential collapse will most likely be similar to the collapse of these societies.

That brings up a problem; the societies that collapsed with the environment as a contributing factor did not recover. Not in themselves. People from outside the areas moved into those areas, like Easter Island, or they remained abandoned, such as the towns of the Anasazi. And we, on our planet, do not have an “outside”, that can move in. So, if we actually achieve a collapse then we could be looking at the end. That is to say, a situation that we can not recover from. That would mean that in looking to build a moneyless, sustainable, society post-collapse we run the risk of ending up in a situation where we do not have the ability to build such a society. That means that we need to be a bit more proactive.

Building for the Future

Proactive in two ways; first in preventing a collapse as it does not really serve ours or anyone’s best interest to wait for a collapse. Second, on failing the first, we need to sow seeds from which we can start building a better society.

What we can do is form groups to preserve what we can and build up communities that are sustainable as much as possible. I like to think of this as the “Alien Planet” idea. Imagine living on an alien planet, like Mars, where the environment is hostile. The type of community we would need is one that can manage its own resources within the bounds of the community; grow its own food, manage its own waist, for example. Like a space colony. As much as possible. This could be done on a small scale like grown your own food in your garden or having a small hydroponics set up. It could be also done on a larger scale, like building a community with its own land. Next we would have to network these groups together. The more we have, the more people, the more land, the more we can do and the more we could support each other. The idea is laid out in The Design [10] and is called stepping-stones. 

Stepping-stones would set seeds if a collapse was to happen but, ideally, it will allow for the evolution towards a new sustainable, moneyless, society. It would allow us to test ideas out and to experiment. However, it still doesn’t deal with the problem that we could face of a system that would work against moving to a sustainable socioeconomic system. For that, I think, we need to be proactive in another way; politically.

We do not advocate a “revolution”, nor the over throw of any government but doesn’t mean we can’t participate in the political processes of a democracy. There are opportunities to form pressure groups and even political parties or just to be members of political parties to influence the debate and movement toward a sustainable society. In other words, take part in society. We could even participate more in social media with more videos, articles, or fund raisers but I think this is only worth while if it leads to action on the ground (all talk and no action!).

Conclusion

We are heading for disaster and if that was to occur we would find it difficult if not impossible to recover and to build a sustainable, moneyless, society. If we are to build such a society then we need to be proactive. At the end of the day, if we fail to achieve a sustainable society, we only have ourselves to blame.

About the Author

Andrew Wallace is a former director of EOS. He has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He is a former University lecturer and currently works as a consultant.

References

[1] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/report-million-extinctions-and-ecological-collapse-are-way

[2] https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042020/global-warming-ecosystem-biodiversity-rising-heat-species/

[3] https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/05/sixty-years-of-climate-change-warnings-the-signs-that-were-missed-and-ignored

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/climate/biodiversity-collapse-climate-change.html

[6] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-emissions-turning-point/

[7] https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/clobbered-by-climate-change-ipcc-report-warns-of-failure-to-adapt-to-global-warming/

[8] https://www.thevenusproject.com/multimedia/jacque-fresco-collapse-transition-politics-systems-approach/

[9] “Collapse”. Jared Diamond. Penguin Group. 2005.

[10] The Design. EOS. https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/eos-/the-design/ebook/product-1e8ew9y8.html?page=1&pageSize=4