Social Evolution is coming...

Part 4 - The Awakening
Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world.
For indeed, that's all who ever have. - Margaret Mead
>> We will not be silent! We will not obey!
We will not let our government destroy our humanity!
>> If you looked at young blacks
and young whites
with a discerning eye...
and careful hearing...
they have been telling us
and we would not listen!
>> A year ago, thousands of Egyptians shocked the world
when they took to Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Fast forward 365 days
and the iconic square is packed again.
>> You know, they're begining to understand that the game is up.
And yet, in their desperation to preserve their dream
They want to remove any remaining traces of Democracy from the system.
>> Years of anger and frustration spilling over in the Romanian capital.
What began as a protest against healthcare reform
has widened into mass protests against the government.
>> Friday's protests culinates a week of numerous mass-rallies
accross Poland...
>> ...a revolution. These people are also standing for change.
>> My wages didn't go up, but prices went up!
Gas goes up!
Milk goes up!
Trains go up!
How am I suppose to live?
>> Wall Street, and the banker class, the people who actually run this country...
they have a blueprint. And it's written in
all of their Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman textbooks.
Their blueprint, is the destruction of the future of this generation.
>> Thousands of people are out marching here in Santiago today.
It's about people fed up with the inequalities of the current economic system.
>> It is happening in Syria.
It is happening in Clapham.
It's happening in Liverpool,
and that is the nature of the historical moment!
>> My interests is in reclaiming human consciousness
that's autonomous.
That is our organic, natural, evolutionary place.
We are not designed to be following orders.
We are not designed to have
authority figures above us
or submissive people below us.
That is not natural.
It is not normal
and it's certainly not healthy.
>> We are at a pivotal, pivotal evolutionary moment in human history.
And, we're clearly witnessing biological and cultural evolutionary collisions.
I don't know how it's going to shake out.
>> The wealthy in the United States are worried about global unrest.
They're investing in arming their yachts.
They have planes and cars with military-style security features...
>> They're starting to buy Predators.
Drones.
Ok? They're not armed yet, they're just for spying...
Oh that's great.
>> This was meant to be the first post-ideological generation, right?
This was meant to be the generation that never thought of anything
bigger than our facebook profiles and our T.V. screens.
This was meant to be the generation where the only thing Saturday night meant was X-Factor.
I think now, that claim is quite ridiculous.
We are now the generation at the heart of the fight back.
We are now the generation that will stand
with everyone whose fighting back!
>> Humanity marches on!
You can fight it, or fight for it.
When we say "revolution"
we say it with love.
>> They're giving out leaflets to the public
where they say that they want to see the money market system replaced
By a Resource Based Economy
where everyones needs are provided for, free.
>> Because WE'VE got to sit around in this shit for the next 70 years, alright?
Who do you think has to sit here breathing the tained air
eating the mutated fish
watching the vetted reality shit on T.V.
create a nation of malignant imaginations...
It's us, alright? We've got to sit here in this rancid bathwater...
You know, this is a revolution.
This may not be a revolution in the traditional sense
but this is a revolution of the mind.
>> We have to think as a human species.
We have to think as homosapiens.
We have to create global consciousness
if we're going to move this through an industrial revolution
and create a new civilization...
an empathic civilization.
Maybe it's not always about trying to fix something broken. Maybe it's about starting over and creating something better.
What we're seeing here is a defining moment for the human race.
>> We will not wait another moment in fear to stand up for what we know to be right.
It is time we start meeting oppression, with resistance.
>> Hello citizens of the world.
We are Anonymous.
>> The hacker group Anonymous is fighting back
temporarily taking out several government websites...
>> ...but the hacker group called Anonymous
was secretly listening and recording...
>>...the hackivist organization Anonymous has announced plans to...
>> They call themselves Anonymous.
They are hackers on steriods...
>> ...calls itself Anonymous...
So who are these people?
>> Anonymous has no leaders to be targeted.
Anonymous has no headquarters to maintain.
And to become a member you will not be required to fill out a questionnaire.
>> They're this shadowy and motley group
group of hackers and activists
who answer to no one,
drawn together by a love of internet mischief.
>> Now they're evolving into this movement of social change
a real driving force behind the Wall Street occupiers.
No surprise, they're hated by corporate security
but also, hunted by the FBI.
