Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it” Robert A. Heinlein.
A continuation of a fictional reflection by a hundred-year-old Espe from 2112 about the start and on-going movement of transformation to Sustainable Living. I add clarification links and quotes as needed.
Questions I get all the time are about life before the Great Change. Why didn’t we change earlier? What was it about war and violence that people accepted it so readily? Why did we live with in so many variations of fear such that we could be so easily controlled? Why did we allow evil to thrive so readily? I always answer, ‘How could we solve our problems if we were not honest about our problems.’ We had the creativity to resolve most of our problems but complacently allowed ourselves to be led by corrupt officials.
As outspoken critic of the Soviet system, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said: “If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them – But gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being …. One drop of truth can outweigh an ocean of lies” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. While there was evil at the top of the hierarchy, it was often the well-meaning bureaucrats and technologists that stifled creativity. We stopped caring about things that mattered and became obsessed with economics as the savior of our lifestyles.
Before the Great Change, we were hypnotized into believing fiction from our leaders backed up by restricted thinking from too many experts who believed their own fictions. Our education systems were more like factory assembly lines for pumping our workers to run a global society set up by the overlords. Our creativity was not only stifled but trained out of us. Many forward-thinking educators (like Ken Richardson) of the time tried to warn us but we couldn’t see what was happening right before our eyes.
There were so many innovators with solutions that we now know make sense, but mainstream technologists back then were trapped in their own paradigms of thinking, and trapped people along with them. Innovations that worked often interfered with the economic paradigms we were using and so were never implemented. We were convinced that bigger was better with large scale systems run by corporations as the only way to do things. We were trying to meet the future by what we had been doing in the past! Creativity and inspiration were locked into standard ways of thinking (see Imagination, Creativity, and Change parts 1 – 2 {March 2018}). We had become paranoid of failing. This was as true for people as individuals as it was for scientists, technologists, governments, and especially for economists. Researchers expected failure as a part of the process of discovery, but implementing science into policy was based on perceived certainty that merely stifled innovation.
We were fixated on our ‘type’ of technology so that we never looked at other potential technologies that were just waiting to be discovered. We were only seeing black and white in a world of color – that’s how radical this transformation was to us. It’s hard to imagine what we did not know back in 2025. For instance, look at 1997 and how much photography was film based and then imagine telling photographers that within ten years, film media would start to become obsolete. That was true for many technologies that were ‘released’ or discovered by 2030. Once we recognized how we had been restricted so severely, we began to see leaps of Innovation and Transformational thinking: We believed nothing that was supposedly concrete and considered everything. “True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes” Daniel Kahneman.
Energy and safe food were a primary concern from 2023 and began a slew of innovations not in just technology but also organization structures in how we lived. We started to think of innovations that solved problems and not whether they were fiscally sound. That was a hard transition for many to see monetary profit as a problem, because that was how our societies were run. It wasn’t always like it was before the Covid era. At the end of the 1800s, clean running water, the great sewer systems of the western world, and electrification started to become standard aspects of our daily lives despite the huge cost. That was because they were seen as great benefits to the health and well-being of the people. It would have been impossible to sell these ideas at the end of the 2000s because they would have cost more than the perceived profits – that’s how strange the economy had become before the Great Change with its profit-only mindset.
National Electrical Grids had become woefully inefficient by 2020 with technocratic oversight being a stifling influence. Despite the name of these ‘national grids’ many regions had begun to reduce in size and to also increase the numbers of the alternative energy systems. While they were a better step in the right direction, they still did not resolve the appalling pollution problems plaguing the planet, despite the beliefs of hundreds of millions that fossil fuels were somehow responsible for the natural climatic fluctuations experienced in the 1900s and 2000s That’s how the Cabal tried to capture us. Burning fossil fuels was a major problem, but what was needed was innovative energy transport systems. What the green deals of the Covid era promised was only energy restrictions and rationing, increased costs, and global bureaucratic incompetency and control. This did little to help build societal adaptation and resiliency to climatic variations, or addressing the pollution problems while plunging people into poverty – the green deals were all about saving a failed economic model and not about anything to help abate the ecological problems.
When energy shortages began in 2022, many governments implemented policies that increased prices to force users to reduce energy usage. This crushed people on restricted incomes and benefited only the rich who could afford the costs. Infuriated, people supported the many ‘Microgrids’ that were springing up that bypassed the national systems that were failing anyway. Homes became independent energy generation plants that exported to the local area. Then collections of these independent microgrids linked to form regional systems, but retained their autonomy instead of amalgamating. Keeping local control was seen as essential until the new energy technologies ramped up in 2040 and made most of the existing energy systems obsolete. Then we didn’t even need grids anymore.
It is amazing how once you unleash human creativity and allow it to flourish, ingenuity and innovation can be found everywhere. Our education systems that had long kept us subdued were now educating children to think differently in so many ways – it is amazing how brilliant children can be if asked the right questions. The ‘experts’ listened to the many fascinating ideas that children had and then pondered new ways of thinking about the science that they knew or alternative paradigms they were now allowing themselves to learn. You don’t need a PhD to think brilliantly, just removal of cognitive blinkers about possibilities where imagination can flourish within a realm of information that is not restricted. There used to be an old saying about how ‘education’ constricted thinking, ‘give an engineer a hammer and everything is treated like a nail.’
In coming together in new communities, the creative edge was recognized from everyone at whatever level they had talents and skills. Realizing all the ideas meant a lot of talking, but innovation wasn’t just for brainiacs, but anyone who knew their trades. Without economic restrictions squashing peoples thinking, new ideas and technology flourished exponentially. And the internet that was in danger of coopting us became the channel that people from all over the planet learned about how to live differently. The post-Covid era was one of excitement, growth, and a thriving of the human mind and spirit – a true transformation for which humanity had long awaited.
“Humanity is taking its final examination. We have come to an extraordinary moment when it doesn’t have to be you or me. There is enough for all. We need not operate competitively any longer. If we succeed, it will be because of youth, truth, and Love” Buckminster Fuller.
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