Morality, Society, and the Return to Simplicity

Let us consider the problem of societal complexity through the lens of technology for a moment. Technology is indifferent to the ideas of good and evil. A tool of technology does not decide the manner in which it is used; only the wielder of the tool can decide whether it is used for good or evil purposes. However, one of the problems with the idea of "good and evil" is that it requires a subjective moral judgement as to what is "good" and what is "evil." When it comes to any subjective determination, different cultures, subcultures, and individuals will never fully agree on specific issues or criteria. This the place in which complexity arises in social life. Additionally, "the road to hell is (often) paved with good intentions," in which good natured people with genuinely good intentions can still cause serious harm because they simply could not grasp or foresee the consequences of their efforts. For example, as Elon Musk and others have warned their contemporaries working on General Artificial Intelligence (AI), although their intentions are generally well-meaning, the outcomes of their work cannot be comfortably predicted, and one reasonably possible outcome of their work is the extinction of the entire human race through the accidental or intentional whims of AI. Such is why collective intelligence, and the simplicity that supports it, is so critical to the wellbeing of us all.

In certain societies we may do well (or not) at using cultural values and moral principles to inform our decision-making by using the terms "beneficial" and "harmful" instead, while erring on the side of more freedom and less restrictions on individual liberty. However, even this approach requires an active use of the skill of discernment, and people (each having their own conscience) will never entirely agree on specifics. I say "skill of discernment" because it truly requires the skillful use of mindfulness, intuition, and critical thinking not distorted by ego-desires or fleeting emotions. The most viable approach in ensuring a group of people can interact harmoniously and with stability (and use technology wisely), with maximum freedom and least harm to one another possible, is to use the simplest, most general set of values and moral principles possible.

With a simple moral code of ethical conduct (incorporating individual rights and responsibilities) agreed to by all participants, it falls on individuals educated to effectively use the skills of discernment to modulate their own personal behavior to, primarily, minimize harm to other life while, secondarily, maximizing their own happiness. And, when a person causes another harm, intentionally or unintentionally, and the parties are unable to make amends and resolve the issue themselves, it would fall on the entire group's (family's, community's, city's, or state's) "collective intelligence" to determine on a case-by-case basis what the most beneficial way would be to handle the transgression. There is no need for complex legal frameworks and dedicated "experts" to make this work, and, in fact, such things are generally a hindrance to the application of collective wisdom. It is more beneficial to all if the collective group alone, not an individual or small group of people, is entrusted with the authority and power to enforce on individuals the group's decision of how to resolve a matter. Wider circles of social structures (e.g. states, cities) would defer decision-making on specific issues or situations to more local social structures (e.g. communities and families), only stepping in when the more local social unit was unable to collectively resolve the matter on their own. Law and order is best maintained, effective, and agreeable to people when its implementation is genuinely democratic and, as importantly, built from the bottom-up, rather top-down in which centralized authorities assume a corrupt control over all levels of society.

Unfortunately, the "old-world" social systems of most industrialized nations, buried under mountains of legal language not even experts can fully grasp, corruption that manipulates this complexity, over-centralized forms of power structures, and toxic methods of enforcement, have become so burdensome, confusing, and counterproductive at maintaining social cohesion and harmony, these systems have been causing for more harm than benefit for their peoples. What is needed is a fundamental reset and shift in our way of thinking, such that all complexity, corruption, and harmful methods of enforcing double-standards are stripped from the systems used to maintain social order. The People collectively yearn to return to simplicity in all areas of public life, in which common sense, compassionate wisdom, logical reasoning, and evidence have genuine influence on how our collective values and principles are applied to specific issues and situations.

With compassion and evidence guiding us, we could use collective intelligence, at all levels, and the skills of discernment at the level of individual conscience to make much wiser decisions about the use of technology and addressing moral transgressions than our current set of representatives, who are generally corrupt, unqualified, sociopathic, or otherwise manipulated by egocentric forces, are capable of. To make this shift happen peacefully will require us all to have the courage to conquer our fears, transcend our petty or egotistical beliefs, let go of ideologies that no longer serve us, and learn to trust again in simplicity and the essential goodness of one another. A peaceful transition will require carefully building up new socioeconomic models of living from within the old, gradually replacing the old ways without directly opposing them. We must learn to let be, in simplicity, what we wish to see, and let go of all complexity. This is a tall order, I know, but history shows us that it can be done – that it must be done.