>> The label, Anonymous, is only a symbol
that embodies the collective actions of many autonomous intividuals
fighting against the injustice of the current system
and any individuals or organizations that hide in its shadow
and exploit the world.
>> Anonymous, and a lot of other movements, regard the internet as
sort of independant from any government
and they regard governments interfering in the free flow of the internet
as stepping outside of their jurisdiction.
>> We are the 21st century militia.
We are a part of humanity's developing social immune system.
We are those who have taken up arms to defend ourselves
and others, against those who abuse their positions of power...
...people who do not yet understand that there are no individuals
there is only humanity.
If you believe, as we do, that the current system is a burden to humanity
then you are already a member.
>> We aren't a group,
we're an idea.
We're an expression of the anger
that every person feels
when they see injustice.
>> It's a dark and disturbing vision.
A world where riot police attack with impunity.
Where democracy is corrupted by greed
and dissent is crushed.
That's how Anonymous sees America
and they say, that's why they're fighting back.
>> We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
>> Our weapon is not a gun
but our ability to operate with efficiency in the digital realm.
Our ammunition is not bullets
but information.
And our protection comes from the fact
that we have grown out of the fabric of humanity itself.
We cannot be stopped, because we are not restricted by your rules.
We cannot be beaten, because we are not playing your game.
We are the first stage of a new human evolution
born out of the collective human consciousness
and augmented by the technologies of our time.
Each of us has our own path.
But each of us share the same goal.
A free humanity.
The corrupt fear us. The honest support us. The heroic join us.
>> The people should not fear their government.
The government should fear the people.
We, are the people.
The people are legion.
The people will not forget.
The people will not forgive.
Expect us.
>> Mr Cruise. Come on, be a gentleman.
Give me a sign on it...
Yes!
This is cool, I love it.
Oh thank you so much!
Thank you!
>> And now we have to take that information and that awareness
and that knowledge, and build a foundation
for a new way. A new life.
>> Hi, my name is Marcin.
Farmer... technologist...
I was born in Poland. Now in the U.S.
I started a group called "Open Source Ecology"
We've identified the 50 most important machines that
we think it takes for modern life to exist
things from tractors...
bread ovens...
circuit makers...
Then we set out to create an open-source, do-it-yourself version
that anyone can build and maintain at a fraction of the cost.
We call this the "Global Village Construction Set".
Problem
Lack of freely shared information unnecessarily prohibits
economic distribution and general prosperity
by keeping human inovation in the hands of only a few
while creating artificial material scarcity for most.
Solution
The GVCS is an open enterprise platform
that allows for true collaborative development of key productive technologies
that foster the use of best-practices accessible to everyone.
We are accelerating the inevitable.
A future where everyone has access to economic best-practices.
The 'Global Village Construction Set' is an open source enterprise kernel
consisting of the 50 key industrial machines that reinvent local production.
bringing wealth back to communities.
The GVCS is phase one of the Open Source Ecology platform
that includes an open-source CAD/CAM solution to realize the promise of digital fabrication.
Phase two is the use of the GVCS to create open-source industries, and sustainable communities
virally and world-wide
in parallel to the global economic status-quo and urban sprawl.
This is brought about by ethical supporters and entrepreneurs
using the GVCS platform.
Phase three is a new world of individuals and communities
living beyond the constraints of artificial material scarcity.
Why Now
We all know the world is cracking at the seams.
Despite having access to the most amazing productive technology,
long hours, low job satisfaction, poor distribution of wealth
remain persistant global problems.
The new paradigm requires an unprecedented level of collaboration
necessary to make a comprehensive civilization starter-kit kernel
which was impossible, prior to the digital age.
Market Size
The GVCS technology spans multiple industry sectors
from agraculture, construction, energy production, and industry.
Our competative advantage is a 24/7 development and improvement cycle
around the world via open-source collaboration
not to mention, equipment created with lifetime design
and at a typical 8x cost reduction than industry standards.
Development Roadmap
Presently, we have completed four beta product releases:
The Automated Compressed Earth-Brick Press
Multi-purpose Tractor
Soil Pulveriser
and Hydrolic Power Unit
By April 1st, 2012 we will release 13 further, beta-stage products
in the microfactory, energy production, and construction areas.
By the end of 2012 we will complete the remaining 33 products
after an agressive field testing and product documentation campaign
involving a network of remote collaborators.
