Archive for the ‘World Peace’ Category

From World Pandemic to World Peace

Friday, March 27th, 2020

It has been really uplifting to see humankind coming together as we never have before. Good job, people! Keep it up!

If there is anything to take away from this global event, it’s just how minor this pandemic will turn out to be in the bigger scale of things.

Now, I’m not trying to downplay the severity of this outbreak. It has already been devastating and millions more could potentially die. Workers on the frontline of this disease will likely bear life-long effects.

But there are so many worse things that can happen. We could be wiped out entirely by any one of the horrible things that have threatened us for eons – things like asteroids or super-volcanos. And now there’s all the new ways that we are coming up with to annihilate ourselves – things like gene editing, robotics, AI, and nanotech.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say we should be glad or grateful for Covid-19. Rather, my point is that this is just a wake-up call. There is some far crazier shit coming down the pipeline, some of which we can barely comprehend.

Let’s keep working together as we have been to survive this crisis. Afterwards, we can use the momentum to do something even greater – we could create a tech-enabled open-source global democracy, redistribute the world’s power and wealth, and even dismantle the world’s military industrial complex.

Our best chance, our highest odds of survival, comes from uniting as a species to overcome whatever stands in our way.

World Peace 2020

Saturday, January 4th, 2020

Well, it’s here.


2020.


The year I predicted that we’d attain peace on earth.


Damn I hate being wrong. Why hasn’t peace manifested itself yet?


Well, for one, the year isn’t over yet. And thanks to technology, society is advancing far quicker than ever before, so what used to take decades to happen can now happen in just months. Anything is possible, including global revolutions that vastly redistribute wealth and power into the hands of the many.


And really, it was just a guess. Many years ago I said world peace could happen within 100 years. Then, after wrapping my head around the notion of the accelerating rate of technological progress, I tried to extrapolate what that would mean for the evolution of humankind into a globally interconnected species, and I came up with the year 2020, which even back then seemed like a moon shot.


But this hasn’t got me down, Farmer Brown. I’m actually more optimistic than ever before. There has never been a better time than now for world peace (i.e. the dismantling of the military industrial complex) to become a reality.


Why now? What’s different now? Many key factors that I’ve talked about before – a unifying human race (thanks to smart phones connected to internet), the eradication of global poverty (it’s happening!), and an increased awareness of the military industrial complex (and how they manufacture most wars today), are all reaching the tipping point.


On top of this, we now have technologies never before seen, like AI, neural networks, and machine learning, which can do amazing feats, vastly outperforming any human alive in many tasks, like diagnosing cancer or playing video games.


Imagine if we made an AI that could develop a better form of governance for us to use around the world. I’ve long talked about a Global Voting System, now called GVS for lack of a better name, which would be the backbone of an open-source digital democratic system. I’ve said development of such a complex system would need a team of people for it to be successful, but maybe it’s better suited for some finely crafted algorithms to figure out.


Whether or not AI helps design the GVS, it most certainly can help us run it. Sure, it can be scary to think there’s some super-powerful computer program dictating how we live our lives. But the power that AI is bringing is inevitable, and if we don’t leverage this tremendous gift into something that benefits us all, tyrants will seize the opportunity to use AI against us.


So what would this GVS look like? Imagine a benevolent super powerful AI millions of times smarter than any human, operating with clear expectations (like maximizing the quality of every human’s life). Then you give it access to the global surveillance state, (whose tendrils have burrowed into nearly all facets of modern life) so this GVS super AI knows how everyone feels, what we all want, and acts accordingly to create a system of governance that does its best to make it happen.


Don’t go thinking I’m delusional. I don’t expect a GVS as advanced as this to be an option for many years. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start now, working on some kind of protoGVS, trialed on smaller scales. Maybe start with a small city or group, then work up to states and small countries before going big around the world.


To roll out a GVS, we’d need to make a new political party called the Digicrats. The Digicratic Party can operate in a similar way as the crowd-managed pro-sports team called Project Fanchise. In the Fanchise system, paying fans can vote on all kinds of decisions made by a pro football team, like selecting which players to trade to or choosing which plays to make.


The Digicratic party would run alongside existing political parties, but their platform would be decided via the protoGVS by the people who pledge to vote for them. People would vote for a Digicratic candidate because that person, once elected, would be held accountable by the people who got them into power.


In the The Digicratic party platform, transparency and accountability can be baked right into the core. Instead of having politicians who cater mostly to wealthy people and big businesses, we could have elected leaders that are beholdent to the people. And this system would need to be mechanisms to oust and replace anyone in government that didn’t serve their party and people.


