To Save the World
Many people fear society is being ripped apart and may never be whole again. Some question whether the country has ever been this divided.
A common response to such talk of impending doom is often, “yeah, yeah, yeah—I might agree those are all problems but what is your solution?”
The following is not just my solution, but the solution—the only one that is based on reality and thus has any chance of increasing our collective odds of long-term survival. In fact, it is a paradigm shift of historic proportions.
Big talk, eh? Well, you wanted the solution so read on . . .
There is a solution—one based on science and more importantly, reality—and it is staring us right in the face if we only care to look. And if we decide we want to childishly ignore reality, it will sooner or later show us that it most certainly exists. Thinking we are almost God-like in our ability to deny reality will end poorly for us all.
But it requires throwing the entire conservative/liberal, Right versus Left thinking in the trash bin of history. Right versus Left is childish, immature thinking.
This dichotomy is at the core of our present dilemma. On one hand, we have used the discoveries driven by the Scientific Revolution to transform our world. In less than 500 years we have collectively discovered the fabric of reality to an astonishing degree.
Yet once we leave the hard sciences and mathematics—and even those are being soiled—we revert to a pre-Scientific Revolution paradigm based on opinion rather than inter-connected and self-supporting facts. Hippocrates’s adage summarizes where these separate paradigms lead: “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.”
Science-thinking is about discovering reality. Opinion-thinking is about attempting to define reality—based of course on one’s opinion.
How about taking a short, mental trip with me, and let’s see where this might go, since the present clearly isn’t working and it’s getting worse by the day.
To start, people who are blindly partisan should be ignored in this process—nothing will change their minds and it is a waste of time and effort to attempt to do so. Unless you are willing to at least temporarily consider an alternative, quit reading and go back to your small part in what has become mindless tribal wars.
Rather, I’m talking to those who are concerned with the direction of the country and the world and are open to considering alternative worldviews. What follows is an attempt to describe a planet-wide paradigm shift of epic proportions. Yes, I know how that sounds; trust me I know. But give it a shot anyhow.
In my professional life, I have had a lot of experience in working with teams to analyze a situation and collectively come up with a better design and better way of doing things. I have discovered a few rules to keep this process on track:
1) It is a fool’s errand to look to solve issues from a problem perspective—rather one needs to operate from an agreement perspective. Trying to fix things by looking at problems generally ends with finger-pointing and even more friction. This is a good rule to follow in all areas of your life—focus and build on agreement, not disagreement. For this process, you must at least temporarily mentally abandon the present and thus must . . .
2) Truly start with a blank slate. You can’t bring any biases or preconceived notions with you . . .
3) It is a fact-based process—no one cares what your opinion is. What is the truth? What is reality? That is what we are searching for. And this isn’t some “heavy” concept; we do it all the time… that’s what we do when we move a houseplant from this window to that, searching for where it seems to like it the most.
4) Consistency of thought and action. No contradictions are allowed. Something can’t be big and small or fast and slow at the same time. If in the process we do run into one we must go back to the earlier point of agreement and discuss which is right until we reach a conclusion.
5) Must run the film in the right direction. Confusion often comes by thinking of things backwards in time. Think of attempting to watch a movie backward and trying to make sense of it. It can’t be done. You must mentally go back in time and run the process forward if you have any chance of it making sense.
6) And you only move forward with agreement—everyone’s voice matters—regardless of position or power—but only if they can back up what they are saying with facts or strong agreement from all other participants. Don’t forget—no one cares what your opinion is. As noted in #1, don’t look for areas of disagreement but instead focus on areas of agreement.
7) Begin at the beginning (this also forces you to “run the film” in the right direction).
For a business, this might be strategic analysis. For us, it is the beginning of us, humans. We evolved on this planet, as did all life. There has probably never been a more supported theory in all of human history.
The Left has soiled this fact by attempting to tie it with an anti-God/anti-religion perspective. This is false and in no way does acceptance of the reality of our evolution demand the negation of God. In fact, it does just the opposite.
But the fact remains, we are a natural part of this world and nothing we can do, nothing we can build, can operate outside of this reality.
The evolution comment above has probably generated strong emotions in some of you. If so, you have violated Rule No. 2 above—the necessity of starting with a blank slate. If at any time during this process you fight an idea, you are doing the same.
You can always go back to your old ideas later so there is no risk in abandoning them for a few minutes. One can’t consider a round earth while insisting on the earth being flat. One can’t consider relativity and space/time if you insist on Newtonian physics.
This is no different—you can’t consider the view from another mountain top if you are unwilling to go and stand on it and experience it yourself. If you won’t, what are you afraid of?
Amazingly, once you accept our evolution almost all significant political and economic disagreements fade away.
This is common in a business reorganization as many of the seemingly unending company problems are actually symptoms of a poorly designed and/or poorly functioning system. Build things right from the start and these arguments and frictions evaporate. It’s not that they are “solved.” It’s that the problem has now never existed in the first place.
In the past, people have used their opinions as the template for finding and defining reality. That is actually backward. The only template is reality. If you later want to compare this to your previous opinions that’s fine—although meaningless to anyone other than perhaps yourself.
But once you accept our natural place in the world it becomes crystal clear that individual freedom and thus small, limited government is the only viable choice. The science on this—to say nothing of real-world results—is overwhelming.
Science has revealed reality through billions of interconnected facts—not a single one in conflict with any of the others—proven every day in an almost infinite number of interactions. This is something opinions never can do—they attempt to stand alone and people frequently hold one opinion on this subject and another conflicting opinion on another. This does not mirror reality.
All of progressivism falls apart when it is forced to define itself as parts of a greater whole—with none in conflict, just like science.
And rather than debate every single issue, whether progressive or conservative, we instead start with a clean slate and begin at the beginning of us—we evolved here and are a natural part of the universe.
There is reality and it is discoverable. Swarm intelligence and the self-organization it drives have been with us since long before we were human. Progressivism is built on a false and inferior model—that having a boss or leader is necessary. Swarm intelligence—which is just as real as is gravity—proves this is not only flawed but certain to fail and create potentially catastrophic failures.
Real-world results over hundreds of years, to say nothing of the facts that drive this paradigm change, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that individual freedom does not lead to anarchy—big government does that—but rather to order, progress, and advancement.
If we want to save the world we need to change as many adults’ minds as possible and spend the bulk of our efforts on teaching children this advancement in thinking. Opinions are for things like whether chocolate or strawberry ice cream tastes better, not for politics, or economics, or any other area that is based on fact.
So, you want to save the world? Join us and help spread individual freedom and a fact-based paradigm around the world.
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