By April 1st, 2012
we will recruit a project co-founder, CEO, and CTO
to the core team to develop strategy, production,
and to manage technological development.
The OSE Fellows Program will begin April 1st, 2012;
Individuals who we train and fund to produce a beta product release
and open business model on a time-scale of 6 months.
2012 will also be spent largely developing standards
and a platform to make this one of the most collaborative projects in the world.
We are a distributive enterprise, movement entrepreneur incubator.
Movement entrepreneurs are tech-savvy individuals
organizing world progress by economic development.
a distributive enterprise is an enterprise which maintains replication as one of its core values
by publishing its own trade secrets openly.
At heart, we develop open source technology
we train entrepeneurs via dedicated educational programs
but since we are now in startup we have initial trainees
participate in both research and development, and production runs.
Open source hardware is the next trillion dollar industry.
We are not saying that we will be a huge corporation to acheive this
but instead, that we will generate this value as a distributed movement.
Understanding Peak Oil
Oil is a limited resource.
Oil takes hundreds of millions of years to form.
Peak oil is when oil extraction rates max out and begin to decline.
Rob Hopkins of transition network
is seeking solutions to the problem of peak oil.
>> It started when I was working in Kinsale in Ireland
at the "further education college" there
and we started looking around for...
...there must be places who are using permaculture principles
and sustainability thinking, systems thinking,
to work out how cities and towns and communities
are going to get through peak oil sucessfully.
And we couldn't find any, so we just improvised and did a 20 year plan
for the town of Kinsale, based on the idea that
where we got to in the end, could be better than where we start from now.
Today, the transition network inspires and connects thousands of people
worldwide who seek to reduce carbon emissions at a local level.
>> I think what's changed for us really over the last couple of years
has been, firstly, how the idea of peak oil
has moved from being largely a fringe idea
to something now talked about by a number of governments
and a lot of leading organizations.
It's really moved from being considered a very odd kind of idea
to part of the political mainstream now, really.
This is a process that you start, and you catalyze
and you have no idea where it's going to go or what's going to come out of it.
What does a local authority look like
whose development plan for the next 20 years is based on the end of the age of cheap oil?
...on cutting carbon by 90% a year like we actually are going to need to?
What does that look like? It's an enormous question.
But what's really exciting is today, I think we've sowed the seeds
of people starting to ask those questions.
The transition model has spread quickly around the world.
There are now 320 official initiatives in 14 countries
and thousands more in development.
>> It was really fascinating when about 2 years in to transition
and it really started to gain some traction.
People started coming along and saying...
"You know, Transition is really a fascinating peice of design work."
Transition IS a design project.
When faced with with peak oil and climate change and the need for collective community responses to that
maybe we need to look at this as being a collective design exercise.
How do we disign our way through from where we are now to where we want to get?
The Transition Model
>> There's a lot of value, I think, in acknowledging the work
that people do like this.
When you're actually doing work that comes to be seen as
innovative, or pioneering, or whatever...
it's generally, the people who do that have ploughed a fairly lonely furrow
for quite a long time.
So when will peak oil happen?
There is still a lot of debate on the exact date
but one thing is certain...
No matter what else happens, this is the century in which we must learn to live without fossil fuels.
>> It's about the re-writing of stories
collective cultural stories. The myth, the narratives that we tell ourselves.
The idea that we can just carry on as we are
that technology can solve everything
or that everything is just going to collapse and unravel very quickly
You know, what we DON'T have are the stories
about the generation, the culture, that looks something like peak oil and climate change
square in the face, and responds
with compassion, and creativity, and ingenuity.
That's the story that Transition is trying to tell.
Oil is conserved, demand shrinks
Clean, renewable alternatives are put in place
Sustainable local agriculture
Fewer cars on the road
and a sustainable and healthy future.
Rob Hopkins Transition Network
The Zeitgeist Movement
>> Hi, my name is Peter Joseph
I'm the founder of a social sustainability organization called the Zeitgeist Movement
which, in form, has about 1000 chapeters accross 70 countries
and basically we're all working together to try to bridge some differences
about economic problems that are working its way accross the world
social destabilization, unemployment, debt crisis, environmental destabilization...
and this community is attempting to bring new sustainable ideas
to the forefront, to revolutionize economy as we know it
hence revolutionize "human values" as we know it
so we can try to create a new way of life.