All we have to do is figure out a protoGVS model that works somewhat well and form a Digicratic party platform that isn’t too crazy. Then, refine it so it can be replicated anywhere on earth, no matter the language, culture or religious of the people there. Once that happens, there will be nothing stopping us from making it happen.


And it’s not just for those of us living in the lap of luxury in a developed, democratic nation.


All of these oppressed countries living under the thumb of dictatorships… when their collective courage swells and they rise up in revolutions, instead of having a new tyrant take over the power vacuum, instead the new leaders could be Digicrats, swearing to uphold the will of the people and being held to it by a platform the likes of which has never been seen before.

Man, that’s a lot to think about. At this rate, by the time I finish trying to explain myself, 2020 will be freakin over! That’s it! We better get some AI working on this problem, ASAP!

World Peace in less than 2 Years?

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019

If you read the main infographic on WorldPeaceisComing.com, it asks if we could achieve World Peace by 2020.  Well, now that it’s 2019, that gives us less than 1 year for billions of people to use our new-found technologies to come together in an unprecedented fashion, allowing the emergency of a global democratic society which, among other near miracles,  will bring the trillion dollar military industrial complex to its knees.

Wow!  That’s a tall order.  Well, wait a second.  If we can make this happen by the end of 2020, then the infographic we all love will still hold true.  Ok, great.  So it’s no longer less than 1 year for world peace to manifest itself.  Now we have nearly double that!  No sweat, right?

So where are we at now?

More than half of the world’s people have smartphones and that number should be at 70% by 2020.

All we need now is an app that can run on all these phones and make our world democratic.  What is this app, you say?  I don’t really know, I say.  It would have to be one hell of an app.  Transparent, able to hold leaders accountable. Secure yet open-source.  Maybe it uses block chain or smart contracts, maybe it forms some kind of global AI that runs on all our devices. Whatever it is, it will have to come soon.

Our world is so hungry for it!  Revolutions keep sprouting up.  If France had the app, if Venezuela had the app, if anywhere the people are being stepped on… if they had a democracy app that could be shown to work, they’d probably jump at it.

Once this app works on smaller scales, once the world sees what a truly functioning digicratic system can do, we will come to expect more from our own governments.  Then, if the injustices of our systems are not rectified, vive la revolution!

Here’s some projects that show promise:

https://www.democracy.earth/

https://democracyapps.org/

http://democracyos.org/

Are these the ones who will figure it out?  Who knows.  This app would probably take millions of dollars, need millions of people excited about it,  and  require an amazing team to design and build it.

So if this app doesn’t come about within 2 years, and we still haven’t come together to put an end to war-profiteering by multi-national corporations, I won’t abandon hope.  Instead, I’ll just photoshop the infographic to a later date.  Problem solved!

 

World Peace is Coming – 2018 Update

Monday, January 1st, 2018

 

So here we are, 2 years away from 2020… the year that I predicted humankind would finally came together to end institutionally organized armed conflict. I still haven’t been swayed from my original suspicion – that we are on the verge of an unprecedented global revolution that will bring with it incredible results, including the end of extreme poverty and the formation of what I consider to be world peace.

But how can we hope to achieve world peace in just 2 years?

It won’t be easy, especially as the Military Industrial Complex seems to have as much of a stranglehold around the world’s economy and mainstream media as it ever has.

And with the surveillance state’s tentacles creeping into every device, into every household on earth, gathering up every single person’s outward thoughts, it’s like there’s an ever present force of oppression waiting to detect impending uprisings and quash them before they ever come to fruition.

So what we need is a revolution that happens with such efficacy and fervor that the old establishment isn’t able to prevent it from happening. A revolution fueled by our ever-advancing technology, some of which already exists, some of which is just around the corner.

Take for example Dapps – decentralized applications – which can run on the ethereum blockchain. These dapps are entirely transparent, incorruptible, and open source. With these we are building a system of governance, one that relies on a fundamentally robust and trustworthy set of rules, one that will allow humankind to continually improve it’s own democratic system.

As well, machine learning and AI are now a reality. We are building the intelligence to help us navigate a sea of billions of voices, able to truly garner the will of the world’s people. And then it’s just a matter of ensuring the decisions made by our elected leaders coincides with the interests of the people.

Now consider Project Fanchise – the new endeavor that lets fans buy-in to a crowd-controlled professional sports team. These backers get to make managerial decisions for the team, and even call the shots play by play. This model disrupts the old system where only the ultra rich can own a sports team.

