THIS SUMMER

THIS SUMMER

A novel about social media, programming, psychology, and the future, is coming.

It is in the works now. Expected release date (for pre-ordering): September 15, 2012.

Preview:

”
It was raining again. Alfred walked out of the bar in disgust, little realizing that he had left his coat in his car.
They were charging $150.00 for a beer, double what he had paid the week before. After six (or more) beers and no success,
Alfred’s frustration finally spilled over in the form of complete outrage at something seemingly so trivial – the price of beer.
He yelled: “Oh God! Why do you hate me so much?! WHY!? I can’t get lucky? Not even once? There’s NO WAY I’m paying $150.00 for a beer!”
Alfred had quite a bit of money left, over $20 million in fact. He had saved it up by working long hours on clandestine projects for even more clandestine clients.
His latest incarnation – the history simulator (or “Looking Glass” as he preferred to call it) was an ambitious attempt to re-create world history,
in the most minute detail, in the form of a computer simulation that would display all of the variables in real time and allow the “visitor”
(who would be able to enter this virtual world by using a consciousness-portal) to observe and alter history by “possessing” the mind of an
unsuspecting subject. Of course, this being virtual, there were no real ethical concerns like the grandfather paradox. (Or were there?)
Of course, there was always the question of what would happen when Alfred managed to successfully reproduce history with 100% (perfect) accuracy.
Alfred was, of course, not about to let his client get his hands on the full unadulterated version of his “Looking Glass” project.
In a peculiar way, Alfred had a conscience (yes, morals) and suspected that the project could be used for unimaginable evil. But perhaps he was just selfish. Or demonic.
Either way, as Alfred came to grips with the cold rain hitting his ugly balding head, he realized that he had wasted all of his time and money, again.
He began to run, slowly at first, then frantically, through the rain. Screaming, at the top of his lungs, something unintelligible, he ran and ran, and ran.
Back home, Alfred collapsed onto the couch. The world began to spin. The phone began to beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. …
“

We expect to have the new system up & running in a few weeks.

Dacris Software Inc. is a privately-owned software company founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2003. Dacris Benchmarks, a hardware benchmarking tool used by IT purchasing departments worldwide, has been its flagship product since 1999. Starting in 2011, Dacris Software Inc. began shifting its focus to a broader vision involving the application of software to the optimization of manufacturing and business processes.

Project “Omega” is the first real exploration of a new line of business (LOB) for Dacris Software since the company’s formation in 1999. While the project is still highly preliminary, the project constitutes the first public admission by the company of a widening scope and vision.

This vision is a 20-year vision, and is based on broader social dynamics and emerging trends that include three main objectives:

- A reduction of the role of environmentally destructive energy technologies in the future (nuclear being top priority)

- An increase in high-tech manufacturing capacity in the West (North America and Europe) as it relates to clean energy technologies (solar power, electric transportation, etc.) collectively known as “new electrics”

- An increase in automation and efficiency, through the use of software and robotics, in manufacturing and retail businesses

Existing customers of Dacris Software Inc. will be entirely unaffected by this expanded vision. Dacris Software Inc. will continue to provide the same level of support and consulting services to its IT customers as it has in previous years.

Although there have been no announcements regarding updates for Dacris Benchmarks since version 8.1 was released in 2010, the product will continue to be supported and updates will continue to be released as computer hardware improves.

Dacris Software remains committed to maintaining a leading role in the high tech community of the 21st century.

Truth in Silver will be focused on identifying investment strategies and trends for an increasingly dark and uncertain future.

I believe I now have sufficient knowledge to help others in their journey to discover the truth and invest in sound money.

So, without further adieu, I give you Truth in Silver.

Also, I am aware of the duplicate content I have created. I will be deleting duplicate posts on dacris.com and redirecting to truthinsilver.com over the coming weeks.

See you at www.truthinsilver.com!

For that, we first need to look at the job of the past.

The Industrial Job

What were some of the attributes of the industrial job?

• 9 to 5 or shift-based; strict regimented schedule
• Repetitive, replaceable, specialized and measurable
• Performance scaled up with pay
• Little or no originality or creativity required
• Little intelligence or education required
• Performed on-location
• Directly linked to the sale of goods or services

Popular positions and sectors: retail (consumption), services (security guards, tellers, etc.), manufacturing, construction.

