33 Comments

You are right. How do we design new systems without using part of the old one? Don't think we can without losing 90% of the population. We are on the knife edge of either creating a Better Way or becoming extinct. It's up to us, and has always been. Time for some cooperation with total consent. It seems like a contradiction, but our society has found a way to do it. Now we must do it without coercion. As one said a long time ago...Either we hang together or we will all hang separately.

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You start with far less than 10%, and never had the other 90%. The aim is to build something genuinely better that isn't just another blind ideological tribe with somewhat different ideas trying to foist them on everyone, and instead when culture reaches the next breaking point (as always happens, usually every 70-80 years, give or take, and we're due) be ready to make your case and genuinely EARN their support.

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It becomes Real when you have a 90+% of dying! What does it take to survive? What skills, ethics, morals and "effort" does it take. It takes honesty, accountability and cooperation...probably on a level one has never needed before. This is a personal thing, much before a societal one.

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You'll never get anywhere with crackpottery like that.

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So here we go. Instead of talking about issues, personal insults result when one can't discuss things civilly. See how far we have to go?

If we can't discuss things, there is no chance for cooperation...so 90% gone...including all those who engage in personal attacks.

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So well said! I've sent this to several of my friends to spark a conversation. Thank you!

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Joe you’re awesome!

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Absolutely loved reading this, thank you for these inspiring words!!

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I must say after reading the essay and the comments There are some really brilliant people out there. So why are our governments so stupid at times?? I look at our suburbs and the sprawl of boxed houses and think why do we keep on building them like this? Why not build them differently so they are much more aligned with nature. This is but one of many examples and thoughts on how colonialism has taken hold of our mind set. I'm all for my front lawn being a garden or Canadian grass (plants) being just what they are instead of trying to kill them with synthetic fertilizer for the sake of a nice pretty one plant only plot of dirt not to mention the mass produced food from industrial farming.

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Please define Deep State as you understand it.

A lot of people throw that term around, but it seems to mean different things to different people.

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Thanks Joe for the inquiry. In my world, there are (and always have been) visions and actions for a better world, it's just that they are mostly local and small scale and we don't hear about them. I'm glad you mentioned systems thinking, but in my mind it is capitalism (the never-ending push for growth, measuring economic progress in GDP, the dept economy) and our disconnect from the natural world (in its fullest sense) which is a big part the problem. These attitudes were entrenched during colonialism and the industrial revolution and still continue today - the planet and its peoples are a 'resource' to be plundered, not nurtured and cooperated with. Many indigenous societies and some groups of visionaries still live the life of a connected, sentient natural world where we can nurture each other to mutual benefit. But nowhere have I seen that scaled up globally - I live in hope!

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Catherine has mentioned it twice in online conversation but I don't know if she has ever published the report.

One thing I remember her saying is that our monetary system is currently based on debt creation, but that is a scam, and money can be created without debt.

Attorney and economist Ellen Brown has a similar view, and you can find plenty of her writings at ellenbrown.com

Here's a recent post: https://ellenbrown.com/2023/09/01/more-banks-to-fail-not-in-north-dakota/

Ellen has been advocating for public state banks for many years. She pointed out that Canada has a public bank called the Bank of Canada, that basically brought Canada out of the Great Depression; however, commercial banks didn't like the competition and convinced then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to regulate things differently.

So now Canada borrows money from commercial banks at compound interest instead of issuing its own money to be loaned to the Provinces at a very low or no interest rate.

And there is now a threat that there will be no banks in Canada after June 30, 2025, since the population will supposedly all be enslaved and reliant on CBDC's. See The Bank Act:

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/B-1.01/page-4.html#docCont

I don't know what to make of The Bank Act. I sent a note to Brian Peckford at his blog and he said he would look into it, but that was a few weeks ago and I have heard nothing yet.

