Post by Andreas Lang on Feb 7, 2012 17:41:46 GMT 1
By Trend Evolution in Part-time Occupy Group
Hello and good day.
I write as an individual - but also as a member of Occupy, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, and so forth. You may be surprised by some of what I write here.
Here are some of the problems, issues and solutions that will, and indeed certainly are, changing the current socio-economic system.
You may, no doubt, know some, all, or more than, what is written here – that's great. This is not written to say that I, or any group, are better, or worse, than any other. Thanks for reading. Responses that may be made will highlight only what morality guides that person, and hopefully, new idea's and solutions.
3D printing is a not-so-new technology that is already getting close to enabling us to PRINT products. The RepRap project is an open source project that allows individuals to have their own 3D printer, at home, to print off products that they design, or download templates for. Currently the technology is advanced enough for researchers to be able to print human tissue. When this technology takes hold, mass production will soon start to fade, along with it our current economic system (Socio-Capitalism), and, unbelievably, within a generation... money, at least as we, the Debt to Future generation, understand it.
reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
Social networks (Linked In, Chatter, Yammer, etc.) and hand-held terminals (iOS devices, Android devices) result in the prospect of LIVE REFERENDUMS upon social issues. This, alongside newly evolving online infrastructure projects will mean that Politicians, in their current vocational form at least, are no longer required. Neither will a high proportion of Management. Neither will hierarchy – certainly not in the form that we experience it currently. To witness the power of such systems as a current catalyst for social change please see: Egypt; Syria; Occupy. Please note: These are used as examples of current vast social change based upon those technologies, not recommendations of how to use them for change.
Genome mapping is a much heard of scientific paradigm that has been widely publicised. Amongst the many ethical dangers associated with it, there are potential uses for good: such as mapping the world's existing species to create an 'ark' of records, preserving those species individuality and existence, in the face of the current mass extinction of species, caused by the actions of Homo Sapiens. Preserving the existing biomass creates the potential for the survival of natural, evolved order, rather than creating a new one based upon man-man species. Either way, technology will soon allow us to map genomes much more quickly, creating a 'backup' of life on Earth – which, we, as a species, are rapidly destroying.
linkage.rockefeller.edu/soft/
Geo-engineering is perhaps the most controversial technology that we currently possess. Currently there are projects to attempt to control our global climate in the near future, to avert consequences of climate change: whether such changes are man-made or not, those changes are, now undoubtedly, occurring. Mars has experienced temperature rises similar but lesser than those on Earth - this is because our star, the sun, is warming slightly. Solar temperature variations have caused most of the changes of content of biomass by species in Earth's history, from our current best understanding. On occasion those changes have been Mass Extinctions: like the sixth such event, that is being experienced right now.
Geo-engineering experiments currently include techniques such as: layering gases in the Stratosphere for solar reflection, and directly releasing magnetised 'dust' into the Ionosphere & Magnetosphere for similar reflective purposes, controlled by high-energy electrical devices on the Earth's surface. Such projects are currently extremely expensive en mass, that only the largest governments and corporations can fund them: the USA/Canadian/UK governments signed a treaty that enabled co-participation in such experiments. Exxon and other large energy companies are funding equivalents. www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/oct/06/us-push-geoengineering?intcmp=239
Ultimately this means that our children will grow up to experience weather as a man made phenomena. The age of natural weather has passed. The difficulty is that Exxon et al already hold governments over a barrel. They are attempting to appear ethical by researching and testing such projects. But a real danger remains in their hope to continue to drill for oil and gas for decades to come, whilst manipulating the climate directly. Quite simply: mistakes in geo-engineering are not going to be costly, they are going to be apocalyptic.
Economic models are being reconsidered across the globe right now. Feudalism failed. Stalinism failed. Capitalism failed. Currently we are using a socio-capitalist model, as a temporary measure to attempt to save Capitalism. Most of that mathematical system could be retainable, although clearly such efforts are failing. If it does fail, and indeed if it doesn't, new, sustainable economic models are required, that account for our limited global resources and high human population. Such models have been theorised by very experienced scholars for some time, a strong example is – 'Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet' by Prof. Tim Jackson (with Forward by HRH The Prince of Wales) is a strong example, written whilst Economics Commissioner for the Sustainable Development Commission. No conclusion from any individual or group has been accepted as a solution by any current internationally recognised body. In the face of the second largest economic systemic failure in history, that is a reality that is impossible to ignore.
www.sd-commission.org.uk/data/files/publications/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf
The more minds that confer over such problems, the greater our capacity as a whole to overcome those problems.
From what I have experienced of the Occupy movement, that is what is happening. Intelligent, motivated people protesting against our existing failures to motivate research, and motivate politicians to push through positive solutions in legislation – and discussing in earnest potential solutions to problems.
I have met some of the most intelligent, motivated, caring, compassionate people in my lifetime in the movement: in person, and online. That is absolutely the truth, as are all my words. Those people are opening their arms to those who have been excluded by society for too long as part of that compassion that I have seen. The homeless. The mentally ill. The addicted. Those individuals have a place in society too – as they have their own potential solutions, and, moreover, they are living creatures, they are humans, they are people. Because of that resolution, which mainly only religions have made in the past, protest camps have a higher than usual proportion of those people.
Unfortunately, by showing such compassion, and by believing in something so much that they are willing to stand, sleep and shout in public, some of the media has been able to hook on to the aspects of the movement that appear, in our current, corrupt, collapsing system, appear 'anti-social.' It's interesting to witness that those media outlets are almost always owned by huge multinational corporations, in turn owned by multi-billionaire media barons, who have little or no contact with 'the masses.' Those media companies are not wholly self-interested, not wholly evil. But what they are for certain, is a conduit for a very particular perspective – which seems to just so happen to be a perspective which would maintain the huge rift between the richest and poorest.
Mainly by 'bumping up' stories of benefit abuse, and 'bumping down' stories of corporate abuse.
We live in a significant, and in many ways desperate time. Revolution, war, economic collapse, and changes to long established systems are everywhere. Opinions are becoming more and more polarised. Opinions are becoming voiced more and more. Is this because we, as a global community, are seeing a massive wave of change in the face of our previous errors? Or we look back at this time in history and pass it off as just another few years like the rest?
Either way, raising our voice, non-violently, with ethics as our motive, no matter what our background, vocation, nationality, political allegiance, can only add to the amount of prospective solutions available to sustain ourselves, our children, and their world.
To my mind, that has to be the most worthwhile of all pass-times.
So I shall continue.
Thanks for reading, and the very best to you and yours.
Source: Trend Evolution in Part-time Occupy Group