The other sector is the no-productive-value sector, which employs military troops and anyone in financial services, marketing, sales, and legal. These jobs will be downsized severely in the coming post-industrial economy.

The Post-Industrial Job

What will be the attributes of the post-industrial job? They would naturally have to be the opposite of the industrial era job.

• Location and time independent (work from anywhere in the world, at any time)
• Generalized (combining multiple disciplines), creative, non-measurable, and irreplaceable (highly brand-driven)
• Performance does not scale with pay, as long as enough pay is given to take the money issue ‘off the table’ (thus, pricing will be done in tiers – from each according to his ability – I know it sounds like communism but it’s true)
• High level of general intelligence required so as to be able to learn anything at any time
• Produces intellectual property

The post-industrial job will be much more creative. You will have a brand for yourself. Your brand will be what you sell to an “employer.” I should make a note here and clarify that your employer will be your customer, so you will need to be a business, a micro-business probably. This again underscores the need for generalized knowledge in a wide variety of area – business, law, economics, marketing, and of course whatever your area of expertise or talent may be.

Your brand will be an identifier for your brain. Since it’s your brain, and nobody else can own it, your brain is a valuable asset if it contains valuable information.

A lot more attention will be given to merit, and being active in the community, which also brings up the idea of open-source and Civilization 2.0.

Basically, your driving motivation in life in the post-industrial era will not be to earn as much money as you can and acquire as many material goods (whether needed or not) as possible. It will be to make a statement. It will be to contribute to the community of knowledge and creative expression that will encompass all post-industrial Civilization 2.0 societies.

The post-industrial job will be segmented into two areas (sectors, if you will):

• Research & Development
• Entertainment

Research & Development: The ‘Mad Scientist’

R & D will encompass things like how to build more sustainable cities, how to design the most ___ something. It’s started with the software community, where people are actively competing for demonstrating the most amazing software that they can build. It’s happening all the time. The main focus of the development will be on sustainability and automation. Remember these key words because these will be the main economic drivers.

Sustainability will focus on reuse, recycling, and reduction of waste. Automation will focus on eliminating the industrial-era jobs still remaining.

Automation will prove to be economically beneficial to humanity no matter what the initial investment cost may be, because ultimately, even if we don’t accomplish it fully 200 years from now, when we do it will save an eternity of human labour. Think about that. That has huge implications. Your automation logic will never decay; it will never die. It will live forever. Therefore, automation will increasingly show itself to be economically viable no matter what the application, whether it be automating provisioning outlets (now retail stores), the transportation infrastructure, cleaning, restaurants, education, or anything else.

The more we automate, the less we’ll have to work (duh!). Traditional industrial-era jobs will disappear at an exponentially increasing pace. And that’s a great thing, because we can all focus on building our brands – building our collective idea-space, where all we do is think, create, design, imagine, and share.

Clearly, in the R & D space, brains will be important. Researchers, developers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and so on will be increasingly more in demand. Relentless self-education and self-re-education will be required in order to enter and remain in this space. Sure, not all of us will be researchers; some will still have to supervise the machines, and there will still be some traditional industrial-era jobs for a while, but the trend is clearly in this direction.

In the R & D space, things will generally progress from idea to nothing happening to nothing happening to nothing happening for a frustratingly long time to sudden breakthrough. This is how the whole field operates. Therefore, if you plan to build a business in the R & D space, you need to have patience and flexibility. But of course, if your brand is good, your customers will probably forgive any delays you may be experiencing in the latest cutting-edge development because they too will know that it’s only a matter of time before it will emerge.

Entertainment: The ‘Creative Guru’

In Entertainment, there’s no doubt that demand will continue to rise. The more free time people have, the more they will want to indulge in entertainment activities, whether they be real or virtual. People who have creative ideas or well-honed talents like being able to play or compose music, being able to write good fiction, being good at graphic design, and so on, will be very successful in the post-industrial era. However, there will be an increased need to market yourself successfully. Therefore, these people will have to be very good at marketing. Again, you can see that the pattern of generalized knowledge applies here as well.

Creative people with good business and marketing skills will flourish in the post-industrial era. The key will be building a brand for yourself and being patient and flexible, willing to work with your customers to not only deliver what they want but also to charge a reasonable price (each customer will be different). You will need to give something away for free at all times, to attract potential customers. You will also need to accept donations, to capture the altruistic types. You will need to network and get involved in your community to exchange ideas with experts and potential partners / customers.

