Thread by @JamieKelseyFry

In the context of a holiday with religious dimensions, here’s something you may find ‘spiritual’. The #OverviewEffect

“The overview effect is a cognitive and emotional shift in a person's awareness, their consciousness and their identity when they see the Earth from space” 🎅🧵

It’s impossible for anyone of my generation in the U.K. not to have been thrilled by the #StarTrek series in the 70s. So it is stunning to read of the response that #WilliamShatner or ‘Captain Kirk’ had when he actually did go into space npr.org/2022/10/23/113…

"It was the death that I saw in space and the lifeforce that I saw coming from the planet — the blue, the beige and the white," he said. "And I realized one was death and the other was life."

"I wept for the Earth because I realized it's dying. I dedicated my book, Boldly Go, to my great-grandchild, who's three now — coming three — and in the dedication, say it's them, those youngsters, who are going to reap what we have sown in terms of the destruction of the Earth”

"I saw more clearly than I have, with all the studying and reading I've done, the writhing, slow death of Earth and we on it. It's a little tiny rock with an onion skin air around it. That's how fragile it all is. It's so fragile. We hang by a thread ... we're just dangling."

"I was crying… I didn't know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what's the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief… We're entangled with each other… We have a war ... the stupidity of it all is so obvious."

I’m not going to have an #OverviewEffect. But I do feel that if everyone could, the world would be transformed, this extraordinary species would not debase itself by conflict, greed or struggle and suffering for the many to keep the few in power and ridiculous opulence.

The closest I’ll ever be to this experience is to have been part of the team that developed and ran the worlds first #GlobalAssembly in 2021. 100 people chosen by #Sortition, a true snapshot of this human family, coming together for 68 hours over 11 weeks.

I believe it’s the first time the human family has been brought together like this. Not self selected, not ‘leaders’, not ‘plucked’ by an NGO, but brought together by sortition. A goat herder from #Socotra, a teen student from #Wuhan, a house maid in #SierraLeone…

The reason that this was a comparable experience is that I felt deep grief, grief because I witnessed the reality that the default mode for humanity is love and compassion, a willingness to cooperate and a desire for a sustainable future for our children.

If this is how we really are, then why have we got to this dreadful precipice of suffering and loss? Perpetual wars for the last resources, environmental and biodiversity collapse, water scarcity and famine? When we are so extraordinary and capable of such extraordinary things?

We can’t all go into space but we can look at the #GlobalAssembly, at what was learned, at how it points the way to an evolution in the way humanity makes decisions together. Here are 8 films that begin to tell the story youtube.com/playlist?list=… our report globalassembly.org/report

All the crises we face can only be adequately addressed when we deal with the crisis in governance itself. There is nothing more ordinary than upgrading an operating system when it is out of date. And that’s where we are. That’s where I believe the most important work lies,