MODEL EARTH
Designing the Future of the Earth Collaboratively

MODEL EARTH INVITATION


AN APPEAL TO ACADEMIA


CREATING PEACE


DEFINING SUSTAINABILITY


CREDIT and DEDICATION



WRITINGS

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 invitation to co-creating the future     appeal to academia     creating peace     defining sustainability      credit and dedication

to participate in creating of a co-operatively, collectively designed, interactive model of an ideal, ecologically and socially sustainable Earth, a model that would portray an Earth possessing optimal living conditions for all those who share it for the purpose of there being a universal reference that would be helpful in any projects concerning the future of any social entity--from a locally based community, to the whole Earth.

Why Model Earth?

It is obvious from reality that the hierarchical forms of government that are in existence now, no longer can cope with the increasing magnitude of problems that humanity is forced to face. Since any attempts, so far, (in the form of reforms, revolutions, etc.) to improve humankind's lot failed to achieve any significant results, perhaps a new approach should be considered.

There are already many people with good ideas about a better future for a better future actually to start happening, one could think. However, most of these ideas (on the whole) are not synchronized, and in many instances these ideas are quite vague, untested properly against all the other ideas that there might exist about our collective future, and mostly addressing only very superficial concerns. Thus, even though it would seem that a great deal is being done for a better future, on the whole the situation in the world continues becoming worse. Many of those ideas are often contrary to each other, and conflicts might evolve when those ideas are in the state of realization--something that the model would try prevent by resolving any possible discrepancies among all such ideas within the model before any conflicts could develop in reality with far greater efficiency than , probably, any discourse, or any diplomatic processes of today could ever accomplish.

It could also be said that a kind of a model of a better Earth future already exists in the minds of all those who think about what their future and the future of the world should be like, but for any expedient and practical purposes this model that might exist in the general world consciousness is too vague and is not explicit enough for any clear reference, something that Model Earth would surpass by being there accessible for any purposes of reference, discourse, and "round-table" style discussions.

Model Earth would be co-created by virtually anyone, from anywhere on Earth, who would like to match one's own ideas of what his/her ideal future should look like with the ideas of everyone else; at present a very few people try to co-ordinate their ideas about their future with the ideas of all others.

This process would not be based on any arbitrary notions, however, but based on all the knowledge that there would be available of any pertinent issues involved in the modeling. From their involvement in the modeling process it would be obvious to the participants what ideas that they might have about their future would be viable, and what ideas would not be so--this interactive model would be the best educational tool available, addressing participants' ideas in terms of justifiability with the current state of knowledge and with the ideas/wishes of all other participants.

The advantage of using this modeling tool over the current way of deciding the Earth future would lay in its being impartial and non-partisan--neither suppressing, nor favoring anyone's ideas over those of others. This model that would be being created on ongoing basis (because knowledge and ideas evolve constantly) would be authoritative not because of possessing any executive authority, but because of its portraying most realistically what the optimal state of Earth should be, according to current state of knowledge; influenced not by any partisan interests, but, based on the realistic wishes of virtually all who would chose to use this modeling tool.

This modeling tool could be used in arbitrating of conflicts, it would be impartial, and it would be taking into consideration the opinions of even those parts of populations that otherwise would be left out from decision-making processes.

Think of this model as a universal "ombudsman" that would be authoritative not because of possessing any executive powers, but authoritative because presenting an Earth with optimal conditions for life.

This interactive model could co-ordinate the efforts and enhance the scope of perspective and efficiency of the many existing groups that aim to improve living on Earth (NGO and others), and would allow sharing of all of their available databases.

This model would be possible to be created on existing computers linked by the Internet. The technology that would allow linking of a virtually unlimited number of computers together to form a supercomputer already exists (one of the terms used is "distributed computing"), and would not demand any outlay of much more than volunteer energy.

There would be a need for volunteers at the start:

     * computer specialists to link all the participants' computers in to a vast "supercomputer" ("distributed computing"), and to create the programs that would enable the interaction of the participants with the model,

     * scientists and specialists from all imaginable fields to connect the model with all the available data bases that would allow checking of ideas for viability and that would direct participants to knowledge pertinent to whichever issue might be involved, and

     * a number of organizers to direct the setup and the development of this project.

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 invitation to co-creating the future     appeal to academia     creating peace     defining sustainability      credit and dedication

An Appeal to Academia.

Despite the advances that are being made in amassing of knowledge by humankind, not enough of this knowledge is being used to improve the overall quality of life on Earth, even though, arguably, there is enough knowledge available that would enable humankind to improve the living conditions of all Life on Earth considerably.

That humankind's knowledge is not fully applied to improving the quality of Life on Earth might be mainly due to the fact that the application of knowledge to the what-so-ever various problems that might exist on Earth rests in the hands of people whose power and wisdom to apply knowledge to solving our problems is limited at most times.

This creates a situation where on one hand individuals who specialize in creating and enhancing of humankind's knowledge are free to create and enhance as much knowledge as they can and want, only to see, on the other hand, this knowledge not being applied to its full potential extend.

Humankind's knowledge has become very specialized--it is impossible for anyone to know enough on most subjects in any of the fields of knowledge. This situation limits our ability to plan our future effectively--it is difficult to achieve an agreement on what the ideal future should be.

This situation might be helped by creating of a model that would present the composite of what each participant creator of the model (ideally any and all humans on Earth) would think an ideal state of affairs on Earth should be, in which any and all knowledge available would be applied optimally to solving problems that humankind faces by all who might think that they know anything (not only academicians) on whatever subject that might be thought important for life on Earth. All proposed solutions would be tested for compatibility with each other, and with the data-base that would contain all to the whole Earth pertinent knowledge.

