Mind the Shift

”A lot of people today are deferring their future to a very limited number of leaders – political leaders and powerful tech company leaders. That’s a tragedy.” ”There is a sense of ’postalgia’: a hankering for the present: ’This is as good as it gets. The future will be worse.’ This is a paralyzing mindset. It can spiral into nihilism”, says the Johannesburg based futurist, trend analyst and economist Bronwyn Williams. She challenges the doom and gloom and points to doors that can lead to a bright future. There is more hope and energy in some of the younger economies, with much larger youth bulges, than in the West. ”There is a lot to learn from younger countries about having more optimism about the future.” One of the reasons behind the widespread gloom is the unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization. The distribution of wealth is tightly tied to the systems of money and nation states, which we are so used to we hardly ever question them, but which are not nature-given. ”Money is propped up by faith and by force. We have to believe in it for it to work. Money itself does not have any intrinsic value. We have value. Our time has value. Our labor has value. And the real natural resources.” ”We need more equitable money, not money that makes some countries richer at the expense of others.” Cryptocurrencies are only backed by faith, not by force and the nation states. They are an interesting alternative, says Williams. But not necessarily the solution. The catch is how to arrange for social welfare in a borderless space. One idea floating right now is called open basic income. There are also trials with digital citizenship out there. In the future perhaps we can base citizenship not on our place of birth but rather on our values, reasons Williams. ”Some want more security and more rules, some want more freedom and less rules. Maybe we can group those people in a way that's fair?” She gives two examples: the democracy movement in Hong Kong and the polarization after the US election. ”How to take the ethos of Hong Kong’s freedom movement somewhere else even if the territory has to cede to mainland China? And what if there was a way to let both sides get what they want after the US election? Subscribe to either a left wing or a right wing agenda? Pay one’s taxes to either?” Here is Bronwyn Williams web site. Here is her upcoming book ”The Future Starts Now”.

In the mainstream journalistic and activist narrative, climate change is happening but skeptics deny that. ”That’s a crazy argument. Nobody denies that the climate is changing”, says Vitezslav Kremlik, a Czech historian and sociologist. The honest discussion, of course, centers around the question to what extent humans contribute to that change, and what can be done about it in a reasonable way. Those who spread exaggerated warnings about the effects of global warming are ”merchants of fear”, according to Kremlik, who has studied the postmodern mix of science and politics, has a popular blog and is a frequent guest on Czech media where he discusses climate issues. Kremlik points out that alarmists are not wrong about everything, and he finds it sad that they can never make the same admission about the skeptics. It should be possible to have a decent debate about, for instance, the rebounding from the so-called Little Ice Age. It should even be possible to reach some kind of consensus. ”But that’s not desirable for the alarmist side.” At its core, the debate isn’t really much about the science around climate change, it’s about growth, says Vitezslav Kremlik; whether growth is a good or a bad thing. The environmentalists ”have a Malthusian thought that growth is some kind of cancer.” How do we interpret the last two centuries of development? Is it a story of progress or a story of environmental holocaust? Kremlik’s viewpoint is clear: ”We have liberated ourselves from the Malthusian trap and almost eradicated extreme poverty. It’s a miracle.” The ”97 percent of the scientists...” argument is partly a straw man argument. No serious scientist says that the globe isn’t warming. Historically, disasters were blamed on God’s wrath. ”We thought we got rid of superstition. But it’s still here – but it is disguised as science. We are really bad at estimating risks. We react much stronger to events than to trends.” Although the environmental movement is right on some things, it is not willing to discuss its problems or rectify its mistakes. ”It is turning into a dogmatic religion. I think it will fall apart. But it won’t happen next year”, says Kremlik. Vitezslav Kremlik’s book is entitled ”A Guide to the Climate Apocalypse – How the Merchants of Fear Forged a New Religion”.

You are not the labels that are put on you. You are not the roles you play. You cannot be defined by your political preference, class, profession, marital status, sexuality, citizenship, favorite football team, diet, hobbies or the amount of money on your bank account. Although you are a part of all that is conscious, a spark of the universe, you are also just you, the unique you entity. It is actually possible to escape most of those labels and roles, if you want to. You are freer than you are conditioned to believe. Nobody but you has any right to tell you what path to choose in life. Unsolicited advice has nothing to do with you. They are just projections.

