InterReflections (2020)

1. What I call the World Game now is an exercise

2. that I have been following through for a great many years.

3. Can you hear me in the back alright?

4. And it started with my being in the United States Navy.

5. The time of World War One. At that time,

6. the Navy's represented investment of all the science,

7. all the chemistry, all the physics, all the mathematics

8. known about our universe.

9. And I was shocked that it was only going

10. in this negative thing of killing.

11. We have this extraordinary technology.

12. Men would not doing anything with that kind of accuracy

13. on the land in relation to try to make man a success.

14. It became very quickly apparent that the fundamental

15. raison d'etre in all of our state craft

16. was based on Thomas Malthus.

17. Now Thomas Malthus was the scientific servant

18. of the masters of the earth of the time.

19. He the first economist in the history of man to receive

20. the total Vital Statistics from around the spherical earth

21. and in 1800, he wrote his first book,

22. which he said apparently man was reproducing himself

23. much more rapidly than producing good to support himself.

24. Therefore, very sad, but man is supposed to be a failure.

25. Shall we inform the whole world,

26. the whole world of that time being

27. more than 90% illiterate and unable to then even read

28. any information if it was sent to them.

29. Should we try to inform the whole world? There is nowhere

30. nearly enough to go around. If we divide up evenly

31. all die slowly together.

32. And that, that, that, that didn't seem logical to them at all.

33. They said, "What we can do is a following:

34. all these people out here are ignorant of what we know about

35. and because they're ignorant, they think they have some hope.

36. And we know they don't have hope most of them.

37. Why, why eliminate their hope? They're going to die poor characters,

38. and might as well let them die in ignorance."

39. Ignorance and hope.

40. This is the kindest thing to do.

41. And that's exactly what they did do.

42. How's it going?

43. Everything seems to be on pace. But, you know,

44. there's only so much we can be sure of since its theoretical.

45. - Think it's going to work? - I have no idea.

46. - Hey, any word about John yet? - Glad you asked,

47. actually, yes, John just made the evening news.

48. And it appears Simon

49. wants to gloat about it.

50. They call themselves Concordia, after the ancient Roman

51. goddess of harmony. The pro-revolution hacktivist

52. group world famous after a decade of subversion

53. suffered a major blow this week.

54. With the capture of leader John Taylor.

55. Once a high-ranking military engineer,

56. Taylor is being held in an undisclosed location

57. by the UN's Global Security Agency.

58. And with us to discuss is GSA director,

59. General Simon Devoe.

60. - Simon, thanks for being here. - My pleasure.

61. So let's step back if you don't mind.

62. Who are these people

63. and how have they operated with such impunity

64. after all these years?

65. Concordia was formed by a group of cyber warfare

66. experts that defected from their military positions

67. around 2050.

68. And in the process, a great deal

69. of classified information

70. and advanced technologies were stolen.

71. What kind of technologies?

72. Mostly communications,

73. cloaking, encryption, surveillance.

74. Hence why they remain so elusive.

75. But the GSA's core concern is the theft of some highly

76. experimental warfare technology.

77. Advancements in biochemistry

78. and molecular science that have dramatic potential

79. - for large-scale harm. - Aside from all the hacks,

80. leaks and other things that have made them so famous.

81. Yes, they certainly enjoy being disruptive.

82. Disruptive indeed. Just last year they breached the accounts

83. of the world's richest CEOs extracting almost

84. two trillion dollars, moving that money

85. into virtually traceless charity donations worldwide.

86. Hmm! I tell you the warm fuzzy feeling I got

87. from that one has yet to go away.

88. Delicious.

89. Before that were the notorious email leaks

90. revealing major Wall Street firms had lobbied CIA,

91. MI9 and Mossad to help gain monopoly control

92. of rare earth metals in Asia.

93. Yeah, too bad I didn't do a damn thing.

94. Corporate terrorism just gets worse.

95. Exposure media does very little these days.

96. It just sets a tone.

97. And in 2054 they jammed both Chinese

98. and American defense systems during the Saudi Annex Crisis

99. disabling thousands of warheads.

100. A move Concordian sympathizers claim

101. might have stopped World War III.

102. And speaking of sympathizers,

103. what do you make of the support?

104. Legions of followers worldwide.

105. Troubling, but I get it.

106. Lots of problems out there.

107. The food, water crisis. Refugee migration.

108. Automation-driven unemployment, serious ecological decline.

109. I get it and it's natural to be angry,

110. but anger doesn't solve problems or justify unlawful acts.

111. This Robin Hood savior appeal of Concordia

112. - is just an immature fad. - A passing trend?

113. I think so. As cinematic as the idea is of Concordia,

114. the radical yet benevolent protagonist,

115. fighting for their utopian revolution

116. against the evil establishment,

117. last I checked this is reality not a movie.

118. Seems that way.

119. So I encourage people to regain trust in our time-tested

120. institutions and democratic process.

121. Not tear it all down as Concordia

122. would like to see.

123. Now, in regards to John Taylor.

124. I understand you once worked together.

125. Starting in Special Forces, yes.

126. I even considered him a good friend at one time.

127. Have you had contact with him since his capture?

128. Not yet.

129. But I must say I am very much looking forward

130. to speaking with my old associate.

131. So are we, Simon.

132. Well, I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that.

133. Thanks for being here, Simon, always a pleasure.

134. So, can I get you anything before we get started?

135. I think I'm good.

136. Alright, feel free to take a seat.

137. How we doing on tech?

138. Almost there? All right.

139. Well, let's, let's go ahead and roll for basic info

140. and we'll, uh, we'll just, we'll tweak it as we go.

141. - Sound. Speed.

142. And rolling.

143. All right, so, please go ahead

144. and introduce yourself and state your work.

145. My name is Malikan Soyenka and I'm a professor of history

146. at Columbia University.

147. My specialty of interest surrounds what most historians

148. call today the Great Transition.

149. That period of time between the 21st

150. and early 22nd century where global society

151. underwent a rather spectacular social revolution.

152. That's a good question. I guess time will tell.

153. All right. Let's, let's inch into this.

154. Please state your name, vocation and how you found

155. interest in economics.

156. I'm Cynthia Floris and I received

157. an interdisciplinary degree in systems ecology and economics

158. from the University of Cape Town, where I also now teach.

159. I guess I would start by saying

160. that I can't think of anything more relevant to the character

161. of society than its economic foundation.

162. Hello, I'm Aleniya Demir

163. and I teach epidemiology at the University of Istanbul.

164. Epidemiology is the study of public well-being

165. or what one could call population level phenomena,

166. specifically the distribution of physical

167. and mental health across society.

168. With respect your documentary I would say

169. the period before the Great Transition

170. likely marked the most unhealthy

171. and unstable period in human history.

172. - So am I looking at you or the camera? At me.

173. - Got it. Whenever you're ready.

174. I'm Vivian Marcella and I'm a socio-cultural biologists.

175. Which simply means I try to better understand

176. the synergies that mold human behavior,

177. and by extension culture.

178. I joined the Center for Behavioral Studies

179. in Oslo in 2115, and I continue to try

180. to make sense of this lovable mess we call humanity.

181. There's an exercise that I often do with my first-year students.

182. I have them research mainstream economic publications

183. from the 16th to the 21st century,

184. trying to find any mention of basic sustainability principles.

185. And each year the students come back stunned

186. by how this period gave no priority

187. to even the most obvious regenerative science.

188. Let alone anything related to public health.

189. Such things were considered external

190. to this contrived, competitive game

191. they called business.

192. Here you had an entire global civilization

193. powering itself through the mechanism of consuming.

194. That's literally what drove their economy as absurd

195. as that sounds. And the more people bought

196. and consumed, the more demand for jobs.

197. Hence more circulating purchasing power

198. to again be spent on consuming.

199. Endlessly and viciously repeating.

200. That was the economic system back then.

201. And to think any part of that would be workable

202. in the long run, on a finite planet, is pure lunacy.

203. To make matters worse, the system was rooted

204. in strategic human exploitation, which structurally ensured

205. large wealth and power differences between groups,

206. and the long term cultural result was very poor social integrity.

207. Racism, xenophobia, sexism and other forms of bigotry

208. were an inevitable side effect of this kind of social system

209. ultimately rooted in class stratification,

210. otherwise known as socio-economic inequality.

211. And when you put it all together,

212. you realize a deep social pathology.

213. A pathology that not only severely limited human potential,

214. actually bringing out the worst of our biological and social nature,

215. but one that was blindly pushing civilization toward oblivion,

216. due to accelerating ecological decline

217. and systemic human conflict.

218. By the time we reached the 21st century

219. the consequences of all this weren't subtle.

220. We're talking massive global inequity and poverty,

221. relentless worldwide conflict, endless power abuses

222. and systematic oppression,

223. not to mention the near irreversible

224. decline of all life support systems.

225. And while it seems obvious to us today,

226. you have to understand the kind of indoctrination

227. that occurred back then.

228. The culture was so conditioned

229. by the dominant worldview,

230. they just couldn't recognize the flaws inherent

231. to the structure of their society.

232. So by force of this, they engaged in very superficial activism

233. centered around political institutions that really were

234. just a parody of themselves.

235. Attempts at social change

236. were deeply fragmented in focus

237. because people's understanding

238. of cause and effect was so shallow.

239. So the whole thing just became a spectacle.

240. And endless blame game between groups.

241. Their so-called democratic process

242. centered not on actual policy, but around these political

243. institutions that seemed to vaguely represent such policy.

244. A true democracy as we now know allows for public consensus

245. on actual issues not the appointment

246. of representatives to make those decisions for them.

247. That's not really democracy at all.

248. That's simply a watered-down version of authoritarianism,

249. voting for kings and queens.

250. And to add insult to injury,

251. because society was rooted in this business system

252. of property and trade everything was for sale.

253. People loved to argue about moral lines and ethics,

254. but the fact was politicians, and hence policy,

255. was just another commodity to be bought and sold.

256. So inevitably those who did end up with true social power

257. were the ones with the most wealth.

258. That wasn't a corruption,

259. that was simply the nature of the system.

260. And needless to say this business power subculture

261. was certainly the least likely to want to change the very system

262. that had so disproportionately rewarded them.

263. And as science and technology increased efficiency

264. creating higher material standards of living in general

265. the lack of human rights progress and the anti-democratic

266. nature of society became increasingly masked.

267. People's dignity and integrity were bought off

268. by gadgets and toys and addictions.

269. Feeding a materialist fetish

270. that so distracted the minds of many.

271. And you know, I often ponder all this,

272. trying to put myself in the shoes

273. of the average person back then,

274. especially in the more affluent and highly unequal regions,

275. such as the United States of America,

276. and it really makes me shudder.

277. People stuck in traffic, piling into these office prisons

278. to push paper around, engaging meaningless occupations

279. that wasted far more energy and wealth than they created

280. so they can continue buying these things they don't need,

281. elevating their artificial status and so on.

282. It's like a bad horror movie.

283. If there's any historical through-line that reveals

284. how important a system-based worldview is,

285. both in understanding society and knowing how to change it,

286. it's a long history of slavery and human exploitation.