You will also need to do kick-start crowd-sourced funding, to get money for your next venture when VC funding runs dry. You will also need to sell your premium products to the premium customers (those who are willing to pay the most). But most importantly, you’ll need to be willing to fire unproductive customers – customers who are eating too much of your time and paying too little. That will be part of the price discovery mechanism. Again, you will have to take on many roles: director, accountant, lawyer, businessman, investor, marketing manager, and of course the most important one: creative guru.

Conclusion: Old Jobs Not Coming Back

One thing is clear – the old jobs based on repetitive tasks, limited training, and replaceability are no longer for humans. They are for machines. They are for computers. Over time, computers will take on the role of just about any job that currently requires limited training and implies replaceability. Therefore, these jobs will depreciate quickly. They’ll go from $20,000 a year to $12,000 a year to $6,000 a year, to $200 a year, to $5 a year.

Nowadays I occasionally will joke about how I don’t need employees because “in the time it takes me to hire and train one, I will have built an automated tool that does the same thing with greater predictability, better (faster) performance, and less total cost.”

This is only possible because I trained myself in the domain of computer programming for many years, and because I have learned how to efficiently write programs that can actually automate real-world tasks in the form of machine-understandable specifications. In a sense, I can train my PC better than I can train a human. All I have to do is define the problem more formally and adjust my expectations a bit. I have no problem with that. But again, I will never be able to replace the expert or creative job categories.

In the short run (20 – 50 years), there will be a bit of turbulence as the economy adjusts to this new reality. In the long run (100+ years), while I probably won’t be around (hey, there’s a small chance I could become immortal or cyborg soon), the long-term Zeitgeist Movement / Venus Project vision which I call Civilization 2.0 will emerge regardless of what the Illuminati or the Wall Street gang tries to do about it. No one can stop a trend. Whatever institutions or individuals stand in the way, they will be dealt with accordingly by the people in an entirely non-violent way.

In the fear dominated period, people seek safety. They flee into jobs, housing, bonds, insurance, and anything that guarantees some degree of perceived safety at any cost.

In the risk taking period, people gradually migrate toward risk taking and entrepreneurship. Small businesses thrive, jobs are created, and real wealth is created in society.

We are now nearing the peak of the fear dominated period.

1970 – 2010: The Fear Period

During the fear period, people become isolated from their neighbours. Nothing exemplifies the fear period more than the movie Limitless, which shows what fear mentality leads to. Limitless is a commentary on just how fearful our entire society has become.

Everyone works their 9 to 5 because they fear that pretty soon they won’t even have one. People are now afraid of letting their kids walk alone to school! There has been a growth in insurances, lawyers, legislation, government involvement, and protection racket of all kinds, all because people are for some reason desperately demanding safety, no matter how ridiculous the cost may be.

The cost is now so ridiculous that society as a whole has lost its soul. We no longer smile at each other or say “Hi.” We’re all too busy paying off the mortgage, protecting our children from an increasingly dangerous world, and holding on to every last penny we can save.

1930 – 1970: The Risk Period

Things weren’t always so. People in the 1960s were quite comfortable with letting their children walk to school alone. People were a lot more communicative with each other, and were a lot more laissez-faire about life in general.

If you grew up in the 1940s or 1950s, you can probably recall how un-protective your parents were, and how much they encouraged you to solve problems for yourself. There were no insurances, no lawyers, no legislations, and government involvement was more reduced.

The general social mentality and environment of the 50s, for example, was one of greater willingness to take risks. Of course, one must also remember that there were big threats at the time too. The war racket has always existed. People were told to fear the communists and their nuclear weapons.

But overall, the culture was one of less protection and more personal responsibility. A lot of small businesses got started in that time period and a lot of quality jobs were created because risk and responsibility were rewarded more than protection and isolation.

There were a lot fewer lawyers, a lot fewer lawsuits, and a lot less red tape for small business owners. There were fewer monopolies, and CEOs actually earned fair wages.

Then vs. Now: What it All Means

What I’m trying to say is that we need to (and will, eventually) have a shift back to risk taking and responsibility (freedom) as the core values of society. It’s only a matter of time. This is because it’s a natural cycle and right now the upside of continuing down this path of fear and protection is approaching zero. Pretty soon people will just get fed up with fear, like I have, and stop caring about all the bad news because hey, how much worse can it get?

