We are a non-profit organization Humanity Integrated that is comprised of people who find themselves in the most interesting yet trying times of human evolution – the time of global crisis, which is the first stage of a profound change.
Bestselling author, political adviser, and social and ethical strategist, Jeremy Rifkin, says we must “begin rethinking human nature” and “bring out our empathic sociability so that we can rethink the institutions of society and prepare the groundwork for an empathic civilization.”
Empathy Is:
the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be.”
based on our frailties and imperfections, so when we talk about building an empathic civilization, we are not talking about utopia.”
about the ability of human beings to show solidarity.”
Empathy Evolves
There was no such thing as Germany, there was no such thing as France. These are fictions but they allow us to extend our families so that we can have loyalties and identities based on the new complex energy communication revolutions we have that annihilate time and space.”
Is it really a big stretch to imagine the new technologies allowing us to connect our empathy to the human race writ large in a single biosphere?”
Science Shows:
All humans are soft wired with mirror neurons” meaning,“if I’m observing you – whatever it is – the same neurons will light up in me as if I’m having that experience myself.”
We are soft wired not for aggression, violence, self-interest, utilitarianism” rather, “for sociability, attachment, affection, companionship, and the first drive is actually the drive to belong.”
We are “soft-wired to experience another’s plight as if we are experiencing it ourselves.”
You know there are a lot of things we can fix in this world; we can do something about…”
David Suzuki is a scientist, environmentalist, broadcaster, and co-creator of the David Suzuki Foundation.
But some things are facts of life… those are things we have to accept and work ourselves around.”
Exponential Growth
One of these facts, Suzuki stresses, is exponential growth:
If something is growing at 1% a year it’ll double in 70 years. 2% a year it’ll double in 35 years; 3% a year in 24 years… anything growing exponentially will double in a predictable length of time. Now I’m going to show you why all this stuff about… ‘We got to keep the economy growing’… is ultimately suicidal.”
1 bacterial cell is introduced into a completely full test tube.
According to exponential growth it will divide every minute.
So at times zero there is 1 cell (bacteria). 1 minute there are 2 (cells). 2 minutes there are 4. 3 minutes there are 8. 4 minutes 16.”
60 Minute Growth Cycle
At 60 minutes the test tube is completely packed with bacteria and there’s no food left. So we have a 60 minutes growth cycle. When is the test tube only half full?”
59 minutes:50% full.
Even though it’s been chugging along for 59 minutes it’s only half full but one minute later it’ll be completely filled. So that means that…”
58 minutes:25% full.
57 minutes:12.5% full.
55 minutes:3% full.
Living In The 59th Minute
Our home is the biosphere. It’s fixed and finite. It can’t grow. And we’ve got to learn to live within that finite world. Every scientist I have talked to agrees with me: We’ve already passed the 59th minute.”
All quotes courtesy of the test tube video with David Suzuki.
This video illustrates what our future may look like, depending on the examples we give to others.
Children learn by example, and so do adults.
This knowledge is true power, but have we been using it for good or bad?
“Children learn by trying to do something, by failing, and by being told about or by copying some new behavior that has better results. This perspective is founded on the simple but central insight that children are trying to do something rather than to know something. In other words, they are learning by doing.” – Dr. Roger Schank, from Engines for Education
“The idea of public education depends absolutely on the existence of shared narratives and the exclusion of narratives that lead to alienation and divisiveness. What makes public schools public is not so much that the schools have common goals but that the students have common gods. The reason for this is that public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.” – Dr. Neil Postman, from The End Of Education
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” – H.G Wells
The great project of the twenty first century – understanding how the whole of humanity comes to be greater than the sum of its parts – is just beginning. Like an awakening child, the human super organism is becoming self-aware, and this will surely help us to achieve our goals. But the greatest gift of this awareness will be the sheer joy of self discovery and the realization that to truly know ourselves we must first understand how and why we are all connected.”
In their widely acclaimed book, Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Nicholas Christakis MD, PhD & James Fowler, PhD examine human connection through social networks. The book reveals some startling insights about human interrelation. Understanding the degree of human connectivity is of primary importance if we are going to change our world.
Working Together Generates A Higher Form Of Life
Working together, cells, generate a higher form of life that is entirely different from the internal workings of a single cell. For example, our digestion is not a function of any one cell or even one type of cells. Likewise, our thoughts are not located in a given neuron; they arise from the pattern of connections between neurons. Whether cells, ants, or humans, new properties of a group can emerge from the interactions of individuals. And co-operative interactions are hallmarks of most most major evolutionary leaps that have occurred since the origin of life – consider the agglomeration of single cell organisms into multi-cellular organisms, and the assembly of individuals into super organisms.”