287. You can't have a society that's based upon hierarchical power

288. and specialized labor, where people are seen

289. as economic tools to be used

290. strategically for another's differential gain,

291. and ever expect high moral integrity.

292. Consider the function of cost efficiency.

293. Cost efficiency is about trying to save money on production

294. in order to maximize profit upon final sale.

295. It's at the core of the basic gaming strategy

296. that's required in market economics.

297. And that simple incentive, the principle of seeking to reduce

298. input costs to maximize output gains is at the root

299. of thousands of years of human slavery in one form or another.

300. Whether indentured servitude, bonded labor,

301. chattel slavery in earlier times to human trafficking

302. and debt driven wage slavery in more modern times.

303. And the point to make here is that this kind of framework

304. was so normalized by the turn of the 21st century,

305. a period, by the way, that had more slaves in absolute numbers

306. than any time in human history.

307. The average person still didn't see the connection.

308. They had been conditioned by these mythical free market ideas

309. arguing that because people could now choose

310. which area of the economy to submit their labor to,

311. choose which company to be subordinated, or perhaps get the capital

312. and start their own company and then choose who to exploit

313. for their own personal advantage.

314. Somehow coercion just no longer existed.

315. That was the illusion.

316. And any advanced technological society that evolves

317. not to organize an effort to provide basic life support

318. to its citizens allowing them to pursue their own interest

319. on their own terms, instead structurally forcing

320. everyone to fight with each other for basic survival,

321. for not defendable reason mind you,

322. is not a free society at all.

323. It's a system of violence and oppression

324. regardless of how materially wealthy that society may appear.

325. Now, all that said, it's important to consider...

326. You have meddled with the primal forces

327. of nature, Mr. Beale.

328. And you will atone.

329. It's been a long time, Simon.

330. So, the reason you're here with me

331. and not in some vassal state being tortured

332. is because the GSA needs your help.

333. We're being overrun by a group of hackers and they appear to be

334. advancing their abilities faster than we can counter.

335. Orion.

336. That's right. Orion.

337. We have been tracking them for years.

338. Luddite anarchists.

339. They want to return civilization

340. to the Stone Age.

341. We figure if they continue their rate of progress,

342. we only have a few weeks before they breach.

343. - Taking control of our systems. - That'd be bad.

344. Hence our priorities. As aggravating as your little

345. Concordia project has been, you were never this distasteful.

346. You do realize that even if Orion is stopped,

347. another insurgency, likely more malicious,

348. is just around the corner, right?

349. - Your point? - My point

350. is one way to measure the integrity of a society

351. is by how many outliers it creates.

352. Violent criminals, inner-city gangs, serial killers,

353. mass murderers, terrorists,

354. to now this lovely hacker dystopia you've inspired.

355. You have a systemic problem, Simon,

356. and it's only going to grow.

357. You're looking through the wrong lens, John.

358. And unlike the past, the outliers now

359. have exponentially advancing technology.

360. Some disgruntled kid fashioning a Molotov cocktail years ago,

361. can now create weapons of mass destruction, or in this case weapons

362. of mass disturbance with little more effort.

363. Again, you're looking through the wrong lens.

364. No one ever said the natural course of humanity

365. was going to be pretty.

366. So it's natural for humanity to flirt

367. with its own destruction? And increasingly so?

368. Because that's where all this leads.

369. Since the dawn of civilization, those with the most advanced

370. tools are the ones who set the stage.

371. From the rock, to the sword, to the gun, to the bomb,

372. to AI, a sociological law of nature

373. rooted in our evolutionary psychology.

374. And if this race happens to lead to destruction,

375. well, such is the natural course.

376. Only human conceit assumes otherwise.

377. I see you haven't lost that charming nihilism.

378. - Drink? - No.

379. And it's not nihilism, John, it's realism.

380. Conflict is what makes the world go round.

381. And whomever wins defines the course.

382. - So what's the deal? - The deal is

383. you help us tame the barbarians at the gate

384. along with anything else we ask.

385. In return,

386. you'll be granted a decent life here.

387. This ship might be a place of work,

388. but it's also a self-contained city.

389. We go back a long way, John, and despite our differences,

390. I would hate to see that genius go to waste.

391. And if I don't?

392. You know the answer to that.

393. Aside from this possible Orion catastrophe,

394. which I doubt your humanist ego would allow,

395. you'll be turned over to interrogation

396. and it won't be cinematic.

397. Either way, you're not leaving this ship.

398. Okay, Simon, but I have one condition.

399. I want you to put an end to program UX83.

400. Otherwise known as the Malthusian Mandate.

401. If you knew about the Mandate,

402. why hasn't Concordia leaked it?

403. Never had a complete picture.

404. - And what do you think you're missing? - Good question.

405. We find a cryptically mentioned in documents

406. related to the GSA's control programs.

407. It appears the Mandate was employed in the death

408. of at least 20 million last year alone.

409. How this is occurring and why is not clear.

410. So why don't you enlighten me?

411. So you wrote a book called The Neolithic Maladaptation

412. which focuses on the nature of culture

413. before the Great Transition.

414. Can you clarify what you meant by this title?

415. Sure. So I think the defining question of civilization

416. is what characteristics enable us to survive and prosper

417. sustainably and peacefully over generational time.

418. Thousands of years ago, upon the advent of agriculture,

419. the Neolithic Revolution, we found ourselves

420. in a new social arrangement, a new structure,

421. one that would later prove to be highly incompatible.

422. Not only incompatible with the habitat,

423. inherently unsustainable since the economy

424. literally required consumption and growth,

425. but also incompatible with our very social nature.

426. And, long story short, humans are simply not meant to exist

427. in an economically stratified society

428. if the expectation is high levels of public health

429. and peaceful coexistence.

430. It's always interesting to review the work

431. of mainstream scientists at the turn of the 21st century

432. as they desperately try to convince themselves

433. that a competitive, exploitative,

434. vainly status seeking mindset was an inalterable expression

435. of human nature, when the fact is our genes,

436. our biology and how the environment interacts

437. with our evolved selves allows for a vast range of orientations

438. with narrow self-interest, greed, merely part of that range.

439. If we've proven to be anything, it's adaptable.

440. There's certainly no blank slate.

441. We're not infinitely malleable,

442. but it has been grossly underestimated historically

443. just how wide our range of adaptive

444. potential really is. And what most determines

445. which behavioral traits will define a society's culture

446. is its social structure.

447. Or more specifically, that structure's economic basis.

448. The method by which we must survive.

449. If that structure rewards competition, dominance,

450. and narrow self-interest, then the culture

451. will predominantly express those values.

452. If it rewards collaboration, empathy and pro-social concern,

453. the resulting culture will predominantly express those values.

454. For the majority of human history,

455. before the advent of agriculture,

456. We lived in non-hierarchical,

457. non-competitive social arrangements.

458. Why? Because the economic basis of survival

459. actually incentivized

460. sharing and collaboration, and not the opposite.

461. So what I mean by maladaptation is while humanity

462. did successfully adapt to the survival requisites

463. born from the Neolithic Revolution,

464. the resulting social structure,

465. the system that became codified, proved maladapted.

466. The economic system was simply incompatible

467. with what was required for humanity to be sustainable in the long-term.

468. Failing our need to integrate properly with the ecosystem

469. while limiting our ability to coexist peacefully with each other.

470. And by the time of the Industrial Revolution

471. in the 19th century, these flaws were rapidly

472. coming to the surface.

473. Conditions had changed and if it wasn't for our dramatic

474. transformation to break out of that system,

475. there is little question, society would have seen total

476. ecologically collapse combined with catastrophic global war.

477. So it must be difficult to look back

478. at that time given what we know now.

479. It seems like things should have changed much sooner, right?

480. Sure, but it reveals that as much as we'd like

481. to believe we're rational, objective beings,

482. we're actually bound by deep social vulnerability.

483. We are social beings first and intellectual beings second.

484. What you see back then is a kind of mass hypnosis

485. that paralyzed society,

486. keeping people short-sighted and fearful,

487. prone to conform to the values and practices of those

488. who happen to be winning in the contrived economic game.

489. One glance at the media from back then gives it all away.

490. Status posturing, people obsessed with appearing

491. affluent, accomplished, loved, famous, beautiful.

492. All a kind of pathological emulation of those of high

493. socioeconomic status, billionaires, celebrities.

494. As one notable philosopher stated long ago,

495. So once again it all begs the question,

496. what actually defines success in the human condition?

497. What kind of culture is most optimized to sustain itself

498. over time while, of course, being happy and stable?

499. And while there's plenty to learn,

500. we do know what doesn't define it:

501. the excessive materialistic wealth and status driven neurosis

502. so characteristic back then has literally zero

503. positive relationship to long-term species

504. sustainability and optimized public health.

505. In short, the values were dead wrong.

506. And not to sound mean, but if I were to resort to derisive

507. status labeling, common to that period of time,

508. there's no question that the greatest failures

509. were the ones who own mansions, drove over priced cars,

510. wore luxury jewelry, maintained extremely lucrative

511. yet completely meaningless occupations

512. while hoarding great wealth.

513. What kind of sad, insecure creature

514. needs to flaunt such excess

515. clearly signaling opposition to other people's well-being?

516. True success is reinforcing harmony, balance.

517. The goal is not necessarily to become something,

518. but to find out who and what you truly are.

519. And how you fit inside the ecosystem

520. of nature that gave birth to you.

521. The most successful people, the true winners,

522. are never the ones striving for celebrity and material excess,

523. they are the humble minimalists valuing how they can contribute

524. to the well-being and health of everything,

525. realizing the world is one system,

526. and the more they optimize that contribution,

527. the more truly successful they actually become.

528. When I look back on all this,

529. I think what I find most tragic

530. is the spiritual loss of the individual.

531. How people were fundamentally alienated from themselves

532. their identities hijacked by competitive insecurity,

533. trying to conform to some acceptable profile

534. that would serve their advantage best,

535. not who they actually are,

536. but what the system requires them to become.

537. The soul selects her own society.

538. Then shuts the door to her divine majority.

539. Present no more. Unmoved.

540. She notes the chariots pausing at her low gate.

541. Unmoved. An emperor be kneeling upon her mat.

542. I've known her from an ample nation. Choose one.

543. Then close the valves of her attention. Like stone.

544. Let me ask you, John.

545. What do you think the greatest form

546. of social control is? Law? Debt?

547. Religion.

548. And this has what to do with the Malthusian Mandate?

549. - Humor me. - I don't know.

550. How about socialization? People policing each other.

551. A properly tuned culture does regulate itself, yes.

552. We've had the same training, Simon.

553. I'm just as aware of what shapes psychology as you are.

554. Yeah, see, I'm not so sure.

555. I don't think we'd be in this situation

556. - if that was really the case. - You mean because I actually

557. believe the world can change?

558. A child's born biologically programmed

559. to adapt to its environment.

560. It grows, inching through formative years,

561. shaped by the traditions and beliefs of culture.

562. Institutional education introduces structure

563. creating comfort with authority, regimentation, status.