The fear based society leads to the following symptoms, now endemic:

• Corruption
• State sanctioned monopolies
• Gated communities
• Insurance for everything, even insurance itself
• Bureaucracy
• Lawyers and lawsuits
• Unemployment
• Depression (both psychological and economic)
• Enormous wealth disparity
• Inability to progress

All of this is because too many members of society now live in a disconnected way, believing that everything is an immediate danger to their security, and so shielding themselves completely from all responsibility and risk. They believe that if they can only protect what little they have left, everything will be OK and things will get moving again at some point. But that’s not true. Things will only get worse.

Solution: Take More Risks

Here’s what a shift to risk taking (more people willing to be entrepreneurs) would do:

• Create jobs
• Break up monopolies
• Eliminate depression
• Reduce the wealth disparity
• Create progress
• Create upward mobility for all people

Now, granted, such a shift would also lead to a sacrifice of safety. At this point, however, it’s a choice between no safety at all (the disappearing jobs and the government soon to be in default offer no safety) and no safety at all. There’s no choice. Whether you work to maintain the status quo or you take the risk to venture into the unknown, the outcome is the same: less and less safety. However, one has limited upside (soon to be zero) and one has unlimited upside. When pushed into this corner, what do you choose? Risk taking is the logical choice.

Society will begin its transition back into risk taking pretty soon. You will see the first risk takers be persecuted, sent to jail at times, ridiculed, called “nutjobs”, and so on. Doesn’t matter. There will be more and more.

As Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

That was the beginning of a new risk era.

I was riding on the subway this week as usual, when a series of thoughts led me to more and more fear. I started thinking about the economy collapsing, my job, my future, how I might be a slave, the Occupy Wall Street protests, the Greece default, the potential “S**T Hit The Fan” scenario, 2012, and a whole number of doomsday scenarios.

Then I realized something: I was terrified! Absolutely terrified. Like in the movie Revolver, when the elevator stops between the 12th and 13th floor. I was in a state of panic!

Once I realized that I was afraid, I became even more afraid! I became afraid of being afraid of being afraid of being afraid. It became a self-reinforcing cycle.

At that point, I realized something wasn’t right. It’s not right to live in such fear. Who cares if it’s valid or not? Being that afraid is just not good. It’s not good for a number of reasons. But basically, I cannot be of service to anyone if I am afraid.

So I stopped being afraid.

Just like that, I learned how to manage my fear, and what fear really is, and why I sometimes become afraid.

I become afraid because I am driven to win. Masculinity is competitive in nature, and I often get carried away in my competitiveness.

Fundamentally, you can’t win.

The more you win, the more afraid you become of losing everything. The more attached you become to the idea of winning, the more afraid you become of losing.

Major realization: Life is not about winning.

I had it all wrong. All these years I was looking at how do I maximize my ability to survive, when I should’ve been looking at, how can I be of better service to humanity?

But I was living under a lie: that I can win. That winning was possible.

Winning is not the right approach. It’s not the right mentality, unless you understand that it’s of no ultimate consequence. Nothing you win will have any value after you’re gone.

Winning is sometimes fun, it’s a game, but that’s all it is. A game.

Capitalism is a game. Money making is a game. Investing is a game.

In the end, just like Monopoly, it all goes back in the box. The more invested you become emotionally in the game, the more likely you are to suffer when the inevitable happens.

Life is a game.

Death is when it all goes back in the box.

So I realized that I have, in fact, nothing to fear but fear itself. Roosevelt was one of the wisest men who has ever lived. Roosevelt is right. Fear is your biggest enemy. You are your biggest enemy. Just like in Revolver.

In the movie Limitless, this theme is also explored. You can see the cycle of fear building up all through the movie. As the protagonist gets more and more rich, he becomes more and more paranoid. That was me! The subway was when I cornered myself just like the protagonist in his hotel room.

Indeed, I was the one who was making me afraid. That’s also important to realize.

Now I realize that that was a good thing. Because it ultimately has led to me realizing how stupid it is to fear loss; to fear losing; to fear getting hurt. Of course there is loss and failure and disappointment and struggle. No problem. Fear is worse than all of those things.

