Designing the Future

Suppose you are called upon to redesign earth’s planetary-wide civilization without any limitations or considerations based on current power structures, governance, cultural or societal norms of how things are done today. Your goal is to help rid the world of war, poverty, hunger, prejudices, disease, and environmental degradation, and to create a satisfying and fulfilling life for all inhabitants, and a sustainable one for all future generations yet to be  born.

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You are free to rearrange society and the global civilization in any way you think will work. The only limitation is that your redesign must factor in the carrying capacity of the planet, which means all resource utilization has to be appropriate to support a sustainable life for all on the planet. How would you manage and distribute the resources of the world along all the necessities of life to accommodate the needs of all? You can rearrange the entire civilization to make what you consider the best of all possible scenarios, bearing in mind that any unmet need for any individuals or segment of the population reduces the well-being and the standard of living for all. 

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Individual well-being must include not only balance and harmony with each other and the environment, but with all life on the planet. It must also include equitable land, water, food and all resource planning and their distribution, use and regeneration.  It must also include considerations for equitable civil infrastructure design, governance, economic systems, education systems, and anything else you feel is necessary to sustain the well-being for all.

 

How would you handle differences in tribal, societal or cultural beliefs?  Would you have separate nations on the planet or one planetary wide government? How would representatives of those governments be chosen, what educational and psychological requirements, experience or backgrounds would they have to have? What about their ethics or moral compasses? How would the effectiveness of their governance be measured? How would situations be handled where the governing body or the individuals comprising them do not meet the standards of effectiveness and non-partisanship that you have established?

 

How would you prevent individuals from seeking a position of material or privileged advantage over others?  How would you stop them from claiming rights to have more children, a bigger house, or other types of status or wealth not available to all individuals? On what basis could you say these privileged citizens deserve these special considerations? Or that others don’t deserve them? 
 
Remember, if you force any predetermined set of limitations or values on other groups, tribes, religions, cultures, nations, or even others in your own neighborhood for that matter, you will generate bad feelings at best and possibly civil unrest and/or violence at worst.

 

How would you prevent public or private institutional corruption? How would you resolve disputes? Would you declare universal local and global laws and treaties? What would be the ethical and moral basis for those laws? Would you use military and/or police methods for enforcement? How would you equitably judge who had violated those laws and treaties and what would be the penalties for having done so?

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It is obviously extremely challenging to figure out how to accomplish the objectives laid out above.  We must remember that in some other group’s mind whether in our own neighborhood or around the planet, we are “the other”. So not only must we all be free of the desire for material possessions and the thinking that says we deserve more than some “other group(s)”, but we must also let go of all religious, societal, cultural, tribal, and nationalistic biases and beliefs that may be the underlying cause the stereotyping “of others”.

  

We must move to a new way of thinking.  In other words, we must raise our compassion, ethics, spirituality, consciousness,  love for all beings, and, most of all, we must recognize our interconnectedness and our oneness, and, in that oneness, acknowledge that what we do to others, we do to ourselves...

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So, what would you do?... 

 

See the Earth Charter for more considerations...