Surviving for yourself, ‘Business-as-usual’ locks you into a never ending cycle
A paradigm shift entails an entire restructuring of our understanding of reality. Initially, nothing makes sense. But by opening ourselves to understanding and to unlearning to relearn, we will be able to co-create the new paradigm of True Abundance.
Many appear to believe a better and fairer world can be built with technology. It is possible they do not understand technology is really the easy bit or that we need a change of direction first — to go to Empowerment — since the Age of Nonsense is all about Control to maximize profits.
Because once you create/build something, you will have skin in the game. To succeed, this laser-focuses you on the need to attract and to keep attracting a critical mass.
In a world approaching 8 billion people, many have developed something so they will try their level best to attract buyers/users — we all need money to survive, money is scarce and we require money to sustain our efforts.
Unless you are self-funded (and that has its limitations if you do not have deep pockets), funding will likely come with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). With crowdfunding, you set your own KPIs. Because you will do whatever you can to sustain your creation/ business, this is how you trap yourself in a vicious Business-as-usual cycle.
Actually, you don’t even have to build anything as there are data-mining platforms you can use and that turn you into their product. For instance, to sell an ebook you write, you have Amazon, Smashwords and too many book aggregators to name. However, all they offer is a platform PLUS they take a cut from each sale, even before taxes and bank charges on royalties kick in.
Because anyone can use such platforms for free, surviving for yourself has us creating an abundance of everything while burying our and each other’s value. To get attention/traction, you will keep spending time, efforts and resources but this only benefits the platforms while exhausting whatever you have. As you and billion others create even greater abundance, that momentum can make for a really stressful world.
But isn’t that how we co-power the booms and busts of every single thing?
And who benefits from our ‘I win, you lose’ habits?
Very likely the key investors behind our world’s 10 largest transnationals (Five in tech, two in finance, two in consumer services and one in energy). All have their roots in the US but enjoy global dominance and marketplace. Per Google Finance, the above is the water we swim in as of February 2, 2019 market capitalization.
To survive/get ahead, we actually co-power the system we depend on
“The difficulty is this fragmentation. All thought is broken up into bits … Therefore, people cannot see that they are creating a problem and then apparently trying to solve it … Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. If we can have a coherent approach to reality then reality will respond coherently to us.” David Bohm
Can your oblivion to anything but your self-preservation be because the global education system is organized like a factory assembly line so no one knows much? Are youth also split into different disciplines to let them debate endlessly within those siloes from young?
Then when you join the work force, your organization is also split into different industries/departments where the best money-chasing gurus are recognized and saluted in their niches/empires. With globalization facilitating transnationals to scour the world for the cheapest sources of labor and resources, the gig economy has already emerged as the 21st century’s global factory assembly line.
In the process, very few people own so much.
Have you noticed that we have been bombarded by how capitalism, climate change and overpopulation are some of the gravest problems we face? But what’s never ever mentioned is how the system we depend on addicts us to self-preservation/getting ahead and to being a consumer.
We all need money to survive.
A paradigm is about a way of life — ours revolves around how we all need money to survive, how money is scarce and how to survive, we must win at all costs. So, when there’s an abundance of people and a scarcity of money, what does the paradigm have us co-creating?
The Age of ‘I win, you lose’ Nonsense, perhaps?
Just doing your job/startup/fill-in-the-blank can lock you into a self-preservation bubble as you unwittingly surrender your most important essence to ‘artificial persons’ with no higher god than growth.
Co-creating the Age of ‘I win, you lose’ Nonsense, you will then see things as you are (in your silo) rather than as they are (in context) and be systemically blind to how everything is about Control to legally maximize profits for corporate persons.
As your life becomes a rat race, isn’t that how we end up stressed, systemically co-powering a global rent-seeking model?