The problem with fear is that it paralyzes you in the present. You can’t act. You can’t make rational decisions. You can’t be of service to anyone in that state.

There’s only one way to operate in life: giving. Give what you can, when you can, as much as you can.

In the end, what’s left over is what you gave in your honest service to others.

Life is about being useful now.

To find the meaning of life, ask yourself, what can I do to add value to now?

The present is more important than we tend to acknowledge.

The present is what makes the future.

Civilization 1.0 – A History

Civilization 1.0 started in Sumer / Babylon near the year 4004 BC. It was at that time that the first documented main-stream civilization appeared. I say “main-stream” because other civilizations emerged prior to that time, but have been suppressed by the Vatican and other parties interested in keeping other civilizations hidden from us, so that we continue to believe that this is “the best we’ve ever done.”

Civilization 1.0 started with what we call “history” – a story of constant wars, oppression, slavery, violence, and so on. The main-stream view is the view of Babylon -> Egypt -> Hebrew -> Arabic & European progression, where that is the continuity of what we call “Western Civilization” as traced back to its ancient roots.

The rulers of this civilization are called “reptilians” by some, Illuminati by others, and so on. Whatever they may be, their control structure has always hinged on ignorance (religion), poverty (economic disparity), and war (intimidation / fear).

I call this model the Military Industrial Complex, because that’s a perfect name for it. We are, and have been since 4004 BC, ruled by military commission. We have officers, commissioners, governors, executives, monarchs, and other rulers whose titles and powers are commissioned by military force.

When you look at history, you cannot argue convincingly that we’ve been free under the Military Industrial Complex model, at any point in time.

Civilization 1.0 operates through fear, intimidation, violence, racket, and police. It seeks to keep the populus ignorant at all times. The very fact that it has been so successful is due to widespread ignorance. They spread deception in order to maintain their power.

The ignorance was profound in ancient times, giving rise to religion, slavery, and all manner of oppression. 99% of the population was illiterate, right up until the arrival of the printing press which sparked the renaissance (1500s – 1650) and the enlightenment (1650 – 1800). Both movements led to greater levels of awareness (awakening) and were heavily guided by the ‘Illuminati’, a highly literate highly intelligent group which sought to embrace, extend, and extinguish the people’s calls for freedom. The French and American revolutions were initially inspired by an increased level of literacy and critical thinking in the populus. They were steered back into serving the military industrial complex. You can see it with the Napoleonic wars, and with the American civil war. Following the death of Abraham Lincoln, freedom in the world, having existed only 80 years, was dealt a final death blow.

The promise of Civilization 1.0 is jobs. It is the middle class. It is democracy. These are the illusions used to keep the populus moderately appeased. This is the compromise that the leaders made with the populus, to deal with the populus’ new dangerously high level of literacy.

Of course, when the military leaders require a culling of the populus, and they do occasionally, they begin by creating a financial panic. The jobs go away, the middle class goes away, and the farmers are left broke. Then, they dangle the final option before the desperate people: military service. They use economic conscription to conduct another war.

Civilization 1.0 uses the pyramid scheme / structure as its main model of organization. Information is compartmentalized. It is a pyramid of ignorance. This is how you can interpret the pyramid structure. The ones at the top know the most. The ones at the bottom know nothing.

The pyramid scheme is evident repeatedly in the sub-structures of the Civilization 1.0 system. You can see it in corporations, schools, governments, armies, intelligence agencies, and so on.

Civilization 1.0 is always about growth. Exponential growth, for that matter. Exponential growth is merely an exponent (pardon the pun) of the pyramid scheme that underlies the whole system. Exponential growth *exposes* the pyramid nature of this system. The whole system is a Ponzi scheme, requiring higher and higher levels of “growth” (GDP, earnings, debt etc.) to keep going.

Civilization 1.0 is now at its end. The debt Ponzi is maxed out. Sovereign defaults are happening and soon even international banks (like Goldman Sachs or the IMF) will run into trouble. The GDP Ponzi is maxed out. We can only exploit so many resources. Finally, the earnings Ponzi is maxed out. Corporations can only merge so much and create only so many regulations giving them absolute monopoly power. What next?

