Open-source Culture

In the beginning was the commons. Over vast stretches of prehistoric time, tribal cultures evolved in tandem with the natural environment. They did this without creating private property or hierarchical relationships of control and dominance that led to consumption of nature as a resource. Open-source culture provided for community sharing and community development. With the rise of patriarchy, empire, and systems of egoic control and empowerment, this open-source approach to community was destroyed. Over the course of the last centuries, the commons was fenced, and everything from agriculture to water was commoditized without regard to the true cost in non-renewable resources. Human beings, who had spent centuries evolving away from slavery, were re-commoditized by the Industrial Era.

The corruption of the commons led to the loss of integrity between and among individuals, organizations, and community. Artificial paradises made up of objects and possessions were substituted for true community based on authentic heart-to-heart relationships. Secular corruption is made possible by information asymmetries between those in power and the public. In the absence of transparency, truth, and trust, wealth is concentrated and waste is rampant.

We, Homo sapiens, were in harmony with the Cosmos and the Earth during earlier centuries when indigenous wisdom prevailed. The evolution of social forms and technology toward ever-greater levels of complexity is part of our human development toward deeper consciousness and self-awareness. The technosphere, as José Argüelles and others have realized, is the necessary detour that takes us from the pristine biosphere to the psychically collectivized state of the noosphere.

We live in a constellation of complex systems. It is impossible for any single person or even any single organization or nation in isolation to understand complex systems.

Collective intelligence -- multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making -- is the only means of obtaining near-real time understanding of complex systems sufficient to achieve resilience in the face of changes. Many of these changes, including biospheric ones such as climate change and depletion of planetary resources, are the result of human activity and industry in the last three centuries.

As our technological capacities continue to increase and our environment becomes ever more fragile and endangered, we find that changes to the Earth that used to take ten thousand years now take a fraction of that. We must rediscover and reintegrate indigenous wisdom in order to come back into harmony with larger whole systems, and do so in a manner that allows for application of appropriate technologies and science, open-source intelligence gathering, and real-time self-governance.

realitysandwich

Doing Good

Our movement is young, and it can only gain traction when others join in. Despite what truth we may be confident of being in possession of, it is of no consequence if others aren’t standing with us, so we must be fully conscious of our image to the public and how our actions come across to others. Sure, many will hold onto their negative preconceptions of occupiers no matter what we do, and the corporate media and police state are aligned against us, but we aren’t trying to reach any of those factions. We are trying to reach those who still retain even the slightest ability to form opinions for themselves who, while still unknowingly receiving the bulk of their worldview from corporations, are able to reconsider things if shown evidence of an alternate narrative. This is why one of the main focuses of Occupies all across the country should be to simply DO GOOD. Of course the corporate media will neglect coverage or seek to discredit a movement which posits that the very idea of a “corporate media” is an oxymoron. But if occupiers, say, feed the homeless once a week, it empowers those who see it in the flesh to form their own opinions.

Just like a food bank or free clinic, every Occupy should be a boon to its surrounding community, not only for the purpose of building the “better world” we know is possible, but also to combat negative media stereotypes. Over time, these types of utterly non-controversial actions will go a long way in telling people the real story about not only Occupy, but of the inherently conflicted and self-serving motives of the corporate elite.          
 Global Coherence Initiative

Motivation

What is a Transition Initiative?

It's a place where there's a community-led process that helps that town/village/city/neighbourhood become stronger and happier.

It's happening in well over a thousand highly diverse communities across the world - from towns in Australia to neighbourhoods in Portugal, from cities in Brazil to rural communities in Slovenia, from urban locations in Britain to islands off the coast of Canada. Many of these initiatives are registered on the Transition Network website.

These communities have started up projects in areas of food, transport, energy, education, housing, waste, arts etc. as small-scale local responses to the global challenges of climate change, economic hardship and shrinking supplies of cheap energy. Together, these small-scale responses make up something much bigger, and help show the way forward for governments, business and the rest of us.

Really, it's the opposite of us sitting in our armchairs complaining about what's wrong, and instead, it's about getting up and doing something constructive about it alongside our neighbours and fellow townsfolk. And people tell us that as a result of being involved in their local "transition initiative", they're happier, their community feels more robust and they have made a lot of new friends.

All industrialised countries appear to operate on the assumption that our high levels of energy consumption, our high carbon emissions and our massive environmental impact can go on indefinitely.

And most developing countries appear to aspire to these ways of living too. However, any rational examination of our energy supplies, our economic inequalities, our diminishing levels of well-being, our ecological crises and the climate chaos that is already hitting millions of people tells us this can't go on much longer.

We're saying that the best place to start transitioning away from this unviable way of living is right within our own communities, and the best time is right now.

Whether we like it or not, over the next decade or two, we'll be transitioning to a lower energy future - essential because of climate change and inevitable because of diminishing supplies of fossil fuels (particularly oil).

There are a variety of possible outcomes depending on whether we stick our heads in the sand or whether we start working for a future that we want.