Architects of a New Dawn

We’d like to show the side of the world you don’t normally see on television.

Few people today appear to realize that as we have approached the end of the Industrial Age and are moving rapidly into the Age of Knowledge, that less and less human labor is needed to provide all the goods and services necessary for the 6.7 billion of us on the Planet. This is due to advances in technology that are rapidly displacing the need for human labor. In his book, "End of Work" published in 1995, Jeremy Rifkin revealed that only 30% of the presently available workforce worldwide was needed then to produce the necessities of life for all of us. And he projected that as we moved further and further into nanotechnology and bio-mimicry in order to conserve on resources that are growing more scarce, we would need only 3- 4% of the presently available labor force.

So, here we are approximately 19 years later and fast moving into this reality, while at the same time, the Ecological Footprint Index reveals that by the year 2030 we will need the equivalent of 2 earths in order to provide for all of the resources necessary for the number of people estimated to be living here at that point in time. A figure that one quickly realizes is one that we cannot meet using the same practices we use today. And, what these figures tell us is that we are already "ecologically bankrupt" as well as economically.

Thus it becomes apparent that we must quickly move into dramatic lifestyle changes if we are to meet the challenges presented to us by this conundrum. And, it is my feeling that those who are best suited to lead us into the future are those who have recently become homeless and are without jobs as they are the ones who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being open to new an innovative ideas necessary to revolutionize our world, creating a "future by intelligent design," .

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My Cree ancestors were nomadic... I am sure that cyclical restlessness continues to reside in my DNA; for I have moved alot and love change. Whenever I hear folks talk about resistance to change, I shudder. And when I meet folks who have lived in one area all their life... I am in awe. How could they do that?

Like many, I am both attracted to and repelled by the concept of homelessness. I resolved long ago that I would rather sleep on a park bench than live in a gilded cage. Freedom has always shone so brightly in my mind, that I saw no other. Yet, advancing age and grandchildren have shown me the need for a dedicated space to family. I feel a certain obligation to be the center of familial activity... be the foundation and the pillar of family values.

But frankly, I'd rather be in a teepee or yurt that could be de-constructed and carried over the miles to the next destination. My family and I could enjoy the journey (less TV and computer time), and find new corners to explore and learn from. But that ain't gonna happen...

Poverty and homelessness have been defined from the perspective of the dominant paradigm that exists in a corrupt system of capitalism. The choices that exist within that system are few... conform or live outside the norm. Conforming to the norm doesn't seem so bad, until you understand what is behind it and/or how many are excluded for reasons not of their own making... like war.

A solution to homelessness is defined in our eco-awareness... our eco-footprint... and our return to simplicity. Or as Gandhi said, "Live simply so that others might simply live."
Jeanne, thanks for your comment here. Having been homeless myself after making a six-figure that year back in the late 80's early 90's when we had the last big recession, i found it to be immensely freeing when i lost everything and was forced to live in my station wagon for almost a year.

I really do understand that for many the stress related to modern living is in many instances just too much to bear. And while i have never used either drugs or alcohol, and value a healthy lifestyle, i can understand why many in our society today turn to them along with other addictions in order to quell the pain of modern living. The struggle to fit into an unnatural and artificial lifestyle which dissociates us from the grounding qualities of the Earth inherent at the beginning of our social evolution, is very much a misunderstood phenomenon today, yet it is called "normal".

Due to the advent of global climate change, i do not see living in a tent or yurt that can be de-constructed as something that "ain't gonna happen" as many of us will quite probably be forced to migrate to escape the weather changes of the future just as past generations had to do in order to survive. So, i feel we really have to learn to think and live "outside the box" at this time as we are forced to adapt to a changing environment. While stability has been prevalent for a few hundred years, it appears we are moving into a time of great chaos in which we will be required to change and change again as the "waves of change" sweep over us. Learning how to "surf" on these waves of change will be key to our survival as the human family in these times that are now upon us.
mary rose said:
Due to the advent of global climate change, i do not see living in a tent or yurt that can be de-constructed as something that "ain't gonna happen" as many of us will quite probably be forced to migrate to escape the weather changes of the future just as past generations had to do in order to survive.