“Rentiers don’t create production. They live off existing production, they don’t create it. That’s why the classical economists said they were supporting industrial capitalists, not British landlords, not monopolists and not predatory banks.” Michael Hudson
From very young, I have observed how the incumbent paradigm unwittingly impacts behaviors to bring out our worst. Generally, the Age of Nonsense self-organizes us so most do not see beyond themselves or their livelihoods. In their cocoons, many even assume the future will be just like today.
However, a shift is underway — about what it means to be human — as the future of money becomes Big Data and the global rent-seeking model evolves to become a Global Brain based on controlling whatever we do to survive/get ahead.
Since the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the United Nations has been advocating that Agenda 21 (since evolved as Agenda 2030) is a “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.”
We cannot solve our problems with the same logic used to create them. Because that tendency will continue to be to want to regulate how you think, how you live and what you do with new Business-as-usual revenue models based on surveillance to maximizing profits.
Nothing will change unless there is a paradigm shift out of Nonsense centered on Control and our self-preservation. To explore why we need this shift as the latest Business-as-usual revolution happens in plain sight, please read Social movements powering the future of money.
Trying to single-handedly drive catalyzing the shift to True Abundance with Business-as-usual tools in same old paradigm
For almost 18 years, I have been on a voyage of self-discovery — including designing 8 mini social media platforms (7 were developed: the first for $0 with 2 strangers before FB, the second was friend-sponsored and the rest were either mostly self-funded or pro bono. The eighth I couldn’t continue as it became such a torture.
Throughout, I kept encountering cognitive dissonance because of the HUGE mindset chasm between the ‘For me’ logic of artificial Scarcity (Control) and the ‘For us’ logic of True Abundance (Empowerment).
Although centered on Control to maximize profits, how Business-as-usual infiltrates all our lives to bring out our worst is invisible. Money, technologies, business-as-usual entities, capitalism, etc. are just some tools to expedite that because the direction remains the same. Read my Intro for more info.
Can strangers anywhere build trust with one and all?
“If the world is to be saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs, but by new minds with no programs at all. Why not new minds with new programs? Because where you find people working on programs, you don’t find new minds, you find old ones. Programs and old minds go together like buggy whips and buggies.” Daniel Quinn
In a paradigm where ‘Business-as-usual’ dictates, where all tools are used as ‘For profit’ maximizers and Business-as-usual logic has sowed discord and distrust, I am experimenting with whether a petition can be an easy and ultra-low risk way to reach and engage strangers anywhere. Since to start building trust with everyone, all you need do is sign and then share the link and articles to start discussions on catalyzing the shift to True Abundance. That may be online or off.
I set the 100,000 people target knowing it will take time for strangers to think outside of themselves for everyone’s empowerment. What’s important now is to observe people’s behaviors towards our shared future. The details will ultimately depend on who come forward to actually do something that empowers all.
To try to drive catalysing an experiment for a paradigm shift out of Nonsense (through Control) to Common Sense (through Empowerment), this is the proposed Business-NOT-as-usual pitch:
· Strangers anywhere co-create this pilot
· Strangers co-write a book on how they build trust doing that
· Strangers share the net proceeds generated
Because starting and sustaining a business based on competing to survive/get ahead is so difficult, initiators typically want to hoard as much net profits as they can.
In the quest to share net proceeds, I uploaded my ebook to Amazon to experience Amazon first-hand as I understand it has the widest reach. However, there are at least two key hurdles we need to clear:
i) Business-as-usual has long conditioned you not to trust anyone and
ii) 21st century’s Towers of Babel (social media platforms) too easily enable us to create siloed info overload.
At this moment, I have no idea how this experiment will pan out but should we succeed in co-actualizing it, I hope to recognize the first 10 people to post a review of my book on Amazon as they would have done their bit to try to catalyse the shift. So, don’t forget to read Social movements powering the future of money, please!!
To catalyse the shift to True Abundance, please sign our petition and share the link far and wide to start discussing why we need a paradigm shift out of artificial Scarcity to True Abundance.
Can strangers anywhere step up? Will you?
Here’s to empowering one and all for True Abundance!!