Creating of such a model would permit a vast co-operation across all the fields of all sciences--the closest thing to unification of sciences there might ever happen. The model would be based on the best reason for the existence of science: an actual application of knowledge for the benefit of life on Earth. The on-going creation of such a model would eventually start presenting a picture of life on Earth as it ideally could be--the model would be an "ombudsman" without any executive powers, however one that would be powerful by the strength of presenting a model of for life on Earth optimal conditions based on the knowledge available, to whose opinions the powers-that-there-might-be could gradually be attuned and subsequently sufficiently educated to apply their powers appropriately to the real needs of life on Earth.

No situation, or a research objective modeled could be too small, nor too large in scale, nor would anyone be prevented from trying to improve on any instance modeled, since the model would be ideally accessible by anyone on Earth. Any solutions to any problems would have to be, beside being consistent with the knowledge available in the database, open to anyone's critique and to anyone's improvements.

All the components necessary for the creation of such a model are readily available--potentially all the PC's in the world linked together by, perhaps, using "distributed computing" (which would enable the model to exist without requiring any particular physical location) and the existing data-bases at all the institutions of learning there are. The labor necessary for running of the model could be gotten by diverting of the effort that goes into research that is being done already on solutions vital to humanity into conducting research within the model, thus reducing unnecessary redundancy and improving the quality of research by enabling more researchers from many more fields of science than is currently possible to work on those research problems together, and so vastly enhance the quality of any such research.

The Earth has only one possible future, a future that is the result of all the individual actions that are meant to improve the lives of all the individual actors and their progeny. By resolving conflicts that are a natural consequence of carrying out the individual actors' wishes for better conditions of their lives in a model, rather than in real life, a great amount of unnecessary suffering could be avoided.

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 invitation to co-creating the future     appeal to academia     creating peace     defining sustainability      credit and dedication

CREATING PEACE:
Designing a Peace That Would Last.

Knowing that every time of peace in human history ended in a war, what should "Peace on Earth" look like, so it would not result in a war again?

Unless we can answer this question, and unless we can unify and harmonize all the eventual answers in order to prevent any discrepancies in the answers to cause strife in real life, we can never achieve real "Peace on Earth".

We should learn how to imagine, in as much detail as possible, what would constitute a real "Peace on Earth", and then, since we each have different concepts of the idea, we should learn how to constructively reconcile all the differences in order to arrive at a unified design of "Peace on Earth", because the Earth can possibly have only one future.

Unifying of all the different ideas that we might have about the future of the Earth in a model would prevent conflicts from happening in real life, since, after all, wars happen because people would go to war so that Peace happens their way.

SURVEY:
What is your idea of what a "Peace on Earth" (one that would not again end in a war) should look like?
Please write to modelearth at google com, with "Peace" in the subject.
Thank you!

"Es reicht nicht aus einen Krieg zu gewinnen - viel wichtiger ist es Frieden zu organisieren."
(Aristoteles) - from: http://www.ogee.de/blog/?p=53

(It is not enough to win a war--far more important is to organize Peace.)

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 invitation to co-creating the future     appeal to academia     creating peace     defining sustainability      credit and dedication

Defining Sustainability.
(an ongoing draft)

It appears that as the subject of "sustainability" is gaining popularity, the definition of sustainability is becoming less focused; although there is a myriad of projects whose concern is professedly "sustainability", "sustainability" is becoming progressively less likely achievable, because it is hard to achieve something that we don't know what it actually is.
It is not that individuals would not know what "sustainability" might mean to them, but it is that each person's "sustainability" might be very different, if not even at odds with, from what "sustainability" might mean to others.

Not the least problem with "sustainability" is that mercenary concerns rate, in most instances, higher than any other; thus "sustainability" might just be an excuse for achieving higher economical gains. This distorts the meaning of "sustainable"/"sustainability" considerably even further.

"Sustainability" could be modeled, creating a "picture" of what an ideal "sustainable" future of any geopolitical entity on Earth should be, using as input all the various ideas that virtually all people might have about what "sustainability" might mean together with the sum total of what we know of Earth in order to see how each and any of those ideas would fare under "real" conditions in a model.
The Earth is facing unprecedented hardships caused by human ignorance, and by modeling the future we would eliminate the very costly process of deciding what works and what doesn't--in trying to remedy the situation--by the currently used "hit, or miss" method.

The Earth future, at any point of time, is a result of the actions all the inhabitants of the Earth take in order to ensure a satisfactory future for themselves and for those whose future matters to them. But because our desires for a satisfactory future are, not infrequently, at odds with the desires of others, the final outcome--the future that we experience now-- usually pleases only a few.

It would be different should all the differencies that there are among all the individuals' wishes for future resolved harmlessly in a model, rather than with often tragic consequences in real life.

Such modeling of our common future would be a profound educational experience for all those who would participate in this modeling process, because individually we usually have but a very limited view of all the factors that go into making a future to happen, and the modeling process would show clearly where all those deficiencies might lie. In the modeling of our common future we would learn what we actually need to learn for a satisfactory future to happen.
By directly participating in designing our own future in a model our education would become meaningful to us; furthermore--we would learn at our own pace, and only that that would make sense to us--we would learn "on-the-job". We would not be learning something that would not have a direct connection with our lives.

We have all the technology necessary for designing of the future. By using "distributed computing", for an instance, software for which is available in the form of "open source", the model could "reside" on all of the participants' computers thus eliminating the need for any physical structures. The process would be accessible to anyone interested in having a hand in the creation of one's future--something that our current reality denies to most.

Would there exist a model of what to all an optimal future should look like, the currently available process of creating our common future that currently is in the hands of people whose interests are not necessarily identical with that of those they represent would benefit by the fact that every one could compare the performance of those who govern to that what actually should be happening.

The possible uses for such a model would be many.

Please, let me know what you think of the idea. There is more about the idea at:
http://www.modelearth.org

Thank you, sincerely - Mr. Jan Hearthstone.

Notes.
A general observation pertaining to the sustainability of a solution to problems of sustainability could be that simpler, less complex social structure permits easier monitoring of processes affecting the ecological conditions, and, vice versa, that simpler solutions to ecological sustainability problems require a less complex society to implement those.