Imagine, if instead of a sports team, we had a political party that ran on a similar system. A party where the crowd decides the actions of the party. Where every aspect – it’s platform, it’s day to day decisions, all the leaders and officials, and even the rules on which the entire party adheres to – all gets moderated by the people who back the party.

These new political parties could run side by side against current incumbents, but promising a new form of leadership – one that is fully accountable to the people and transparent in all operations. A government beholden to everyone, not just to the corrupting influence of money and power like we have today.

Can all of these new creations and technologies culminate in world peace within the next two years? Sure, all it would take is for the right spark to ignite a global revolution, one that crosses nations, borders, languages and culture barriers the likes of which has never been seen before. No biggie.

World peace by 2020. Let’s make it happen, people.

 

Global Democracy 2017

Friday, February 10th, 2017

If you’ve been here before, you would have read my thoughts on a Global Voting System and how it could be used to enabled a true form of democracy, everywhere on earth.  This system, open source and crowd-developed, would give the world’s people dramatic power, like ending large scale conflicts and eradicating extreme poverty.

The Global Voting System (which needs a catchier shorter name but its GVS for now) would, on the front end, work on smart phones and other devices, and somehow gather consensus from individuals.  I used to think it would be like a poll questionnaire type, but theres probably a more refined way to build it.

The point is that people would somehow give their opinions, wants and thoughts on issues that are open for debate… whether its something involved just within your neighbourhood, your city-wide issues, country-wide, and people will even be “polled” on issues impacting the world scale.

The front end of the GVS will also somehow let people hold their elected officials’ feet to the flames. While a lot of the GVS will be automated, there will still need people to be put into positions of power.  However these people will be open to scrutiny and privacy invasion, and mechanisms will be in place to ensure that as little corruption and abuse of power persists.

On the backend – the system will need to be extremely secure, but still open sourced so that no back doors or other shenanigans can go on. Also there needs to be a way to always refine and improve the system and we can’t do that if the system is secret.

Some of my newer thoughts on the GVS were that it might take some form of AI to handle the complexity of the task.  The thought that AI and computers could hold so much power over us might be frightening, but that future is inevitable.  We may as well take control over it instead of being enslaved by it.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the process of making a GVS type project come to life.  First, it would take some fundraising – I bet a crowd sourcing platform would be an ideal place for this, as well as to get more people interested in the project.

It will take a team of talent people just to begin building a sort of a proto-GVS, which will be used to gain the worlds ideas and consensus on how best to build the GVS. This team would need to face a similar kind of transparency and scrutiny that we will expect from our elected officials, and if people are shown to be trying to rig the system they can be replaced.

We could use some sort of reddit type voting to get the best ideas up to the top as well as enabling a discourse on the subjects, as long as the moderation of the forums and discourse was open to scrutiny and replacement of key people if necessary.

Let’s say we were able to create this awesome system and it works awesome like we all hope it can.  So what? We still have our current, corrupt and ineffective governments in the way.  And none of them will just willingly hand over the reigns to some arbitrary “system of the people”.  So then how can make the transition from our current, obsolete form of proto-democracy, to a real democracy where people everywhere get their voices heard.

It used to be the only way I could see it happening was to have the system ready for when revolutions happen.  When a country finally has enough, and huge percentages of the population come and oust their shitty governments, a GVS system could be there, ready to be put into place, giving those people’s revolution a lasting democracy (instead of simply putting into power their next tyrant).

Now here’s some of my latest thinking… why wait for the revolution?  Why wait when we can create an independent political party, use the GVS to elect party leaders, and then run these elected leaders on existing platforms against existing politicians.

Instead of just liberals/conservatives or democrats/republicans, we could have a brand new party that truly channels the will of the people, because a GVS type system is built by the people for the people.

When you consider how so many of the governing bodies of the world – on all levels of government – allow for such corruption, lies, inefficiencys, and ineptitudes, it’s acutally believable that a viable alternative to this would be embraced by enough people to make it a reality.

World Peace – 2016 Update

Tuesday, October 25th, 2016

I haven’t posted since my 2015 update, so here’s where my thoughts are as of today.

I still see the potential arrival of world peace by 2020, which is still the best of the 3 options we are heading towards (the other two being enslavement or extinction).

Now, it may seem unlikely to a lot of people for peace to arrive within the next couple of years. But for us to end politically and corporately organized armed conflict – which is what I define world peace to be – it will take a global revolution.