It's a grassroots movement with that basic premise.
>> This movement is essentially a social movement.
It's not... It's easier to describe what it isn't, really.
It's not a political movement.
We don't really recognize politics as a viable option
in addressing the issues that we talk about.
It's a voluntary social movement. A grassroots social movement
that centers on ACTUAL sustainability.
We need a society that functions on a physical level
that actually has advanced, intelligent, automated to the most degree you can... systems.
to enable efficient transport, efficient energy usage, efficient land usage...
Part of our understandings are that we need sustainable city systems
very much like those spoken about
in the Venus Project, or by Buckminster Fuller
or many other futuristic city planners.
So, that's sort of the first level.
We understand that Earth is a finite resource.
Earth is actually entirely A resource.
We think about wave, and wind, and tidal...
It's in fact, one thing.
This is the resource we're on. This is the rock that we're on, that's hurtling through space
and we need to live on it, we need to continue to live on it
and as well as possible.
>> Why do I like the Zeitgeist movement?
Why do I advocate for the Zeitgeist Movement?
It's very simple.
I love this.
>> What we currently refer to as Capitalism
under various guises around the world
and suggested in various doses and concoctions
in the prescripted manuals and political philosophy and economic texts
the monetary based price system is a means of coordinating and organizing so-called economic activity
of consumers, producers, and owners of resources
is ultimately unsustainable.
The reason for this is that it's essentially predicated upon linear consumption
and you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet.
>> Join the Zeitgeist Movement, it is exciting
the people that you meet are fantastic, they think like you
and we're out to make a difference on something that really matters.
>> ...it was, whatever you needed to do to get money.
and what's happened now with the value system disorder
is that, since that's the persuit, that's the devine drive of the system...
that's what status is defined by, that's what your success is defined by...
that everyone can blindly look the other way with how much destruction is occuring in the world
>> And when I look at our species, I just see one that's divided.
We're SO in our infancy. We're having to learn the most basic lessons
in the 21st century.
The Zeitgeist Movement and the Resource Based Economy
doesn't go like that.
It advocates that the Earth is the common heritage of everyone to share.
And not for us to all just dive in and take what we want
but for us to intelligently manage the planet.
>> The monetary system has come to an end.
It was very useful for a while, I've not been anti-money in all of history.
It's changed its usage in history.
You can't be "blanket anti-money" and still understand the history of money.
But we've obviously come to the end of that paradigm now
because now it isn't serving us anymore
and that was the goal to begin with.
It was to ensure that there was enough labor, so there were enough resources,
so that we have the system, so that people are ok.
>> The Zeitgeist Movement, from my perspective
it's all about equality, it's all about preserving our planet
and it's all about thriving on human creativity and innovation.
>> In fact, the truth is this entire sytem of cyclical consumption that we have in this country
is the cause of all of our problems.
>> Zeitgeist: Addendum was mind boggling.
Dots began to connect.
>> Now is that time, to move to that next level.
>> I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement, the Venus Project and a Resource Based Economy
because they represent the only viable alternatives
to the corrupt and unsustainable system that we have today.
>> People aren't following this because Jacque Fresco is their version of Jesus
or because Peter Joseph is a good public speaker...
They have looked at it, and decided that it makes sense to them.
>> ...basically trying to get people from around the world to discuss why, in a very concise manner
they advocate the Zeitgeist Movement, the Venus Project, and of course a Resource Based Economy.
>> Today around the world, many people often say
"I wish we could live like Americans."
I know you've heard this before.
Well, no.
Conspicuous consumption patterns of the American culture
should be despised
by all other countries on this planet.
We have 5% of the population and we consume 30% of the worlds resources.
It's insane.
In a resource based economy, where be base our production and distribution on physical references
starting with the carrying capacity of the Earth...
where we streamline our labor expression towards things that have a long-term social return...
where we get rid of the cancer known as the financial system
and start to share our resources in a diligent way
working togther, avoiding the false values of materialism and consumption pushed upon our culture
we find that we can provide a high quality of life for everyone on this planet
while eliminating all of the central reasons
for war, poverty, destitution, violence, criminal behavior, neurosis...
It would be the dawn of a world we could actually label a civilization
and if that isn't a goal worth working towards
I don't know what is.
>> The future rests in our hands.