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If history is our teacher, then it is certainly clear that we are living in an evolutionary world. That is why our world is set up in such a way so that we can learn from it what is considered universally good, what is considered bad, plus a world that can, like in a mirror, reflect back to us our shortcomings and our strengths. The world is our classroom. Why has universal consciousness done so? So that we can, eventually, become gods like our predecessors did.

Quite frankly, I think we, as a unique species in our own evolutionary right, are doing very well in our upward limb. If we look back at our early beginning history and compare just how cruel and inconsiderate our forefathers were in their daily affairs and compare their lifestyle to ours, I think it's clear: compassion, love and intelligence is beginning to bloom.

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Are the root causes the absence of morality and honesty rather than political systems?

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Probably at least in large part. Systems are devised by fallible humans, therefore “systems” are fallible.

Morality requires honesty but where is morality extracted from? All humans are home to light and dark. Mass enlightenment is a slow moving glacier but it has been creeping forward to a more equitable/bearable world for all for centuries, maybe imperceptibly even longer.

There have been rather isolated instances where social progress was nudged forward and of course pivotal people who altered the course of whole societies such as scientists, artists, philosophers and the occasional benevolent ruler/leader. There have been setbacks also but in general it wasn’t that long ago in human history when the majority of people lived in bondage of some sort. Leaders were such mostly as a birth rite and not selected. Before you start thinking this wasn’t true for native Americans or Africans you’d be wrong. They might have held on to a closer relationship with the natural world but they fought just as viciously and enslaved one another. When ppl began to develop the means to connect civilizations across oceans, mountains and deserts they exchanged ideas, customs and knowledge.

Now I do understand that the spirit of the essay above is all about looking forward, yet the past, however fraught with suffering, would suggest that mankind, in our collective frailty and strengths, might do well to remember that there is hope for a better future because it has been our past.

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Morality has been programmed into our nature for a reason, Herman. Consider, for example, the difference between the Christian Old and New Testaments. The bruitish, plunishing side of the created world came first, then came compassion, understanding, forgiveness and love. If we would have been offered goodness first, who would want to change? We needed the difficulties in life in order to move forward. A kick in the pants is a better incentive to move a person forward than spending a relaxing day at the beach. God knew what He was doing when he kicked us out of the Garden of Eden so that we could work our way back.!

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Hello Joe: it feels like it has been forever since I last participated. I have remained a paying member since I first discovered you many moons ago. I feel it is time to take part once again and participate in this amazing journey you have taken us on in our attempt to "save the world" and create the "New Earth" we have been collectively dreaming of. Just a thought - science is exploring all the possibilities of how quantum physics and quantum entanglement affects our understanding of the reality we believe we live in, it also offers the answer to the question you just posed. Using different words, such as the semantics of metaphysics, I believe I am ready to get back into our discussion groups and do what I usually do - introduce some new thoughts where perhaps we may "see" with new eyes. Looking forward to renewing my friendship with some of the earlybird members and meeting new friends along the way.

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Thank you for being committed to planetary and internal healing for all these years. I think people have PTSD and so they illogically hoard wealth and continue familiar neural patterns that have been warped by trauma - both internally and collectively.

Even though we have the technology to actually feed clothe and protect all beings, not to mention hidden energy technologies that could replace most wasteful industries - there has been an anti life/anti mother / anti Earth/anti heart energy that has run this planet and environmental issues and poverty is a symptom of this crisis of the spirit/heart.

Maybe it sounds naive but I truly think the answer is banning cruel practices like circumcision and healing the PTSD within people (especially men) using somatic healing/breathwork and plant medicine to heal the “reptilian” like behavior (wetiko mind virus) that has run those with a greedy imperialistic spirit within them who keep business as usual because it is a familiar neural groove in their traumatized mind that has become afraid of change for fear of incurring pain or a loss of control.

Maybe it sounds naive but I pray these topics become normalized before the wetiko energy attempts to homogenize plant medicine as it represents the ultimate in chaos, which is what a stagnant system fears the most.

