In 1984 a
large part of the rich world came together in a movement that came to
be called 'Feed the World' (video). Since
then, Bob Geldof and others, including some very powerful people, have
kept trying to change things.
In 2010, 1.07 billion people (1 in 7 people in the world) did not have
enough to eat. (source) That is the most in the
known history of humanity.
Meanwhile,
the richest country in the world suffers from
epidemic obesity.
Who is to blame? Many people want to shout out their answer, but what would it mean if it is no one's fault?
In spite of our cleverness, our good intentions and the tremendous
output of our modern economy something is causing billions to starve.
It is causing us
to pollute
our own environment. It is causing us to become an extinction event on earth.
It
also causes innocent individual action to come together invisibly
-- out of sight and mind -- to cause tremendous destruction and pain
... such as the breathtaking cruelty that occurs to at least some
our food animals. (source CAUTION: VERY GRAPHIC VIDEO)
Even in the richest countries things don't quite make sense. Whatever
happened to all the free time time and the easy riches that the 'labour saving devices' were supposed to create? Why
do most people have to work so hard to make ends meet when
there
is so much abundance? Why do so many parents today feel it is too
dangerous for their younger child to play outside unsupervised?
Why does
modern society seem so cold and uncaring to so many?
People are clever. People are powerful. Why then does so much go on that will end up hurting everyone?
MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL
This is based on a real phenomenom -- meaning that
it is repeatable and no matter what you believe it still happens, just
as gravity happens no matter what you believe.
The basis of this answer is the process of Self-Organisation. The key is to understanding our problems is to understand how human self-organisation influences all of us who use money in our daily lives.
By
looking at our local and global communities through the lens of
self-organisation the world suddenly
makes sense. Not only that, but it offers up extraordinary solutions to
some of the most difficult problems we are all facing right now.
These
forces organise themselves without any guidance, plan or leadership.
On the Self-Organisation
page we explain its basic properties and how they
apply to society. The Veil talks about some of its effects using real world situations arising from the climate change debate. On the In Depth
page we go into detail about how these forces work and how you
can programme and test them yourself. You will also find some
original research into this subject.
This not only offers a way to make sense of otherwise senseless
actions in society, but it also suggests some very intriguing solutions.
However, the first step is to learn to see how self-organisation works
in our local and global communities. For this purpose we have set up a blog where we discuss what we see through the human self-organisational lens.
We would be pleased to see you there.
THE CORE ARGUMENT
SUMMARISED
If we
create the right conditions for self-organisation
to occur,
self-organisation will occur, just as when we create the right
conditions for fire, fire will occur. It does not matter whether the
burning material is wood or people.
Because we routinely design
these systems, we know exactly what conditions are necessary to start
self-organisation.
All the
conditions necessary for self-organisation to occur exist in human
society. It is operating in your community right now. These processes
are generating some of the most baffling
and
destructive realities at all levels of society.
Traditional
methods of applying law, policy, rules of faith, etc, will not alter
the long-term destination of a progressive self-organisational system.
On the other hand, the nature of
self-organisation offers us powerful practical tools for change.
This project
is dedicated to describing and promoting these solutions.