This revolution, which I call The Great Awakening, is where people of the world are able to unite and cooperate just enough to redistribute power from the old establishment. This will soon be possible (if not already) thanks mostly to new technology – technology that has never existed before like cell phones and social media. So in many ways the revolution has already begun.

Using current technology and the with tools humankind is on the frontier of making, we will be able to establish a new form of governance… a sort of tech-based democracy. This is what I used to call a Global Voting System, which was app that runs on cell phones, but now to me it will be more than that.

I now see this global democracy as being a combination of intelligent software and organization structures which run underneath the social media type app. The software will be open-source, with wiki style editing and crowdsourced moderation. The organizations will be similar to our current governments with leaders and civil servants, because someone still has to be there to do the work and make the decisions.

But there needs to be some major differences from today’s government, in that it has to be entirely transparent. We will see where budgets are coming in and how they are being spent, broken down from the federal all the way down to the local level, so we can cut out inefficiencies and stamp out corruption.

As well, our leaders (which will still probably be elected), will be under a tremendous amount of scrutiny. We are starting to see this now with Hilary Clinton’s leaked emails. Except it won’t be leaks we have in the future, but an actual requirement for new found democratic system to actively monitor all of our leaders.

Imagine taking the spying and surveillance power of the NSA and others like them, and using it to show all of the people everything their leaders do in all but the most private moments of their lives. They would be held accountable to the people, and those not serving interests of the people will quickly be replaced.

Within the framework of this newly emerging democracy (one we’ve already begun creating) we will also see the reality of what most of the wars that exist today for what they are: for-profit entities. Many powerful global corporations and governments have, for many generations, colluded to destabilize entire regions in order to have clients for their arms sales. It’s sad but true. Wars and weapons mean huge money, so much that they can afford to do whatever it takes to drum up more business.

But through our redistribution of power and new found democracy, just like with our elected leaders, we will be able to hold the war industry accountable for the massive damage they are doing to the world’s population (not unlikely holding big tobacco accountable).

Once we take out the financial incentives that drive us to war, we will see how much of it just dries right up. Sure, people will still fight and kill each other, but not on the industrialized scale we see today, and that to me is what world peace will be.

So that’s where my thoughts are today, which really isn’t anything but a small evolution from a few years ago.

To recap, what remains to be done:

  1. Build the Global voting system (or whatever it will be called). It will probably have to start on a smaller scale to show that it works.  Maybe in Iceland or another really progressive country.
  2. Spread a message of hope about the reality of world peace to billions of people, maybe with some kind of clever meme or awareness viral video.

But I’m busy doing other stuff so someone else will have to make world peace happen, at least for the time being.

World Peace is Coming – 2015 Update

Wednesday, April 8th, 2015

World Peace can be defined as the end of institutionally organized armed conflict. This will happen when the governments and corporations currently responsible for unleashing war upon our world are forced to stop.

The idea that world peace is not only possible, that peace is in fact sitting right on our doorstep, may seen like a fanciful dream. But it is only a dream because we haven’t made it happen yet. Not because it is impossible and not because it is beyond the limits of human potential.

Sure, it will take a movement of millions upon millions of people like you and me from all around the world, coming together as a combined force. But together we can and will make it happen.

We can rival the trillion dollar empire that is the military industrial complex. We can overcome the thousands and thousands of years of baggage and damage caused by warfare. We have the power to manifest peace on earth as soon as we choose to.

It starts with our own governments, by letting them know that the use of military force is never an option except as a last resort. No longer will we let other innocent humans be treated as enemies, no matter their nationality, religion, culture or color.

Instead, our leaders need to be urged to exercise proven methodologies, like humanitarian aid and cooperation. By building up impoverished nations and strengthening war-torn communities from within, we attack desperation and extremism at its source. And this is ultimately the surest way to disrupt the cycle of violence.

On top of that, we need to strip out the billions in annual profits reaped by the businesses of war. 100% tax on all proceeds from weapons manufacturing. Fines and levies against these industries which perpetuate bloodshed. Class action suits against those who arm the armies, holding them accountable for the suffering they enable.

 

Yes, it is an uphill battle. So why even try?

For starters, this is an issue that effects you personally. You, your loved ones, your friends and everyone you know stand to reap the benefits of living in a world without warfare… a world of security and prosperity.

On top of that, with medical science moving forward as fast as it is, we are on the brink of being able to extend our lives indefinitely, letting us live as long as we choose. We will be able to witness our species expand to explore the universe.

All that and more can be ours as long as we don’t let the war-mongers screw it up for us. And if that isn’t reason enough for you to make peace a reality, then what is?

