Re:Instit.for Global Futures Research

[Bill Ellis]

At 9:27 AM -0500 12/13/98, Steve Kurtz wrote:

Steve,
Wallerstein and others at the Institute for Global Future Research are making serious progress at putting an academic interpretation on what Daly, Henderson, Douthwaite, Korten, Brandt, Sale, Schmookler, Robertson and others have been saying for a couple of decades. Society is certainly on the edge of chaos with a global system that is unstable and unsustainable. IGFR's insights put a lot of historic analysis and meaning behind this general feeling. It is important work, but, I would suggest that there are a couple of inputs that are not yet in their analyses.

1) As I tried to suggest in my E.F.Schumacher Society Lecture, "The Flapping of Buterfly Wings," now being excerpted in the TRANET web page,the transition from the Dominator to the Gaian Paradigm implies and new form of social organization. The burgeoning of NGOs, Social Innovations, and Civil society are "self-rganizing", without leaders, planners or designers, into a new level of world governance. (see http://www.nonviolence.org/board/messages/4850.htm )

Chaos, Complexity and Gaian theories suggest that society follows laws of "self-organization" that made possible not only biological evolution but also cosmic evolution. We are currently seeing in the burgeoning of NGOs, Civil Society, and local citizen actions signs of an emerging new society radically different than the Dominator Paradigm (to use Riane Eisler's term) on which society has been forming for some 5000 years.


2) Y2K and the panic that will set in as the mainstream and grassroots contemplates the breakdown of the globalized economic system uring 1999, suggests that it may not take 50 years for the new era to dawn. Y2K is NOT a computer problem. It is the problem of GLOBALIZATION. If the alternative movement(s) do their work of preparation in the next few months IGFR's predictions may come ahead of schedule.

I've outlined this mindset in a couple of Internet letters, I think you've seen Steve but just for memory I attach one below.

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There are some very basic conclusions on Y2K that seem to be in a general consensus:
Among the are:

* No one knows what will happen at midnight 1/1/00
Computer glitches could cause anything from a total long and lasting failure of our banking, production and distributions systems, to a few mild disturbances of our comfortable way of life.
* Disruption could be universal
No country, state, city or town is not in jeopardy. There could be no untouched area or sector in a position to send aid to other affected regions of the world.
* Individual survivalism could bring chaos.
Hoarding food, protecting home or homestead with firearms, escaping society, cannot protect anyone from a system breakdown.
* We cannot count on the media, the governments, or the corporations to prepare of Y2K
Not only is there little profit or power to be gained from Y2K, but the "leaders" fear panic, and they have no solutions within their realms of power.
* There will be an increasing concern from 1/1/99 to 1/1/00

To these conclusions I would add:
1) This is NOT a computer problem. It will not be over one way or another on 1/1/00. It is a GLOBALIZATION problem. In the millennium 1/1/00 (1900) to 1/1/00 (2000) there have been increasing trends away from self-reliant communities to an economic system in which we are all dependent on resource beyond our control, even beyond our knowledge. The world has become a single network of material interdependence. A glitch in any part of the network could shut down the whole system. A dip in the stock market, global warming, the failure of any corporate conglomerate, the end of oil, or any other disruption of the system would have the same disruptive effect as is predicted for Y2K.
2) Individual actions are absolutely necessary. Every one of us must think and act in ways to be more self-reliant. Talking in generalities helps only a little. We need to know in detail what TO DO. How do I: turn my lawn into a vegetable garden? dry, can or rootcellar my produce? homeschool? homestead? take a home health program? reduce my energy consumption? purchase a camp stove and solar battery charger? have enough cash to get through? make sure my banking, investment, and credit systems are safe?
3) Community activities are absolutely necessary. How does my neighborhood or community:
establish a food co-op? set up a LETS, barter, local scrip, or time dollar system? start a Grameen Bank? begin a community patrol? build an ecovillage or co-housing unit? organize community owned corporations and cooperatives? become a resilient community? bring in a farmers' market or community supported Agriculture (CSA)? found a community loan fund?

We have less that 500 days before Y2K tests our ability to BE PREPARED. There is much we can do to prepare for this and any other disruption that nature could throw our way. We need to exchange information and prepare how-to instructions on the things individual can do.


But more than that we have to start building the self-reliant communities and a global network of communities which are not subject to the collapse typified by Y2K and predicted by IFGF.
The good news is that the base for that new society has already been started. LETS, CSAs, ESOPS, food co-ops, Homesteading, Co-housing, Homeschooling, EcoVillages, Citizen Patrols, CLTs, Cooperative Community Life-Long Learning Centers (CCL-LLCs), Local Scrips, solar power, wind energy, are already in operation in almost every state of the union and many other nations.
The first step is to learn all we can about these social innovations and work with our neighbors to see how they would apply to our community.

Y2K is both a challenge and an opportunity. In the next year we will learn how to create community solidarity and how the become self-reliant. We have much to do and little time.

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Bill Ellis
TRANET
PO BOX 137
Rangeley ME 04970-0137 USA
(207)864-3784
URL: http://www.nonviolence.org/tranet/
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