Summary of Introduction

Summary/Introduction

This series is about societal change.

It is designed to show that we can end our headlong rush toward extinction if we take the right approach. The societies our ancestors created and passed down to us are moving us in a horrible direction. The path they take clearly leads to the end of everything for the human race.

We don’t have to go down that path.

There are many other paths we could take.

This series is about ways we can use the incredible talents, intellects, skills, sciences, technologies, and other tools to get us onto a path to a better world.

Societal Change

What does the term ‘societal change’ mean?

Humans are cognitively-thinking beings with physical needs. We have the ability to organize the realities of our existence to meet our needs. In this series, each different ‘organization of existence’ will be considered a different kind of society. The term society therefore has a very general connotation. For example, it is possible for a group of thinking beings with physical needs to organize the realities of their existence this way: they can divide the land surface of the planet where they live with imaginary lines and then consider each defined parcel to be a ‘nation.’ They can then decide that certain people (generally people born in the country, invited immigrants, and their descendents) have absolute and total rights (called ‘sovereignty’) over everything the defined part of the planet contains and produces, from the time they take possession of it until they are defeated by another ‘nation’ or, if not defeated, until the end of time. This is a very general way that humans can organize the realities of their existence. It is therefore a specific society. It is not the only way that humans can organize the realities they control, however. There are many others.

You and I didn’t choose the realities that were in place when we were born. We had no control over anything before we were born. They are what they are. But we are not helpless. People who lived in the past made certain decisions and build certain structures. In many cases, they intended for these structures to last and be binding on all future generations until the end of time. They claimed the authority to bind the unborn to accept certain realities, but they don’t have it for practical reasons: they are dead and we are alive. We make the decisions while we are here. Their decisions put us onto a certain path. They wanted this path for various reasons (the first book in the series, Forensic History, explains how the structures that now dominate the world came to exist; if you understood the forces acting on the people who made the decisions of the past, you can understand why they made them). They wanted future generations to venerate and honor them and believe they were wise, so they created schools to teach everyone that they had everything right and everything works as it does because that is the way it is supposed to work. They built tools to make people children believe these things and, in general, these tools work.

But we have our own minds. We can think things through on our own. We have tools, including science, technology, and incredible information storage and communication systems, that the people who created these societies did not have and were almost certainly beyond their wildest imagination. Their wills are only binding on us if we are afraid to step out on our own and think for ourselves.

Our destiny is ours.

It doesn’t belong to the people in the past who have put us on the path that lead to the end of everything for the human race. We can choose our own path. We decide the realities of existence that will affect future generations and we decide the choices they will have.

The Starting Books

The series goes over a great deal of information, so it is divided into several books. There are two ‘starting books’ that work together to provide a picture of where we are, how we got here, and what options we have for the future.

The two starting books are designed to be read side-by-side. They provide two entirely different perspectives on the same basic issue. The issue is: what kind of society do we have (what society was in place when we were born)? Forensic History explores this issue by going over what the evidence shows about how it came to exist. Possible Societies explains this from a ‘big picture’ perspective, showing exactly how the society that was in place when we came along (where ‘we’ refers to ‘the currently living generation of humans on earth’) fits in with other modes of existence that have existed in the past on earth and which could be derived and shown to be possible with interpolation.

Both of the starting books are independent and you don’t have to already have read one to understand the other. I suggest that you choose one that depends on your area of interest (if you care more about how we got here, start with Forensic History; if you care more about where we can go from here start with Possible Societies), and then cross over onto the other one when you want an expanded horizon.

You will not find the ideas expressed here anywhere else. It takes an entirely different approach to understanding the realities of human existence. We need this. The standard approaches to solving the serious problems that threaten our existence have never worked, they aren’t working now, and we have a great deal of information that tells us they will never work. Einstein defined ‘insanity’ as ‘trying things that have not worked over and over expecting them to suddenly work.’ It is not insane to take a new perspective; it is insane to refuse to consider something just because it is not what we are used to seeing.

We can only hope to succeed in ‘saving the world’ if we are willing to expand our horizons.