Transcending the Cultural Entanglements of Death

One lesson regarding life has repeatedly impressed itself upon me lately: the chains of entanglements society deliberately imposes upon us from birth and increasingly ensnares us in throughout our lives are systemic manifestations of "ego" and "death."  These snares of ego-dominated society rob us of our life energy and freedom to live in peace, joy, and harmony.

From birth we are told who we are and what we are supposed to be and do as a person.  We are given a name we did not choose for ourself before we were even born; a government we literally were incapable of consenting to being ruled by prints out a fancy piece of paper and generates a random number locking in and imposing that false ego-identity for the rest of our life; we go through childhood being bombarded by other people's ideas about what we should believe and how we should behave, robbing us of our own identity; public education gives us a sanitized, spoon-fed notion of what the world is like, suffocates our creativity and imagination, denies us the knowledge of how to think critically, and robs us of our conscience; as we go about our lives, our mistakes follow and haunt us because society tracks and labels everything you do, judges you for it, and never allows you to live beyond it once you learn from it and make amends (our mistakes are supposed to guide us, not imprison us); and, as adults, the need for money enslaves us into committing our invaluably precious time to corporate machinations that are destroying the planet and our fellow human beings, robbing us of our life-force and destabilizing our families and communities in the process.

Life and death are a dancing pair of dualities; they do indeed need one another.  Yet, what we see in the delusional abstract layer of conceptualization humanity has imposed on its self is grossly out of balance with the ground layer of physical reality, dangerously favoring egotistical falsehoods and insatiable desires to a degree that threatens the totality of Life on this planet, and continues to cause immense and unnecessary suffering upon billions of souls.  Our collective ego has become completely out of control, behaving like a mental parasite on a global scale.  Whenever a duality is so out of balance, it is inevitably subject to a self-instigated correction that restores balance – this is karma (cause-and-effect within a dynamic system).  In this case, a karmic correction will mean a mass-extinction of the human race.

(Transhumanism and the "technology singularity," which will inevitably lead to humanity becoming a Borg-like hive mind in which individuality is destroyed, are an unattainable mirage due to the systemic failures and societal decay exponentially increasing in parallel with technological advancement.  We do not have the maturity and wisdom as a species to reach this evolutionary threshold without destroying ourselves one way or the other.  Besides do we really want to lose our individuality and the creative power of diversity in the process of collective integration?)

The extreme manifestations of our collective ego, such as global capitalism (built upon a sociopathic ponzi banking scheme writ large), xenophobic nationalism, and ego-driven populist individualism are a "clear and present danger" to the People of the world, and the life-support systems of Earth which we all depend upon to sustain us.  As I have increasingly urged myself, and urge all of you here and now to consider, we must have the courage and determination to dissolve the societally imposed entanglements that currently siphon our individual life-force into systems that are destroying humanity and the Earth.  We must withdraw our consent to be subjects of corrupt socioeconomic systems.  We must let go of all entanglements that no longer serve our best interests.  We must relinquish our attachments to ideas that misguide as from seeing the "truth of what is."  We must redirect our life-force, or precious time, to constructing a new and novel socioeconomic paradigm that is life-affirming and sustainable.

The infinite growth paradigm of our global culture has crashed into the finite limits of our world.  No matter how hard we try, we will only serve to compound the problem (and accelerate our own destruction) if we continue to rely on and feed into the old socioeconomic order.  It cannot be saved; it must be allowed to die conscientiously and in deliberate fashion, or we will all die with it.  Only by collectively walking in balance and wisdom, built on a solid ground of life-sustaining values and systems, can we safely proceed in our technological advancements and noble ego-drive to explore and understand the universe, without destroying ourselves in the process.

On the Future of Democracy

I discuss, on a systems-thinking level, how the basic structure of our current discussions are the root of the problem, and suggest a more holistic, bottom-up approach that is ideal for a genuine, technology-based democracy.