564. - Nurturing social schema. - And a fundamental insecurity

565. forged by a deeply unequal world,

566. a world of sanctioned indifference,

567. where compassion is weakness

568. and domination is virtuous.

569. What survival requires.

570. In the current arrangement, sure.

571. And this early sense of insecurity has a unique effect.

572. Once childish tendencies we humans are supposed to grow out of:

573. attention-seeking, spoiled self-interest, manipulativeness,

574. bullying, competition become ingrained.

575. Maturity stunted.

576. Setting the stage for yet another disciple

577. in the cult of narcissistic individualism.

578. Poetic.

579. By the time higher education is reached,

580. formalized academia, the stronghold of the status quo,

581. what natural curiosity may remain

582. is now further constrained by socialization.

583. Myopic focus, detached from the pursuit of knowledge,

584. existing only for the sake of commercial utility.

585. - To define their product. - And ultimately their identity.

586. Becoming little more than yet another agent of trade.

587. A civilization reduced to the goal of endless striving.

588. To sell something to someone else.

589. The world is a business, Mr. Beale.

590. So the cog turns.

591. While in those fleeting moments economic stress does subside,

592. when the shackles do come off,

593. existential turbulence blooms,

594. as they desperately search for some kind of deeper meaning

595. in the daily grind. And this emotional void,

596. this state of loss, leads the pathological escapism.

597. Distraction and self-medication become the hobby.

598. So they turn to their screens

599. windows of projected normality equating freedom

600. with the unattainable delusions

601. of wealth, fame, honor.

602. While constantly being reminded that they are

603. the authors of their own misery

604. and success can only be a matter of winning versus losing.

605. Since the vast majority will no doubt lose, they live vicariously.

606. If their sports team wins the game, so do they.

607. If their country goes to war,

608. they wave their flags as if they were at war.

609. While following their celebrity heroes,

610. feeling as though somehow that success mirrors their own.

611. And when that doesn't work, they move inward,

612. seeking self-help retreats, therapy, medication, illicit drugs.

613. Anything to avoid the identity crisis.

614. That the society they mirror just might be deeply flawed.

615. So the masses remain complacent,

616. short-sighted, bigoted,

617. primitive, delusional.

618. Manageable.

619. No conspiracy required.

620. Viable systems regulate themselves.

621. Viable? You see all this as sustainable.

622. No conspiracy required.

623. - Viable systems regulate them—We just picked up the signal.

624. Now there's one thing you missed in your monologue there.

625. Aside from primal provocation, keeping people half-conscious,

626. trapped in lower brain fight or flight mode.

627. Aside from the cultural hegemony where people's values

628. and envies mirror those of wealth and power,

629. reinforcing social order.

630. And aside from the climate of opinion

631. fostered by the acclaimed intelligentsia

632. deciding the limits by which truth must conform

633. the most critical mechanism here

634. is that of social inclusion.

635. Nature wired us with a strong tendency

636. to override rational thought in favor of group acceptance.

637. Part of our evolutionary fitness.

638. And when people violate consensus

639. the nervous system seeks to correct the behavior

640. with pain and fear, as there's little more

641. psychologically damaging than social exclusion.

642. To be ostracized. Ridicule, stigma,

643. loss of reputation which could also mean loss of employment,

644. income, lost and survival.

645. Yet there's a long history of people who have moved against that tendency.

646. A long history of very few people

647. who inevitably turn into mere righteous symbols

648. put on T-shirts rather than forces of revolution.

649. So this Orion problem of yours isn't indicative of anything?

650. Orion appears to be a fringe group of extremists

651. with no public support.

652. This is about normative culture, and my point, John,

653. is that given our social nature,

654. the stronger force here is not on the side of reason,

655. it's on the side of inclusion and conformity,

656. and that, my friend, is the greatest form of social control

657. and why the masses will never break out

658. of its self-perpetuated oppression.

659. So earlier something was said to the effect

660. that humans are not designed to exist

661. in an economically stratified society.

662. So to speak, yes.

663. A stratified society is far more unhealthy and unstable

664. when compared to an egalitarian one.

665. That seems like a pretty bold conclusion.

666. - Can you elaborate? - Sure.

667. Consider our biology, specifically the human brain.

668. We're profoundly wired for social response.

669. For instance, the same brain centers that react

670. to physical pain also react to emotional pain,

671. such as feeling rejected, excluded or shamed.

672. In early life, socially isolated infants,

673. not receiving proper affection will fail

674. to produce critical growth hormones,

675. harming development.

676. While in adulthood similar effects occur.

677. For example, there were these dehumanizing institutions

678. called prisons and they practiced

679. solitary confinement, severe social isolation,

680. and that practice literally caused brain damage.

681. Now, what do these examples have in common?

682. They are negative responses to social related stress.

683. And when you review the past 200 years,

684. of epidemiological study on the issue,

685. you realize that an economically stratified society

686. is one of the most toxically stressful conditions

687. you could ever impose upon the human species.

688. We've all learned about the horrors of abject poverty.

689. A condition that affected a billion people

690. at the turn of the 21st century,

691. causing literally millions of deaths each year.

692. But the negative effects of economic stratification

693. aren't limited to the distinctly poor.

694. Inequality harms just about everyone.

695. A kind of social pollution and the lower one finds themselves

696. on the stratified ladder, the worse their health becomes on average.

697. Consider a lower class mother

698. working two jobs, in debt, can't afford a car,

699. living paycheck to paycheck

700. while trying to take care of her young child.

701. They may not be homeless, starving or even poor

702. by legal standards,

703. but every day is still

704. a battle to make ends meet.

705. This is known as relative poverty or more formally

706. low socioeconomic status.

707. And a defining characteristic of this condition

708. on average is high psychosocial stress,

709. meaning stress related to social factors.

710. This stress includes not only feelings of general insecurity,

711. such as worrying about paying your bills,

712. affording your child's next doctor visit or losing your job,

713. but also the stress of social status itself.

714. How one feels about themselves compared to others.

715. And while that particular aspect may seem trivial,

716. the fact is our brains have evolved to react

717. in profoundly specific ways when it comes

718. to how we think others see us.

719. We have an acute sensitivity to our perceived social status.

720. In other words, it's not just about the stress

721. of endless worry and the technical difficulty

722. of being poor that's toxic.

723. It's equally if not more about the stress of feeling poor.

724. For example, studies have shown if you take people with the same

725. equal access to free health care,

726. controlling for lifestyle factors,

727. you will still see, as you inch down

728. the ladder of income and wealth, people's health getting

729. progressively worse on average.

730. The lower they are in the class hierarchy

731. the sicker they become.

732. One mechanism for this

733. is that high psychological stress

734. leads to a state of chronic inflammation

735. and what's called an allostatic overload.

736. Allostasis means your body's trying to recover from something

737. working to return to a more balanced state.

738. But it can't. And this causes

739. the body and the mind to wear down rapidly.

740. Living in relative poverty in all its day-to-day insecurity

741. and feelings of low self-worth,

742. keeps people psychologically locked in a stressful state.

743. Ravaging mental and physical health.

744. Consider heart disease. low socioeconomic status

745. creates a 50% greater chance of its development.

746. and not just because people may have poor lifestyle habits,

747. but due to psychosocial stress itself,

748. which increases the hormone cortisol, damaging arteries

749. fostering strokes and heart attacks.

750. Low socioeconomic status is a heart disease risk factor

751. on its own, similar for diabetes and cancer

752. with far higher rates for those relatively poor.

753. As one study put it, "Poverty itself is a carcinogen."

754. And given that heart disease diabetes and cancer

755. were some of the leading causes of death in that highly unequal

756. global society of the early 21st century,

757. these facts help explain why life span gaps

758. between the rich and the poor were shockingly wide.

759. Ranging from 15 to 40 years depending on region.

760. And then you have mental health.

761. Low socioeconomic status fuels much higher instances

762. of depression, anxiety disorders,

763. schizophrenia, suicide,

764. not to mention violence, including child abuse.

765. The condition of poverty was found to be the leading

766. predictor of child abuse, which is particularly troubling

767. since such abuse often leads to adult disorders

768. such as addictions, antisocial behavior,

769. immune system problems, cognitive impairment.

770. In fact, it was found that children simply living

771. in the condition of poverty correlated to large decreases

772. in IQ, decreased brain development,

773. and worst overall, health throughout the life cycle.

774. Personally, I would argue that

775. if child abuse is about negligence and harm,

776. any society that tolerates the existence of poverty

777. when it has the means to end it,

778. is a society that is fundamentally abusive to children.

779. Now, as far as behavioral violence in general, it's no surprise.

780. The pre-transition period was saturated in it.

781. The emotional pathogen behind most acts of violence is shame

782. and inequality produces shame like a finely tuned machine.

783. Shootings, gang violence, terrorism,

784. domestic violence, all highly correlated to inequality,

785. like a toxic cloud hovering over civilization.

786. The more economically unequal a society,

787. the more violent it tended to be on average.

788. And that goes for most everything in terms of negative public health outcomes.

789. With higher incidences of disease, crime, obesity,

790. infant mortality, homicides, teen birth, mental illness,

791. poor education, conflict, domestic abuse,

792. illiteracy, suicide, premature mortality,

793. overall mistrust and much more.

794. There is no viable defense of its existence on any level

795. and it's certainly not representative

796. of a fixed human nature.

797. Humans are basically allergic to socio-economic stratification.

798. What are you doing? Come on!

799. So how's this supposed to happen exactly?

800. I'm not sure.

801. The satellite details we need are very specific.

802. How John pulls this off is going to be interesting.

803. Hey, where did you get the popcorn?

804. Oh, I don't know. It was just here.

805. Right.

806. Are they still in debate mode?

807. Listen for yourself.

808. Hope you went to college.

809. and why the masses will never break out

810. of its self-perpetuated oppression.

811. Historically observable. Biologically sound.

812. And grossly exaggerated.

813. While most may indeed be stuck in lower brain, limbic system reflexes,

814. you underestimate the prefrontal cortex.

815. Our ability to transcend primitive reactions.

816. Whether you believe it or not, Simon,

817. the activists of the world are slowly becoming more aware,

818. - more focused. - Focused on what?

819. The system?

820. The origin of the social psychology that keeps

821. those feedback loops of oppression going.

822. Ah, so threat to the money God?

823. If you want to be spooky about it, sure.

824. The money God is eventually going to be overthrown.

825. This age-old march toward increased the quality

826. and human rights is now accelerating into new territory.

827. And one way or another it's eventually going to arrive

828. at the doorstep of the economy.

829. And then what?

830. You seem to be suffering from a kind of amnesia, John.

831. That moment's long past.

832. Immortalized by the failed Soviet experiment,

833. a memory that's fostered an enduring boogeyman.

834. Anyone today daring to suggest economic equality,

835. which is what I assume you are getting at,

836. as some final stage of human rights progress,

837. will quickly be condemned as a freedom-hating socialist.

838. Propaganda may be strong, but so are the mounting problems,

839. problems that have no in system solution,

840. - forcing people to think differently. - Such as?

