Developing Transition in Britain – help us shape the future!
By Mike Thomas 28th January 2020
Let us know what you think.
Back in August 2019 we shared with you news that Transition Network is developing a National Lottery Community Fund bid for a 4 year programme of building capacity and regional networks to support Transition in Britain. In true Transition spirit, we believe these networks should be co-designed with you, Transitioners with the community based knowledge to know how a larger scale network could support your needs and nourish your vision as we activate the most important decade of climate action ever.
At that time, we also launched a massive survey, which garnered 270 responses, thanks to everyone who filled it in. It took ages to read through and analyse, but it was worth it! You can read a short report on key findings here.
The survey results combined with the last 4 years of work on regional networks listed below has informed our shaping of this bid:
- 11 regional network workshops in 2017.
- MSc research, which you can read here.
- Delivering “The Great Invitation”, supporting the growth of regional networks in Hastings, West Midlands, North West, London, Wiltshire, Swindon and Southampton, find out more about this in our “Stepping Up and Reaching Out” series on our blog.
The bid will be submitted to the National Lottery Community Fund in March of this year.
We’d like to share the current project summary with you to inform and ask for feedback. We would love to know what you think, to help the framework of this project to be the shape that is needed.
If our bid is successful, does this project sound like something you want to be involved in? Can you imagine how this 4 year programme could support regional connection towards a regenerative future in your area!
Would your Transition Group have the appetite and capacity to engage with the project, to help develop Transition in your area and to link up with other groups nearby? Do you think you might have the passion, experience, skills and connections to contribute to this project as a Network Weaver?
Find out more by reading the Project Summary here and sending us your thoughts before 17th February via Surveymonkey (there’s only 12 questions!) here.
You’re also invited to an online meeting to explore the bid in more detail on Monday 3rd February, 7pm to 9pm (GMT). At this meeting, there will be time to gain clarity on what is being proposed, ask questions and reality check the content of the bid. Just click this link on the night, when you’re ready to join. If you have never used Zoom before it’s a good idea to click on the link beforehand at any time as you may have to install a small bit of software to join us.
We will find out in June whether we have been successful, keep your fingers and toes crossed for a successful bid!
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Blueprint for Humanity
With the continual barrage of heinous acts committed against humanity for centuries, the wars, the poverty, patriarchy, the pillage and exploitation, the destruction of our environment, now on the brink of extinction, it is time for humanity to discard these corrupted systems and assume responsibility for the welfare of the whole. We need to start changing things if we wish to survive as a species and to finally live in an abundant, loving, regenerative way. Each community or city can decide how it wants to organize with reference to the whole, with a shared common world vision.
Just like living cells, there is the constant, dynamic process of production, regulation, and maintenance (autopoiesis), to create and maintain a healthy society that meets the needs of all the individuals. Radical democracy, ecology, and women’s liberation could be the three pillars as it is in the society of the people of Rojava, Syria.
Human society is complex and has many levels, history has taught us that putting people in authority over others has been a huge mistake for many reasons, but mainly since it seems that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Society is too complicated for the pyramid or vertical structure to function adequately. One individual cannot be responsible for the decision making for such a complex system. Therefore, power needs to be distributed, horizontally.
Horizontal governing (virtually uncorruptible) world-wide needs to be implemented in all countries if we wish to save ourselves from corrupt government taking us to extinction and totalitarianism. It is a platform for communities to self-organize, where power is distributed. Humanity must find the courage to confront corrupt government and for capitalism to slowly and gently be replaced with a “smart economy” where everyone’s needs are met, where there is no need to accumulate wealth, and enthusiasm takes hold in everyone for creating the most incredible existence possible for all of humanity, such that sanity is restored and love manifests in everything and replaces profit as the bottomline.
It is very clear now that the whole world needs to be a part of a regenerative culture. That the mindset created by capitalism, the individual having to compete against others to survive and thrive, which degenerates into a rapacious lust for more and more, regardless of the lives of others or the sanctity of the environment, is replaced by a love for the whole of our species and an appreciation for our role as the self-conscious aspect of nature.