Meanwhile, there has been a revolution in information access. Much like the printing press, the Internet has revolutionized communication. The level of ignorance in the general population now may seem high, but that is only because they are the old generation, mainly the TV generation, and their minds will not be changed. Most are hopelessly enslaved mentally by the military industrial complex. However, there’s a growing population of informed people, who have been using the Internet as a tool to educate themselves and to educate others. These are the people who are said to have “woken up” or be in the process of “waking up.”

Waking up is simply an increase in the level of literacy and general knowledge to the extent that one is able to see the military industrial complex and see its effects, its operations, and its failures. You can begin to see its stranglehold on the population. Furthermore, you begin to realize that “business as usual” is largely no longer possible in the Internet age, with the information you now know about the system and its history. That’s when you have woken up. When you begin to ask yourself “what were we thinking?” “How did we not see the truth?” That’s when you’ve woken up.

Now. That digression aside, the increased level of education of the Internet generation is now at a level where it is possible for this educated mass of people to organize and begin to form a new civilization, in parallel with Civilization 1.0, in recognition of the fact that some (many) remain and will remain hopelessly enslaved under the Civilization 1.0 system. In other words, Civilization 2.0 is not an overthrow of Civilization 1.0 entirely, but rather a parallel development. Some members of Civilization 2.0 will actually straddle both sides, moving between Civilization 1.0 and Civilization 2.0 at will. This type of activity will not be regarded as immoral by members of Civilization 2.0, as long as the ultimate (long term) vision is served by those interactions with Civilization 1.0. In this sense, it is necessary to have double-think (1984-style) to move back and forth between these civilizations. In other words, many Civilization 2.0 agents will be able to operate fine in Civilization 1.0 and will understand that the double-think is what results when one is forced to interact with two enormously different world-views.

Whew.

Pause. Coffee break. Pie break.

OK.

Let’s go back to 1984 for a second. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. War is peace. These are the mottos of the military industrial complex. Recognize them? Freedom = middle class = slavery. Ignorance = what gives the system its strength. War = executed in the name of peace, but with peace never being achieved.

We have always been at war with Eastasia? Well, look at Afghanistan. 10 years of war now. War is peace. Freedom is slavery? Look at the PATRIOT act. Ignorance is strength? What’s Sarah Palin doing again?

Right. So there you go. If you’re still not catching on at this point, I’ll just spell it out plain and simple: We are living in the 1984 world. It’s not fiction. It’s reality.

Now, back to Civilization 1.0. It’s at an end. Can’t go on. Why? The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by people waking up! For the first time, debt and consumer spending started to fall! Look at the price of gold – another indicator of people waking up.

Also important: A lot of people have now dropped out of Civilization 1.0 due to unemployment. As many as half of all Americans have effectively dropped out of the “American dream” (the vision of owning a house in the suburbs and living the middle class life). It’s now manifesting in the form of protests like Occupy Wall Street.

2012 is the Mayan prophecy of the collapse of Civilization 1.0. The main rulers of this civilization have already built underground tunnels and shelters, and a doomsday seed vault in Norway, preparing for the arrival of these “end times.”

When you look at the “end of the world” or “apocalypse” prophecies, you have to ask “whose end of the world?” Whose world are we looking at ending? I submit that these prophecies, written by the “Illuminati” themselves, are pointing to the “Illuminati”‘s end of the world. The end of their pyramid scheme and the end of their domination.

Apocalpyse literally means “the unveiling.” Waking up and unveiling are very similar ideas. You could argue that the apocalypse is merely the idea of people waking up and the hidden power of the Illuminati becoming exposed for all to see, like the emperor who had no clothes.

Whew.

Pause. Break. Let that sink in.

OK. So we’ve arrived at the end of Civilization 1.0 and the wake-up of the masses. What will happen next?

Civilization 2.0 – Now

No, not the game. Though it might take shape initially in the form of a game. What is a civilization? A civilization is a collective organized means of sustaining a population and a collective consensus around a set of goals. Basically, a culture and a means to support each other.

Civilization 1.0 used war, conquest, occupation, domination, and slavery, and a whole culture was built around that.

Civilization 2.0 uses collective organization, open information sharing, independent peer review, equal (egalitarian) cooperation, and meritocracy, and a whole culture is being built around that.

Yes, Civilization 2.0 is already happening. Richard Stallman was one of the first to become a member of Civilization 2.0. Civilization 2.0 started in the software world, with the idea of open source software. It is being helped by the Internet, which allows unprecedented levels of global cooperation among people sharing the same goals, and unprecedented open access to information. Julian Assange is another example of someone living in Civilization 2.0. There are thousands of others out there. They live off of donations and assistance from friends and supporters.