Social Networks Reflect Our Inter-Connectivity
The networks we create have lives of their own. They grow, change, reproduce, survive and die. Things flow and move within them. A social network is a kind of human super organism, with an autonomy and a physiology – a structure and a function – of its own. From what no person could do alone. Our local contributions to the human social network have global consequences that touch the lives of thousands every day and help us to achieve much more than the building of towers or the destruction of the walls. A colony of ants is the prototypic super organism, with properties not apparent in the ants themselves, properties that arise from the interactions and cooperation of the ants. By joining together, ants create something that transcends the individual: complex ant hills spring up like miniature towers of Babylon, tempting wanton children to action. The single ant that find its way to a sugar bowl both of achievements are made possible by the co-ordinated efforts and communication of many individuals. Yet, in a way, these solitary individuals – ant and astronaut, both parts of a super organism – are no different from the tentacle of an octopus sent out to probe a hidden crevice. In fact, cells within multi-celluar organisms can be understood in much the same way.
Like a world wide nervous system, our networks allow us to send and receive messages to nearly every other person on the planet. As we become more hyper connected, information circulates more efficiently, we interact more easily, and we manage more and different kinds of social connections everyday. All of these changes make us, Homo dictyous (Network Man), even more like a super organism that acts with a common purpose. The ability of networks to create and sustain our collective goals continues to strengthen. And everything that now spreads from person to person will soon spread further and faster, prompting new features to emerge as the scale of interactions increases.”
The Necessity To Understand Human Connection
Individualism and holism shed light on the human condition, but they miss something essential. In contrast to these two traditions, they miss something essential. In contrast to these two conditions, the science of social networks offers an entirely new way of understanding human society because it is about individuals and groups and, indeed, about how the former become the latter. Interconnections between people give rise to phenomena that are not present in individuals or reducible to their solitary desires and actions. Indeed, culture itself is one such phenomenon. When we lose our connections, we lose everything.
Scientists are also increasingly seeing events like earthquakes, forest fires, species extinctions, climate change, heartbeats, revolutions and market crashes as bursts of activity in a larger system, intelligible only when studied in the context of many examples of the same phenomenon. They are turning their attention to how and why the parts fit together and to the rules that govern interconnection and coherence. Understanding the structure and function of social networks and understanding the phenomenon of emergence (that is the origin of collective properties of the whole not found in the parts) are thus elements of this larger scientific movement.
The great project of the twenty first century-understanding how the whole of humanity comes to be greater than the sum of its part-is just beginning. Like an awakening child, the human super organism is becoming self-aware, and this will surely help us to achieve our goals. But the greatest gift of this awareness will be the sheer joy of self discovery and the realization that to truly know ourselves we must first understand how and why we are all connected.”
Is this what it’s come to, a price tag on life, a world coursing with greed, intoxicated on monetary gain, and material conquest? Why have we allowed this? Ladies and gentlemen these are the questions you should be asking yourselves.
The world around us has been manipulated, coerced in a direction where human life is outweighed by profit.”
All the while you chase the dream life they’ve created for you, waving it in front of your face like a carrot on a stick. Stop it, stop being guided through life. We need to quit letting the decisions of a few control the lives of the many. We need to take our future, our children’s future, back into our hands.”
Reestablish Connection
When did we lose our connection with others, with community, and family? Stop focusing on the differences and start acknowledging and building upon our common grounds. Start sharing, connecting, teaching one another, and learning from each other as well.
Build our bond as human beings. Find your strength in unity. Find your voice, and then let it be heard.”
Be The Change You Want To See
What you have to say does matter. We just need to get off our knees, stand on our own two feet, and remind them just how much we do matter. Become the change you want to see.
Build the future together, a decent future, a future where life is cherished, rather than spent worshiping money.”
Value Education
Rid yourself of your cynicism, your ego, your fear. Instead open your hearts, your minds, and your eyes. Broaden your horizons… It’s time to change our ways, to evolve and break free of this viscous cycle. It’s time to educate ourselves on the issues affecting us and work together to create progressive affective solutions.
Welcome to the future. Welcome to the freedom informant network.”
Man can and must prevent the tragedy of famine in the future instead of merely trying with pious regret to salvage the human wreckage of the famine, as he has so often done in the past.”
– Norman Borlaug, agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate.
In a previous post, Agriculture In The 21st Century, the amount of food produced in the world that is wasted (1/3 of food produced) was brought up. In that post, a number of experts were quoted, stating that malnutrition and hunger could be ended if unused food were properly distributed.
Malnutrition and Hunger
The following statistics from the World Food Programme show the severity of the lack of food distribution in the world, chiefly highlighting its affect on the children of the world:
Every five seconds a child dies because of hunger.
