The Interview Game - Could You Paint A New World?
Robin Good has recently been interviewed by David Pollard, who had invited him to take part in a game - the Interview Game. Robin, always one to jump outside the groove, to stimulate people's imagination, was delighted to answer David's questions.
Robin invites us to learn the skills of critical thinking and at the end of the interview he introduces his own, New Deviant Robin Good RULES for the Interview Game.
I decided to participate and ask to be interviewed by Robin.
His questions were stimulating, and I wish my answers might be stimulating for some of you!
Dear Sepp,
thank you for participating in this game.
I have since changed slightly the rules which I am posting here for you.
If you are willing to participate, here are the 7 questions that you need answer, before submitting 7 more to me for publication.
I truly wish you to use this opportunity as a way to question your present viewpoints while bringing some inspiring new ideas to those that will read.
New Deviant Robin Good RULES for the Interview Game
1. Leave me an email [provide your e-mail address], saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I'll ask you SEVEN KEY questions.
3. You will ask me seven questions back.
4. You'll update your website with my seven questions, and your seven answers and I will do the same with yours.
5. You'll include this explanation, and acknowledge me as the interviewer.
6. You'll ask other people seven questions when they want to be interviewed.
My Seven Key Questions
1. Sepp, What Are We Doing Here?
I believe we are here to learn. Each one of us must know as much as possible, but even more importantly, each one of us must be able to use that knowledge to make autonomous decisions. So what is important is that we cut through the noise, the propaganda, the nonsense, the disinformation, to arrive at real knowledge.
What is equally important is that each one of us must also have a good idea of the overall situation, so that we can evaluate and make decisions. In order to evaluate something correctly, not only do you have to learn about it but you must also be able to compare it to something similar of approximately the same magnitude - ergo, you should have a wide knowledge base.
2. What Do You Think Is Today's Greatest Threat To A Harmonious, Peaceful And Intelligent Human Race?Propaganda, which prevents us from knowing and from achieving the necessary certainty to do what we are here for.
Tracing back the propaganda, we come and find religion, which has been used for a few thousand years and perhaps more to blunt our sense of responsibility. It was religion which made us believe that it's quite ok not to know and not to take personal responsibility, "because we are so infinitely insignificant before God". That is the exact point where we can change and then grow as individuals. God never said we should be stupid...
Pastor Niemoeller said it very well with regard to the Nazis. He didn't do anything when they came to get the others, and when they finally came for him there was no one left to protest or otherwise get him out of trouble. What does that tell us? It really is up to ourselves to stand up and do something about the things we don't agree with. No one else will do it for us.
Peace goes hand in hand with decency and intelligence. People are for the most part decent, but we must get to be smart as well, and ready to pounce on those who would tell us we "need to kill those ones over there, because otherwise they will surely come and kill us". It's propaganda, pure and simple.
3. If Man Is To Survive The Present Energy Crises How Should He Go About It?Diversify our options. We are living under an oppressive energy monopoly, which will kill any alternative to keep the easy profits associated with the absence of competitors and the absence of even any competing technologies.
Really, there are hundreds if not thousands of good ideas out there and a lot of people working hard against all odds to bring energy related inventions to market - only to meet stiff resistance.
We must open the floodgates. Make sure patents can't be used to "buy" energy inventions and put them away. Make sure that inventors are not forced to run an obstacle course before "being allowed" to sell or give away what they found. Help the inventors for a change!
We should find new ways to produce energy that do not require fossil fuels, and we should let human inventiveness and inquisitiveness run and do this job for us. The suppression cleverly operated by the current petrochemical monopoly would have to be eliminated for this to happen.
4. What Would Be Your Ideal Economic System?It would be a system where resources were no longer diverted out of the "real economy" into the coffers of those who would use the resulting scarcity for purposes of control and oppression.
An ideal economic system would first of all guarantee the basic means of survival to all people in its area, encouraging creativity and personal initiative. It would favour co-operation while allowing for healthy competition. It would not allow concentration of economic resources in the hands of a few, nor would it require continuous economic growth for its own stability.
The way to do this would be to reform a few basic economic parameters, changing the economy from a debt base resulting in scarcity, to an economy of abundance. A few points:
- Money "belongs" to all of those who participate in the economy - not to the banks nor to the state. Any money newly issued would therefore be distributed to the participants to spend as they see fit. Money would not be issued as loans by banks but would be accredited by a (central, regional or local) money issuing authority to every individual, with a small percentage going for government spending.
- Money would have to lose value with time. As money is a means of exchange for goods in commerce, it should - just like the goods or services - be time sensitive and lose some of its value if kept too long. This loss of value would be accredited to the money issuing authority for re-distribution. Funds would then go - in agreed proportions - towards personal spending capacity (credit to the participants) and government expenses - financing the services of government we believe necessary and useful.
- Natural resources of all kinds, including land, should pertain to the Community. The planet has a finite amount of natural resources. We all need them to live. They should not be open to ownership by a few. Use of the resources should of course be concessioned out to private interests - companies or individuals - subject to conditions which would aim at preserving these resources for the future, and at prices to be determined by public auction.
With these few and fairly straightforward changes of basic economic parameters, we could go a long way towards the ideal economy, where people would be free to be creative but also to have leisure if they wish, where we would have the necessities of life without having to feed a monster monopoly at the same time, where we would be free to engage in production and commerce without great obstacles and where the smartest and most active would do best - but not by taking scarce resources away from the less fortunate.