Reminds me of something I heard said by an Arab sheik... that his father rode a camel, he drives a rolls Royce and his son will ride a camel.
Well I suppose that depends on what you think of as living. Rather than depend on "homeless" people I would prefer to rely on people who are self-made success stories that built something from nothing. You have a romantic picture of the homeless. Let me give you another picture of some of these homeless people. Many are on drugs, including alcohol. Many made very good money at one point but spent it as fast as they made it so that they had no savings when they lost their job. Some people who are homeless bought houses that were beyond what they could afford and then refinanced them to use the money for things that had nothing to do with the security of their future. Why on Earth you would think that because technology enables increased productivity that what was produced would be distributed to people who needed it is another romantic notion. You can look at the World now and see the inequities produced from greed. What you are choosing to ignore is what the will happen to the "laborers" when they will no longer need to do menial labor such as grow food, carry water, & work in assembly lines.
They will be free to do more creative things. Go to the moon, Mars, and beyond. They will learn and use the other dimensions that surround us that are currently ignored because we have not devised ways of seeing in other frequencies.
A really great discussion, thank you all for your contribution. Mary Rose and Jeanne seem aligned and Deborah, I think you end up there too.

One of the important capabilities that I think human beings now have is the ability to live and express ourselves from consciousness rather than just surviving. There is nothing wrong with surviving, but without consciousness life is not really lived, it is simply existed.

We "architects" of the new world are engaged in a labor that is unlike any other work that we have done before, a shared endeavor among people. Human consciousness is based on and emanates from all of us because we are one, we are all part of the human family and the earth. Connection between people is a key element of the expression of human consciousness.

Regardless of the circumstances of our life or the damage that has been done to people by the consumer culture we live in, we are responsible for our lives. However, we are not responsible for the circumstances, we are responsible for who we are being about our circumstances. Success and failure in our consumer culture is based on the presence or absence of possessions and power. We seek a world where there is no success or failure; our value is that we are eternal beings expressing universal consciousness in this world.

It is important for us to heal and to stop competing with each other and blaming each other. We can change no one but ourselves. Determining the "reasons" why people are homeless is a useless exercise. It is like asking a rat in a maze why it is lost. The rat will come up with reasons, but it is apparent from watching the rat that the design of the maze determines where the rat can go. The rat has choice but only within the narrow limits proscribed by the maze. When we are in the maze, we are like rats. We are unaware of the maze and make up reasons for our behavior and that of others.

Freedom from the maze is now available for us all. We only need the courage and the consciousness to receive it.
I was just talking with a friend today, looking back many thousands of years, before the industrial age, and before the agricultural age, back to the hunter-gatherer stage of our cultural evolution, and also looking forward to what this new information age (or knowledge age, or virtual telecommunication age, or maybe just the computer age), and what we might expect hundreds or thousands of years into the future.

The focus of our discussion was on our habits, both cultural and innate inclinations, and how they might be in conflict with what we need to do to survive and prosper in the world today. One example is that we still have a strong inclination for most us to be followers of a few leaders in a small tribal organization, which is perhaps advantageous for the hunter-gather stage, but it has created problems in later stages and we are still adapting to that. We end up with huge centralized governments ruled by a few powerful elite trying to run the world, but doing very badly.

We were probably fine up through the agricultural age, where we tended to build small villages surrounded by farmland and herding fields, and we stabilized at a level that we could sustain probably indefinitely. But then the industrial age came along, starting with the earliest metal ages, throwing us into centuries of instability that we still have not figured out how to deal with effectively. The basic thing going on is that energy and mineral resources are extracted from the earth, increasing the power of a few people at the expense of the rest, with insufficient social-political controls over doing so equitably, and a complete lack of consequences for dumping the waste products wherever we could get away with it.

So even while we have not figured out how to deal with this imbalance of power over resources, we have started in on the new age of information, which makes me wonder if we are in for problems an order of magnitude worse than we have seen already. The basic thing going on now is that resources are becoming less and less important while information, knowledge, and computational power gains in importance. One clear example of a huge problem caused by imbalances in this new age is the huge financial mess we are now in. Money, an abstract representation of work, or resources, but completely immaterial, just pure information, is controlled mostly by a very few powerful elite, who, it would seem, barely know what they are doing. And the gap between these few ultra-wealthy people and the vast majority of ultra-poor is something like 9 orders of magnitude (e.g. $100 per year compared to $100 billion per year).

