The Future of Civilization: A Holistic Vision for a Fresh World

In a world of increasingly rapid change we forget how quickly things become obsolete. By the time we

Civil Security, from the Dangerous Books series by Tim Holmes

learn how the world works most of us are working with a concept that is 20 or 30 years old. No wonder we are so scared and angry at the way things are! In order to keep current we should re-examine everything and replace stale views, antique fears and obsolete concepts with new ideas formulated specifically for the fresh world.

Why is it humanity took so long to invent luggage wheels? Certainly thousands of tired-armed people had thought of that idea before someone made it happen. Any one of us is creative enough to imagine a better world than the way it is. Keeping the world up to speed is a big job but fortunately none of us has to do the whole thing by ourselves. And we can start the fun way: by whining!

OK, actually we hear plenty of whining every day, but that's a crucial first step toward change; as long as it is followed by ideas for how to improve the world. Then we just need to get our ducks in a row and create that new world! We don't have to settle for being merely reactive- forever flinching in response to crises. We can create a new culture that is deeply responsive, using our God-like creative capacity to imagine ideas that are brand new to history and therefor ones that nobody knows if or how they work–- until we try them.

Over the next several weeks I'm going to discuss ways of imagining a new culture, from science to work to relationships to religion. If you care about the future, dive in and contribute some new ideas for how we can live together in the future...  Next week: A Fresh View of History.