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 invitation to co-creating the future     appeal to academia     creating peace     defining sustainability      credit and dedication

CREDIT

for the ideas presented in
"MODEL EARTH"
goes to
Mahayana Philosophy
and to
The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz.
(Salem, MA, DMA Inc., 1984, ISBN: 0-930641-00-0.)

DEDICATED

to the optimal physical and mental well-being of all beings anywhere and anytime.
© - Modelearth - 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 - modelearth at gmail dot com   

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Writings
(all are drafts, except "Indigenous Hawai'ian Culture ...")

"Legalize" the Right to Sleep.

Petri Dish Called Earth.

Sustainable Education.

Making Peace from All Sides of Conflict at the Grass Root Level.

Torture Starts at Home.

Ecologically and Socially
Sustainable Crestone.

Transportation
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

Our Troubled Science:
Why We Are Descending into Dark Ages.

Mahayana, Homelessness, and Benefitting All Beings.


Indigenous Hawai'ian Culture
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

ECOLOGICALLY AND SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION.

Natural Human Rights
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

Good Homes, not More Prisons is the Answer.

Defining Sustainability (?).

Designing Sustainable Future for the Earth.

Mahayana
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

Designing the Future of the Earth Collectively:
A Grand Unification of All Science Effected by Making All Available Knowledge Useful for Solving Earth's Problems.

Credit and Dedication.

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"Legalize" the Right to Sleep.

Every night thousands of people don't know where to go to sleep. Sleep they have to, eventually, and in order to get some rest they are forced to trespass, for which they are frequently penalized. The homeless trespass where-ever they go most of the time, in fact. When they move from place to place (they cannot well be denied that--all "normal" people do that) they are somewhat safe. However, when it comes to trying to get some rest (which "normal" people do at their residence they own, or at places that they rent), they become conspicuous, an object of scrutiny, and unless utterly inured to their predicament, they are made uncomfortable.

As a result of all this, the homeless rarely, if ever, get a proper rest. Even for the few, who go to spend the night in an "emergency (a state of existence that for some is protracted to the day they die) shelter", the place, usually, is not designed with providing comfort to them in mind. Those who, out of choice, or out of necessity, have to spend the night outdoors, have to hide from being found by either the law enforcers, or other desperate people who prey on the weaker ones, and there are fewer and fewer places to hide. Not getting proper rest becomes a way of life. One's senses become dulled, one's judgment suffers; tired people make fewer wise decisions, and it is a short distance from being a trespasser to being a criminal and/or a substance abuser. Who had not any problems with the law, or was not a substance abuser before becoming homeless, has a far greater opportunity to become so when tired, and not being able to think clearly.

It is a conclusion that requires no great wisdom to make that the society, as a whole, does not benefit from having any of its members not being able to make sensible decisions about their lives. It should also be wholly unnecessary to point out the great advantages of having a society of people who are able to get a rest needed for their functioning well.

Mistakenly, many people think that the right to sleep is implicit; that it is a right that does not have to be legalized. Many think so, till they find out otherwise, either first-hand by becoming homeless, or becoming awakened to the needs of others (a less and less happening occurrence).

Sadly--it feels indecent to point out a truth--but there are such that benefit from others' misery, undoubtedly, otherwise how could such an injustice (a thing very obvious to a sane mind) persist? Why not follow reason and legalize the right to sleep? Imagine a society where everybody had an explicit right to rest! It would be a beginning of a new, saner era.

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Petri Dish Called Earth.

It happens, now and then, that when microscopic organisms grow in a petri dish that a species starts suddenly taking over all the available "lebensraum", crowding all the other cultures out, and suddenly disappears after having killed most of its fellow organisms, not having any more room to expand in. It is wholly natural happening, observable also during the stages of developing ecosystems before they reach a state of a relative stability. A species suddenly flourishes, seemingly triumphing over other species, to disappear in a blink of an eye, as if. This phenomenon might happen a few times during ecological successions that ensue when an ecological system gets disturbed from the outside of that system, and that continues till the ecosystem reaches a state of a dynamic balance in which ecological processes cycle around their mean values.

Analogically, one could see the entire earth system as being a vast petri dish that got disturbed from the outside by an asteroid some sixty million years ago, whose impact caused the demise of a vast number of faunal and floral species. Ever since then the earth ecological system has been recovering from the disturbance, going through successional stages that eventually will result in a relatively stable climax, unless another asteroid, or other unusual catastrophe would cause a process of re-stabilization anew. And, as in any other isolated system that is undergoing a process of stabilization, we might be able to discern the evidence of species coming and going in ongoing successions. One of those species in our giant petri dish earth is a hairless ape that is coming to a prominence currently, one that started over-crowding the earth, crowding out many other fellow "petri dish" species. Most likely this species will also suddenly disappear after its bloom and will be replaced by some, till now insignificant, contender. These goings-on will continue till the earth system reaches a relative stability again, eventually (unless disturbed from the outside of this relative system again, etc.).

This currently on earth dominant species is us, humans, of course, and we are not the only species that happens to ever have been dominant (from time to time) in our giant petri dish. Our behavior is nothing unnatural, we behave as a myriad other species in a myriad of ecosystems would - we are fully natural, and so is everything we do. We are an indelible part of the nature. We might even expedite our own (and most of other species around us) extinction, but that would be also fully natural, judging by what we know about ecological developments. Looking at our earth petri dish from a macroscopic point of view, business is always as usual. So - why should anyone care about what humans are doing?