841. How about the collective insult that one percent of the world's

842. population now owns 80% of the wealth?

843. Or more importantly, that every life support system

844. continues to be in decline with now millions dislocated.

845. Famines, wars, growing poverty.

846. People will eventually realize the economic mechanisms behind this.

847. Further opening the gate. Same for technological unemployment.

848. Half of all jobs have already been automated.

849. And while nations have compensated by giving basic income,

850. the system contradiction is still clear.

851. What happens when people realize this welfare program is really

852. just an excuse to keep the labor system in place?

853. Hence keeping the ruling class in place.

854. You assume too much, John.

855. Three-quarters of the people on that planet,

856. believe in supernatural beings that live in the sky

857. affecting their lives.

858. You're projecting your rare intelligence

859. upon a sea of glorified savages.

860. And if you think the activist community has anything

861. in their toolkit to even approach system level change,

862. you're not paying attention to their ignorance.

863. You mean the spectacle?

864. People piling into free speech zones,

865. holding up signs, yelling at buildings,

866. ranting on social media, creating political art,

867. poetry, writing books...

868. making movies.

869. I agree it's mostly catharsis.

870. It's a pressure release valve,

871. easing periodic tension,

872. making people feel like they're actually doing something.

873. Aside, of course, from helping the economy,

874. the anti-establishment market

875. has been increasingly profitable.

876. Yes.

877. The anger dollar. If only such outrage

878. could be packaged and traded on Wall Street, right?

879. And then social change might have a chance.

880. But catharsis aside, John, the real issue is hope.

881. Activism today is a hope industry.

882. Take Concordia. It's been irritating

883. and I'm certainly bothered by the technology you have,

884. but your actions have posed no true threat.

885. What you do is give your millions of fans hope.

886. And hope is a drug that subdues.

887. So the long history of rights progress is meaningless?

888. The abolition of slavery, women's liberation,

889. child labor laws, unions, indigenous restitution,

890. global decrees, LGBTQ equality, disability acts?

891. All adaptations and accommodations.

892. No threat to the system itself.

893. Take abject slavery:

894. the origins are clear.

895. It was never about racism.

896. It was about economic exploitation.

897. Hence business as usual.

898. And yet racism took the heat.

899. The system connection goes unrecognized.

900. Limits of debate. People have been conditioned

901. to seek moral causes rather than structural ones.

902. Which is exactly my point, they don't have the vocabulary.

903. Nothing in their experience offers it.

904. The average person engages six hours of media a day

905. much of that news constantly reinforcing the status quo.

906. I'm glad you brought that up. News is a business.

907. And do you think that any for-profit institution is ever

908. going to tolerate ideas that move against how it survives?

909. The odds are stacked, John.

910. The system protects itself on every level

911. almost as if it were a living organism.

912. But for argument's sake,

913. let's assume a formidable movement existed.

914. A united front to change the social structure.

915. Then what?

916. Does it play out on the stage

917. of political theater?

918. A stage owned and operated by business power?

919. Part of the awakening. People are realizing their elected officials

920. are structurally corrupted by default,

921. regardless of intent.

922. - Approaches will shift. - To what?

923. Insurrection, violence, overthrow?

924. A French Revolution?

925. Possible, but certainly not inevitable.

926. A critical mass large enough to stop

927. the machine in its tracks is really all that it's needed.

928. You remember George Orwell?

929. - Of course. - He observed something

930. interesting in this endless battle

931. between the haves and the have nots.

932. If it's true as you say,

933. the masses are beginning to understand the system.

934. Building force against it.

935. You should also recognize

936. that there's a natural counter-movement.

937. The system defending itself once again.

938. And every threat to its integrity,

939. what you see as progress,

940. will be twisted around and presented to the public

941. as an attack on their way of life.

942. Those outliers that you spoke of,

943. the terrorists, gangs, criminals, mass murderers,

944. insurgencies, hackers, the Orions.

945. The Concordias.

946. All empower the system in the end

947. providing excuses to further tighten things down.

948. More police, more prisons,

949. more laws, more bombs, more surveillance.

950. More control.

951. Again, no conspiracy required.

952. It's the masses themselves that push for this,

953. willfully exchanging their freedom for security.

954. So they can comfortably return to their workstations

955. and continue pulling levers on the machine

956. just as a money God ordained.

957. In the end, it wasn't the so-called communist,

958. socialists, anarchists or whatever counterculture group

959. that posed the most serious argument for the Great Transition.

960. It was the environmental scientist.

961. One could debate the ins and outs of morality,

962. public health and human rights,

963. but if the habitat goes all that becomes moot.

964. And at the turn of the 21st century

965. our ecological negligence was pretty embarrassing.

966. With great inefficiency we were using

967. far more resources each year

968. than the planet produced.

969. Had destroyed vast realms of biodiversity,

970. polluted the air, the soil, the water,

971. not only destabilizing the entire global ecosystem

972. but by extension society itself.

973. The most common question I get when teaching this history is,

974. "How is it even possible things could get so bad?

975. How could everyone just keep blindly pulling levers

976. on that destructive economic machine

977. and not see what was happening?"

978. And it comes down to a kind of faith-based conditioning,

979. a religious pathology taking the form

980. of mass economic behavior.

981. The doctrine was that of universal scarcity.

982. People had been taught to believe that at no time,

983. under no circumstance, can economic balance exist.

984. The very idea an economy could be organized

985. to efficiently provide for everyone while also being

986. in balance with the habitat was a sacrilegious taboo.

987. The cult of scarcity and consumption wasn't having it.

988. They considered it utopian thinking.

989. Supporting the myth that people had infinite wants

990. and were accusatively insatiable.

991. Hence, the poor had to exist and if anything was the problem,

992. it must be population not the system.

993. That was the prevailing dogma. There must be too many people.

994. You can't have ecological balance in a system

995. that requires constant consumer activity to work.

996. It's one thing to consume based on need.

997. It's another to consume because the system demands it.

998. And the market system of economics needed

999. constant turnover of goods to keep and create jobs,

1000. providing workers, which of course were also consumers,

1001. with income to spend back into the system,

1002. endlessly repeating the cycle of cyclical consumption.

1003. If it didn't repeat fast enough or slowed,

1004. the economy contracted.

1005. Purchasing power wasn't circulating

1006. and the society proceeded to shut down.

1007. A very unique historical moment occurred in the early 20th century

1008. when it was realized that technology was now creating a good surplus

1009. and great confusion ensued.

1010. The problem was this newfound productive efficiency

1011. was not being met by people buying more stuff.

1012. So two competing perspectives emerged:

1013. on one side you had idealists, envisioning a new era.

1014. If we can produce an overall good surplus,

1015. why not lower the cost of goods respectively

1016. reducing work hours and increased pay in proportion?

1017. So you can now have say a person working only two days a week

1018. without losing their standard of living

1019. since the market value of labor and goods adjusted

1020. to compensate for the increased efficiency.

1021. This logic makes perfect sense when it comes

1022. to the basic principle of supply and demand.

1023. Suddenly people have more free time, not buried in debt.

1024. They can enrich their social life, family life,

1025. and pursue the things that have true meaning.

1026. Well, that's not the way it played out

1027. nor would it ever.

1028. Which brings us to the system level perspective

1029. since the system itself simply isn't designed inherently

1030. for steady state equilibrium.

1031. Market economics is predicated on a more is better ethic.

1032. To be competitive in the quest for market share.

1033. That's what's incentivized.

1034. More growth, more sales, more employees,

1035. more capital accumulation, more profit, constant expansion.

1036. So what happened was to be expected,

1037. fortifying a new industry,

1038. commercial advertising.

1039. What was once a simple media service,

1040. notifying people of new goods they may need,

1041. turned into a powerful form of manipulative propaganda.

1042. In the later stages, companies spent more money on advertising

1043. than they did on research and development.

1044. What advertising does is abuse our social nature

1045. by making people feel like they're missing out.

1046. They're not good enough without this,

1047. they're lower in status without that.

1048. They feel excluded from others if they don't own something.

1049. And as pathetic as all that sounds it had

1050. a profound effect on society with everyone keeping up

1051. with the Joneses in a hideous feedback loop.

1052. And the result as industrial productivity

1053. still continued to rise, people worked more than ever,

1054. had less free time, were in staggering amounts of debt,

1055. and arguably had a lower standard of living

1056. when you actually account for human happiness

1057. and the level of stress people endured.

1058. All to keep the economic machine moving.

1059. One thing that's really interesting in all this,

1060. is that the economic system back then

1061. embraced a fantastic paradox.

1062. So here you had a model

1063. that defended itself by the assumption

1064. of universal scarcity. Forcing competition,

1065. oppression, exploitation,

1066. poverty and so on, while at the same time

1067. the entire machine needed infinite consumption to work.

1068. Think about that for a moment.

1069. How do you justify these harsh outcomes of assumed scarcity

1070. when the system itself disregards the idea entirely

1071. when it comes to the very mechanics that make it work?

1072. And the bottom line is this wasn't an economy at all

1073. by definition, it was an anti-economy,

1074. with human beings functioning like cancer cells

1075. eating the Earth alive.

1076. In systems theory this is known as a positive feedback loop.

1077. Don't let that word, positive, confuse you

1078. as there's nothing positive about it.

1079. It means there's nothing working to balance system behavior

1080. to its regulatory environment.

1081. That environment in the case of Economics

1082. is a finite planet with a delicate ecosystem.

1083. If respect for scarcity was taken seriously,

1084. the goal would be to focus on efficiency,

1085. working to reduce resource use, reduce waste

1086. in the process of meeting human needs.

1087. Manifesting of course a culture that's mature enough

1088. to understand the boundaries of its own existence.

1089. Truly positive economic metrics

1090. are the opposite of what was sought back then.

1091. Degrowth, so to speak, would be the goal.

1092. Doing more with less and needing less.

1093. People would go on TV to give an economic report

1094. and say something like, "Great metrics for the economy this month.

1095. We reduced our use of energy and raw materials by another three percent.

1096. Lowering sales once again with less need for human employment,

1097. Increasing overall efficiency by a factor of two.

1098. We continue to be in homeostatic balance with the planet

1099. for yet another year and humanity has more free time than ever."

1100. Here's Tom with the weather.

1101. "Well, it's clear skies

1102. across the hemispheres.

1103. The Amazon rainforest isn't on fire.

1104. We aren't clogging the atmosphere with CO2,

1105. and we haven't seen swarms of refugees cascading

1106. across continents in search of food for some time.

1107. And the fog of billionaire douchebaggery

1108. seems to have cleared a bit. We do expect some precipitation

1109. adding to our already abundant fresh water supply

1110. further improving topsoil while global abundance measures

1111. has everyone sitting pretty for the foreseeable future."

1112. Yeah, you would never hear anything like that, instead the opposite.

1113. Some dickhead PhD ivy league market economist

1114. religious fanatic who literally

1115. has no clue what the word economy even means,

1116. would come on and say, "Quarterly earnings

1117. were down last month in most sectors as GDP slows.