854 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat, more than the combined populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Hunger is the world’s no.1 health risk. It kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
One in seven people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight.
Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people.
65 percent of the world’s hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
Undernutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries.
One out of four children – roughly 146 million – in developing countries is underweight.
More than 70 percent of the world’s underweight children (aged five or less) live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone.
10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths.
Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent.
Iodine deficiency is the greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage, affecting 1.9 billion people worldwide. It can easily be prevented by adding iodine to salt.”
The Need For Empathy
In famine, a focus on women and children highlights biology: here is a mother who cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life. This focus obscures who and what is to blame for the famine, politically and economically, and can lead to the belief that a biological response, more food, will solve the problem.”
– Sherman Apt Russell, Nature and science writer
The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”
– Charles Trevelyan, British civil servant and colonial administrator
What Do You Think?
In the post before this one, Redefining Prosperity, the issue of prosperity was raised in relation to economics and growth. The same question can easily be posed here as well:
What is the responsibility of those who live in the world in relation to malnutrition and famine?”
What do you think? Write your answer in the comment section below…
Prosperity – at least in economic terms – has always been defined within the remit of very narrow boundaries.> Typically it has always meant growth, a six letter word that obsesses politicians and economists. But when attempts to create growth prove counter-productive then it’s time for a rethink. The ultimate aim of growth is prosperity, yet – for the vast majority at least – it remains an elusive dream. The question that needs to be asked is: What is prosperity? And if our previous attempts to attain it have proved unsuccessful then how can it be achieved?
The following excerpts are from the book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a finite planet, by Tim Jackson. The excerpts are quotes from Zia Sardar, a London-based scholar, writer and cultural-critic who specialises in Muslim thought, the future of Islam, futures studies and science and cultural relations.
Prosperity Depends On The Society You’re In & Your Responsibility To It
The good life of the good person can only be fully realised in the good society. Prosperity can only be conceived as a condition that includes obligations and responsibilities to others.”
The prevailing vision of prosperity as a continually expanding economic paradise has come unravelled. Perhaps it worked better when economies were smaller and the world was less populated. But if it ever was fully fit for the purpose, it certainly isn’t now. Climate change, ecological degradation and the spectre of resource scarcity compound the problems of failing financial markets and economic recession. Short term fixes to prop up a bankrupt system aren’t good enough. Something more is needed. An essential starting point is to set out a coherent notion of prosperity that doesn’t rely on default assumptions about consumption growth.”
It is perverse to talk about things going well if you lack the basic material resources required to sustain yourself: food and water to be adequately nourished or materials for clothing and shelter. Security in achieving these aims is also important. But from at least the time of Aristotle, it has been clear that something more than material security is needed for human beings to flourish. Prosperity has vital social and psychological dimensions. To do well is in part about your ability to give and receive love, to enjoy the respect of your peers, to contribute useful work and to have a sense of belonging and trust in the community. In short, an important component of prosperity is the ability to participate freely in the life of society.”
Prosperity can only be conceived as a condition that includes obligations and responsibilities to others.”
We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”
In November of 1992, around 1,700 of the world leading scientists gathered to issue a warning to humanity. It was signed by the majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences. It’s language was strong, urgent, and today it still holds startling relevance for humanity and the planet on which we live.
Here is what 1,700 scientists, with as if one voice, issued their urgent warning on:
The Environmental Crisis
Our massive tampering with the world’s interdependent web of life — coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change — could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.
Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threat.”
The Population Crisis
The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth’s limits. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair.”
Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near tripling of today’s 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition.
No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.”
What Must Be Done
Five inextricably linked areas must be addressed simultaneously:
1. We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth’s systems we depend on… Priority must be given to the development of energy sources matched to third world needs… We must halt deforestation, injury to and loss of agricultural land, and the loss of terrestrial and marine plant and animal species.
2. We must manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively. We must give high priority to efficient use of energy, water, and other materials, including expansion of conservation and recycling.
3. We must stabilize population. This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning.
4. We must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
5. We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.”
A New Attitude Is Required
A new ethic is required — a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth’s limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convince reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes.”
What Do You Think?
Would the above-mentioned actions (in the “What Must Be Done?” section), and changes of attitude (in the “A New Attitude Is Required”) be enough to bring about a better world?
Scientists from a wide range of disciplines have attempted for more than a century to explain how cooperation, altruism, and self-sacrifice arose in our dog-eat-dog world. Darwin himself was troubled by selfless behavior. Yet in his great works, the problem of cooperation was a sideshow, a detail that had to be explained away. That attitude prevails among many biologists even today.”