So the main problem seems to stem from this disparity of control over our lives and resources, magnified by ever more powerful means of maintaining that control. So not only are we out of control and out of touch with the true costs of our living on earth, we have also grown to the point where we will soon outstrip our ability to sustain ourselves. Not only does it hurt a lot now for most the majority of the planet, but it is going to hurt a lot more for the rest of us very soon, unless we get this under control.

But the problem can not be considered to be population unless either we are planning to not solve it, heading rapidly toward major catastrophe, or we reduce the population severely, which would itself be a major catastrophe. On the other hand, population would actually be an asset if we can just take control of our lives and figure out how to be energy neutral or net-positive again. Use the remaining fossil fuels (and nuclear stockpile, why not) to create renewable solar and wind energy production, creating more than we need, so we can then use the excess energy to clean up the mess before it is too late. That's my plan anyway.
Both Bob and Daniel put a lot into their comments related to human consciousness, and if one thinks about it on a deeper level, this is where everything begins isn't it? I am currently doing research for a book i am writing called: "The Sacred Quest for the Who of I Am". The book explores the biology of human consciousness and how it manifests. And, in so doing i am following closely the research of award-winning cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton, M.D. along with others who are exploring the biology of human consciousness which is a new and rapidly emerging field of discovery as we move from a "faith-based" consciousness at this time into what is referred to as "secular spirituality" which is based in science.

Dr. Lipton's work is based in a new field of science entitled: "epigenetics". And what epigentics is revealing is that the controlling factor in who we are is not our "genes" as has been previously thought, but is actually our environment -- or, more accurately our perception of our environment. And, since our social systems make up a large portion of our environment today, then it is imperative that we take a look at how we are affected by them. And, within the context of social systems, we need to look closely at the monetary system since it is the "driver" of all of our social systems.

Someone whose work I have found to be extremely interesting in the context of the whole on this subject is Dr. Jay Earley, author of: "Transforming Human Culture - Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis." And I would like to go more into Jay's perspective on what is happening at this time, as he looks at our social systems with regard to bringing them back into balance, but a little later as there is so much we need to consider from different levels of consciousness.

Personally, i would like to keep this discussion as much as possible on an experiential basis coupled with scientific data so that we get out of the accusatory state and into one that is based in authenticity. Let's explore here the "whys" of why we act as we do and see if we can find resolution for some of the challenges we face today as the human family from this perspective.

However, this is a group discussion and all i can do is make suggestions - - -
Bob said: "It is like asking a rat in a maze why it is lost. The rat will come up with reasons, but it is apparent from watching the rat that the design of the maze determines where the rat can go. The rat has choice but only within the narrow limits proscribed by the maze. When we are in the maze, we are like rats. We are unaware of the maze and make up reasons for our behavior and that of others."

Great analogy! ...and so true.
This really is a great analogy with the maze representing our present social system design.

Jeanne said:
Bob said: "It is like asking a rat in a maze why it is lost. The rat will come up with reasons, but it is apparent from watching the rat that the design of the maze determines where the rat can go. The rat has choice but only within the narrow limits proscribed by the maze. When we are in the maze, we are like rats. We are unaware of the maze and make up reasons for our behavior and that of others."

Great analogy! ...and so true.
I felt that this article should be added to our discussion. Personally, i do not see anything in the recommendations that make sense to me. Creating fresh water from salt water seems feasible, and is already being accomplished in numerous places so why do we need to go to saltwater agriculture: and then growing meat without raising animals, give me a break. We can obtain all of the protein we need without meat, so what are these people thinking of other than furthering their own addiction? Meat is not a necessity for life and we need to stop those who want to convince it is so they can make more money from it. I know some of us are already on the Veg Solution group, and it is my feeling that we need to get the information we are gathering there over into this group so that we have it all in one place.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-planets...

climate-change-will-cause-civilisation-to-collapse-1742759.html

The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Authoritative new study sets out a grim vision of shortages and violence – but amid all the gloom, there is some hope too

By Jonathan Owen

Sunday, 12 July 2009

An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse".

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet – obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society".