Civilization 2.0 is about helping each other. There is no money involved, because there is no profit or reciprocity expected. It is entirely about altruistic actions. It is about being remembered as someone who made a positive change for humanity. It is about the pride that comes from being personally responsible for bringing about a new civilization. It is about the pride that comes from knowing you’ve helped people see the truth.

Civilization 2.0 is now emerging as open-source everything. I’ve already discussed this at length. We are open-sourcing everything from city planning to microchips and architecture.

I’m not quite sure about what the role of corporations (Civilization 1.0 entities) will be in this evolution, but I suspect that some will be very helpful to us, just like some people from Civilization 1.0 will be very helpful to us. There will be a lot of interaction (back and forth) between these civilizations for a long time. Some of it will be helpful and peaceful, some of it will be violent (though I do believe Civilization 2.0 will hold non-violence as a core belief). But ultimately, Civilization 2.0 will grow, and Civilization 1.0 will fade.

Civilization 1.0 emerged in a time of scarcity and ignorance. People were divided in tribes and constantly fighting with each other over scarce natural resources, the scarcest of which was human labor. We are now at a phase where scarcity is greatly reduced. We have inventions and knowledge now we absolutely did not have 6000 years ago. This gives us power: the power to free ourselves from scarcity and move into a world of abundance.

Civilization 2.0 is emerging in a time of rising abundance and enlightenment. Despite the fact that many third world nations remain poor, the fact is that the overall life expectancy has risen substantially in just about every country in the world in the last 40 years. Despite the fact that some countries are in financial crisis now (freedom is now the scarcest resource), there is an enormous amount of unused condos, unused fields, unused food and clothing being dumped into the sea, and tons of potential which is completely being denied by the military industrial complex to perpetuate their thinning slice of control.

Our movement needs to be called Civilization 2.0. It’s nothing less than a completely new civilization, with new principles, new values, and new means of arriving at control of nature for the purpose of supporting ourselves. It’s a total revolution of the mind. From scarcity and fear to compassion and abundance.

Conclusion

We’re now entering a new enlightenment that will make the 1700s look like the dark ages.

What we’re seeing now is the move from crisis to transition. We’re opening the way toward a better future.

Scarcity is the biggest lie right now. Nothing is now scarce except freedom and access. You realize this when you wake up. And this is an undeniable truth.

We need more freedom. Sharing. Information. Knowledge. People power.

(re)Occupy everything! It’s the only solution.

Epilogue:
This represents a major milestone in a personal journey of self-education and awakening started in 2007, 4.2 years ago. It was called Ron Paul 2008, the Love Revolution, the Zeitgeist Movement, Ron Paul 2012, the Venus Project, and now Civilization 2.0. At that time, the movement was extremely small. 9/11 inside job people were considered conspiracy nuts. It was a fringe movement. Now it’s becoming a minority, but a visible minority. This is the important thing. Drawing attention to the truth is the first step. Pretty soon 99% of the world will stand with us. And 99% is more than enough.

“Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” — Mahatma Gandhi

The only private property we need to do away with is that part of natural capital that is responsible for our basic subsistence needs.

That is property that needs to be considered a part of the “commons” – not owned by anyone in particular, or any sub-group of society, but by society as a whole.

Thus, you can summarize Civilization 2.0 in one basic phrase:

We, the people of the Earth, recognizing our basic need for subsistence, wish to take collective ownership of all capital required to assure that subsistence.

That is all. By limiting ourselves to basic needs, for now, we can guard against being called “communists” (which we would be if we advocated the abolition of all private property).

Yes, we need to recognize all land, air, water, etc. required by humans to live (and only the land, air, water, etc. that is required for survival) to constitute part of the “commons” – the property administered and owned by all of humanity, collectively, with equal control and authority given to each individual.

Also, we need to embrace the idea of access denied to none, rather than ownership given to all, for further clarification that the goal is to give everyone access as needed, and not necessarily to establish some sort of ownership or administration structure, initially. The priority here is to not deny access when it is needed.