Why weaken your own fitness to increase the fitness of a competitor? Why bother to look after anyone besides number one? Cooperation goes against the grain of self-interest. Cooperation is irrational. From the perspective of Darwin’s formulation for the struggle for existence, it makes no sense to aid a potential rival, yet there is evidence that this occurs among even the lowliest creatures.
… This looks like a fatal anomaly in the great scheme of life. Natural selection should lead animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival and reproduction, not improve the fortunes of others. In the never-ending scrabble for food, territory, and mates in evolution, why would one individual ever bother to go out of its way to help another?”
To Compete Or Cooperate
We are all cells in the same body of humanity.”
—Peace Pigram (Mildred Lisette Norman)
In the game of life we are all driven by the struggle to succeed. We all want to be winners. There is the honest way to achieve this objective. Run faster than the pack. Jump higher. See farther. Think harder. Do better. But, as ever, there is the dark side, the calculating logic of self-interest that dictates that one should never help a competitor. In fact, why not go further and make life harder for your rivals? Why not cheat and deceive them too?
… Humans are the selfish apes. We’re the creatures who shun the needs of others. We’re egocentrics, mercenaries, and narcissists. We look after number one. We are motivated by self-interest alone, down to every last bone in our bodies. Even our genes are said to be selfish. Yet competition does not tell the whole story of biology. Something profound is missing.”
The Third Integral Element Of Evolution
Previously, there were only two basic principles of evolution—mutation and selection—where the former generates genetic diversity and the latter picks the individuals that are best suited to a given environment. For us to understand the creative aspects of evolution, we must now accept that cooperation is the third principle. For selection you need mutation and, in the same way, for cooperation you need both selection and mutation. From cooperation can emerge the constructive side of evolution, from genes to organisms to language and complex social behaviors. Cooperation is the master architect of evolution.”
Implications For Humanity
The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”
—Bertrand Russell
Human society fizzes with cooperation. Even the simplest things that we do involve more cooperation than you might think. Consider, for example, stopping at a coffee shop one morning to have a cappuccino and croissant for breakfast. To enjoy that simple pleasure could draw on the labors of a small army of people from at least half a dozen countries.”
“Our breathtaking ability to cooperate is one of the main reasons we have managed to survive in every eco system on Earth, from scorched sun-baked deserts to the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the dark, crushing ocean depths. Our remarkable ability to join forces has enabled us to take the first steps in a grand venture to leave the confines of our atmosphere and voyage toward the moon and the stars beyond.”
Cooperation—not competition—underpins innovation. To spur creativity, and to encourage people to come up with original ideas, you need to use the lure of the carrot, not fear of the stick. Cooperation is the architect of creativity throughout evolution, from cells to multicellular creatures to anthills to villages to cities. Without cooperation there can be neither construction nor complexity in evolution.”
Here is Roger Highfield describing cooperation in evolution [12 minutes 59 seconds]:
… cooperation is the third pillar of evolution. And without cooperation, there is nothing constructive really going on in biology… we’re not only talking about cooperation with each other in this generation. If you look at the state of the planet we have to think carefully about cooperating with future generations too.”
Current Problems/Crises Lack Cooperation
Many problems that challenge us today can be traced back to a profound tension between what is good and desirable for an individual. That conflict can be found in global problems such as climate change, pollution, resource depletion, poverty, hunger, and overpopulation. The biggest issues of all—saving the planet and maximizing the collective lifetime of the species Homo sapiens—cannot be solved by technology alone.
They require novel ways for us to work in harmony. If we are to continue to thrive, we have but one option. We now have to manage the planet as a whole. If we are to win the struggle for existence, and avoid a precipitous fall, there’s no choice but to harness this extraordinary creative force. We now have to refine and to extend our ability to cooperate. We must become familiar with the science of cooperation. Now, more than ever, the world needs SuperCooperators.”
What Do You Think?
How has the absence of cooperation being taught as a key integral aspect of evolution, affected your view of the world?
How would your viewpoint change if you were taught: Cooperation is needed for evolution to continue. It is needed for the development of more complex and harmonious human societies. It is essential for solving problems/crises today?
In a recent experiment, physicist Alain Aspect discovered that subatomic particles can remain in communication with each other regardless of the distance between them, violating Einstein’s theory that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Some scientists believe that these particles remain in contact because their separateness is an illusion and that all matter is infinitely connected at a deeper level of reality. This organic approach to Systems Theory and the interconnectedness of all living things is the subject of the film Mindwalk by Bernt Capra. Based on the book The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics), the film is a 90-minute conversation between a scientist, a politician, and a poet, each having taken a step back from their profession to ponder the direction of their life.
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