If you had the power to start society from scratch, meaning the world would be one large common, how would you organize it? What rules would you set? If any? Corin Ism has done that experiment. She has lived in a simulation of the planet Mars and developed design principles for space societies. Corin Ism is a power innovator. As the co-founder of Foga, the Future of Governance Agency, she is on the forefront of all that has to do with shaping governance to better suit our connected world. ”We are different now, not because the internet exists outside of us but because it is a part of us. I am someone else when I have access to Wikipedia than I would be without it”, she says. ”This changes our capacity for empathy. The fact that we can feel close to somebody on the other side of the world is a new feature of this species.” ”And that opens up another way to organize societies than that which means you get a lottery ticket when you are born. The passport you get will affect your life more than your gender or any other circumstance.” Many are familiar with cryptocurrencies’ use of blockchains. Fewer have considered blockchain jurisdictions like being a citizen of a bit-nation without physical territory. But this is one of the cutting-edge ideas about future forms of governance to which Ism dedicates most of her time. She eloquently makes it crystal clear that much of what we see as natural in our societal matrix, to the point that we seldom even think about it, is far from self-evident. Such as the financial system, the military or the nation state. Humanity and the world we inhabit are changing. Fast. We have every possibility to shift our mindset from scarcity to abundance. Ism talks about an awakening, but without the spiritual component (possibly it’s the same thing but seen from different angles): ”Nation states and the obsession with territory is contingent on us as very physical beings. But I would argue that we are getting less and less physical". ”We have changed as a species, but we haven't really woken up and celebrated that.” Here’s the website of the Future of Governance Agency. On Corin’s personal website you’ll get a panoply of her many achievements (she is, for instance, also an artist). * Corin was formerly known as Carin

If you’re not used to venturing far outside the mainstream: buckle up, you’re in for a ride. The South African writer, scientist, explorer and activist Michael Tellinger tells about our ancient history and the world today in ways that you’ve never heard before. ”I’d like to invite the listeners to open their minds and imagine that anything is possible, because almost everything we’ve been told by our so-called teachers is a lie. There is a little bit of truth to it, but most of it, all the embellishments, is a lie”, says Tellinger. His research has led him to realize that the origins of the modern human race is much, much older than we have been taught. Tellinger has scrutinized Sumerian clay tablets as well as the human DNA and findings on the ground in Southern Africa, including millions of stone circles that are hundreds of thousands of years old. In this episode, an energetic Michael Tellinger jumps from the largest scale of things to the smallest, and from deep ancient history to today’s world. He claims that most of what we are told about history and science is false, and not by accident but by design. The basis for everything in the universe is sound and resonance, not what the conventional models tell us. When it comes to today’s politics, Tellinger – again against the mainstream – thinks Donald Trump is in for a second term, and although he is ”not necessarily” a Trump fan, he endorses that. It has to do with a specific achievement. In the same breath, Tellinger talks enthusiastically about a new world beyond money, where humans are appreciated for their human powers only, not for their wealth or position. His One Small Town project builds on the Ubuntu movement, which is based on contributionism, where everyone contributes their talents and skills for the benefit of all in their community. ”We are using the tools of enslavement as tools of liberation.” ”There’s going to be a stampede of investors. We’re going to see a huge shift in how industry works, how we create new materials. Everything will change”, says Michael Tellinger. Here’s the link to the One Small Town project / Ubuntu. Here’s the link to Tellinger’s personal homepage, which is a good starting point to explore his world.

How can democracy catch up with the globalized economy? ”It’s surprising that inequality increases even in democratic systems”, says Folke Tersman, a professor of practical philosophy at the university of Uppsala in Sweden. ”You might expect that with more inequality people would vote governments out that are seen as responsible. But we don’t always vote in accordance with our own interests”, says Tersman, who also holds a position at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm. Voters seem more engaged in small cultural and social issues than the more complex questions, like distribution of wealth. Folke Tersman is the co-writer of a topical book published this fall, ”People and will” (”Folk och vilja” in Swedish) with the subtitle ”A defence of democracy in our time”. He argues that we are stuck in a sort of democratic limbo right now – the old hasn't died and the new cannot yet be born. He hopes that this ”interregnum” will last for as short a period of time as possible. In the long run he envisages a globalized democracy. It may sound a bit utopian, he says, but achieving it is basically no different than the earlier process of lifting the democratic level from the local to the regional and the national level, and lately even to the European level.

