One House
Pronounced One 'Ouse (without the 'H'). I learned this expression from my percussionist friends while living and working in Sierra Leone. While in Senegal, my friends there would comparably say "On Est Ensemble". Similar statements are uttered by folks all around the planet, all sharing in a sense or feeling of unity, regardless of how little we may understand it, and regardless of how far we strive for excellence on our individual paths and journeys. The collective and the individual are one and the same; they're not mutually exclusive concepts.
The Big Question: Do you know what world peace looks like? Can you envision an entirely different approach to life on earth? How would our planet function if we wanted everyone to have a good standard of living and quality of life? Has anyone ever thought to define world peace with precision? Can any single person or group have the answer(s)?
History Repeating Itself: The following (appeal to emotion) video is of the once famous Charlie Chaplin, calling us out on our kindness (and blindness), almost a century ago now. Bring up the transcript and translate it if you need to, and consider replacing the reference to God with Life or Existence if the term bothers you.
Do you think this message is wishful and dreamy? If so, have you ever stopped to ponder whether you were taught to think exactly that?
The Call to Action: Though a seemingly ambitious objective, you and I can make it our mission to define World Peace, and to then strategize and formulate plans on how we can transition to such a shared vision. We can start right here, right now, until we're all good and ready to do whatever it is we all decide we need to do to get there. The more voices participate, the more universal and inclusive our objectives will be. It truly is that simple.
We could also wait for people like George Soros to design Open Society concepts for us, and then accept our fate as to how we should live however it is others continue to design and decide for us.
The Immediate Challenge: Though it is difficult and time consuming to navigate a sea of differing views and opinions, we do know that a jury is used in a court of law due to mathematical demonstrations that "two heads are often better than one." Consistently, we consider that brainstorming, defining and formulating goals, objectives, solutions and strategies can often be enriched through dialogue and diversity.
I think Star Trek folks sort of gave it a shot with the original Starfleet, but the authors still felt the need to dream up conflicts with aliens, as if unavoidable (or perhaps for entertainment purposes). Are they truly innate though, or are we desensitized to violence at such an early age that conflict becomes perceived as a human trait that we cannot circumvent? A trait in them and the others of course, not in us; we're somehow (almost always) the good guys/gals.
What may seem logically certain is that if we don't start off by defining world peace, we're highly unlikely to ever get there (see the formal reasoning behind the importance of defining goals further below). What may also seem obvious right away is that the more heads are involved in this (or any) process, the closer we will get to a more desirable, feasible, inclusive and universal solution.
The Proposed Medium: Use this MediaWiki platform (which is the same open source software used for WikiPedia) as a dialogue for re-inventing our reality. We have used this platform to collect all human knowledge, creating the biggest encyclopedia about our past. What is stopping us from using it to design all that we wish to see in our future reality?
If you've ever felt unheard or helpless in affecting change, perhaps because because presidents, prime ministers, monarchies and generals don't ask you for your opinion before they make decisions, then lie about all that they do, consider this platform as an opportunity to override them all. An opportunity to redesign life without them. What is stopping us from designing such a reality except us?
Qualifying the Social Need for Collaborating on Shared Objectives: If we consider ourselves a new organization or association that is trying to create some sort of value, we may begin by forming a high level vision of what it is we care to achieve, and then figure out an approach to achieving it. So far, so simple?
In the same way, we can then begin to define more detailed objectives that indicate whether we are on a path towards our vision or not. To reach these objectives, we can formulate various cost- and risk-aware strategies however we see fit.
We can trickle this same logic all the way down to the very detailed of tasks: What do we care to achieve? How will we achieve it?
SMART-ER Goals are commonly used by various types of organizations to define shared objectives. Though various interpretations exist, we can use Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound, with the eventual addition of Evaluate/Revise.
The first S, and perhaps the most important, is to be specific about our goal. We need to know where we're going if we care to ever get there.
Perennial Illusions: The majority (or all) of us have been made to believe that there is no other way to live; that the world is a complicated place, that life is not fair, that we must attend school, and then get a job or run a business and feed the economy. Economy is good == life is good; economy is bad == life is bad.
We are also made to believe that there are some bad, scary, lazy, or weird people out there that think so differently from us, that we could never ever see eye to eye on everything, if on anything. My personal experiences and encounters tell me otherwise. All current behaviours stem from existing societies. There would be zero doubt that if we changed our societies, people would change as a result. We may no longer be as good, and others may no longer be as bad. No matter what, all people, will definitely change. This also means that not one of us knows how others will behave, we can only speculate.
What I do know is that I've only met good people everywhere I've gone, some of whom have felt the need to do bad things. We have always been interdependent, without question. Strengthening those around us has always strengthened us all as a consequence. Simply put, the stronger we all are, the less inclined any of us will be to do "bad things".
Just as importantly if not more, I would love for us to see how any institution would crumble immediately if we all wished it away. That is how truly powerful we are in unity - not only can we create amazing things, but whatever we stop using, relying on or believing in will simply cease to exist! This is not wishful fluff, it's literally the driving force behind a free market economy.
Imagine for example that we do not want any more wars. Great initiative, but how could we ever fix something so complicated? Well, what if we replaced the concept of nations, states and governments with something better? Seems crazy at first but if we dig into the idea, we find that there's nothing stopping us from doing so! Same with banking systems, we can design our very own alternative and do away with the old.
What's the catch? Well, each and every one of us must care enough to make the time to listen to one another. To cultivate a genuine curiosity to truly understand one another so we can finally collaborate instead of fear and/or hate and divide. That's it. Difficult, but is it though?
