Context & Perspective
Everything You’ve Ever Known
“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.” – Carl Sagan
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The Overview Effect
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Astronaut Edgar Mitchell
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Egoistic Altruism
Here’s “A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place”.
The more people who have what they need to be the best that they can be, then the more my life will improve.
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Fork In The Road
This IS the most exciting time to be alive.
We are at THE moment in all of human history where our world essentially decides between the two paths of a literally unbelievably amazing future OR a very depressing one.
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“I have a motto that if something isn’t blatantly impossible,
then there must be a way of doing it.”
Credited with saving 669 children from the Nazi’s.
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^ Is a genuine era of peace for everyone actually possible?
Ask the reverse. Do you genuinely believe that it’s truly impossible?
If you do then what are you doing reading any of this in the first place?
If you don’t then the only alternative is that it is possible and that means there must be a way to do it.
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We have more than enough people to do this
It only takes 3.5% of people to change the world.
We really don’t need more people “on board” for this. There has already been enough message spreading that the awareness has been raised.
It’s time for solutions and action.
We can do this with what we already have.
How I Feel About Insert Bad Thing
What do you feel about insert group of bad people and bad things going on?
Bad things don’t “just happen”.
When everything is running smoothly, our leaders are behaving proactively, honourably, and there is a realistic sense of hope and optimism for the future...
People just stick to their own little worlds.
It's hard to even imagine a beautiful community where people know each other and folks aren't crippled by financial anxiety... and one of them is sitting in a dark corner plotting about blowing them up.
Whenever something bad happens there is a reason for it. Never said it was a necessarily a good reason. Could be someone thinks they’re mad at one thing but really they're mad at something else. Propaganda will do that to you and we got plenty of that going around.
There are lots of uh... I watched some Star Wars last night so let's call them "paths to the Dark Side".
But there is always a reason.
Which is why I am absolutely 100% positive if we build better places to live, a better society to exist in... a lot of (most?) our other problems will just melt away on their own.
"You make it sound like it’s simple."
It is dammit.
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Project Drawdown :
It’s not like we have no idea what to do.
100 solutions to reverse global warming | Chad Frischmann
Time As A Goal
We really do have it far better than our ancestors in so many ways.
Many things that would have either been obscene luxuries - or outright impossible - are now common place.
Food was so limited back that, dramatically fewer options.
Even just something as simple as coffee everywhere. That's an insane luxury.
Have you ever had a club sandwich? That is an insane luxury.
So what's the real issue here?
In this exact case - Time.
We have the most incredible world our ancestors literally could not have dreamt for.
And none of us have any quality time to enjoy it!
Even when you do get time you're often so worn down that all you end up doing is "recovering for the next round".
So when you're thinking about building a better world - remember in many ways we kind of already have it. We just can't take the time to enjoy it. It’s definitely one of the more important aspects to aim for when building a better tomorrow.
The Message
Telling people they need to fight with everything they have to save a status quo they already didn’t like or even better to simply ‘have less’ is not exactly an appealing message. It’s no wonder they’re not “lining up around the block” to pitch in, it’s not exactly motivating.
You wonder why convenient lies beat out absolutely terrible truths.
The only way to beat out lies that are more convenient than the truth is to wield truth more convenient than the lies.
The message is about having more of the things we like and less of the things we don’t like.
Stuck in traffic for hours, crazy long commutes? Don’t like that.
Quality time to spend with family and friends? Like that one.
Mono-crop Agriculture so intensive that the vegetables we eat quite literally contain fewer and fewer nutrients? Don’t like that.
Financial freedom so having children is possible again? Like that one.
The message is NOT ending abundance.
The message is beginning an era of sustainable abundance. =)
Positive Feedback Loops
Those of you already in the fight may have noticed we have so many problems that simply tackling them one at a time isn't feasible.
The only way to actually handle this myriad of problems in any kind of a time-frame that is 'acceptable' is by aiming for positive feedback loops. Basically fix things that lead to other things being fixed naturally or at least much more easily.
That way the more we accomplish the easier the rest gets.