The answer is that we, humans, should care, for purely selfish reasons, if we ever do care about ourselves and about our offspring. It is very obvious that most calamities and sufferings that humans are subject to are human made. Humans are their own main source of their miseries. They are very much like any microscopic organism (presumably non-intelligent) in a petri dish that by its very own success as a species undermines its own future continuity and well-being. Humans do not seem to be any different from any such species, despite their own self-declared superiority to all other life. We even call our own species "sapient" ("full of knowledge", "sagacious", according to Webster's). This self-denomination, obviously, is not true, judging by the overall human behavior which is not different from the behavior of any "successful" species in any petri dish. It would very much seem from observing life in petri dishes that the real recipe for a real long term success for any truly intelligent species would be to strive for a stability of existence of all the different microorganisms in any petri dish, including the petri dish Earth, and if there is a real intelligence in any petri dish (be it a glass one, the petri dish earth, or the petri dish universe), it would be undetectable, not distinct from any other organisms around, because an intelligent species would have to, for purely selfish reasons, in order to succeed in the long term, care as much about any other species as about itself. This paradoxical recipe for success might not make sense to many humans today, but unless it does, we cannot call ourselves "Homo sapient". Judging by our "success" we are enjoying now at the expense of other life in our petri dish, we are not enough "full of knowledge" yet.

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Sustainable Education.

Imagine an education in which students would be designing a world in which they would like to live.
At first they might come up with ideas that might appeal to them, but that might not be possible to realize.

From this point on, the real educational process would start--in order to find out whether the idea of what one's ideal future would be possible to realize, the student would have to learn all, or at the least as much as possible, about what facts and what knowledge they have to have in order to prove the viability of their idea, and then they would have to harmonize their ideas about what their future they would like to look like with the ideas of any- and everybody else, otherwise--how would they be able to make their ideas come true in real time/space without, sometimes even violent, conflicts?

The students would grow up with well informed ideas about what they want in their lives, they would clearly learn what would directly matter to what they want in their lives, and this would empower their actions to obtain the kind of lives that they would like to have.

The possible variations on the theme are many.

One possible scenario:
As soon as students would start being interested in what the future might bring them, it would be made possible to them to start designing a future for themselves that they would like to have. They first drafts would indicate what it is that they would have to learn in order to see whether their designs are possible to realize, or not.

Sustainable education should not be confused with any education about "sustainability", unless education about sustainability would directly lead to establishing of a sustainable world.

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Making Peace from All Sides of Conflict at the Grass Root Level.

To whom this may concern--

I have an idea that, perhaps, could be helpful in diffusing of inter-national conflicts--maybe you might even know of people who would be able to help with implementing of this idea? These days, during most, if not all, violent conflicts the majority of people involved in those conflicts doesn't have much say in influencing of the outcome of such conflicts; the course of action is very much in the hands of the leaders (be those elected, or not).

What I am trying to propose is that by using existing technological possibilities (perhaps "distributed computing" based modeling--a proven thing) potentially all people on a grass-root level from of all the sides of any conflict would together create a model of an ideal peaceful co-existence that would be acceptable by all the sides involved.

This model would attempt to reconcile differences that there might be among all the individual ideas all those who would participate in a creation of the model might have about what their future peaceful coexistence should look like. Since most people's ideas about what their future should be differ from the ideas that others have, this model would aim at preventing of differences reconciling in real life, which not infrequently happens even in a violent way.

The model would be accepted only on the basis of its reasonableness--the model would eventually show graphically, after being inputted by the participants in the conflict repeatedly to all of the involved mutual satisfaction, the optimally possible state of things in the territories and societies that are involved in the conflict.

The model (that would exist in the "distributed computing" "supercomputer"--that means in the cyberspace--no physical location would be required for the model's existence) would show clearly how resources, peoples, communities, borders, and all such would be situated, and also the model would show why this should be an optimal state of affairs according to all facts pertinent to the conflict.

In any case, should anyone object to any part of thus collectively created model, those who would object could always improve on it, providing they could justify that their improvements are founded on valid data.

At present there exist enough many data-bases containing data pertaining to availability of resources, data that take into account existing and preexisting inter-group relationships, and all such that are publicly accessible, and that are necessary for creating of such models.

The model would be created by all the people who have an interest in satisfactorily resolving of the any conflict anonymously--no one would have to be exposed to any fears of repercussions that might possibly there be for their participating in trying to peacefully resolve a conflict. I think that although this idea might be fairly new, it might be worth considering, if only because in many cases today officially sanctioned solutions rarely work, and rarely really satisfy all involved for long. The costs needed for creating of such a model would be relatively modest (most software for "distributed computing" is free), and only a fraction of what is spent on weapons that normally are used for solving conflicts. Trying to solve conflicts at a grass-root level should, perhaps, be given a chance.

At first such a model would not be inputted by too many, perhaps. But if the existence of this model would become known, it would become a subject to a scrutiny and a critique that would be actually welcome--in the case of such a model only a constructive criticism would be possible, since (as already mentioned above), if someone should not like the model, they would have to come up with better versions of it; versions that would have to be acceptable by all the participating model builders, acceptable on the basis of being more in accord with what might, or might not be possible to have in the situation modeled according to all knowledge pertinent to the situation. The existence of such a model would influence the decisions of those either negotiating and/or fighting in any conflict whose favorable, optimal resolution is being modeled, and perhaps such a model could eventually become an arbiter of sorts, whose influence might, perhaps, extent well into the peace times, perhaps even augmenting and enforcing a better governing of the territories and of the peoples that are being modeled. I am aware that, perhaps, my explanation of the idea might not be entirely quite clear, and I would gladly discuss this idea with anyone who could see if only a bit of a potential in this idea.

Thank you sincerely - Mr. Jan Hearthstone.

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Torture Starts at Home.
(Stop Torturing the Homeless!--Defend the Natural Human Right to Sleep!)

By what right, or a rationale should torturing of the homeless be a good thing? That one is not automatically guaranteed any basic natural human rights--such as is the fulfillment of the natural need to sleep, of the natural need to take a basic care of one's bodily functions, nor of the natural need for, if only a very basic and for one's well-functioning necessary habitat--upon one's birth doesn't become apparent to most people, unless they end up in circumstances where the exercise of these natural Human rights becomes impossible--impossible not because of strictures imposed on one by "nature", but because other humans will actively prevent one from trying to take care of those very basic needs.