I would love for us to lean into our curiosity for questioning the status quo, similarly to how so many of us used to ask "why" about everything when we were still kids (just before adults, schools and other institutions choked this curiosity out of so many of us). The trail of our discoveries would eventually lead us back to what has always been right there for us to feel. That is, to understand both ourselves and our world, through a connection to our existence, where we feel our humanity forcing us to be considerate of others, in the same way so many of us would feel care and concern for a child who is exposed to danger. In the same way that every family I've ever met anywhere around the world has shown me care and consideration, regardless of whether they were socialist, communist, capitalist, christian, muslim, jewish, buddhist, atheist, beach bums, mountain folk, rich, poor, vegan, pescatarian, omnivorous or otherwise.
I am not (nor is anyone, I could argue) brighter than anyone else, but I've been lucky enough to have experienced a wide variety of situations in and around the world. I've also had the opportunity (and the leisure of) exposure to endless courses, books, authors and artists who have seen things and took the time to share them with the rest of us. I can suggest endless titles to help but would rather suggest an app like Blinkist and a mindset that is open to various contradicting views.
If you are interested in reading, I suggest a quick start with Willful blindness (2011) by Margaret Heffernan, Collective Illusions (2022) by Todd Rose, The Psychology of Money (2020) by Morgan Housel, Capitalist Realism (2009) by Mark Fisher, and Understanding Power (2002) by Noam Chomsky et al. Some thoughts worth considering from the first two titles mentioned, respectively: "By seeking out other perspectives and questioning the world around us, we can avoid falling into complacency and conformity" and "In doubting our own judgment and defaulting to conformity, we transform ourselves from individuals into members of the herd."
#YouAndMe #ToiEtMoi #TuYYo #NiHeWo #IntaWAna #BanVaToi #LetsDefineWorldPeaceTogether
THE BLUEPRINT
This will be a living document and shapeable however we see fit; none of it is meant to be forever static; every part of this Blueprint is open to (and welcoming of) debate, critique, and most importantly, change.
- Administrative Regions to identify global regional needs based on topology, weather and other environmental factors
- Energy Sources including Regional Needs and their Dispersion
- Food Sources including Regional Needs and their Dispersion
- Water Sources including Regional Needs and their Dispersion
- Other Natural Sources including Regional Needs and their Dispersion
- Property Ownership including Equity, Equality and Meritocracy, with a globally accepted and humane min and max
- Value Exchange Systems including Markets, Economies and Incentives, with a globally accepted and humane min and max
- Taxation flat and consistent as a globally accepted and humane value, based on the newly envisioned value exchange system
- Infrastructure such as Public Works and Shared Services that include Transportation, Communication, Healthcare and Welfare
- Policy and our overarching approach to global consensus, replacing all existing trade agreements
- Legislation basic universal human law similar to the golden rule with community-based amendments
- Enforcement to police, defend, serve and enforce the application of the universal human laws and their community-based amendments
- Human and Environmental Prosperity including Research and Development, and our Collective Human and Humane Advancement as a whole
- Personal Growth including Learning Experiences, Healthy Lifestyles and Personal Development
- Culture as an umbrella for all forms of Arts, Humanely Evolving Traditions, and Celebration of Diversity
Each of these will evidently require Pilot → Migration → Transition → Exit/Revision plans (Preliminary Migration and Transition Plan) to bring us from the existing state to our more desirable objectives.
This collaborative MediaWiki approach to dialogue can help us ensure relevance and inclusion, especially as translation and accessibility software keep improving. Engagement and participation can inherently make us fully accountable for, and accepting of, the world we eventually rebuild together. Not one of us can figure this out alone - it must be a collaborative effort.
THE GUIDELINE, NICE AND SIMPLE
Please keep your contributions civil, constructive and collaborative. There will be zero tolerance for indecency andor abuse. Everyone's time is precious; yours too. Please don't waste it away.
Collaboration amongst many is exponentially more difficult and may seem exhausting, inefficient andor ineffective - and yet, Wikipedia made it work! Equally inherently, the more voices join this dialogue, the less biased the Blueprint will be.
Free resources are available on sites like Opencourseware.org, Coursera.org and Edx.org if you need to learn the art of constructive communication and collaboration. Once you're ready, your thoughts will always be welcome on here, no matter who you are or where you currently stand.
THE BACKEND WISHBONE
The backend functionality and sustainability, the theories and perspectives, the wishful vision and mission should we choose to accept it.
- A Time for Change Initial call to action; we can share an ultimate, underlying and realistic vision of world peace which celebrates diversity and promotes creativity and kindness (that's right, peace is not the same thing as conformity; quite far from it in fact).
- Purpose, Mission and Vision What is One House and why e-Pangea? (Some of) The (long-winded, but impactful) thinking behind the mission
- The Drive, The Push, The Pull More on why we need this dialogue (many prefer a video; I'm working on it; ping me if you want to help)
- Technical and Financial OneHouse Project Setup, Configuration, Management Costs and Sustainability
- Author Just another human being like you, useless alone but naturally and synergistically awesome if/when we stand together
Curiosity leads to discovery.
Discovery sparks new feelings.
Feelings inform our learning.
Learning feeds our growth.
So Living without Growth is likely to Feel like a mundane, plateau of existence devoid of any meaning.
In other words,
Discovering, is Feeling;
Feeling, is Learning;
Learning, is Growing.
Growing, is Living.