The impact of the global recession is a key theme, with researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at "risk of getting worse due to the recession". The report adds: "Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics."

Although the future has been looking better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world could face violence and unrest due to severe unemployment combined with scarce water, food and energy supplies and the cumulative effects of climate change.

And the authors of the report, produced by the Millennium Project – a think-tank formerly part of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations – set out a number of emerging environmental security issues. "The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change – ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states – has unprecedented implications for political and social stability."

But the authors suggest the threats could also provide the potential for a positive future for all. "The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centred adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood... Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future."

Scientific and technological progress continues to accelerate. IBM promises a computer at 20,000 trillion calculations per second by 2011, which is estimated to be the speed of the human brain. And nanomedicine may one day rebuild damaged cells atom by atom, using nanobots the size of blood cells.
But technological progress carries its own risks. "Globalisation and advanced technology allow fewer people to do more damage and in less time, so that possibly one day a single individual may be able to make and deploy a weapon of mass destruction."

The report also praises the web, which it singles out as "the most powerful force for globalisation, democratisation, economic growth, and education in history". Technological advances are cited as "giving birth to an interdependent humanity that can create and implement global strategies to improve the prospects for humanity".

The immediate problems are rising food and energy prices, shortages of water and increasing migrations "due to political, environmental and economic conditions", which could plunge half the world into social instability and violence. And organised crime is flourishing, with a global income estimated at $3 trillion – twice the military budgets of all countries in the world combined.

The effects of climate change are worsening – by 2025 there could be three billion people without adequate water as the population rises still further. And massive urbanisation, increased encroachment on animal territory, and concentrated livestock production could trigger new pandemics.

Although government and business leaders are responding more seriously to the global environmental situation, it continues to get worse, according to the report. It calls on governments to work to 10-year plans to tackle growing threats to human survival, targeting particularly the US and China, which need to apply the sort of effort and resources that put men on the Moon.

"This is not only important for the environment; it is also a strategy to increase the likelihood of international peace. Without some agreement, it will be difficult to get the kind of global coherence needed to address climate change seriously."

While the world has the resources to address its challenges, coherence and direction have been lacking. Recent meetings of the US and China, as well as of Nato and Russia, and the birth of the G20 plus the continued work of the G8 promise to improve global strategic collaboration, but "it remains to be seen if this spirit of co-operation can continue and if decisions will be made on the scale necessary to really address the global challenges discussed in this report".

Although the scale of the effects of climate change are unprecedented, the causes are generally known, and the consequences can largely be forecast.
The report says, "coordination for effective and adequate action is yet incipient, and environmental problems worsen faster than response or preventive policies are being adopted".

Jerome Glenn, director of the Millennium Project and one of the report's authors, said: "There are answers to our global challenges, but decisions are still not being made on the scale necessary to address them. Three great transitions would help both the world economy and its natural environment – to shift as much as possible from freshwater agriculture to saltwater agriculture; produce healthier meat without the need to grow animals; and replace gasoline cars with electric cars."
Thanks for sharing this report Mary. Although like most main stream thinking, it ignores that most important ingredient in transforming the world - human consciousness, it at least brings to light the physical state of the world.

mary rose said:
I felt that this article should be added to our discussion. Personally, i do not see anything in the recommendations that make sense to me. Creating fresh water from salt water seems feasible, and is already being accomplished in numerous places so why do we need to go to saltwater agriculture: and then growing meat without raising animals, give me a break. We can obtain all of the protein we need without meat, so what are these people thinking of other than furthering their own addiction? Meat is not a necessity for life and we need to stop those who want to convince it is so they can make more money from it. I know some of us are already on the Veg Solution group, and it is my feeling that we need to get the information we are gathering there over into this group so that we have it all in one place.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-planets...

climate-change-will-cause-civilisation-to-collapse-1742759.html

The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Authoritative new study sets out a grim vision of shortages and violence – but amid all the gloom, there is some hope too

By Jonathan Owen

Sunday, 12 July 2009

An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse".

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet – obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society".

The impact of the global recession is a key theme, with researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at "risk of getting worse due to the recession". The report adds: "Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics."

Although the future has been looking better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world could face violence and unrest due to severe unemployment combined with scarce water, food and energy supplies and the cumulative effects of climate change.