It does become impossible for quite a few who become homeless to take an adequate care of their basic bodily needs (never mind their non-corporeal needs for now) when they find themselves unable to find a place to perform those, for life very necessary, functions, due to being unable to find a place to live. Suddenly they find themselves being persecuted, punished, tortured for not being able to come up with the unreasonable, out-of-proportion, ever increasing price of a place where they could take care of things that are absolutely necessary for their life support. Suddenly it becomes obvious that the right to just live, no matter how simply, actually does not exist at all in our society! It can only be purchased, with some losers, who don't have enough for even the worst available, left behind.

On the one hand the practice of torture is, at least pro forma, prohibited by law--if someone were to deprive someone of sleep, the victim could, at least in theory, sue the torturer in court of law. If someone would be depriving animals of sleep or rest, he/she could be taken to court and charged with cruelty to animals!

On the other hand there are thousands of individuals who are being actively deprived of sleep every night (by the various law enforcers, who just follow our orders, after all), night after night, yet no one would think to call it a torture, even though this practice is nothing else, but torture. It is torture that is being committed right in front of everybody's eyes! And, apparently, everybody is perfectly comfortable with it, maybe because of having been brought up with this injustice as being a "natural" part of our culture.

Some might argue that people become homeless because they either have mental problems, or that they abuse substances to the point where they no longer are capable to function properly. But the truth is that there is a plenty of people who either are mad, and/or abuse substances who are not homeless, yet the only difference between the homeless and them is that the latter still have a place to live. The determining factor is the ability to pay for lodgings, and not to be able to do so is not the province of the mad, and/or substance abusers solely. One just need to be sufficiently poor to qualify. Homelessness is a social stigma, most people who are homeless try to remain "invisible"; it is only when they are worn out and tired to a point of not caring about appearances that they become "visible" in a non-flattering light.

And because the very steep step between not having anywhere to sleep, and to be able to afford what is being offered at the lowest point of the scale--a step that keeps increasing with time--the number of those able to purchase a place to sleep and just to take care of their very basic and necessary life needs just keeps on increasing.

It is a paradoxical situation, in which the barbaric side of our human nature that rules this situation is clearly in control, this in spite of laws that proscribe torture and moral prescriptions professed by the majority of the population. It shows the true nature of our society that has not much progressed from being a horde of barbarians always waging a war of exploit against others and against their inhospitable environment, in whose camp there is a little use for losers of any kind, except, perhaps, as a training material in times of shortage of real enemies to exercise cruelty on. This behavior also harks back to the frontier days when losers were either left behind in the hinterland, excommunicated into the "wilderness", or outright killed.

Torturing the defenseless ones does not have a place in a civilized society. However, in truth, we, as a society, are still on a war path, this time even against each other globally (albeit now it is an economical warfare that creates victims, but real victims none-the-less--a warfare that keeps on escalating), and because the territory boundaries have been stabilized in ages ago, any "losers" that there might be can no longer be left behind, nor very easily "excommunicated"--they stay right with us. The only option left is to torture them, and to torture them we do, with little thought of consequences of so doing. But those consequences stay right with us, causing the society much harm, with no benefits to the society whatsoever.

Perhaps best to see what those consequences are would be to try to see what benefits there would be if the basic rights to the fulfillment of the basic natural needs would be guaranteed (it would be hard to say "granted", because that would imply a sort of a charity; we could hardly be called "charitable" if we would "grant" someone the right to eliminate body wastes, for an instance).

Imagine what would happen, if suddenly no one could be persecuted for trying to go to sleep, even if such someone would have no place that he/she could call their own, nor could they rent any such place. That either they could do so at any handy place where they would not obstruct any traffic and impose on anyone greatly, and where they could not cause any sanitary hazards, or they could do so at especially for the purpose designated places on municipal, state, federal, or any public land that would be geared, if only modestly, towards providing such needs. That in itself should not cause any huge outlay of public money, and as for labor needed in keeping such places up, the people who would be using such places could be educated over the time to help with the upkeep.

Over the longer run, the consequences of guaranteeing ad facilitating to anyone the exercise of just this one natural Human right--the natural human right to sleep--would be profound. (A rhetorical question--might there be any other natural rights--other than those already mentioned-- that are still being violated habitually in our society?)

Rested people would be better fit to take care of their affairs more independently. Many people who today pay an unreasonably high price for having a place to live would probably choose eventually to become homeless voluntarily once the stigma and onus of being homeless would no longer exist. The out-of-proportion price of real estate would go down to become more realistic and more affordable again. People would no longer have to work at nonsensical jobs just to make ends meet--the quality of the out-put of work would increase considerably, because people could afford more to work at jobs that they would like to do. There would be fewer jobs that exist today just for the sake of having jobs with no thought of actually accomplishing anything at all by having those--a step towards sanity. The abstract, meaning nothing to the average person, really, GNP would go down, while the actual, real quality of life (measured by reduction of busy-ness and stress) would improve. People who would be rested would be less prone to become criminals, and the esteem of, and the trust and confidence of every one in our social system would increase. The possibility of an actual existence of a "social contract" would become real. People whose natural human rights would be defended and guaranteed would start actively care for their society and have a society that they could be proud of without resorting to hype and empty rhetoric. Humanity would score a point against the "pursuit of happiness" at the expense of others.

We, the members of this society, are suffering from great societal stresses that we ourselves create and perpetuate. If we give ourselves a break--from among other possibilities--in the form of eliminating unnecessary cruelty towards our fellow society members, the whole society would benefit. We just need to start wanting to see that we live in an almost closed system (the Earth globally), and that "what goes around, comes around". If we cause unnecessary suffering, then we, or our children, will reap the fruits. It is hard to predict the future, however it is possible to observe trends. The observable trend in our society is an ever increasing stress and hardship, as evidenced by the rise in numbers of those with mental problems, those who cannot afford adequate housing, and the rise of criminality. The question might present itself: If we torture our homeless today without anyone in the "normal" portion of our society doing anything that would solve the problem of homelessness humanly, what will be permissible to do to them, and other disadvantaged groups in the future? If no one protests the torture of the homeless today, who will protest when cruel and unusual treatment of other disadvantaged groups will become the norm also? Isn't there a possibility that we, and/or our family members (who already get the short shrift in their old age, because we are too busy to take care of them) and friends might be included in one of those groups ourselves? We still can stop this rise in civic apathy--we all will benefit if we become kinder and gentler to ourselves in deed.

