Pronounced "One 'Ouse", as I learned it from my percussionist friends in Sierra Leone; my Senegalese friends would comparably say "On Est Ensemble". Both of these statements, and many like them are uttered by folks like us all around the planet, all sharing in a natural and innate sense of unity.
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)?
I think Star Trek folks sort of gave it a shot when they designed Starfleet, but they 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.
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 other people continue to design and decide for us.
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. We are 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.
If we could see just how interdependent we have always been, and how strengthening those around us strengthens us all as a consequence. How any institution would crumble immediately if we all wished it so. That is how truly powerful we are in unity - we can create amazing things as we have done so already, but we can also make anything vanish if we all simply agreed to stop using it, relying on it or believing in it - whatever that may be. For instance, we don't like wars? We simply replace the concept of nations, states and governments with something better. We don't like banking systems? We design an alternative and then ditch the old ways. It really starts with each one of us caring enough to make the time to listen to one another. Through an innate curiosity to truly understand one another, we can finally collaborate instead of fear and/or hate and divide.
This video here is of the once famous Charlie Chaplin, calling us out on our kindness (and blindness) almost a century ago.
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 genuine 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, 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."
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.
The Call to Action: Though a seemingly ambitious objective, you and I can make it our mission to define it, 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 Proposed Medium: Use this MediaWiki platform (which is the same open source software used for WikiPedia) as a dialogue for re-inventing our reality.
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.
/#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
Collaboration amongst many is exponentially more difficult and may seem exhausting, inefficient andor ineffective. Wikipedia somehow made it work - so there's no reason why we can't make this dialogue work using the same platform.
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.
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.
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.
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