And the authors of the report, produced by the Millennium Project – a think-tank formerly part of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations – set out a number of emerging environmental security issues. "The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change – ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states – has unprecedented implications for political and social stability."

But the authors suggest the threats could also provide the potential for a positive future for all. "The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centred adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood... Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future."

Scientific and technological progress continues to accelerate. IBM promises a computer at 20,000 trillion calculations per second by 2011, which is estimated to be the speed of the human brain. And nanomedicine may one day rebuild damaged cells atom by atom, using nanobots the size of blood cells.
But technological progress carries its own risks. "Globalisation and advanced technology allow fewer people to do more damage and in less time, so that possibly one day a single individual may be able to make and deploy a weapon of mass destruction."

The report also praises the web, which it singles out as "the most powerful force for globalisation, democratisation, economic growth, and education in history". Technological advances are cited as "giving birth to an interdependent humanity that can create and implement global strategies to improve the prospects for humanity".

The immediate problems are rising food and energy prices, shortages of water and increasing migrations "due to political, environmental and economic conditions", which could plunge half the world into social instability and violence. And organised crime is flourishing, with a global income estimated at $3 trillion – twice the military budgets of all countries in the world combined.

The effects of climate change are worsening – by 2025 there could be three billion people without adequate water as the population rises still further. And massive urbanisation, increased encroachment on animal territory, and concentrated livestock production could trigger new pandemics.

Although government and business leaders are responding more seriously to the global environmental situation, it continues to get worse, according to the report. It calls on governments to work to 10-year plans to tackle growing threats to human survival, targeting particularly the US and China, which need to apply the sort of effort and resources that put men on the Moon.

"This is not only important for the environment; it is also a strategy to increase the likelihood of international peace. Without some agreement, it will be difficult to get the kind of global coherence needed to address climate change seriously."

While the world has the resources to address its challenges, coherence and direction have been lacking. Recent meetings of the US and China, as well as of Nato and Russia, and the birth of the G20 plus the continued work of the G8 promise to improve global strategic collaboration, but "it remains to be seen if this spirit of co-operation can continue and if decisions will be made on the scale necessary to really address the global challenges discussed in this report".

Although the scale of the effects of climate change are unprecedented, the causes are generally known, and the consequences can largely be forecast.
The report says, "coordination for effective and adequate action is yet incipient, and environmental problems worsen faster than response or preventive policies are being adopted".

Jerome Glenn, director of the Millennium Project and one of the report's authors, said: "There are answers to our global challenges, but decisions are still not being made on the scale necessary to address them. Three great transitions would help both the world economy and its natural environment – to shift as much as possible from freshwater agriculture to saltwater agriculture; produce healthier meat without the need to grow animals; and replace gasoline cars with electric cars."
"What you are choosing to ignore is what the will happen to the "laborers" when they will no longer need to do menial labor such as grow food, carry water, & work in assembly lines.
They will be free to do more creative things. Go to the moon, Mars, and beyond. They will learn and use the other dimensions that surround us that are currently ignored because we have not devised ways of seeing in other frequencies."

With current global political systems, those who are no longer needed to do menial tasks would not be free. There are millions today who are no longer needed to do menial tasks and they are simply excluded from society. The ideal is a leadership that coordinates the infrastructure of a society that provides for the people within it. The reality is a society that is powered by the workforce to maintain the power of those at the top. Yes. The US and the UK have welfare systems. But this is because we both like to call ourselves "democracies" and the welfare systems in place are reluctantly tolerated by those in power because they have no choice. Democracy is openly rejoiced by those who aspire to power... and a stone-in-the-shoe to those who have it.

A lot needs to happen before the benefits of the modern age can be equally distributed and one of them has to be an end to the current monetary system. Wealth depends on poverty. If everyone were equally wealthy, the monetary system would be serving no purpose. Money exists solely so that some may have it while others do not. It then has leverage: the fear of poverty. This keeps the 'movers and shakers' under control while poverty itself keeps the poor under control.

Homeless people tend to be disenfranchised and disempowered. They are not warriors like indigenous people who live harmoniously with their environment. It is, perhaps indigenous people who have the most to offer in terms of leadership.

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