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Sustain
Welcome to Sustain, my vision of a route out of our global malaise.
If we redesigned the rules of our world with sustainability as the guiding principle, how different would our system be? If our greatest minds combined to determine the policies and behaviour best placed to deliver lives of enduring quality, would such an outcome be more likely?
The ecological trends are bleak. We rely on the Earth and human ingenuity to deliver each year’s harvest. Our prevailing system requires this harvest to expand by 3% each year in order to service debt. Our ingenuity is thus misdirected on a blind expansion which, with brutal efficiency, strips the Earth of its capacity to sustain a harvest. Unless our capability to govern resources keeps pace with our hunger to consume them, we are heading towards an ugly decline.
The narrow ideology of our enfeebled politics can barely conceive of palliative remedies, never mind the sweeping reforms demanded by sustainability. A dangerous concept has triumphed for far too long: if we each do just as we please, everything will spontaneously work out for the best. The dogma of the market mechanism and negative liberty has underpinned decades of political and economic negligence. Although comprehensively discredited by the credit crunch, its reign continues in the absence of any alternative.
Stuck with the obvious inadequacy of prevailing governance, the imminent resource crunch is wilfully ignored by a rich world in collective denial. Those in power seek to cement the status quo that serves them so well, with the worker ants rapt in a consumerist status race.
Every day we blunder on our current destructive path diminishes the potential recurrent harvest. The sooner we curb our exponential entropy, the richer life will be for our children. Change is urgent.
This project proposes a path to an alternative.
In a nutshell, we need to master our collected knowledge, using it as the fulcrum of a movement devoted to the delivery of the perfect sustainable society.
Great strides in human development have always followed advances in the means of sharing information – language, writing, paper, the printing press, telecommunications. The emerging innovations of the Internet age bring an informational paragon within touching distance. The imperious power of commerce denies humanity access to this ultimate tool.
We can capture our entire collective understanding for the good of all if we: - abolish intellectual property, allowing the knowledge and culture of all generations to coalesce into one accessible source; - master the nascent techniques of open source, deliberative mechanisms and reputation systems to order, grade and ever improve the quality of that source; and - devote enough of humanity’s intellectual power to the job – our one near infinite resource.
The holistic boost to human development of such a source would render immaterial any reduction in greed-driven innovation. This source would represent much more than a simple encyclopaedia; it would forever be the vanguard of human thought and act as an evolving strategy to deliver the sustainable society. For this latter element, certain articles of faith are unavoidable.
In this scientific age, accepting the existence of any kind of faith is an anathema to some. This is misguided. Faith is a fundamental element of a functioning society – at the most basic level we place faith in our senses and in the existence of free will. In order to craft the source I describe, an initial foundation must be established. At the heart of the source should beat the Maxim: all should strive to promote the sustainable quality of human life. This involves three fundamental steps of faith: the primacy of human life; a broad aspiration of equality; and our responsibility to all future generations.
Such a noble aim is far removed from the principles underlying our economic and political reality. With this egalitarian Maxim laid as the cornerstone, we can use the emerging methods of consensus formation to objectively develop and perfect the tenets of the sustainable society, at both a micro and macro level. Initial dissensus may narrow the ambitious scope I hope can eventually be achieved. Nonetheless, any progress in this direction would still discern valuable guidance absent from our world of individual whim.
This work outlines some of the policies and behavioural norms I personally believe logically extend from the Maxim. Utilising open source+, we can gather our best minds to develop a suite of reforms with a clear, cogent legitimacy far beyond any solo attempt – an independent movement that can establish and promote pragmatic proposals free from the partiality and pressures of party politics. The aim would be to build a benevolent force with momentum that mandates realisation.
The technical development of the source is the likely consequence of our informational trajectory. I fear it will only be realised after the conditions for human life are critically diminished by the very technological progress many hope will provide salvation. We have a need for speed – acute behavioural reform is an urgent imperative. Only one human construct has a track record of success – religion.
I recognise that the suggestion of a new faith will repel both the religious and atheistic alike. Regardless of the moniker, only a movement with the motive power of a faith has the transformative potential required; the mechanism through which humanity can attain balance with our planet. A new secular creed, compatible with metaphysical beliefs, designed to inspire unparalleled change and galvanise mankind into the united action required to overcome the grave threats of the 21st century.
To approach sustainability, a new paradigm of collective resource management will be necessary – negative liberty must be usurped as the central principle of politics. We are so conditioned to defend our sovereign right to consume that an uncomfortable adjustment is inevitable.
If we are to defer to instruction, there can be no authority more righteous than the finessed, impartial wisdom of all generations, an evolving authority ever open to our influence.
If we are to muster behind a belief, faith that our pooled purpose and knowledge can deliver a sustainable society of holistic quality is a powerfully rational candidate. This aspiration can drive a movement that is aligned with most metaphysical beliefs and the better aspects of human nature.
Around this, I believe we can build a belief system from the captured accord of humanity's most able, a dynamic belief system fit to actively engage in our present and future challenges. If it is grounded on transparent benevolence and inclusive means of development, protections against subversion can be constituted. For the ultimate goal would be to engender universal, willing acceptance of the creed as the basis of a thriving human society in eternal equilibrium with the environment.
Aspects of this proposition, particularly the controversial mechanism for delivery, will incite instinctive opposition. Any prospective system designed on sustainable principles will pose stark challenges to conventional wisdom. I thus hope readers can suppress the temptation for quick dismissal. I invite you to engage with the logic of the arguments within to at least test your own opinions.
Downloads
If you prefer to read paper or disconnected from the interweb, below are links to download pdfs.
Here is the abridged version: [1]
And here resides the full unedited behemoth: [2]
I need to do a middle version that is in some semblance thorough (unlike the abridged) and readable (unlike the unabridged). Lack of time and encouragement has delayed this version.
Current site layout
The Introduction gives some more context.
The earlier chapters frame the problems we face with righteous bluster - the Woes of the world and The Natural System. The chapter on Liberty documents my potted history of this cornerstone of liberal democracy, before Monkey Theory at length explains why the ideal that underpins our prevailing political system is chimeric, contributing to Consumerism and our Growth fetish.
My proposed redesign gets underway with a justification of the Abolition of intellectual property which would unlock the true power of Open source and consolidated information. This could power real advance in our society, rather than letting Google do it for us, funded by the entropy machine.
Mastering the next level of open source methods would enable Meritocratic governance, which should be the system of the only sufficient political unit - Global governance. Only this level of action can deliver Sustainability which will require Global tax, Resource rent and Consumption control, however contrary these may be to our natural instincts.
Economic renewal can and must be achieved to deliver adequate change, and I have a few proposals to this end.
The main change we need is at an individual, behavioural level though which I discuss as part of Professional ethics, before the last chapter waxes lyrical on my controversial means of delivery: A new faith called Sustain.
Navigation
To ease navigation through this thicket, I've layered the story to three levels:
1) Each link below leads to a summary of each chapter.
2) In each summary resides a link to the full, unedited rant on each subject.
Alas, much isn't strictly necessary - the record of my education on many of the topics may weigh down the novel elements scattered throughout the whole. Given time and help, I'd like to trim it down into a svelte, readable version. Time is tight though so, for the moment, it is presented in its naked, obese glory. Don't let me put you off though - it's a raw slab of brilliance!
I'd like to open the text up for edit at some point soon (in parallel to my version). Until I've got it all up though I've closed it to all but my edits.
If you'd like to contact me with praise, abuse or queries, email at sustainproject@gmail.com.