1118. We're seeing an increasing in unemployment

1119. due to the contraction, but hopefully

1120. the coming Christmas season will spark new consumer demand

1121. while it's anticipated that the central bank

1122. will lower interest rates and buy more bonds

1123. to increase liquidity to ease the credit crunch.

1124. Hopefully this will improve consumer confidence

1125. inspiring investors to reallocate capital

1126. into da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da."

1127. Translated this means, "We need you people to take on more loans,

1128. go into more debt to buy more things to create more jobs

1129. so we can sell more things and use more of the Earth's

1130. resources. If we're lucky industry will improve

1131. on shortening good life spans through planned obsolescence.

1132. Make things impossible to repair.

1133. Hopefully more single-use goods will become the norm

1134. so people can buy and throw away at an ever increasing rate

1135. keeping this shit show going."

1136. So I want to shift gears here a bit

1137. and ask you about your work in group identity.

1138. Specifically how it relates to economic conditions.

1139. Well, like everything is complex.

1140. As we talked about earlier our social nature

1141. can get the best of us and we have some

1142. interesting evolutionary wiring when it comes to groups.

1143. Us and them, in groups and out groups,

1144. and perhaps what's most unique is

1145. what defines an us and what defines a them

1146. is subjective and culturally dependent.

1147. If you grow up only being exposed to people who look

1148. like you and then you're exposed to those that don't,

1149. your brain tends to fire with apprehension.

1150. But the same thing also occurs with something even more trivial

1151. like baseball caps. You show people who like

1152. a certain team photos of that team and then throw in a photo

1153. of an opposing team member, the same thing occurs.

1154. So for whatever evolutionary reason,

1155. we have a propensity to divide society up and make judgments.

1156. And there is no value in it whatsoever.

1157. It's just dangerous baggage.

1158. And before the Great Transition,

1159. because the economy was fundamentally divisive

1160. due to its competitive nature,

1161. bigotry and group oppression was a huge problem.

1162. So you have the human species developing in pockets

1163. around the world with different environmental exposures.

1164. Not only shaping appearance such as color of skin,

1165. but also setting in motion cultural differences

1166. and as these groups began to mix it got very messy,

1167. which is why you see, especially by the 20th century,

1168. strong social movements by people trying to stop

1169. group oppression, at least on the legal and political level.

1170. The demand for gender, ethnic, sexual orientation,

1171. and creed equality was constant

1172. with modest success given the fact society was still stuck

1173. in an economic mode based upon mutual exploitation

1174. amplifying the tendency for group antagonism.

1175. But there was a side effect to all of this:

1176. rather than seeking equality to neutralize

1177. the group identity problem, many chose to embrace it.

1178. They took what was an artificial construct imposed upon them

1179. and defined themselves by it.

1180. For example, someone descended

1181. from the African slave trade in America

1182. is only a black person via the construct of being called so.

1183. There is no such thing as a black person

1184. just as there's no such thing as a grey person,

1185. just as there is no such thing as a white person.

1186. These are all social constructs

1187. that have invented to artificially categorize people.

1188. And the same applies to culture,

1189. just as there is no such thing as a white person,

1190. there is no such thing as an Italian person

1191. or a Buddhist person or an Irish person or a Jewish person.

1192. It is one thing to have a valued practice, meditation,

1193. or sense of philosophy that inspires you and educates you.

1194. History is rich with beautiful traditions across many belief systems.

1195. Dogma aside religion itself helps to serve as a kind

1196. of gateway into our spiritual and intellectual evolution.

1197. Finding meaning in meditation,

1198. or putting up a Christmas tree or lighting the menorah

1199. creates ritualistic connection that can have great personal meeting.

1200. But engaging Buddhist practice doesn't make you Buddhist.

1201. Being born from a bloodline in Italy doesn't mean you're an Italian

1202. and going to church doesn't mean you're Christian.

1203. The moment you go from a person that enjoys

1204. the practice of something to saying,

1205. "I am this or that,"

1206. is the moment you draw dangerous lines through the species.

1207. Taking such pride in your ethnic,

1208. religious, or regional background

1209. creates an identity with the group by label

1210. and it is fundamentally elitist and bigoted by nature.

1211. There is only one race, the human race.

1212. And within the confines of that fact

1213. to separate yourself any further

1214. leads to absolutely nothing positive.

1215. Kike.

1216. No, looks more like a wop.

1217. Yeah greaseball dago to be sure.

1218. Just another Eurotrash wetback.

1219. Cracker guinea freeloader.

1220. And look at those clothes.

1221. A Nancy Drew Becky wanna be Stacy.

1222. Looking for her chad that never comes.

1223. No doubt, a tree hugging, dirt worshipping feminazi.

1224. Soy boy beta cuck magnet.

1225. A card-carrying purple haired, muff diving, spook loving.

1226. Self-righteous socialist pinko.

1227. Coloring in her little book with her junglebunny.

1228. Towelhead libtard comrades.

1229. Just a sea of bleeding-heart social justice warrior welfare queens.

1230. Bootlicking, anti-freedom globalist, vegan red zombie.

1231. A communist snowflake cumdumpster.

1232. So just move back to Cuba with all the other crybaby.

1233. Regressive, leftist.

1234. Marxist, Antifa.

1235. Utopianists.

1236. Break time. - Yeah, I need to zone out for a bit.

1237. This final programming is melting my brain.

1238. - What's this? - Good question.

1239. Some old film by this guy, Joseph.

1240. It's like an abstract social commentary.

1241. I haven't quite figured it out.

1242. Looks pretentious.

1243. How's the great debate?

1244. That's what I'm going to find out.

1245. I'm sorry.

1246. I thought we were trying to save the world.

1247. Everything's ahead of schedule.

1248. And I can't do much more without the satellite coordinates.

1249. - Plus this is getting good. - Hm-mm.

1250. According to the script, looks like John's about to school

1251. Simon on the nature of hierarchy.

1252. Wait, how is it we're seeing both in the shot at once.

1253. The camera links to his eye.

1254. Shh. Audiences don't usually notice things like that.

1255. And besides where do you see equality in the animal kingdom?

1256. No one's equal, John.

1257. And it would be painfully boring if they were.

1258. Humans are diverse.

1259. Everyone has different capabilities,

1260. strengths, weaknesses, talents.

1261. The push for social equality and human rights

1262. is about how that diversity is understood.

1263. And you've seemed to think people should only be valued

1264. by how well they compete in the business game

1265. as if the violence spread between the rich and the poor

1266. reflects objective human worth.

1267. John, I amuse myself with the notion

1268. of the money God because it isn't far from the truth.

1269. Some system has to exist to divide up a scarce world

1270. and nature has spoken as to what that system must be.

1271. Those who reach the top of the pyramid deserve it,

1272. not because you or I think it's right,

1273. but because that's what nature is selecting for.

1274. So nature prefers sociopaths and psychopaths

1275. to guide the species? Because those are the dominating

1276. traits of the ruling class today.

1277. The system is as the system does.

1278. Is that what the Malthusian Mandate is about?

1279. To then select out the poor and weak.

1280. We'll get to the mandate in a moment.

1281. I'm still bothered by your denial of the fact

1282. our social system reflects our true biological nature.

1283. And if this revolution you speak of did magically occur,

1284. it would just be a matter of time before the innate

1285. compulsion towards social dominance prevailed yet again.

1286. Deep down, John, the slaves don't want to be free.

1287. They want to be slave owners.

1288. Nice one.

1289. Too bad history paints a different picture.

1290. Our hierarchies have remained

1291. constant throughout recorded civilization.

1292. For perhaps the last 12,000 years, sure.

1293. But you know as well as I do, before the discovery

1294. of agriculture, there was no such thing.

1295. Ninety-nine percent of human history has been egalitarian.

1296. I said civilization, John.

1297. Meandering hunter-gatherer tribes

1298. chucking spears and eating grubs isn't civilization.

1299. How contemporacist of you.

1300. Yet 20th century study of numerous hunter-gatherer tribes,

1301. those still surviving in remote areas just as they did

1302. thousands of years prior, actually show socially

1303. rich cultures. Adult life spans not far from ours.

1304. Relatively peaceful in balance with nature.

1305. No leaders, no group hierarchy, no inequality.

1306. To argue today's society is somehow more civilized is dubious at best.

1307. Well, then perhaps you can encourage

1308. all your enlightened followers

1309. to come together and live out their utopian

1310. fantasy in the Amazon jungle.

1311. You mean what's left of it? What hasn't been destroyed

1312. by the supposedly advanced culture that's ravaged

1313. the natural world into total decline

1314. in the name of infinite consumption and economic growth?

1315. And the point here, Simon, is hunter-gatherer cultures

1316. are evidence of human variability.

1317. variability which contradicts your vague biological determinism.

1318. John, just because history shows

1319. a range of behaviors across time doesn't prove anything.

1320. The introduction of agriculture indeed changed

1321. the human condition because it triggered a dormant trait

1322. in our evolutionary psychology.

1323. A trait that wasn't expressed before.

1324. How?

1325. By the advent

1326. of economic surplus.

1327. Economic surplus.

1328. Resources and goods that could be stored,

1329. hoarded, stockpiled, owned,

1330. traded, controlled, leveraged for personal gain.

1331. A phenomenon that was impossible in a hunter-gatherer reality.

1332. And it was that realization that sparked our now

1333. omnipresent drive toward dominance and hierarchy.

1334. I didn't know that.

1335. Genetic dormancy of an evolutionary expression.

1336. Needed an environmental trigger,

1337. psychological drive, but then morphs into complex

1338. oppressive institutions and structures.

1339. Compelling. Intuitive. Plausible.

1340. Too bad it's total bullshit.

1341. All simpleton, pedestrian, bio-deterministic

1342. conclusions that are nothing more than elitist projections.

1343. You think it's wise to insult me given this circumstance, John.

1344. And listen.

1345. Agriculture did change everything.

1346. But not because of someone's dormant psychological

1347. drive magically triggered by economic surplus.

1348. It was about what such a society technically required,

1349. dramatically shifting incentives and very nature of human relationships.

1350. Think about it. First you need the proper land,

1351. water, the right conditions to farm,

1352. then creating settlements around those fruitful areas

1353. as opposed to foraging.

1354. And since land quality varies some settlements will prosper

1355. due to their geography and some will falter.

1356. So what happens when a group finds itself with failed crops

1357. and no way to survive the winter?

1358. They may trade with other groups,

1359. building out what we call a market today,

1360. giving way to the idea of property and so on.

1361. Or if they have nothing to trade, desperate,

1362. they may invade, they may steal, compete,

1363. establishing the need for protection, laws, armies,

1364. the state institution itself.

1365. At the same time people begin to notice the imbalance

1366. and power of this new propertied reality,

1367. rationalizing the hoarding of wealth for the sake of future security.

1368. Hence the birth of inequity, poverty, socio-economic class.

1369. Simon, every major structural aspect of society today,

1370. from ownership to trade, to nation states

1371. to institutional warfare at the competitive ethic

1372. to vast economic inequality and power hierarchy was predictable.

