I wrote this essay several years ago, but seemed just right for today’s front page. At the time I was writing this I was still working on the GIFTegrity. My work on that project is done, and it is now in the hands of others. My currently project is a book about understanding human intelligence, but otherwise this essay is just about perfect.
Timothy Wilken
Good Morning, do you have your income tax returns done? I work (earning my living) on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays. By working longer hours I manage to finish my work week early so I can have a three day strong-end. This is opposed to a three day weak-end (sp). On those three days of my strong-end I work on my websites and my synergic science.
This particular strong-end was wasted doing my income tax returns and helping my children do theirs. None of us make much more than enough to get by, but we all got to be accountable to the MAN. I had hoped to work more on getting the specifications for the GIFTegrity finished, but now have only a fraction of the time I had hoped for.
This small sample from my life is a fact of life for most of us.
We humans have big problems as those who read my websites know. I think all thinking humans would agree that the human population has exceeded the sustainable limits of the Earth’s natural resources. We could further agree that we have achieved this enormous human population only by using our powerful human intelligence to exploit and rapidly consume most of the fossil fuels on our planet. We will, if present trends continue, have consumed all the extractable fossil fuel on this planet within 100 years. This high rate of consumption began in 1930. We should be done a little before 2030, that will be within the lifetimes of many of you reading this now and certainly within the lifetimes of your children.
This big problem is what (those of us now waking up) are calling the Overpopulation-FossilFuelDepletion-GlobalWarming Crisis.
Recently, I asked by a reader, a Mr. Andrew McKillup from West England:
1) Can we solve our crisis by living a simpler low tech-low energy lifestyle like Gandhi proposed?
Yes, if we reduce our human population to less than 20 million. That means ~5.98 billion humans will dieoff.
2) Can we cover the earth with Solar Collectors and continue our present lifestyle?
No, Solar Technology requires enormous non-solar energy to create and maintain the hardware necessary to collect power from the sun. The last of the energy necessary to create such a technology is being burned up in our automobiles and war machines as we speak.
3) Can we be rescued by some as yet undeveloped new technology that will give us cheap and unlimited energy?
No, the Earth in finite. In fact, the Universe is finite. That means there are limits. We have reached them here on this small planet.
What can we do ?
We humans need to stop our striving to earn our livings for a few minutes, and take some time to think. Sometimes, I wish I could simply blow a whistle like the referee at a basketball game and let the world fall silent. But, we are all too busy just surviving in the every increasing chaos of our present world to even examine these problems let alone address them.
Well, it is Saturday Morning! Take a deep breath and listen a minute. What you do does make a difference.
Humanity is facing extinction. Not some distant time in the future, but soon. We need to move to solve our problems NOW!
We are the currently the dominant form of life on this planet because of our intelligence. Human intelligence produces different levels of knowing. One of the levels of knowing is called Knowledge. An example of knowledge is knowing how to build a nuclear weapon. Another level of knowing is called Wisdom. An example of wisdom is knowing NOT to build nuclear weapons.
As I look out of the window of my house this morning, I see many homes surrounding mine. It looks like a lovely community. But that is an illusion. There is no community. Those of us living so closely together barely know each other and we never work together.
We are all a part of the neutral world. We mostly ignore each other. In this great neutral world that dominates western civilization, we don’t even know each other. Most of us humans living in this “modern” world are locked in the mindless routine of earning our living, while responsibility for our futures rest in the hands of elected politicians who live in a One Dollar=One Vote system of neutral political-economics. This One Dollar=One Vote system cannot create a positive tomorrow. It must by design grow and profit until it consumes all the natural resources of the earth and then declares bankruptcy.
As the recent events in the Middle East have made clear to everyone, it could be worse. Most humans living in the third world are locked in the mindless struggle for basic survival, while responsibility for their future rests with the warlords who live in a One Bullet=One Vote system of adversary political-economics. This One Bullet=One Vote system cannot create a positive tomorrow.
The only way humanity will have a positive future is if we change the rules. To do this all we have to do is change our minds. We will have to make the decision to work together. We can go out into our neighborhoods and introduce ourselves. We can start projects where we work together. The word community is a contraction of the two words common and unity. Or as I like to spell it, CommUnity. We can begin to restructure our lives based on working together, and we must embrace sustainability.
That means we will have to stop driving cars. Not immediately, but soon. We can move information instead of people. With our powerful communication technology we really don’t need automobiles, and we really don’t need airplanes. Eventually, we won’t even need mass transit.
We need to prepare to live locally and support our lives locally. When fossil fuels are gone we will not be importing anything. We will need to provide the majority of our food, clothing, tools, etc., etc., etc. locally.
We can take a look at what we need, not at what we want. This means we have to grow up. We must put away advertising because it promotes today’s products that are not local. This in turn will begin to put away consumerism.
When we view Humanity as Community rather than as Individuality it becomes immediately clear that we need to stop having children NOW. Reproduction is not a right. It is a privilege. And, it is a privilege that belongs to Humanity as Community, not to Humanity as Individual.
The One Dollar=One Vote neutral political economy is based on unlimited resources. In any limited environment, it will fail.
Guess what ? It is failing. And, that failure is occurring right NOW within our very lifetimes!
Well, daylight is burning. I better go mail my tax returns. But, when I get back I am going to finish my work on the GIFTegrity –a new tool for building commUnity. By using GIFTegrity in CommUnity we could create the One Gift=One Vote system of a new synergic political economy.
Ready for a change? Read A Synergic Future