Thread by @NJHagens

Thread | Interventions & Wild Ideas

After building this synthesis over 20 years, I still don't KNOW what we as society should do, but offer these directional insights and suggestions from recent Earth Day talk conclusion. (Each link is 1-3 minutes).

Choreography of risks

We face sequential and interrelated risks. While energy and climate will be biggest drivers of human futures this century, they will likely not be in top 5 in next decade. #SystemsBlind

Wild Idea 1: Energy Appreciation Day 10/20/20
Instead of lecturing about depletion, intermittence and hydrocarbons, perhaps we need to start with gratitude and awareness of how energy underpins for the specialness of our time.

Wild Idea 2: Pro-future Exponential Information Tech

Exponential tech is creating huge risks. 1) Corporate capture of our time/money and 2) Orwellian/control. We need a 3rd rail – using emergent tech for pro-social futures.

consilienceproject.org/about/

Wild Idea 3: Sensemaking Diplomacy
Our society has hit an iceberg. Instead of navigating lifeboats to shore, most people are shouting about their own iceberg. We need facilitators to bridge groups to have conversations about Reality.

Wild Idea 4: Foresight - Council of Elders
Because money/energy prices are wrong, current policies are only marginal at best. Society/politicians are not yet ready for the REAL policies we'll need in next decade. We need trans-partisan Council of Elrond

Wild Idea 5: Censure - Council of Contrarians
Government has no natural champion for systemic risk. Need a science based group of Contrarians able to veto any major policy w flaws but without commensurate corrupting power of promoting policy.

Wild Idea 6: Incentive - UnTax.org
We've had wrong prices on the main input to our economies for 100+yrs. So, our incentives are obv whacked! Taxing non-renewables + remove tax on humans/corporations would result in innovation/conservation.

Wild Idea 7: Well-Being - HowAreWe.org
People recognize that “GDP”/“Jobs” can’t be our sole cultural goals. We need to measure how people are really doing + compare to other demographics – To spur real conversations about what is 'success' .

Wild Idea 8: Compromise - Transition Triage
We need to meet the future halfway. MANY of our current cultural pursuits have no viable future in the coming Great Simplification -Here I suggest jettisoning green Lawns as one such item on the (long) list.

Wild Idea 9: Civilian Land Corps
We need young people with skills/vocations/support, restored local ecology, sequestering carbon, and building community. CLC is win-win-win especially wrt rest of things stimulus is being wasted on. #greenhorns.org

Wild Idea 10: Sacred - A Life Ethic
We are losing our 2 main pillars of meaning (religion and economic growth). In process also losing natural world. We need a new belief in the Sacred – a Life ethic for our times. #LifeEthic

Wild Idea 11: Protect - Life Brigade
We share planet with 10 million species, many in peril, most of which have nary a single human champion. Choose one and be their superhero. Use our energy/modern privilege to protect. #LifeBrigade

Wild Idea 12: Tribe for Tomorrow
Many people *feel* our reality and are not swayed by consensus trance on TV/media. Find the Others. Create a plan. Build a movement - for Tomorrow. Tag, you’re it. #TribeForTomorrow #TheOthers

Wild Idea 13: Local Community
The single biggest thing you can do to prepare for the future is build networks of humans locally. Yet we are so rich we e.g. order things on Amazon to our house and don’t *need* other ppl. That is about to change, massively.

Wild Idea 14: Wisdom - 4 Minute Women
Our culture is clever and efficient. But we’ve lost wisdom and grace. There are many wisdom traditions that can point the way. One is to incorporate women’s perspective on future far more than we have. #4MinuteWomen

Wild Idea 15: Living - Hitchhiker's Guide to being alive at this crazy time
We need a biophysically informed guide on how to cope/thrive and engage with the world, and live a good life of meaning. (Forthcoming!)

Wild Idea 16: Love
We're not alive at normal times – yet the world is not yet fully broken. In addition to truth, science, and activism, culture change will need…love. Love – of self, others, and nature is at core of what it means to be human.

End Thread. Thank you. What do YOU think we should be doing wrt the Human Predicament, and the coming Great Simplification? Many more Wild Ideas needed. #TheGreatSimplification #WildIdeas