To be causing homelessness and to withhold from people the natural human right to sleep (along with other "proscribed" natural humann rights) is a grave and insufferable social injustice that can only be righted by guaranteeing and defending of this natural human right in disfavor of making an unreasonable profit from human misery.

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Ecologically and Socially Sustainable Crestone.

To become sustainable seems to be necessary to many people. What is not clear is what "sustainability" might mean to various individuals. When we say "sustainable", do we all mean the same thing? Could one's "sustainability" be more sustainable than someone else's? It would be useful to find out what different people might imagine what a sustainable Crestone would look like.

In what way would a sustainable Crestone community obtain the basic necessities for life? Could all food be obtained in a sustainable way? Could all materials needed for construction of shelters be also gotten in a sustainable way? How sustainable would be a sustainable Crestone's social structure? What would a sustainable Crestone's government look like?

Please, submit your ideas about what a sustainable Crestone should be like to suscrestone@myway.com .

Thank you, Hearthstone modelearth.org .

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Transportation
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

A very important issue is hardly ever mentioned now-a-days--what should be the ideal model of sustainable transportation? Most ideas dealing with ecologically correct transportation merely suggest forms of transportation that would be less harmful to the environment--less polluting, not petrochemical resources based, and also included might be improved mass public transportation, car pooling, and such. Rarely, if ever, the ideal ecologically and socially sustainable transportation is presented as such that would not be needed at all, following the principle that the best solutions are such that are as simple as possible.

Consider: If everything that is needed for a comfortable life could be obtained within a walking distance of one's dwelling, what transportation would there be necessary at all? Ways of growing of all the food at home one might ever need have already been researched and are known; materials needed for construction of dwellings can be found and grown in the vicinity of one's dwelling also, and the solution to visiting relatives and friends (that "normally" might involve traveling great distances across the globe, at times) would be solved by concentrating of all those within one's walking distance, and if that could not be done, than walking the distance could be the way, providing that one could stop and work for one's upkeep along the way with the understanding that a similar courtesy would be extended to any travelers passing through one's own locality.

A good reason to consider non-transportation of person and goods as the best way of transporting is that no matter how much more benign any form of transportation could be made (be it by lowering fuel consumption, or by making mass public transportation more available), the result would be still doing harm to the environment, no matter how much lesser that harm would be. Consider the advantages of not having to support any heavy industry necessary for production of any means of transportation (even that of bicycles); an industry that could never be made sustainable even socially, if not only ecologically, because of the high degree of social organization necessary for sustaining of such industries. And the last, but not the least, reason for promoting non-transportation of anything (by the virtue of having everything necessary for life within walking distance) is that usually the simplest solutions are the most efficient and elegant ones.

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Our Troubled Science:
Why We Are Descending into Dark Ages.

There is a growing sense of unease among the science community caused by the growing support of the general public for the various forms of fundamentalism, creationism, and the increasing power of religions generally. There seem to be a controversy between science and religion that is, to many scientists, incomprehensible; how can anyone not understand the very clearly presented findings of science? The answer could perhaps be that science is not as useful to humanity as scientists would like to believe.
Why should our sciences fail us? The main reason could be that for the ordinary people a religion, and whatever quality solace a religion can provide, is easier obtain able. Most of science can provide might be brilliant and a subject to clear reason, but, even more so, the fruits of science are increasingly becoming a commodity, and increasingly inaccessible to ordinary mortals.
While most people in the world live in substandard conditions, scientists, with some debatable exceptions,spend their energy on projects that, to most humanity, must seem trivial. Should science regain any useful standing in the society, scientists would have to curtail doing whatever it is that they are busy with at the moment, put their existential preoccupations aside as much as possible, and seriously use their knowledge to address the most pressing problems that we, as the whole society, are experiencing. And not only superficially, but they would have to strive for fundamental cures, such that would do away with the problems that have been with humanity for almost forever, but that don't have to exist at all--wars, poverty, humans devastating the Earth.
Unless the scientists start actively cooperating together on solving humankind's and the Earth's dire problems soon, there is the danger of science becoming a keepsake of the Earth's powerful factions, and the vast majority of humans not caring whether they live on a flat, or a round Earth, but interested more in living a better quality of life, something that science cannot really provide to a majority of them, but something that religions seem to be able to promise to provide.
A related article: An Appeal to Academia.

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Mahayana, Homelessness, and Benefitting All Beings.

Mahayana is a philosophy that holds that our happiness is directly, indirectly dependent on the happiness of all beings "in all three times and all ten directions of space" (including here and now, implicitly).
Those beings who are deprived of the possibility to sleep, rest, and taking care of things that are necessary to do for one's life's satisfactory continuation become burden for others sooner, or later by losing their ability to think clearly, and are likely to do actions that are detrimental to the whole community.
To sleep, to rest, and to not be hindered in taking care of one's natural needs are "natural rights"--not determined to be "natural rights" arbitrarily, but by recognizing that without granting those rights the whole community would suffer adverse consequences.

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Indigenous Hawai'ian Culture
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

UHH
Anthro 499
Spring 2002
hearthstone at myway-com--subject: 499

Keywords.
Sustainability, ecological, social, "ecological sustainability", "social sustainability", sustainable, "ecologically sustainable", "socially sustainable", indigenous, Hawai'ian, culture, design, model.