This pandemic shall pass, like everything does. But things won’t go back to exactly where they were. We will see whether these strange times will prove to be a watershed or something less significant. But the pandemic has highlighted and affected some features of our society that aren’t as natural as we think, to the extent we think about them at all: • Money • The workplace • Fear and authority • Knowledge and science • Global coordination

Have you heard of the Free Republic of Liberland? Probably not. But it is actually a nation that turned five this spring. There is a catch: It still doesn’t have any inhabitants on the physical area it has marked out for itself on a disputed piece of land between Serbia and Croatia, and it is still only recognized officially by Somaliland (which itself isn’t really recognized internationally). But Liberland itself has representatives in dozens of countries, it already has 1,000 citizens scattered globally, and half a million people have applied for citizenship. ”People are looking for alternatives when things are going down the drain”, says Vit Jedlička, Liberland’s first president, to Mind the Shift. He wants to create a nation with less rules, no corruption and truly free markets. To the extent that Liberland is to be ruled, it will be based on meritocracy. The country's motto is: To live and let live. ”The fewer rules, the more prosperity”, says Jedlička. ”I’ve been thinking a lot about how to bring more freedom to the people of this world. You can’t force people to change their ways. You just have to be a good example.” But doesn’t economic freedom for some mean hardship for others? No, that’s a widespread falsehood, says Liberland’s head of state.. ”This is one of the paradigms that are pushed through our educational system. It’s a big mental block. The truth is that when trade is truly free, both sides always win.” Why use money at all? ”Well, you can barter, but money has shown to be the most effective means for voluntary exchange”, says Vit Jedlička, a former libertarian politician who left politics some years ago, when he came to the conclusion that parliamentarians can’t really change anything even if they have the majority. Other forces pull the strings. On Liberland’s website one can get more information and apply for citizenship.

The EU is an attempt to accomplish democracy at the European level, but there is a glass ceiling: The heads of government have the final say, not the elected representatives in the European Parliament. And when electing those representatives, it’s a national affair. It’s not even possible to run a Europe-wide campaign. Enter Volt, the very first pan-European party, founded in 2017 to create politics for a federal Europe across European borders. Its co-president Valerie Sternberg qualifies as a true pan-European, being a German who has studied in Italy and Great Britain and worked in Belgium. ”Deep inside I identify as a European and a Hessian, but to be honest, when I am abroad I say I am German, because for some reason this still seems to be the category we are interested in”, she says in this episode. The Brexit result was a shock and an a-ha moment for Sternberg. ”I realized I had to do something. Brexit was the trigger for all of us who started Volt.” She identifies as Brussels when she comments on Boris Johnson’s Brexit trick: ”We treated you with respect and tried to find an outcome that would be acceptable for both parties, and all of a sudden this agreement is not taken seriously. It’s a terrible signal about what treaties mean, and about all international law.” ”Brexit is also based on a flawed view on sovereignty. I don’t think Britain will regain their sovereignty as they perceive it and just advance their own goals.” Volt tries to free itself from old ideologies, traditional party lines and ”the employee-employer divide we are still stuck in”, Sternberg says. ”Democracy lives out of compromise and consensus and finding a middle ground.” Climate change and migration are the two over-arching challenges for Europe on the global scene. Internally, the institutions must be reformed and democratized, according to Volt and Valerie Sternberg: ”Why is the most powerful body in the EU the national heads of government when we have representatives directly elected by us in the European Parliament?” Does she, then, believe in a future Europe without borders? ”National identity is still strong, so scrapping nations soon would feel artificial. But what could happen is an incremental change towards a European democracy, a European government combined with local government. Then, eventually, we would not need the nation states.” Volt campaigned for the EP in eight different member states in the elections of 2019, and in one of them, Germany, the party managed to get its candidate Damian Boeselager  into the parliament. It also has 30 representatives in national and regional assemblies. 

Almost everything in this physical world is ”nothingness”. It’s space. Only a teeny fraction of you, me and everything else consists of what we call particles. But that space isn’t nothing. It’s packed with all-encompassing energy, and ”we” are just more or less densified portions of that unified field of energy. How, then, can we not be connected? I think we can tap into this totality, and into each other and into every consciousness that exists.  I think we can live our lives more smoothly if we learn how. I think we create our lives that way. And if we’re all part of this unified quantum soup: How can we die? Truly die? If this episode inspires you, check out Eckart Tolle, Alan Watts, Donald D Hoffman, Nassim Haramein, Bruce Lipton, Rupert Sheldrake, Esther Hicks, Aaron Abke, Teal Swan, Robert Lanza, Ram Dass and, of course, Carl G Jung  (among many other wise teachers of the human experience, spirituality and life science)