1373. Snowballing ever since.

1374. So your theory is if you change the structure of society

1375. you change the human condition?

1376. - There's no going back, John. - No one's going back.

1377. We're going forward.

1378. Humanity has been trapped in this immature stage

1379. for too long, not to mention the sickness manifest

1380. by this endless striving towards social status is palpable.

1381. Children, when who asked what they want

1382. to be when they grow up say, "Rich and famous."

1383. How the most wealthy nations, those beacons of supposed

1384. success are by far the most mentally ill.

1385. People don't know who they are, where they're going

1386. and what they're doing.

1387. Lost in a perversion of social image.

1388. A spectacle that no longer has any relationship

1389. to anything real.

1390. So I'd like to go back to the subject of inequality.

1391. But this time to understand the mechanics

1392. of the oppression how the hierarchy was kept in place?

1393. Okay, let's start with money.

1394. Money was the infrastructure of the market economy

1395. and how it was created and moved around

1396. was instrumental to lower class oppression.

1397. So you had these things called banks and they had

1398. the ungodly power to make abstract value out of nothing.

1399. If a person needed money for a home or car or business,

1400. they went to their local bank and applied for a loan,

1401. and if approved the person signed a contract

1402. binding them to return that loaned money at a future date.

1403. Though, it's not really a lone

1404. in the sense of somebody lending out what they already owned.

1405. Contrary to what most assumed banks didn't loan out money

1406. they actually had, they instead created new money

1407. in the form of credit backed by debt.

1408. So on one side money represented

1409. a store of value people could spend,

1410. while on the other it was a liability made out of debt.

1411. In other words, for every dollar that existed,

1412. there was also a debt of a dollar

1413. owed to some bank somewhere.

1414. That was how money was brought into existence

1415. and when someone repaid the loan debt the money then disappeared.

1416. That understood any kind of service in that economy

1417. sought a profit, and in the case of a loan,

1418. that came in the form of a fee called interest.

1419. So the borrower not only had to eventually repay the loan

1420. but also the interest charged as well.

1421. Imagine an island of a hundred people,

1422. they decide to organize themselves through market economy.

1423. They plop a bank down and each of them take a loan

1424. for 100 credits of money at ten percent interest.

1425. So they all now have 10,000 credits total

1426. in their money supply and they begin to work

1427. in exchange creating economic activity.

1428. When the time comes to pay back the loan,

1429. they realized they owe not only the 100 credits,

1430. but the ten percent interest, so 110 credits.

1431. Same for the whole society,

1432. in total everyone on the island now owes the bank

1433. 11,000 credits.

1434. But yet, only 10,000 actually exist in the money supply.

1435. There is now more depth owed than money in existence

1436. due to the interest charged.

1437. So three things can happen: one, those short

1438. can take on more loans to temporarily cover

1439. the old ones postponing the problem.

1440. Two, people could ramp up competitive trade

1441. increasing economic activity

1442. to try to get enough from others to cover the debt,

1443. displacing the debt responsibility like a game of musical chairs.

1444. Or three, the bank comes in and takes real property

1445. to compensate for the outstanding debt,

1446. which is inevitably what happens somewhere down the line anyway.

1447. Wait, that, that can't be right.

1448. That would just be a system of organized theft.

1449. Yes, banks were vehicles of creation on one side,

1450. and a system of organized theft

1451. and class oppression on the other.

1452. But in a large complex global society, one based

1453. on economic growth, money moves so rapidly

1454. it was very hard for the mechanics of this to be recognized.

1455. Obscured by things like the boom-and-bust cycle,

1456. monetary expansion and contraction.

1457. Mm, please continue. - So back to our island again.

1458. But this time for the sake of simplicity,

1459. let's remove the interest fee from the equation,

1460. and focus only on the outcomes of competitive trade itself.

1461. So the 10,000 credits of money has been moving around

1462. through trade, labor investment,

1463. starting businesses, hiring employees,

1464. and as is inevitable to the game,

1465. some businesses will outperform winning disproportion income,

1466. while others will fall behind losing income.

1467. And naturally those with more money

1468. can then increase their gaming advantage becoming

1469. ever more competitive and of course more prone to keep winning.

1470. As the old adage went, the rich get richer

1471. and the poor get poorer.

1472. A small business with limited means simply can't compete

1473. with a larger one that can outperform them in the same service

1474. due to having more resources to work with.

1475. So on our Island, we see an inevitable

1476. point in time where say ten percent of that population

1477. managed to acquire 90% of the island's wealth

1478. while the other 90% of the population

1479. now has only ten percent.

1480. By the way, this isn't some arbitrary assumption,

1481. this can be modeled mathematically.

1482. The dynamics of mass competitive trade in any society

1483. always moves toward disequilibrium.

1484. So back to my point, when you put this together

1485. a displaced debt burden and the application of interest,

1486. you can begin to see the insidiousness.

1487. An economic process based upon competitive advantage and trade

1488. that inevitably consolidates wealth increasing that advantage.

1489. Coupled with a financial system that is charging

1490. interest on loans that can never be fully repaid.

1491. So it's no surprise that in the early 21st century

1492. the global economy had about 200 trillion in debt

1493. and only 80 trillion in outstanding currency.

1494. While in the United States, then considered

1495. the richest nation on the planet,

1496. half of the population had less than 1,000 dollars in savings

1497. while also spending more each year than they actually earned.

1498. Just trying to keep up.

1499. While on the global level in nearly 50 percent

1500. of the population lived in poverty on less

1501. than $5.50 a day as roughly 30 individuals.

1502. Yes, 30, owned more wealth than the bottom half, 3.6 billion.

1503. Now, there are plenty of other intermitted things

1504. that contribute to this disparity.

1505. Offshore tax havens for the rich.

1506. The mythology of trickle-down economics were government favors

1507. business over the public's well-being, gaming strategies

1508. to restrict the power of unions and keep wages low,

1509. various shenanigans related to this thing

1510. called the stock market,

1511. but the financial system and its use of depth is really

1512. the foundation of it all.

1513. Wow, you, you,

1514. you would expect riots in the streets if people

1515. - really understood that. - Well, there eventually were.

1516. But again, at the time, people just couldn't see it.

1517. But, no, it wasn't until the complete abolition of debt

1518. on all levels that human slavery finally ended on this planet.

1519. Speaking of awareness I'd like to talk

1520. a little about how the awakening started.

1521. I know Concordia was instrumental

1522. to technical change later on, but what about before that

1523. perhaps starting in 20th century?

1524. Well, it's sporadic.

1525. The largest move against this system was

1526. the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia inspired by a man

1527. named Karl Marx, that brought about the Soviet Union

1528. which existed for a couple decades.

1529. And it employed a top-down regulation system

1530. they called communism but it proved to be

1531. inefficient and oppressive.

1532. It was also wildly opposed by Western capitalist powers,

1533. which sought to destroy it by any means necessary.

1534. Criticism was generally infused with civil rights movements.

1535. For example, Mahatma Gandhi, who helped liberate India

1536. from Colonial rule, was notably against the system

1537. recognizing its creation of poverty.

1538. Once saying that "poverty was the worst form of violence."

1539. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

1540. was also steadfast against capitalism,

1541. seeing it as a part of a system of oppression

1542. fueling racism. Same for the Black Panther Party

1543. that had chapters all over the world in the 1960s.

1544. You also had more academic minded organizations

1545. like the technocracy movement

1546. largely inspired by famous economist, Thorstein Veblen,

1547. who recognize that a society

1548. run by business people was a very bad idea.

1549. And by the 21st century when economic inequality was reaching

1550. unprecedented extremes coupled with a growing ecological crisis

1551. many more were realizing something had to be done.

1552. But there is one that sticks out to me in the context

1553. of the value system disorder present at the time.

1554. An iconic speech given by a man named Omar Padillo.

1555. Omar was born in poverty in Los Angeles, California.

1556. And as a young man, he just happened to win

1557. the largest state lottery ever in 2037 and he decided

1558. to use that money to solve the vast homeless crisis in his hometown.

1559. He funded non-profits, established housing treatment centers.

1560. Not only getting people off the streets,

1561. but really helping them recover and acclimate.

1562. Something that hadn't been done before.

1563. And they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize for it.

1564. But what he had to say during his speech

1565. wasn't exactly what they expected.

1566. Thank you.

1567. And while I'm happy for those

1568. we have helped over the past few years,

1569. taking about 75,000 homeless off the Los Angeles streets,

1570. I must say that the problem

1571. at hand runs much deeper than the poverty

1572. we see around us. When I created this program,

1573. focusing on just this one regional crises,

1574. my long-term hope was that it would set a new precedent.

1575. That those who disproportionately benefit

1576. in this world would be inspired, step up

1577. and help take responsibility for the plight

1578. of the less fortunate.

1579. After all, what I have done here

1580. is merely a patch that can only help a few.

1581. For the true source of poverty,

1582. our social system, continues to go unaddressed.

1583. We live in a world of stories and myths.

1584. And we've been told that the vast inequities that we see

1585. is the price we must pay for innovation and progress.

1586. Well, innovation to what end

1587. and how do we define this notion of progress?

1588. For if progress is about how much one can own, the availability of jobs

1589. the state of a nation's GDP, the rise of the stock market,

1590. or the development of some gadget to entertain and distract you,

1591. then we face a serious existential crisis.

1592. I submit that true progress can only be measured in the health,

1593. stability, integrity and responsible freedom of a civilization.

1594. Responsible to ourselves, responsible to each other

1595. and responsible to their earthly habitat we all share.

1596. And by those measures, my friends,

1597. there is now little progress to be found.

1598. As we all sit idly by, presupposing

1599. that the way society works is the only way it ever could.

1600. That said, if it's true that we must persist

1601. in this inhumane economic order,

1602. an order that has proven it can only create affluence

1603. for a minority at the cost of destitution for the majority,

1604. then our only choice is to seek a new level

1605. of humanitarian effort.

1606. Today, three people have more wealth

1607. than the bottom 75% of the world's population,

1608. six billion people,

1609. the total wealth of the 4,000 billionaires out there

1610. have the means to end global poverty a hundred times over,

1611. and yet if you study their philanthropy,

1612. it is clear that they are far more concerned

1613. with their own interests, their own comforts,

1614. than working to counter this ongoing structural violence.

1615. You see there's a deeper kind of poverty here.

1616. A spiritual poverty, a poverty that grows a culture

1617. of sociopaths and the more they have, the more they want,

1618. and the less they seem to care otherwise.

1619. Moral bankruptcy hiding behind this age-old story

1620. that one can have a billion dollars in the bank while others starve

1621. is somehow natural to the human condition.

1622. In a number of months my program will end

1623. as the funds will be gone.

1624. And to date not one wealthy, so-called philanthropist

1625. has offered to help keep the program running.

1626. Now I know this event is about peace,

1627. but it must be understood that the wealthy of this world,

1628. those at the root of true political power are sick.

1629. Their priorities have nothing to do with true progress.

1630. And the time for tolerance is over.

1631. The billionaire's of this world are not symbols of success.

1632. They are symbols of violence.

1633. And until that violence ends,

1634. there will be no peace on this planet.