Messiness and Creativity and “Big Emotions” need to be normalized so people can feel safe to “make mistakes” in their pursuit of thinking outside the box.

It is those who have done the shadow work who have been able to see this pandemic for what it truly is because we have been able to face the darkness within ourselves, which PTSD often makes difficult.

I hope this helps add to the discussion! I appreciate you so much Joe?

Just some thoughts to add ! Thanks for all you share!

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All too often in my life I have been shocked by people's reaction to the poor and downtrodden. The contempt and and cold hearted disconnect is baffling to me. So many people without a shred of compassion or empathy for the unfortunate is to me baffling. I have been berated in public by people who thought I was foolish to give money to a young girl on the street. She was only maybe fourteen or fifteen and I still remember how cold her hand was when she took the handful of change I took from my pocket. The fear in her eyes was heartbreaking. That was almost forty years ago and I still wonder what happened to that child.

"She's only out here because she wants to be" an older workmate said to me. I was shocked but unfortunately at a loss for words at the time. Being much older now I wouldn't hesitate to offer my opinion now. What possible hell could this child have experienced to prefer to be out on the streets?

Unfortunately I'll never know as I never had the courage to ask her and in any event she would have probably viewed me as another pervert coming to hurt her if I would have stopped to ask.

The point is too few of us stop and offer a kindness to a stranger. Like the song says "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet:. Maybe next time you are out you will think of this and offer kindness to the "friend you haven't met yet."

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Something - someone - technology? may inspire a critical mass to sense their connection and non-separation with the whole -- with the commensurate ability to facilitate change. Could come thru Disclosure, Neuralink (Yuck) or some other total black swan never before imagined occurrence.

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Excellent essay! Definitely feeling the reminder to spend some of my time thinking about the 'new vision.'

I'm curious, are there any books or anything you recommend on these sorts of topics? I'd like to keep feeding my mind. I went through eps 1 - 7 of your podcast a while ago and it was really enlightening. Hungry for more though! Oh, also looking forward to your course too!

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Kingsley Dennis has written extensively on this topic for a number of years, including several books with Ervin Lazlo; he also is on substack. Kingsley postulates that we are at a tipping point with regards to human consciousness, that if enough of us evolve to higher levels of consciousness it will help usher in a new era the likes of which have not been known before for humanity. If enough don't evolve, well, take a look at the world around us right now but imagine things being even worse. The power to do this is within all of us but people need to break their chains and start thinking for themselves.

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Thanks!

Yes, interweaving back and forth between doing what is needed in the near term within our existing systems, while holding a foundational vision and spending time holding space and birthing a 'new world' is what I found to work best. We only need to take one step into the unknown, not necessarily jump all in and then feel ungrounded and dis-integrated in our existing world.

That's a good question, and to be honest it's one I hope to answer for myself as I'm going to want to dive in more once I get a few more things settled by the end of 2023. MOst of my thoughts on this stuff has been from decades of thinking about it and talking to people about it. I imagine subconsciously I pick up a lot from those conversations, people sharing what they've seen, their ideas etc.

More will be coming to the podcast soon, and as I inevitably come across some cool books I will make an effort to share!

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Dolly back to the Big Picture, where one can see that there is only ONE problem....resolve this ONE problem, and all our other problems fall like a house of cards!! Each of the myriad resolution proposals put forth these days is arguably fruitless without addressing this single root issue. History bears this out.

The problem itself is no revelation, nor an original idea. Anyone familiar with 'Wetiko' already resonates with the diagnosis. Yet, the very notion that this problem can be directly addressed, let alone resolved, lies beyond what most of us believe is possible. Herein lies our greatest challenge.

The following vision for resolution encourages us to expand the scope of our thoughts beyond the recycling of now common rhetoric and hollow platitudes, amidst cliched themes, articulated by the usual suspects, and always constrained by the limits of our ancient (and now rapidly expiring) consensus reality:

https://bohobeau.net/2021/01/29/woke-world/

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