Abstract.
The mounting ecological and social problems that humanity is experiencing today might force a sincere cooperative effort in, hopefully, not too a distant future, in order to solve those problems. No matter what the results of such a cooperation might be, for them to be satisfactory, any such result will have to be a design of a world that would be ecologically and socially sustainable.
Most of the knowledge and means necessary for an actualization of such a sustainably balanced world is already available. There is enough known about ecologically sustainable technologies, however - only a very few widely known ideologies that would foster the establishment of a truly ecologically and socially sustainable future are widely enough known today. Such ideologies will have to be found and developed. One possible source for development of such ideologies could be cultures that used to live in balance with their environment and with their neighbors.
This paper essays to find if there are any explicitly stated ecologically and socially sustainable ideologies in the indigenous Hawai'ian culture, and whether it would be possible to transfer those ideologies from the context of the indigenous Hawai'ian culture into the now pre-dominant global culture.

That humanity as a whole has become the enemy of itself and of most other life around on the Earth has become axiomatic, - one only needs to see the vital statisticcs and follow the news to see this. If quality of life might be said to be improving, this might be true only in some localities and for, proportionally, a very small number of people, and it can be shown invariably that this happens at the expense of other parts of the whole Earth system.
If the trends observable today in the world could be taken as indicative of the world's future, then the future of the world would be one of increasing misery for most life on Earth. Any hopes to the contrary would be unfounded. Any measures meant to heal the plight, either currently implemented or contemplated, can only result in slowing down of the destruction, because the ultimate goals of any such measures are not the achievement of a true environmental and social balance, but only to achieve a temporary, limited relief. Only by aiming for a true environmental and social balance (those two go hand in hand: there can be no social balance without living in a balanced ecology - the anxieties about resources would not allow it, and there can be no ecological balance without having resolved intergroup conflicts - people who fight do not have the leisure to bother with environmental problems) on Earth can any effective and lasting results be achieved. Since different people have different ideas about what the ideal future of the world should be, they have to overcome their differences, sit down around a virtual round table, design a world that would be ecologically and socially balanced (a world that would be ecologically and socially truly sustainable), and proceed to find ways that would result in achieving of such a world.
The knowledge and the means for doing so is mostly available, and if not available such knowledge would have to be found. There already is a great amount of knowledge concerning ecologically sustainable technologies. However, as of now, there are virtually no widely enough known ideologies that would foster ecological and social sustainability and state so explicitly, even though there were many (or, perhaps, there still might be some, marginally surviving) cultures that might have lived in balance with the ecological processes and in harmony with other peoples. The purpose of this paper is to try to find any such ecologically and socially sustainable ideologies (that would be stated explicitly) in the indigenous Hawai'ian culture, with the hope that those ideologies could be adopted in designing of a sustainable world.

Since anything connected with the production of this paper is constrained by the very short time-span allowed (this current semester - Spring 2002) the methodology employed is very simple: a several individuals presumed to have some knowledge of the indigenous Hawai'ian culture were approached by the means of electronic mail, the results to be briefly analyzed for the purposes of this paper and then used in farther research. The message to those randomly selected informants-hoped-to-be (from various lists of Hawai'ian organizations and from people known to the author) was as follows:

Dear people!
I am an undergraduate at the UHH, my Major is Anthropology, and my main interest is the Design of Ecologically and Socially Sustainable Communities. I am interested in finding ideologies that would support the establishment of ecologically and socially sustainable communities. I would appreciate if you would read the following, and see if you could help me in any way. I will be interested in any constructive input. With the increasing degradation of the world's environment and with the decreasing quality of life of most of the world's humanity, it is only a question of time that really effective, and really sincere solutions for the problems of the world will have to be sought. The most expedient solution to the most of world's problems would seem to stop creating problems, and start undoing the damage done in the past. The simplest and easiest way to accomplish this could be for humanity to strive to live in harmony with the ecological processes of the Earth and in harmony with the social processes - to live ecologically and socially sustainably. There is already a fair amount of knowledge of ecologically sustainable technologies, however - as of now, there are only a few philosophies that would foster ecological and social sustainability, and state so explicitly. Maybe there are such explicitly stated philosophies still surviving in cultures that used to live in harmony with their environment and in harmony with other peoples, and maybe those philosophies could be used in the present day need - the members of the now dominant global cultures are in many cases many generations distant from the times when those cultures might still have been living in harmony with their environment and in harmony with other peoples, and have, by now, no (or a very little) memory of those distant times. I understand that there might be many sustainable (ecologically and socially) ideas in the indigenous Hawai'ian culture that are implicit, however - are there any ecological and social ideas in the indigenous Hawai'ian culture that would be explicit, so that it would be, perhaps, possible to transfer such ideas into other cultures, most importantly - into the now prevalent global culture, without the need to transfer the whole of the indigenous Hawai'ian together with those ideas?

Thank you, sincerely - Mr. Jan Hearthstone.

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ECOLOGICALLY AND SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION:
Creating a Sustainable World.

Abstract.
The purpose of ecologically and socially sustainable education is to teach the skills and to impart knowledge necessary for the establishment and perpetuation of ecologically and socially sustainable society. The first step in ecologically and socially sustainable education is to determine what an "ecologically and socially sustainable society" is. This is achieved by reconciling and unifying of all individual ideas that there ever might exist of what should constitute an "ecologically and socially sustainable society" into a unified model--a model acceptable to all because it is based on all knowledge and data pertinent to the subject. This unification in a model is necessary in order to avoid costly resolving ("costly" in terms of time, energy, and resources) of differences among those ideas in real life. Once it is known what an "ecologically and socially sustainable society" should be, "ecologically and socially sustainable education" would provide the means for establishing and maintaining of "ecologically and socially sustainable society".

Keywords.
"ecologically and socially sustainable education", "ecological and social sustainability", sustainable, sustainability, education, "Path of Least Resistance", Robert Fritz, Mahayana, philosophy.