Yours and mine.
It rests in the capacity, which we totally have as a species
to make radical shifts
when our survival is necessary.
And maybe WE are the people who will emerge
to create an alternative that enables our species to survive in peace on the planet
otherwise we WILL NOT survive.
The Venus Project Beyond Politics, Poverty and War
>> The Venus Project is the redesign of a culture
in which the elements that comprise the culture are different.
What the Venus Project has to offer
is a way of life without ambiguity
to change the relationship between people.
When you break the patterns that have been established by existing society
you begin to move people in a new direction.
As long as there are prisons, police, armies, navies...
we are not civilized.
When the world joins together
and agrees to use the Earth intelligently
that'll be the beginning of the civilized age.
People say "Well, the trouble with you Jacque, is you want to give people things for nothing."
Let me tell you a little about "things for nothing".
Just being born in any technical country today
you've got the lights, the telephone, the washing machine, air transportation...
You had nothing to do with that. You got it for nothing.
To build a way of life, worthy of man
to humanize society
it is neither Communist, Fascist, nor Socialist
nor Democratic.
To break away from the artificiality, the regimentation...
that dominates our society today
we feel that machines ought to do the filthy, or the repetitious, or the boring jobs.
That man has to be free
to persue the higher things. The higher possibilities of man.
All of the marvels of science and technology
all of the electronic and mechanical wonders
are just so many millions of tons of junk unless it enhances the lives of men.
The reason we emphasize machines and technologies
is to free man, to find the meaning of their own existence and lives.
Our problems today are not political.
Our problems are technical.
Everything that you have...
your radio, your telephone, your airplanes, your transportation...
is all technical.
If it wasn't for technology, you'd be pulling boats along the Volga river.
It's technology that moves things forward.
Human beings are not self-operating entities.
We are operated by many resonant forces.
Of course many of us are not aware of that. It looks like we're perfectly free
making our own decisions.
I know I think for myself. I'm sure you do.
That's an illusion.
You're indoctrinated to a set of values that are unreal.
Indoctrination continuously!
And then all of us together sing "we are free"
..let's go, "we are free".
>> What we are introducing is a new method of organizing and running society
based on the methods of science and technology applied to the social system.
>> You have a society that's a predatory society.
If you get your car banged up, somebody makes money.
You get a toothache, the Dentist makes $1500.
So everybody makes money on every form of misery.
There's no final architecture, or final frontiers,
or final city.
Even the best city I design
will be a straight-jacket to the kids of the future.
They'll design their own cities.
I don't want to follow anybody
and I don't want anybody to follow me.
If what I say makes sense, do it.
If it doesn't, get off.
To build a following where people admire you,
that's dangerous.
Trying to solve your problems politically
by electing this political party or that political party...
ALL politics is immersed in corruption.
We have the brains, the know-how, the technology, and the feasibility
to build an entirely new civilization.
The choice lies with you.
There are no negro problems, or Polish problems,
or Jewish problems, or Greek problems or Women's problems...
they're human problems.
We could either develop paradise on Earth
or oblivion... wipe ourselves out.
Only the future will tell.
What you do to make the future.
Part 5 - The Future
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. - C.S. Lewis
>> The tremendous progress we've made over the last century
by a series of forces, are in fact accelerating!
To a point that we have the potential in the next three decades
to create a world of abundance.
Now, I'm not saying we don't have our set of problems...
Climate crisis, species extinction, water and energy shortage...
...we surely do.
And as humans, we are far better at seeing the problems way in advance
but ultimately, we knock them down.
Underpinning much of this is technology
and of late, exponentially growing technologies.
We truly are living in an extraordinary time
and many people forget this!
This is Moore's Law over the last hundred years.
I want you to notice two things from this curve.
Number one, how smooth it is.
Through good time and bad time, war time and peace time,
recession, depression, and boom time...
This is the result of faster computers being used to build faster computers.
It doesn't slow for any of our grand challenges.
And also, even though it's plotted on a logarithm curve on the left
it's curving upward.
The rate at which the technology is getting faster is itself, getting faster.
And on this curve, riding on Moore's Law
are a set of extraordinarily powerful technologies
available to all of us.
"Cloud Computing", what my friends at Autodesk call "Infinite Computing"...
Sensors and networks...
Robotics...
3D Printing, which is the ability to
democratize and distribute personalized production around the planet.