Technological advances, such as for example in transportation; electric airplanes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdpB06PscjE), hyperloop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_FyOBCVGWE), electric self-driving cars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GETEQIAddGI), automatic drones (in Dubai) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rfe4BFiVNA), etc. smart everything (The price of specialized machine learning chips is dropping rapidly with a rise in global demand. Combined with the explosion of low-cost microscopic sensors and the deployment of high-bandwidth networks, we’re heading into a decade wherein every device becomes intelligent. Your child’s toy remembers her face and name. Your kids’ drone safely and diligently follows and videos all the children at the birthday party. Appliances respond to voice commands and anticipate your needs.), use of AI in solutionizing: The rise of “AI as a Service” (AIaaS) platforms will enable humans to partner with AI in every aspect of their work, at every level, in every industry. AIs will become entrenched in everyday business operations, serving as cognitive collaborators to employees — supporting creative tasks, generating new ideas, and tackling previously unattainable innovations. In some fields, partnership with AI will even become a requirement. In the self-organizing of cities AI can be used to augment the systems, departments, and homeostasis. For example: in the future, making certain diagnoses without the consultation of AI may be deemed malpractice. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cmx7V4oIR8), new methods for creating energy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uStFvcz9Or4), i.e. turbines in water pipes (in Portland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgGaB068ayM), new advances in health and medicine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v09ixmM3clY), regenerative agriculture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et8YKBivhaE), the seemingly unlimited uses of mushrooms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbGRMj9tP5MPaul Stamets), and so many wondrous new innovations could be shared and scaled up for all of humanity, instead of first going to the military and CIA, they could be used to benefit everyone, what a great world we could create.
Just imagine the abundance that could be shared with all the money wasted on the militaries around the world, particularly by the United States, trillions and trillions of dollars.
A world that is decentralized, the idea of nations should be abandoned and replaced with autonomous zones that are all working together in collaboration. Cultures and traditions and all the differentiation that humanity has brought into existence would be honored and enjoyed.
A world where having lots of money makes no sense and is entirely unnecessary. Crime would be pointless, along with prisons, locks, and so much litigation. It would be a utopia. Contamination and pollution would no longer exist, as all of nature, would be honored and respected.
A confederacy of communities and cities. each one self-organizing, each community or city decides how it wants to organize with reference to the whole. The whole needs to share a common vision. A vision that incorporates all of our values: freedom, abundance, and justice for all. Freedom/autonomy could be individualistic or collective freedom, but they must reinforce one another, they cannot be exclusive. Power would be distributed and people would be liberated.
Self-organizing to best meet all the needs of every individual. Abundance, which would include food, shelter, and all the physical needs, how to produce and distribute them. The people need to think of their group as one extended family, but instead of having competitive families from one region to another, it is recognizing that all humans are a part of the same extended family, and all must have their needs met through cooperation and collaboration.
There is the importance of reciprocity, its about give and take. And just like in the human body, there is the constant, dynamic process of homeostasis, to maintain the health and welfare of the whole. This would be done through feedback loops, transparency, measurements, and through open lines of communication. The internet would no longer be contaminated with false information and commercialization, but would be cleaned up and serve as clear pathways for instant communication and information.
Human society is complex and has many levels, this form of self-governing needs to operate bottom-up, meaning history has taught us that putting people in authority over others has been a huge mistake for many reasons, but mainly since it seems that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, i.e. the Shah of Iran, etc, etc. Also, because today’s society is too complex for the pyramid, or vertical structure to function adaquately.
No one man can be responsible for the decision making for such a complex system. It functions much better when the individual parts, those who are intimate with the mechanisms, like farmers and the production of food, are making the decisions with reference and collaboration with the whole. Again it is analogous to how the human body functions. For example, the liver has many roles, one is security, it decides who or what can enter the body, it is the gatekeeper, and is always looking out for the health and well-being of the organism. In this regard it works with the skin, the blood, and the brain.
This regenerative culture is already being implemented in different parts of the world. And there are a few examples of horizontal governing that also already exists in such places as Rojava, Syria, which is tragically being aerially attacked by Turkey, which is a member of NATO and is therefore implicated in this crime against humanity, also, the Zapatistas in Mexico, who must defend against the attacks of that government. The people of Oaxaca, and elsewhere. The corrupt governments everywhere are against the people taking back their power, as the repressive measures used against the world-wide peaceful protests have demonstrated.
If only those who own the corporatocracies that use governments to serve their ends, i.e. wars to extract/ steal resources from defenseless countries and keep people in servitude, those poor psychopaths (people who are willing to kill others to make money are psychopaths) could only realize that no matter how much money they can steal, the amount of happiness that they could achieve could never compare to the joy that they would have to live in a world full of happy, loving people with abundance for all.
If we had the time, without this possibility of catastrophic, irreversible, systemic collapses, we could create a regenerative world where money is no longer a necessity, which would make wars and crime obsolete, police unnecessary, as well as prisons and courts. All disputes would be dealt with councils of reconciliation. But due to the urgency of the climate crisis, it is now that all corrupt governments need to be confronted in a non-violent manner by organizing the world-wide protests to reach an accord to unilaterally and at the same time make the single demand to restructure government from vertical to horizontal.
How the governments will react is open. It is possible they will react with violence, in which case it would be necessary for humanity to really unify in solidarity to resist naked tyranny together. The situation with the possibility of extinction demands this of us.