World Peace Still Entirely Possible

Monday, August 4th, 2014

World peace isn’t just possible, it is highly probable. And we could see it come to fruition within the next decade.

Even after many years since I came to the conclusion that world peace can actually happen right now, I still haven’t been dissuaded one bit.

Here’s why:

1 – Technology is getting better and cheaper faster than ever before. This will help eliminate global poverty, which will greatly decrease the drives to war.
2 – With this technology comes the Internet, and this is letting a global world connect on a local level, something never before possible. As we unite as a species, we see there are no enemies left for our armies to fight.
3 – This unification will also reveal the mostly unspoken truth behind wars, which is that a handle of companies are making billions of dollars a year on this bloodshed. Once we work together on a multi-national level, we can hold the defense industry accountable to us – the world’s people.

The goal is to take the financial incentives out of war, and it starts with the arms industry itself. We can implement 100% taxes on the profits of weapons manufacturing. We can issue fines and demand repayments for death and suffering cause by defense contractors’ products. We can sue and win huge settlements in class action suits against the key corporations involved in equipping the world’s militaries.

The idea of taxing, fining, or even suing the biggest industry on earth may seem absurd, but that’s only because we haven’t tried it yet. And why the hell shouldn’t some businesses be held accountable. We don’t need their weapons of war in our world anymore!

Once hundreds of millions of people around the world see it as possible, we will have the leverage to make it happen. The trick will be to reach these hundreds of millions of people in time.

The Internet: Ending War and Poverty One Mind at a Time

Wednesday, March 19th, 2014

Wars and wealth inequality are both social constructs.  They exist and persist because we are used to them. We accept them as normal, and can even believe them to be everlasting – an extension of the animal nature of humanity’s greed and violence.

But every single human on earth would be better off if they didn’t have to worry about war or have to contribute to the billions spent every year on armed conflict. And almost every single person on this planet would be experience a higher quality of life if humankind’s wealth were distributed more equitably.

So it’s not a matter of peace and prosperity being an impossibility – because once we have those things we will only wonder why we waited so long to make them happen. Instead, it’s a matter of getting from our old world and our old-world mindset into the new future that awaits.

We will see that wars are being manufactured by for-profit entities and we can stop them as soon as we choose to. We will see that wealth disparity persists because we haven’t yet done anything about it. We will see that we’ve had the power to fix our world all along, and that all it took is for enough of us to coordinate and mobilize on a global scale.

And there is no better tool for this than the Internet. Our glorious Internet, as long as it remains free from censorship and government overreach, will keep connecting and informing us. Within the coming few years, enough of us see and believe that change is not only possible, it is inevitable. And as we speak out in unison with the power of billions of people, our dreams of peace and ending poverty will be real.

Do for War Profiteering What Occupy did for Income Inequality

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

War is one of the world’s biggest money-makers. It accounts for over 1.5 trillion dollars in business every year with billions to be reaped by those sitting atop. These multi-millionaires and billionaires are not content to sit idly by and hope more conflict breaks out. No, like any good business-person, they are out there manufacturing their markets!

And they will do this in perpetuity until something comes along to stop them.  Fortunately for us, that something… is us! You and me and billions of people just like you and me.

Together, we are enacting a global ban on war – by the people for the people. It’s time for a change, and we are the ones who get to make it happen. Bold measures must be taken, like holding class action lawsuits against those who enable wars on earth.  Be they in public or private service, leaders who drive us to war will be held accountable for the blood that gets spilled. No more forgetting their false pretences.

On top of this, we can continually strip away the grease from proverbial the war-machine. Imagine if, on a global scale, we could invoke a 100% tax on all proceeds made from making and selling weapons and arms.  How quickly the drums of war would fall silent.

These billions we’ve been pissing away on war every year on defence budgets can find a much better home improving the world in which we live. Let’s end global poverty, eradicate global hunger, and build a renewable-powered, interconnected world. The future is now, so it’s about time we get our collective act together.

The Occupy movement, along with the similarly-themed uprisings around the world, brought into the mainstream consciousness the idea of wealth disparity, and how a tiny fraction of the population control a vastly disproportionate amount of wealth and power. While these movements have lost some steam, the idea of income inequality can be better discussed in the mainstream forums.

What we need to see now is a social movement which impacts the entire world – bringing an anti-war concept into the mainstream consciousness, spreading and growing for months and years, ultimately culminating in hundred of millions of people all speaking out in unison to say that we are all ready for war to be over.

Wow! That sound’s awesome. Better get busy and make sure it comes to fruition.