Synthetic biology... fuels, vaccines and foods...
Digital medicine... nanomaterials... and A.I.
The world is going to change with or without you... get ready.
>> Science and technology are propelling us forward at accelerating rates
>> That's right, and if we don't understand it
and by "we" I mean the general public
If it's something that... "Oh, I'm not good at that. I don't know anything about it."
Then who is making all of the decisions about science and technology
that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in?
Just some members of congress?
Science is more than a body of knowledge.
It's a way of thinking.
A way of skeptically interrogating the universe
with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions
to interrogate those who tell us that something is true
to be skeptical of those in authority
then we're up for grabs
for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.
It's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on.
It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a constitution
...or a Bill of Rights...
The people had to be educated
and they had to practice their skepticism and their education
otherwise we don't run the government. The government runs us.
>> My sense is, the problem lies with the fact that
our business leaders, our government leaders and for that matter the rest of us
we are continuing to rely on 18th and 19th century ideas
about human nature and the human journey
that were spawned at the begining of the market era
the nation-state era
and at that period of time we had a great discussion
The Enlightenment.
John Locke, the great political philosopher of the Enlightenment
He said "Look, babies are born tabula rasa. Blank slates."
"They're not born in sin."
But he did leave a little opening.
He said "However, there is a predisposition to acquire property."
Somebody should have caught him on that.
>> Scarcity is contextual
and technology is a resource liberating force.
The cost of solar dropped 50% last year.
Last month MIT put out a study showing that by the end of this decade
in the sunny parts of the United States
solar electricity will be 6 cents per kilowatt hour
compared to 15 cents as a national average.
And if we have abundant energy
we also have abundant water
because we live on a water planet.
We live on a planet 70% covered by water.
Yes, 97.5% is salt water, 2% is ice
and we fight over a half of a percent of the water on this planet
but here too, there is hope
and there is technology coming online
NOT 10-20 years from now, right now.
and the conversation I had with Dean Kamen this morning
one of the great D.I.Y. innovators, I'd like to share with you...
His technology called SlingShot that many of you may have heard of
it's the size of a small dorm room refrigerator.
It's able to generate 1000 liters of clean drinking water a day
out of ANY source. Salt water, polluted water, latrine...
at less than 2 cents a liter.
This is the kind of innovation that exists today.
>> I should like to help everyone if possible.
Jew, Gentile...
black man, white...
We all want to help one another, humans beings are like that.
We want to live by each others happiness, not be each others misery.
We don't want to hate and despise one another.
In this world there's room for every one, and the good Earth is rich
and can provide for every one.
A way of life could be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned mens' souls.
Has barricaded the world with hate.
Has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
>> In the last 10 years
under the radar
there's been some very interesting developments
in evolutionary biology, neurocognitive science,
child development research, and many other fields
which is beginning to challenge some of these long-held shibboleths that we have
about human nature and the meaning of the human journey.
This was the dominant frame of reference:
Utilitarian, self-interested, materialistic.
It really challenges these assumptions.
And with that, the institutions that we have created
based on those assumptions.
Our educational institutions, our business practices,
our governing instituions, etcetera...
So here's the question.
We know that consciousness changes in history.
The way our brain is wired today
is not the way a medieval serf's brain would be wired
and their brain wouldn't be the same as
the wiring of a forager/hunter 30 thousand years ago.
So the question I asked at the beginning of this study 6 years ago
or this book
is, how does consciousness change in history?
Is it possible that we human beings, who are soft-wired for empathic distress
is it possible we could actually extend our empathy to the entire human race
as an extended family
and to our fellow creatures
as part of our evolutionary family
and to the biosphere as our common community?
>> We're going to hit 70% penetration of cell phones in the developing world
by the end of 2013.
Think about it.
That a Masai warrior on a cell phone in the middle of Kenya
has better mobile com than president Reagan did 25 years ago.
And if they're on a smart phone on Google
they've got access to more knowledge and information than president Clinton did 15 years ago.
They're living in a world of information and communication abundance
that no one could have ever predicted!
Here is the biggest force for bringing about a world of abundance.
I call it, the rising billion.
In 2010 we had just short of 2 billion people online, connected.
By 2020, that's going from 2 billion to 5 billion internet users.
3 billion new minds who have never been heard from before
are connecting to the global conversation.