The Manifesto for Civilization 2.0

We, the humanity of the Earth, wish to state that it is our collective desire (goal) to bring about a world in which the optimal health and vitality of every human is guaranteed as a fundamental human right. Furthermore, the goal is to continually improve the state of happiness, fulfillment, health, and vitality for all humans for all of time. We will collectively work to ensure that these rights are defended, in addition to other human rights already established.

We seek to use scientifically established facts as a basis for defining our goal, recognizing that the scientific method is the only method that is not subject to individual or collective opinion, bias, or political agenda. The scientific method is therefore the best empirical method for establishing truth.

Scientifically ensuring the optimal health and vitality of all of humanity is the ultimate trans-generational vision we all hold.

Envision a world, 3 generations from now, where every human has his or her basic human needs met (nutrition, health, education, community, recreation).

We recognize that perfection is impossible, and that there will always be some deficiency in meeting these needs. However, at the same time we recognize that there are ways to measure how well these needs are being met and that it is our responsibility as humans to use scientific methods to measure these important benchmarks.

Once we have measurements in place, we can then begin to apply methods rooted in systems engineering to begin to improve these indicators so as to improve the collective well-being – the general welfare.

As a means for reaching this goal, we will utilize any method that has the most demonstrable effectiveness at any given time, with the proviso that the method must always be a peaceful one, and with the proviso that the method must be tested and proven not to have side effects at least seven (7) generations into the future.

If this vision sounds a lot like communism, it’s because it’s very similar. It is our view that if there are people suffering in the world, it is the responsibility of each individual who is not suffering to work to correct that suffering, to the extent that one is able to do so.

The established fact that all humans are fundamentally natural organisms, created from natural elements and requiring natural elements for subsistence must no longer be denied. We are made of the Earth and the stars. We require the Earth and the stars for our subsistence.

As a result, we must consider all natural capital (the land, the air, the water, the sun) (items not created by humans) to be collectively owned and managed equally by all of humanity for the goal identified in this manifesto. No one individual or group may be allowed to claim “ownership” (i.e. exclusive access) of natural capital, as that would logically result in the restriction of subsistence resources for another human or group. Natural capital exists to serve all of humanity for the goal identified in this manifesto.

At this point, we must all agree that the monetary market paradigm (the paradigm of supply and demand) logically does not apply to basic human needs, for the reasons outlined above. We cannot have a system in which subsistence (or the elements thereof) is considered a good to be sold on the market. Indeed, such a system runs contrary to the natural human right to life. If one individual, group, or corporation controls the water, land, or air, they will try to create artificial scarcity to make profits. They, by law, would have the authority to deny everyone else the fruits of that capital. They would be profiting from the very survival needs of all humans. Such a situation cannot be allowed to exist and it is the duty of all to assemble, to protest, and to demand that all natural capital be returned to the natural domain, where no human has the capacity to establish ownership or exclusive access over that capital, or to benefit from that capital without regard to the welfare of everyone else.

Furthermore, we recognize that the idea of exponential growth runs contrary to nature and its laws. You cannot have anything material growing exponentially in perpetuity. Thus, we discard the notion of exponential growth as a driving factor in our society and we embrace the notion of natural balance as an essential law governing humanity and all organisms on the planet. We no longer seek growth. We seek increased harmony, happiness, health, efficiency (lack of waste), freedom, and peace.

We, the people, will work collectively to establish a non-human (machine) agent to remove human control from natural capital, so as to intelligently manage this capital without human prejudice for the benefit of all. This agent will be charged with managing this capital in a scientific way, based on collectively-established and scientifically-established rules and priorities. It will operate entirely within the confines of natural laws (gravity, mechanics, and so forth) simulated inside a computer.

The agent’s code (source code) will be open to all (open-source) and free of restrictions (free as in freedom of speech). This code can and will be audited periodically by anyone in the world, much like peer-reviewed scientific articles are audited by scientists around the world, in order to determine whether it continues to serve the needs of humanity effectively. Furthermore, this agent will be tested by people around the world, by running it forward at least 7 generations so as to determine whether the agent continues to improve the prosperity of all of humanity at least seven generations into the future. A crucial aspect is that the results of this agent will be independently verifiable, just like the findings in a scientific experiment. Therefore, corruption, lies, politics, manipulation, and propaganda will be less of a possibility.

With the establishment of these principles and technology, we will have established a sound basis for our continuing existence at least seven generations into the future, ensuring our survival so that we may live in peace and harmony with nature for all of time.