Taxes, as we know them today, could be abolished. Public expenditures would be financed by (a) fees received for the "farming out" of natural resource use, (b) rent received for public land use and (c) part of the monetary "back-flow" returning to the treasury/money-issuing-authority as a result of the periodic and largely automatic devaluation of money. Just think about never having to see a tax collector any more, while government yet has the money it needs to build roads and bridges.
5. If Now We Voted You, Sepp, President Of The UN, What Would You Do?I would not accept. This may appear as a harsh and even unreasonable answer at first, but the post of president (or Secretary General as he's called) of the UN is really not at all attractive. He does not have much say. World events today are "organised" at a level and by interests and forces that are not asking the UN Secretary permission or even advice. He is practically powerless to change things in any meaningful way.
Do I subscribe to "conspiracy theory"? No, I subscribe to the stark reality of this world.
If we really wanted to do something effective to change the state of the world, it would have to be us - all of us - agreeing and deciding where we want to go and then acting accordingly. No political process and no president - even of the UN - is likely to "save us" unless we DO THE FIRST STEP - become active ourselves.
6. What Do You Think Is The Most Effective Strategy To Change (Save) The World Today?Much of the answer to this question is in my replies to your previous questions.
The path I would choose is the one of empowering the individual.
We would need to fully realize what we're doing here(1),
- cut through the propaganda and make up our own minds(2),
- unlock human inventiveness(3),
- provide a stable way to economic survival and even abundance(4) and
- realize that no one alone has the power to do this for us(5).It's either all of us pulling at the same end of the cart or it will be "no go".
7. If You Could Paint A New World Today Could You Outline To Us What It Would Be Like And What Would Be Different From What We Have Today?I could imagine a world where the individual - or rather life - is the important central consideration, the measure of all things.
Government would be formed and policy would be determined by co-decision of the people living in any given area.
Organization of politics would be "from the bottom up". That would mean strong communities, united into regions, which in turn may make up nations and eventually our planetary community. Very much like today, but with one big difference: the center of gravity would be at the bottom - with the individual - not at the top.
We would insist on transparency in all areas of life, but first of all in government activities and in the reporting of events. All decision making would be transparent, that is, we would know why any decision had been made and we would have had our say - if we were interested - to contribute our view.
Laws would regulate how we can live together while respecting each others' rights and freedoms.
Justice would be used for the enforcement of laws - not to make us conform to moral standards, nor for protecting us from our own decisions or weaknesses.
There would be complete freedom to study and follow any religion or spiritual practice, but also a strict separation of law and politics from religious/moral dictates.
Having the economic means for immediate survival would not be a problem.
People would be largely free of money worries and would thus take to learning, creating art, inventing, constructing, producing or even just appreciating the art and creations and products of others.
Co-operation, rather than competition would be a determining factor in all human relations. Profit (return on investment) would no longer be the overriding motive for all business decisions as scarcity would gradually give way to abundance.
Science and technology would progress at a fast pace and would contribute to making life ever easier.
We would balance the current emphasis on specialization in science with an equally strong desire for generalism. A good capacity to have a complete wiew and relate the pieces of the puzzle is more important to progress than the type of overspecialization prevalent today.
We would make sure the health effects of our technologies were positive.
Energy would no longer be extracted from limited resources and would be available in abundance.
Poisons would be tightly controlled and would never be released into the environment unless absolutely necessary.
Space travel would be a normal part of our lives, not by rocketry but with new means of propulsion and instant re-location in space.
We would respect and strive to live in harmony with other intelligent life in this galaxy and indeed in the universe.
Exopolitics - the relation between humanity and other galactic civilizations would be based on this principle.
We would be healthy and would normally enjoy a long life, freely choosing what kind of medical system to prefer.
Our food would be of the best organic quality without poisonous residues, supplying the nutrients and life energy needed for health.
We would respect the lower life forms and refrain from causing them unnecessary suffering.
We would also respect and support each others' spiritual development and abilities.
The arts would find new forms of expression while artists could sustain themselves on their creative output alone.
Education would be a personal journey towards full understanding and enlightenment.
The media would take to providing real information so as to escape the fate of dinosaurs - dying out from people no longer being willing to pay attention.
We would respect and care for mother earth, her structure and her resources and would be fully conscious of the consequences of our actions for all future generations.
I know this is quite a flight of the imagination and might be called a utopian view by some, implying it could never be achieved. However we do have the means today, to link up all the individual players of this game to begin forming a (hopefully) intelligent collective beingness. Thus we will be able to solve the problems of survival at all levels in a more and more efficient manner.
Might I dare put a name to this vision of a different world? If you asked, I would, for lack of a better term, describe it with the words "responsible individualism".
After sending these thoughts to Robin, I came across an interesting document by Boudewijn Wegerif called Talk Notes. Wegerijf touches from a quite different viewpoint upon some of the same points I have mentioned here. A short quote that caught my attention:"... I anticipate what I call an IOCRACY, which is as much a development from DEMOCRACY as DEMOCRACY is a development from THEOCRACY. Although there is a sense in which the IOCRACY I have in mind represents a return to THEOCRACY, it is also quite different. For in a THEOCRACY we wait, as split-egos, for God to take responsibility, whereas in an IOCRACY we take responsibility for the flowering of love in our lives ..."
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Saturday September 27 2003
updated on Friday June 26 2009URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/09/27/the_interview_game_could_you_paint_a_new_world.htm