1635. I am sorry, Peter. Can we cut?

1636. Cut!

1637. Well, it's, you know, it's this opening section.

1638. I'm— I'm still not getting it. I know we've been through it but, uh,

1639. - it's just not landing for me. I'm just going to keep rolling here.

1640. Can you grab that color swatch for me?

1641. You have to think about the interpretation in reference

1642. - to the— All right. Thank you.

1643. This tripod head is toilet.

1644. You know, my latte was cold this morning.

1645. And that's my problem because?

1646. Okay, okay, I, I think I got it.

1647. - Thanks. No problem. All right

1648. - everybody, let's move.

1649. Jesus, take a screenwriting class for Christ's sake.

1650. No one's going to understand any of this shit.

1651. Camera? Rolling.

1652. Audio? Speeding.

1653. [man 2] Slate.

1654. [man 3] Scene 37, take 23.

1655. What if I told you, John, what many see

1656. as problems in the world are actually solutions in transition.

1657. Is that some kind of Taoist riddle?

1658. Poverty, crime, war, disease, even the ongoing

1659. destruction of the habitat.

1660. What if they were actually productive forces

1661. assisting a larger end?

1662. I'd suggest you lighten up on the Nietzsche.

1663. What separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom

1664. is that we have no natural predators.

1665. Nothing out there to snatch us up for an afternoon snack.

1666. We're also uniquely aware of our own mortality and fight it

1667. with hospitals, medicine, inoculations.

1668. Little stopping us from reproducing

1669. to the very limit of our host,

1670. at least not externally.

1671. Evolution had to do something a bit different with us.

1672. So, instead, weare our own predators.

1673. Predator and prey in one.

1674. How convenient.

1675. Which explains not only why humans murder each other

1676. at a rate unparalleled by any other species,

1677. but also why we've generated a social structure

1678. that by systemic force further ensures a consistent rate

1679. of premature mortality.

1680. - You mean structural violence. - Embedded into the very design

1681. of civilization itself.

1682. So that is what the Malthusian Mandate does,

1683. regulate how to kill off the week.

1684. No, the Mandate isn't a policy of action.

1685. It's a policy of inaction, a commitment

1686. not to interfere with the natural course of the system.

1687. So the invisible hand of the market has a machete.

1688. I don't expect to win you over, John.

1689. I'm just telling you the way it is.

1690. I agree it's ugly.

1691. But without the premature death

1692. that capitalism brings in the form of inequality

1693. that planet would have flown off its access long ago.

1694. As you know,

1695. the Industrial Revolution set in motion

1696. population growth that was hyperbolic.

1697. And out of the 70 million who now die each year

1698. 30 million do so because of unequal conditions.

1699. So 40 percent of all global deaths

1700. are structurally inflicted,

1701. you know, there's a word for that, Simon.

1702. Oh, don't be dramatic.

1703. Again, this is system-level behavior, John.

1704. Not some nefarious conspiracy.

1705. You want to know what the population would be

1706. if this wasn't the case?

1707. If we removed inequality driven mortality

1708. for the last 100 years accounting for fertility,

1709. about 16 billion would be sucking up

1710. resources on that planet today

1711. with a carrying capacity still at only ten billion.

1712. And you think things are messing now.

1713. First of all, Simon.

1714. When the great Reverend Thomas Malthus decided

1715. population would forever outpace resources,

1716. only one billion existed.

1717. We're almost ten times that now despite his projections.

1718. Second, in the modern era,

1719. the greatest predictor of regional

1720. overpopulation is poverty itself.

1721. If the world ever did abolish it, increasing education,

1722. population growth would dramatically slow

1723. likely approaching equilibrium.

1724. Your 16 billion number doesn't account for that.

1725. And third, you're completely disregarding

1726. what the Fullerian study proved long ago,

1727. a study sanctioned by your own department.

1728. The Fullerian study was purely theoretical, John.

1729. A model only possible if humans magically conform

1730. to strict sustainability and efficiency principles.

1731. It required a completely egalitarian

1732. structure without money and markets.

1733. A fantasy given once again the reality of human nature.

1734. Fantasy or not, the study was clear.

1735. Not only can the Earth hold upwards of 30 billion,

1736. it can do so with each having a standard of living equivalent

1737. to today's upper-middle-class.

1738. Yeah, again, assuming equal distribution,

1739. which is absurd.

1740. Humans have infinite wants.

1741. No... they don't.

1742. Infinite wants is a value disorder,

1743. inspired by an economy that needs infinite consumption to work.

1744. People are just as prone to be minimalist as they are materialist.

1745. Comes down to the social condition.

1746. Today, if people didn't have highly acquisitive values,

1747. the entire economy would collapse.

1748. Fine, believe what you want, John.

1749. It's all moot anyway.

1750. You asked me what the Malthusian Mandate

1751. was and I'm telling you.

1752. Whether you like it or not,

1753. this is the reality of things today.

1754. We got Mandate metadata,

1755. please tell me this is recording.

1756. It certainly is.

1757. Looks like John got his subterfuge.

1758. So how's this organized then?

1759. - Tracking demographics and mechanisms? We are.

1760. As you'll notice conditions related to absolute

1761. poverty in the third world countries account

1762. for about 40 percent of all premature deaths.

1763. And I see you're also tracking poverty related illness

1764. and violence in the industrialized nations.

1765. With heart diseases, cancer and diabetes

1766. remaining at the top,

1767. while suicide, inner-city gang warfare

1768. and drug overdoses coming a close second.

1769. What about deep stomach relationships?

1770. Lack of education, childhood stress?

1771. Correlated as well.

1772. Actually, very consistent.

1773. Regional cycles of deprivation are like clockwork.

1774. Poor families continue to produce more poor families,

1775. - even in the richest states. - And the mechanisms?

1776. Standard class war stuff. Only difference now

1777. is ecological and climate crisis,

1778. which has rapidly increased mortality

1779. in poverty-stricken desert and coastal regions.

1780. But the same story otherwise.

1781. The rich get richer with disproportional

1782. opportunity in capital.

1783. The political establishment

1784. favors business and wealthy interests

1785. over social support programs,

1786. and the banking system keeps a solid stranglehold on social

1787. mobility by saturating the lower class in insurmountable debt.

1788. Same on the global level

1789. through international finance institutions,

1790. structural adjustments, austerity sanctions.

1791. In fact, the financial system is really

1792. the glue that holds all this together

1793. keeping constant downward pressure

1794. on the impecunious masses.

1795. Final warning. Please evacuate proximal region.

1796. Program will commence in ten,

1797. nine, eight, seven, six,

1798. five, four...

1799. Centuries ago humans discovered hydrocarbon energy,

1800. fossil fuels, and for a good chunk of time,

1801. it was a critical mechanism advancing civilization,

1802. but after a while it became obvious that

1803. its continued use posed insurmountable repercussions,

1804. damaging the environment.

1805. So we eventually had to stop using it completely,

1806. figuring out other means. And this is a good analogy

1807. as to why we also needed to transcend that social system.

1808. I look at capitalism

1809. as an adolescent stage in the growth of civilization.

1810. Let's let loose and have people be selfish building and creating

1811. in a belligerent manner with no regard for consequences.

1812. And we learned a lot. I think without this phase,

1813. we wouldn't have been able to recognize and amplify

1814. what really makes us unique as a species.

1815. We started as DNA moving from simplicity

1816. to complexity evolving a brain with consciousness,

1817. while blessed with a profound social nature,

1818. merging us into a truly global consciousness

1819. continuing this expansion.

1820. Not through our biology but through the sharing

1821. of knowledge, cultural evolution.

1822. There was a great library in a city called Alexandria

1823. long, long ago, and it contained some of the most

1824. foundational texts of human civilization.

1825. And sadly it was destroyed in war.

1826. Many centuries later, a famous astronomer named

1827. Carl Sagan, commented on the subject,

1828. So the great question of scientific and hence,

1829. economic progress, inevitably becomes,

1830. How do we harness our different talents and skills

1831. to bring out our best potential,

1832. not only as individuals, but as a civilization?

1833. We know the hardware, so to speak.

1834. A finite yet profoundly regenerative planet

1835. bound by laws of nature

1836. with our species part of a delicate ecosystem

1837. sharing common ground.

1838. The true measure of economic progress

1839. is simply doing more with less.

1840. Efficiency, the ability to build something for a given purpose

1841. that is not only better than what came before it in utility,

1842. but also better in terms of reducing the amount of labor,

1843. energy and resources required to make it work.

1844. Which means it all comes down to design.

1845. And back to my point about markets,

1846. the infrastructure it created set the groundwork

1847. for powerful new means to merge human talent and skill.

1848. We just needed to remove the counter-productive aspects.

1849. And, needless to say, wasteful human competition,

1850. proprietary knowledge, and people motivated to sell things over and over

1851. to feed a system of infinite growth wasn't going to work.

1852. There had to be a way to bridge minds and solve problems directly,

1853. not by proxy of market competition and profit.

1854. I think the smartest thing we ever did as a society

1855. was the adoption of an open source, shared resource commons.

1856. It exponentially catapulted our problem solving creativity.

1857. We ended corporations, localized communities,

1858. and shared all knowledge.

1859. In fact, if it wasn't for that move,

1860. I really don't think we would've solved the climate crisis

1861. and all the other ecological and social problems

1862. we faced before the Great Transition.

1863. I still stand in awe today at the stunningly productive

1864. collective design processes we created,

1865. where status is driven not by differential competition for gain,

1866. but by the degree of your contribution:

1867. how dedicated you are to problem solving and creation,

1868. working to improve the fabric of society itself.

1869. We also realized the true purpose of a means of production

1870. based upon automated technology.

1871. Not as some brute industrial mechanism

1872. to produce an endless stream of arbitrary goods,

1873. but as a way to free ourselves from uncreative labor,

1874. not to mention improving efficiency and safety.

1875. And one final evolution worth noting

1876. was the removal of the price system.

1877. People stuck these numbers on everything

1878. that suggested some kind of earthly value.

1879. The numbers were a result of a particularly crude equation

1880. dealing with the supply and demand.

1881. And while the high priests of the market religion

1882. saw those price decrees as the word of God,

1883. the truth was any price value determined by market dynamics alone

1884. was woefully incomplete.

1885. And the only term to know in regard to that

1886. is negative market externality.

1887. These are cost values unaccounted for by the market price equation

1888. related to damage done by industry.

1889. For example, in the early 21st century,

1890. the running price of hydrocarbon energy was in a particular range.

1891. But yet, there was actually an additional

1892. 5.3 trillion dollars in cost every year

1893. as people worked to clean up the damage

1894. the use of hydrocarbons was doing to the planet.

1895. Same for the plastics industry, a serious problem back then.

1896. It had an externalized cost of 2.5 trillion dollars a year

1897. just to clean up the oceans.

1898. In fact, if you went back

1899. and did the accounting for global industry as a whole

1900. factoring in these negative market externalities,

1901. again, these costs not reflected in the set prices,

1902. you would find that no company on the planet

1903. was actually even profitable.

