A New End: A New Beginning

[GliderGuider]

I've always maintained that the multi-factorial nature of the converging crises we're facing makes massive sudden change virtually inevitable. While the nature of the change and the ways we will respond to it are open to debate, as the factors converge the probability of a near-term inflection in the course of our global civilization is approaching 1.0. For better and/or worse, I actually think the inflection is already under way. the reason most people don't see it as an inflection yet is that in many arenas of our lives the changes are still happening too slowly to be perceived on the day/week/month timescales in which most of us operate.

There are a lot of very interesting, useful and hopeful responses we can have to this situation. Those responses will be interesting, useful and hopeful in direct proportion to the degree to which we recognize, accept and confront the situation as it truly is, both in respect to our physical circumstances, our cultural setting, our institutions and ourselves. Wishful, programmed or otherwise unrealistic thinking will not be helpful.

There is a growing group of thinkers who are adopting this position, including such figures as Jim Kunstler, Dmitry Orlov, James Michael Greer, Thomas Homer-Dixon, David Korten and Carolyn Baker. We can add to this number a fellow I just ran across today, John L Peterson. Here are some excerpts from an excellent big-picture article he published on Reality Sandwich.

A New End: A New Beginning

But, over a year ago, the notion that all of this big change could spell the substantial reconfiguration of the familiar country that I have lived in all of my life began to gel in a way that moved beyond the notion of being just a possibility -- a wild card -- into that space of plausibility. I now have come to believe that it is likely and will happen -- soon.

Ideas like this are so big and disruptive that it is really quite hard to get to the place where we take them seriously. For most of us, our lives are evolutionary -- punctuated, perhaps with trauma now and then, but mostly populated by events that are familiar, even if they don't always make personal sense. The concept that EVERYTHING might change is so foreign to any experience that most of us have ever had that even if we say the words and talk about the possibility, we really don't internalize what this might mean.

Multiple trends are converging -- Huge, extraordinary global trends, any number of which would be enough to derail our present way of life, are converging to precipitate a historic big transition event.

Problems are much larger than government -- These kinds of problems are much greater than anything that contemporary governments have ever had to deal with before.

The problems are structural

Leaders think the old system can be "rebooted"

We're not dealing with the structural issues

The situation is so complex that no one really understands it

The issues are global

The system is fundamentally out of balance

Too much inertia, too many lawyers and lobbyists

Potential solutions take too long to implement

Supply chains are long and thin

Cooperation is unlikely, protectionism will prevail

History says it's time

So, what to do in the face of unprecedented change? Two specific things come to mind:

1. Plan for the transition -- Start to think now about how you're going to provide for yourself and those who are important to you in a time when many things don't work the way that always have in the past.

Key Concept: Cooperation -- You can't do this alone.

2. Start thinking about the new world -- Now is the time to begin contemplating the design of the new world. Governments should be doing this. Companies should start skunk works. Big international organizations should put it on their agendas.

Here's the catch. This might not happen. Personally, I think that if there is any one person that has the potential to at least soften this transition it is Barack Obama. As I've suggested, he will have his hands full just trying to get the underlying people and institutions to think differently and act fast enough, but if anyone has the chance to pull it off, it would be him. Already he's getting government to move faster and in more substantive ways than any of his predecessors. It may be, by the way, that he will be the best guy to wind down the old system and reconstitute a new one. It's all of the other folks running the government that I'd be concerned about -- the ones who continue to see the world as it used to be.

There are any number of reasons why this scenario might not manifest itself, not least of which is that there will be many thousands, if not millions of people who will be working very hard to assure that the system doesn't come apart (but then, they may be doing the wrong things).

Seems to me, therefore, that flexibility and permeability (allowing new ideas to get through) are of critical importance here. Remember the first law of Discordianism: "Convictions cause convicts." Whatever you believe imprisons you.

So, stay loose. The winners need to transcend, not try to work their way through all of this. Concentrate on building the new world, don't get emotionally involved in the daily reports of the current global erosion.

I highly recommend the full article.