Golden Age: Knowing What is Enough!

From The Inter-Net to The Inner-Net

London, UK - 1st January 2009, 20:45 GMT

Dear ATCA Open & Philanthropia Friends

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

Happy New Year! 2009 is going to be wondrous and eclectic!

In the middle of the economic and financial turmoil of 2008, which ATCA's 5,000+ global community of experts had predicted to a large extent and discussed point by point in Socratic Dialogue between 2001 and 2007, something new, something massive, is emerging.

Only those who have been living in a cave, or been myopic in their pursuit of more, can claim that every aspect of 2008 was a surprise. In fact, very little was new from an asymmetric threats perspective or from the point of view of low probability high impact risks and the forecast of concatenated black swans. Even if they had begun paying attention to ATCA's Socratic dialogue as late as August 2007, they would have found that 2008 was broadly running to script, albeit at an accelerated rate.

Whilst comparisons are drawn daily with The Great Depression of the 1930s, there is also the possibility of a new Golden Age! It is clear what is happening may become unprecedented in human history. However, beyond the immediate gloom, the short to medium term pain may, in fact, give way to a longer term Golden Age. This was covered in the ATCA briefing "Towards A Golden Age? A Wisdom based Global Economy" published on 23rd May 2008.

The characteristics of the Golden Age are likely to be accelerated enlightenment, renaissance and reinvention of the individual's thinking, societal group think and the redesign of linear industrial age systems and support mechanisms towards non-linear and circular ones by corporations, organisations and governments.

Out of the ashes of the existing old-model linear industrial civilisation a new non-linear society has the potential to emerge. A society offering a decent life style for the majority of the human population. In order to achieve this, the focus of entrepreneurship has to be channelled on the well being of humanity, the preservation of the world's natural resources, eco-systems and future generations. We are all one as children of the same planet and together we have no choice save to create a meaningful future for the generations to come. We can facilitate the transformation as we work together. It is time to leave the yard stick of the past behind and to recognise that we are all entrenched in this new reality and to explore the available avenues we are facing together.

The step-by-step revolution has just begun and it has a long way to go as humanity realises its full potential by integrating the physical, intellectual and spiritual dimensions to build a non-linear and circular economic model that produces near zero waste and consumes responsibly whilst being conscious of the consequences to the environment and upon itself. The concept that the environment, ie, the habitat and humanity are not separate from each other and are essentially one is going to gain ground as we seek to find asymmetric solutions for the global crises which we now confront. What we do to others we do unto ourselves. With the elimination of duality, and confrontation of one-ness, how easy will it be to wage war with mutual assured damage and destruction? There is also the wisdom of another great spiritual poet -- Saadi -- to be considered:

"The human family is one body with many parts
Creations arising from one unseen essence
Any harm to any part summons an awakening
a dis-ease and a healing response from all parts
Those who fail to feel the pain of others cannot be called truly human."

We are grateful to Yasuhiko Genku Kimura, a distinguished ATCA and Holistic Quantum Relativity (HQR) group contributor; Founder and Chairman of Vision-In-Action, based in New York; an ordained Buddhist Priest and Scholar; and Transhumanist Philosopher. He is Japanese-American and he writes:

Dear DK and Friends

A Happy New Year!

In 2009 and beyond, we are entering an era of a new kind of frugality and prudence. Financially we must be prepared to be on our own and ready to voluntarily assist one another. Within the next few years the availability of many of our society's structures and systems that we now take for granted are likely to crumble.

Lao Tzu states in Tao Te Ching (in Verse 46):

"There is no greater vice than giving in to greed,
No greater calamity than not knowing contentment,
No greater imputation than succumbing to covetousness.
Therefore, know and be content with what is enough.
Then you will always have enough."

Those who cling to the notion of external causation or external authority will continue to depend on, and thus expect from, and push blame on, the government. While those who are willing to look within and develop their inner resourcefulness will grow and evolve in quantum leaps throughout the whole breakdown of the societal structure and infrastructure. The expansion of the inter-net will give way to the evolution of the inner-net which requires no external electricity but the internal light of awareness.

Lao Tzu states elsewhere (in Verse 44):

"The more excessive is your attachment,
The greater is your suffering.
The more excessive is your possession,
The heavier is your loss.
To know what is enough is to be free from disgrace.
To know when to stop is to be free from danger.
Those who practice this will long endure."

Like any academic discipline today, economics has become a highly specialised field, which the general public has difficulties comprehending because of its sheer complexity - its specialised language, use of complex mathematics, and enormity of statistical data. The talks on economy sometimes give an impression that economics is basically all about manipulating insubstantial numbers and figures.

However, in its basic essence, economics is "the science of who gets what, when, how, how much, for how long, and at what price." (W J Murray) The real substance of economics is the creation of wealth, the conversion of wealth into exchangeable asset, and the exchange of valued and valuated asset. In short, real value creation, production, and exchange. The numbers and figures do not mean anything unless they are attached to and backed up by real value (wealth/asset).

We simply need to return to the basics. That is, create wealth and produce value and live within our means. And develop the wisdom to know what is enough.

Wishing you all a Wondrous New Year of further growth and evolution!

Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

Vision without action is empty. Action without vision is blind. Opinion and ideology divide. Quest and commitment unite.

Yasuhiko Genku Kimura is the Founder and Chairman of Vision-In-Action. He is an ordained Buddhist priest and scholar; transhumanist philosopher; creator and leader of transformational philosophical programs; consultant-advisor to leaders in business, science, and cultural organisations. Yasuhiko Kimura teaches dedicated adults philosophy as a way of self-realization outside the confines of academia, using his unique Zen-like Socratic method of philosophical inquiry and various intellectually challenging texts from the East and the West, contemporary as well as ancient. A philosopher of science, he is a founding member of the Evolution of Science Group that meets annually to explore and develop new philosophical foundations of science.

From 1998 to 2002 Yasuhiko Kimura served as Executive Director of The Twilight Club, originally established in the 19th century as a venerable American tradition by Herbert Spencer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Edwin Markham, Andrew Carnegie, Oliver Wendell Holms, William James, John Borroughs, and others for the purpose of ethical uplifting of the world through the enrichment of culture. In the early 20th century, Thomas Watson, Sr and Walter Russell developed The Twilight Club into The Society of Arts and Science. In 2003, Mr Kimura established Vision-In-Action, an action-oriented sapient circle of thought leaders, as the 21st-century version of The Twilight Club/Society of Arts and Science, to develop and implement creative, innovative, and transformative approaches to problems and challenges facing humanity that will bring about novel resolutions and a new evolutionary pathway for the world. He is the author of four books and over 50 essays on the subjects of philosophy, science and business.

[ENDS]

ATCA Open maintains a presence for Socratic Dialogue and feedback on Facebook, LinkedIn and IntentBlog.