1904. So, of course today we have a very different system of accounting.

1905. We know almost exactly what's happening or could happen in downstream effects

1906. and we improve our total system efficiency every single year because of it.

1907. It's a true economy, in other words.

1908. And all of this creates a very different social atmosphere.

1909. Today our incentives are aligned.

1910. No one cuts corners, there's no reason to.

1911. No one is trying to improve some bottom line

1912. by disregarding our ecological stewardship

1913. or the well-being of others.

1914. We finally got it right.

1915. And I compare the footage of the way

1916. people behaved back then to the way they do now.

1917. It's an astounding amount of pride and community, meaning and purpose.

1918. They don't feel alone.

1919. They know they have support, not just from their friends and family,

1920. but from the very design of the social system itself,

1921. a system designed to actually care.

1922. Imagine that.

1923. The low polygon people are here.

1924. - I wish they'd go back to their own resolution.

1925. How are you still standing? What is that your tenth drink?

1926. Apple juice.

1927. What's that?

1928. That is a breach alarm.

1929. Looks like Orion is continuing through our security.

1930. And on that note, John, I need to know your intent.

1931. I've explained the Mandate and how it's far bigger than both of us.

1932. Policy of inaction is still a policy of action, Simon.

1933. Well, if you'd like, we could continue

1934. this colorful debate another time.

1935. Assuming you're willing to assist us here now.

1936. Signal source, what are the regional markers?

1937. - Well...

1938. that's part of the problem.

1939. The best we have is a desert region

1940. on the west side of North America

1941. about 10,000 square miles.

1942. It's not too horrible. I assume your satellites

1943. have been scanning more remote terrain.

1944. Of course, nothing out of the ordinary has been seen.

1945. What about surveillance gaps? Are the satellite passes seamless?

1946. For the most part, there are some periodic latitudinal gaps,

1947. but they only last a few hours.

1948. Is it possible Orion is aware of them? Exploiting them?

1949. - That's what I'd do. - I suppose,

1950. but highly unlikely.

1951. They would have to already be in our system

1952. to know the trajectories.

1953. Show me the gaps.

1954. You want my help or not?

1955. Zoom into the area in question.

1956. Perfect.

1957. Hold it right there, John.

1958. We've already conducted sub sonar scans.

1959. If they're underground, they're using some kind of reflective shield.

1960. But what I think would be best for you

1961. is to analyze the signal code itself,

1962. see if you can find a signature.

1963. John?

1964. Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking.

1965. Hey, remember that Aqua Terraformation project we worked on years ago?

1966. Sounds like you need to get some sleep.

1967. Your attention span is going.

1968. - And of course...

1969. how can I forget? Ionized nanotech pop-up islands

1970. from seawater.

1971. Too bad it never worked.

1972. We could've extended populations

1973. into the ocean, free up some space.

1974. Yeah.

1975. What other ambitious stuff did we work on?

1976. Those were some exciting times.

1977. Remember TRD Hollow Cloak?

1978. Huh!

1979. A sci-fi classic.

1980. Tactile remote drone hologram.

1981. We played with that for a while here,

1982. but proved impossible,

1983. light just can't merge like that.

1984. Yeah. Too bad.

1985. Lots of uses for a fully controlled remote tactile human hologram.

1986. Cool, huh?

1987. And it's at this juncture, Simon,

1988. I'm afraid I have to deliver some kind

1989. of protagonistical declaration

1990. of moral superiority

1991. to indicate the philosophical error of your ways.

1992. So here it goes.

1993. Those that seek to create in this world,

1994. those who embrace change as a natural force,

1995. helping to unify humankind as one entity

1996. in one shared direction,

1997. realizing that injustice anywhere

1998. is injustice everywhere,

1999. will always be one step ahead of the traditionalists,

2000. the preservers, the elitists,

2001. who, in defense of their separatist identities and egoist fears,

2002. seek to divide, conquer, oppress and destroy.

2003. The pursuit of livingry will always be one step ahead

2004. of the pursuit of weaponry.

2005. Orion doesn't exist, does it?

2006. Nope.

2007. We just put a virus in your firewall.

2008. Why? What's the point of all of this?

2009. To expose the Mandate, of course,

2010. which will be leaked shortly

2011. to every major news network.

2012. Oh, seriously, that's it?

2013. You think we can't absorb that?

2014. That we haven't perfected endless ways

2015. to deflate and confuse public perception when needed?

2016. Well, then I guess you have nothing to worry about.

2017. See you around, Simon.

2018. - Hey, token white guy is back! Shut up.

2019. All right, folks. We don't have much time.

2020. I don't think he's going to buy that story for long.

2021. How're we doing?

2022. Satellite coordinates locked, everything's ready.

2023. But keep in mind, even with bypassing your surveillance,

2024. once this thing hits, the heat signature is going to be out of control.

2025. That's what the subterfuge is for.

2026. - Mandate leak on the blockchain yet? Packaging now.

2027. Should be in the hands of every major media outlet in about 20 minutes.

2028. Good.

2029. Don't forget to show Simon's stupid face.

2030. So this is it folks. We have a clear path avoiding GSA surveillance.

2031. Once the Mandate exposure hits the press,

2032. Simon and company will be in damage control,

2033. hopefully long enough so we can pull this off.

2034. Anybody need anything?

2035. - Music. - Music.

2036. - Music. - Music.

2037. You got it.

2038. All right, everybody, come on.

2039. We got— we got to finish this goddamn movie already.

2040. Left. Right. Left.

2041. Responding to this new leak by Concordia,

2042. purporting to reveal a policy of neglect,

2043. where the death of millions in poverty

2044. was deliberately accentuated

2045. by International Trade policy.

2046. Leaked documents even include what appears to be

2047. a video of GSA's current head, Simon Devoe.

2048. Don't look at me like that.

2049. Standard operating procedure, folks.

2050. Get your media agents out there and start changing the narrative.

2051. Sir.

2052. - What is it? - I don't know.

2053. We don't have visual coverage in that region yet.

2054. Send the drones.

2055. Holy shit, it worked.

2056. Shall we alert the base?

2057. Indeed.

2058. The migration begins.

2059. [man 1] It's an artificial island, Sir,

2060. in the Pacific, about 700 miles off the coast of North America.

2061. Holy shit, it worked.

2062. [man 2] Scramble fighters to destroy it?

2063. No. See this?

2064. It's a plasma congealed electromagnetic field,

2065. - impenetrable. - [man 1] How do you know that?

2066. Because I know the creator.

2067. And sing.

2068. So, we've just arrived at the colony of Concordia,

2069. where almost a million people have migrated

2070. to basically get away from the rest of the world.

2071. We are the first press allowed in,

2072. waiting to meet our guide.

2073. - Hi, I'm Elnoria. - Nice to meet you.

2074. Thank you for having us.

2075. I suggest we move to the city center,

2076. start our tour from there.

2077. So, there's been a lot of speculation on the mainland

2078. about what goes on here.

2079. You're depicted as some kind of a cult.

2080. Claims of human right abuses,

2081. and your media is being censored pretty aggressively.

2082. Well, that's why you're here.

2083. This island wasn't created to escape the world,

2084. it was created to set an example to change the world,

2085. show what's actually possible if humankind decided to work together.

2086. So, where would you like to start?

2087. I guess technicals.

2088. How are you powering this place?

2089. Mixed renewable integration.

2090. The island's core baseload systems are solar, wind and ocean,

2091. while localized kinetic energy capture,

2092. mixed use, reuse mechanisms,

2093. are designed into most everything.

2094. Like footsteps?

2095. Footsteps, vehicle motion,

2096. pipe flows, anything that moves, we recapture.

2097. We're at about 5,000 percent efficiency,

2098. more energy than we know what to do with.

2099. That's insane.

2100. Not really.

2101. The earth is, in effect,

2102. a perpetual motion machine.

2103. You people on the mainland could easily do the same thing,

2104. but your economic system simply isn't conducive to integrative design.

2105. Speaking of which, let's head to the development center around the corner.

2106. Okay.

2107. This is one of our design facilities.

2108. Okay. Like an office.

2109. So these people are employed.

2110. Employed. Um, I suppose in the most technical sense of the word, sure.

2111. But we have no systemic slavery here.

2112. No one is coerced to submit for their basic survival,

2113. something I suspect might be very foreign to you.

2114. But everyone needs to do something, right?

2115. So how do you network skills, organized trade, markets?

2116. There is no trade.

2117. There are no markets. There is no currency.

2118. Those who wish to contribute do so through collaborative design

2119. in an open source environment.

2120. What you think of as industries of production on the mainland

2121. is unified here.

2122. Wait, I don't understand.

2123. These people are not paid to be here?

2124. How are they motivated?

2125. Well, how is anyone motivated?

2126. Do you need to get paid to get out of bed in the morning?

2127. Do you need to be paid to ensure your own health,

2128. the health of your family and friends?

2129. Paid to show stewardship for the habitat and society that supports you?

2130. - How about innovation? - Innovation to what end?

2131. To create something to improve life and experience?

2132. Or to create something to sell?

2133. If you think about it, it has been the blind economic drive toward innovation,

2134. as you know it, that continues to lead your society

2135. - to destruction - Okay, then.

2136. Once these people have designed something, then what?

2137. If a design meets proper criteria

2138. in terms of efficiency and sustainability protocols,

2139. it is then accessible by our mostly additive manufacturing system.

2140. Additive? 3D printers?

2141. Which have been perfected to a degree where modular arrays

2142. can produce most anything conceived of with traditional material.

2143. And by the way, there's no waste here.

2144. Our AI designed filters won't allow production of any item

2145. that isn't 100% regenerative.

2146. Sorry, I'm speechless.

2147. If what you say is true,

2148. you've actually done it.

2149. Done what?

2150. You've created Utopia.

2151. If you want to sound like an idiot, sure.

2152. This isn't Utopia, friend. It's simply pragmatic design.

2153. Come, let me now show you our democratic system,

2154. how we use direct democracy to eliminate politicians

2155. and control problems.

2156. What? No elections?

2157. - No goons? God, no.

2158. Whoa. So... so where do I sign up?

2159. I want to join your cult as soon as possible.

2160. I'll see what I can do. - Please.

2161. I don't know if I can take much more.

2162. So, I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap this up for now,

2163. but a— as we discussed, I will be back

2164. for the second part of this interview fairly soon,

2165. uh, specifically to discuss the colony of Concordia

2166. and their historical influence.

2167. Sure. So what's the name of the documentary?

2168. InterReflections.

2169. - Interesting. - But before we end,

2170. I have a rather strange request.

2171. If you could address those vulnerable, confused souls,

2172. you know, before the Great Transition,

2173. given, as you put it earlier,

2174. we barely made it at all,

2175. what would you say to them?

2176. Wow, that is a strange request.

2177. Hm.

2178. I think I would paraphrase the words

2179. of a notable civil rights activist

2180. from the mid-20th century named Bayard Rustin.

2181. And he said,

2182. "You are all one.

2183. And if you don't know it, you're going to find out the hard way."