And they will get healthier by using a tricorder
and they'll become better educated by using the Khan Academy
a by literally being able to use 3D printing and infinite computing
more productive than ever before.
So what could 3 billion rising, healthy, educated, productive members of humanity bring to us?
How about a set of voices that have never been heard from before.
What about giving the oppressed, wherever they might be
the voice to be heard and the voice to act for the first time ever
What will these 3 billion people bring?
What about contributions we can't even predict.
>> But if we have gone from empathy in blood ties
to empathy in religious associational ties
to empathy based on national identification
is it really a big stretch to imagine
the new technologies allow us to connect our empathy
to the human race at large, in a single biosphere?
Today we're in a globally connected world.
Our youngsters can begin to empathize across all the traditional lines.
We almost can grasp the possibility
of global empathy.
The new communications
the ICT revolution, is open-source, flat, peer to peer, here's the key word...
It's distributed.
Meaning 2 billion people can put a little utensil in their hand
and they can send their own video, audio, text, to all the other 2 billion people
at the same time, at the speed of light, with more power than the centralized BBC
and we did it all in 15 years.
>> We have heard the rationals offered by the superpowers.
We know who speaks for the nations
but who speaks for the human species?
Who speaks for Earth?
Our global civilization is clearly on the edge of failure
in the most important task it faces;
Preserving the lives and well-being of its citizens
and the future habitability of the planet.
Shouldn't we consider, in every nation
major changes in the traditional ways of doing things?
A fundamental restructure, of economic, political, social, and religious institutions?
Fundamental changes in society
are sometimes labeled impractical
or contrary to human nature
as if there were only ONE human nature.
But fundamental changes can clearly be made. We're surrounded by them.
In the last two centuries, abject slavery
which was with us for thousands of years
has almost entirely been eliminated
in a stirring, world-wide revolution.
Women, systematically mistreated for millenia
are gradually gaining the political and economic power
traditionally denied them.
And some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed
because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations.
>> What gives me tremendous confidence in the future
is the fact that we are now more empowered as individuals
to take on the grand challenges of this planet.
We have the tools, with this exponential technology
We have the passion of the D.I.Y. innovator
And we have 3 billion new minds coming online to work with us
to solve the grand challenges
to do that which WE MUST do!
>> Our children are being revolutionized, in terms of their consciousness
to fit the new tempral-spacial orientation of the biosphere.
The kids in 1st grade are learning
that everything they do...
The clothes they wear, the food they eat,
the electricity they use, the car the family drives...
All of that affects their carbon footprint
and impacts some other human being, or some other creature
somewhere else in the biosphere
because we're all connected. THAT's a revolution.
We have the technology that allows us to extend the central nervous system
and to think viscerally as a family, not just intellectually.
It's not going to give us utopia.
It's not going to eliminate the fragilities
and the inconsistencies, and the imperfections
and the struggle of being alive.
But it will give us a sense of our stewardship of this planet.
And we know at the end of our life when we look back
we don't look back at our life, and we don't say...
"Gee, that momement where I made a new deal..."
"I felt really impregnable as an island to myself..."
"I felt really detached and rational, and really objective..."
"I was able to extinguish my libido, and enjoy my utility..."
I just don't think...
There may be some pathalogical person that does that
but, as my wife said, it's the death bed chest.
When we look back at our life
we look back and its the moments where we had that empathic connection
where we transcended ourselves
and could actually FEEL a loved one, or someone else
as if we were experiencing it ourself.
We feel super-alive.
It's of those moments where we actually feel transcendence.
You don't have to be religious.
And we felt, we're connected.
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned
so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - Joseph Campbell
>> You the people, have the power!
The power to create happiness!
You the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful!
To make this life a wonderful adventure!
Let us use that power! Let us all unite!
Let us fight for a new world
a decent world
that will give men a chance to work
that will you the future
and old-age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.
But they lie, they do not fulfill their promise
they never will!
Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!
Let us fight to free the world!
To do away with national barriers!
To do away with greed!
...with hate, and intolerance!
Let us fight for a world of reason!
A world where science and progress
will lead to ALL mens' happiness.
>> The old appeals to racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism
and to rabid nationalist ferver
are beginning not to work.
A new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a
single organism
and recognizes that an organism at war with itself
is doomed.
We are one planet.