Dear Peter
Can strangers anywhere build trust with each other so together, we may co-drive catalyzing a new social contract from the ground up to truly be pro real people?
Greetings from Singapore.
Last week, I revisited the NYT article you wrote in July 2013. About your call for “humanism” and how it’s “time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up.”
From an early age, I have observed how money molds unnatural behaviors. After working for various types and sizes of businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada — including Shun Tak Holdings when Pansy Ho (once ranked by Forbes as Asia’s richest woman) first joined it — that childhood habit has since evolved into observing how the system/paradigm we’re in molds predatory/prey behaviors.
Like you, I too see how “All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left” and how this feeds “a perpetual poverty machine.”
Because hidden in plain sight is how Henry Ford’s factory assembly line self-organizes us to co-create a massive Business-as-usual (BAU) Operating System of Control. In this paradigm of fear and scarcity, the world’s greatest fiat currency experiment has us fight each other to co-create a world that’s legally more tailored for corporate persons (especially Big Business) than real people. As humanity unwittingly folds the original corporate raider model into our lives, Big Business legally now have no greater god than growth.
With the Great (top down) Reset, we appear poised to be transitioned from the world’s dumbest idea to the world’s most dangerous idea. Transhumanism being the world’s most dangerous idea.
Is transhumanism how the BAU Operating System is self-organizing us to figure out ways and means to commoditize hearts, bodies, minds and souls so a few people can live forever?
I started pondering on this while researching to write “Social Movements Powering the Future of Money.”
With a career in corporate communications, I now focus on writing to explore the root causes of how our world got into today’s mess, mostly on Medium. I also share how the paradigm/system we’re in molds disturbing behaviors to observe if humanity is ready for a paradigm shift from Control to Empowerment:
Self-organized to perpetuate Nonsense? https://bit.ly/2JNbOGO
Doing your job, are You just feeding the Insatiable Beast? https://bit.ly/2MGAvGd
Rent-seeking & the “Never (Good) Enough” Social Contract We Live https://bit.ly/2MyVKtc
Opportunities for a Real People World https://bit.ly/2Lt4ctw
Inviting You to Co-catalyze a Real People World (my latest) https://bit.ly/3aEwqfo (Launch of the “Hacking mindsets” series: An emergent experiment for a Real People World)
After all, isn’t insanity repeatedly adhering to the same BAU logic and expecting very different results? If what I write resonates as a “new” story for “the true flourishing of (human) nature or the opportunity (for all) to live a joyful and fulfilled life,” I hope to hear back from you. How you may wish to be involved is your call but I’m hoping your support can help generate greater awareness of this so humanism does become a reality for all from the ground up.
Wishing you and Jennifer a very happy, meaningful and empowering 2021!!
Sincerely
Betty Lim
P.S. I’ll share this email to you as a Medium article sometime end next week and loop you in on Facebook — hope that works!
Betty Lim: A brief profile
An empath with INTJ inclinations, Betty lived most of her earlier adult years in Hong Kong. On a voyage of self-discovery since 2001, this systemic minded human being has a calling to drive catalyzing a more authentic world.
Her hugely experiential career in advertising, marketing and communications was uniquely honed by working with advertising agencies, corporations, SMEs and media owners. They were her schools of learning by doing as initiating and fine-tuning business processes was often a large part of her mandate. *The Ascott Executive Residences, *Ernst & Young, Hong Kong Telecom, *Shun Tak Holdings and Jones Lang Lasalle were some of the larger organizations she had worked for.
Betty became fascinated by how technology could transform our world, especially when she finally understood her innate need for people to be their true selves.
At the turn of the century, she shared with her former EY chairman: “Each of us has the perfect gift to give the world … if we are able to each give what’s so uniquely ours — won’t we be able to create magic for and with each other?”
Very much to her surprise, Brian Stevenson told her she was “trying to turn the Titanic.”
In 2004, Betty left traditional employment at Asia Asset Management to experience the future of work. Project clients included KPMG, Pacific Prospect, Euromoney Conferences, Hong Kong International School, Royal Bank of Canada Asia and Shui On Holdings.
A roller coaster ride ensued as she observed, learned and designed almost ten mini social media platforms (the first few before 2004, pre Facebook). The last one was not developed as she realized humanity was still not ready for a different way of thinking and doing (circa 2016 or so).
Her voyage also included being interviewed by TVB (HK’s leading TV station), participating at an international NGO directors meeting in Japan and joining the founding committee for HK’s inaugural social enterprise summit.
On relocating back to Singapore, Betty wrote the first Standard Operating Procedure manual for Social Innovation Park’s flagship event and walked away from an accelerator after they agreed to incubate her ideas. She subsequently spent most of 2013/2014 self-initiating a social (book) experiment around the startup ecosystem. It tanked.
Betty then initiated and secured SG50 funding for a book project about a village her ancestors came from but decided not to continue after drafting the initial manuscript. For several years, she was also invited to shortlist entries for an annual social enterprise contest held at the National University of Singapore. She was the last speaker at the inaugural FutureMe event.
Keenly aware that people’s mindset is the biggest block to tackling 21st century challenges and that no one person can solve systemic challenges, Betty is focused on observing if humanity is ready to cross the mindset chasm from “Me” to “We” — from “Control” to “Empowerment.”
After publishing “Social Movements Powering the Future of Money” her writing experiments continue to explore the root causes for how our world got into today’s mess and whether strangers ANYWHERE will build trust for and with one another — self-discovering their real selves.
*Started and managed the Public Relations/Corporate Affairs & Development division