The aversion to suffering is fundamentally the basis, the reason for the emergence of "ecological and social sustainability". It is obvious that most of human suffering is caused by humans themselves, and to see that by merely addressing the by the humans caused suffering the greater part of all human and other beings' suffering could be eliminated.
It could be argued that for humans to live sustainably is the optimal way to exist, a way that would generate the least amount of suffering for humans and many other beings who share this world with them. The principal idea expressed in this paper--the purposeful and conscious designing of our collective sustainable future collaboratively--is based on the philosophy of Mahayana and the practical approach to creating of desired results as it is formulated in The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz (Fritz 1984).
Mahayana's noble goal is to cause all beings to become ultimately happy, to become "enlightened", with no beings left behind in suffering. Thus Mahayana philosophy might be best suitable for creating and maintaining of ecologically and socially sustainable society, because Mahayana's concern is the ultimate happiness of all beings, transcending all differences, be those differences in species, ideologies, creeds, classes, and any such differences that divide all beings. All beings' welfare is important in Mahayana's view, as it is in true sustainability.
To live ecologically and socially sustainably does not imply a complete abolition of all beings' suffering which is the goal of Mahayana--that would be impossible to achieve with our "earthly" means--, but to live sustainably would prevent most of unnecessary sufferings from happening, at least. The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz (Fritz 1984) teaches how to create results that one desires without concerning oneself with whether a particular goal might, or might not be achievable at the moment, without concerning oneself about (this is important) what not to have in a desired ideal. What is important in any creation is that we know what it is that we want to have, what we want to create. What matters is whether one cares, wants to see one's particular goals realized.. A condition for the realization of a goal is that the goal to be achieved is imagined in as fine a detail as possible, or, at least, to know what one wants to achieve so well that when one would encounter this goal realized, one would recognize it without a fail. Obviously, it would not matter to know what it is that one does not want to have in the desired result, because this would never make any desired goal any clearer. There just might be an infinity of things that one might never want.
The process is described in the The Path of Least Resistance as "creating", because it concerns bringing into reality results that might not have existed ever before, bringing into being results as if out of nothing (the foregoing sentence is loosely paraphrased from the book--The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz--Fritz 1984).
At present there are many people who know what they do not want in their lives, but a very few who have formed a definite image of what their ideal life should be. Moreover there exist a myriad definitions of "sustainability", many of which are not even compatible with each other, and a lot of time resources, and energy are being wasted on trying to reconcile the differences among those definitions in real time and space, while all this waste could be avoided by reconciling these differences in a model, i. e. by deciding the viability of any idea by modeling in virtuality "concrete" applications of any ideas in consideration.
Even people who do not "believe" in sustainability could use the modeling process to see how their ideas of what an ideal world should be like in a model. I contend that by using the modeling process continually, even using input of people who do not "believe" in sustainability, eventually the result would have to, inevitably, be a portrayal of a sustainable world, because no other way other than sustainable could ever be as justifiable, nor any other results could ever be as elegant and parsimonious as sustainable ones.
The modeling of the ideal, would never be in any way influenced by any ideologies, creeds, or personalities of the inputters. Only the realization that we all have to share the Earth together with as little conflict as possible would matter. Only the relevance of ideas to creating of the ideal would matter.
The modeling of an ideal future could be used even in small scale situations in conflict resolutions, in deciding the future of small communities using the concept of the "round table" executed in any applicable form.

What is "ecologically and socially sustainable education"?
Ecologically and socially sustainable education helps to establish and maintain an ecologically and socially sustainable society. It shows the way towards establishing and maintaining of a sustainable world.

What is an "ecological and social sustainability"?
There are many definitions of what constitutes "sustainability", let alone "ecological and social sustainability". Some are less abstruse than others, but there is not a single one definition of "sustainability" that would satisfy everybody.
In my opinion, although the emphasis currently is on the "ecological" part of "sustainability, it would be impossible for "sustainability" not to be "sustainable" also "socially". For a society (or more fittingly in the sustainable sense--a community) to be able to readily react to the demands of ecological balance, the community itself has to be "sustainable"--i. e. - to be self regulating at the very basic level; to be "transparent" in order for its members to react swiftly should any societally exigencies arise that would threaten the ecological environment (read--the home) of such a community.

The need for a model that would show what an "ecologically and socially sustainable" world should look like.
The unification of all ideas about what our collective future should be like in a model is necessary in order to avoid costly resolving ("costly" in terms of time, energy, and resources) of differences among those ideas in real life.
It is necessary to have a good definition of "sustainable" for working purposes. Only by modeling of this definition we can get definitions of "sustainable" that actually would be "visible"--made "visible"--by "concrete" applications of "sustainable" in a model.
To reconcile all the various definitions of "ecological and social sustainability" (and to unify all ideas about what our collective future should be like generally) I propose that all of these are used to construct a model that would portray what an "ecologically and socially sustainable" (henceforth "sustainable" in this paper, for brevity sake) society, or any social entity of any size--from a local community to the whole Earth encompassing humanity. In such a model it would be possible to "see" what the each definition of "ecological and social sustainability" ("sustainability" from now on, but let us not forget that "sustainability" should be a holistic concept, that demands all of its components to be thoroughly "sustainable" themselves) would look like when translated from the abstract to a "visible" representation of "sustainability", if in virtuality only. In this way each of the definitions' viability could be "seen" and evaluated against all other definitions and against all knowledge that is important in deciding what is "sustainable" and what is not so (e. g.--availability and distribution of resources, particular societal composition and traits of particular societal groups, and such).
It is important to stress that this modeling should not be about "problem solving"! According to Robert Fritz in The Path of Least Resistance (Fritz 1984) the process of creating the results that we want to have in our lives cannot depend on "problem solving", because we never, really, run out of problems ever, and even, very unlikely, when we solve all of our problems, we still might not be even close to having what we really want to have, especially, if we don't know what that might be. The modeling has to focus on the results that we do want to have in our common reality.
The resultant emerging portrayal of an ideal state of things would not depend on the personalities of people inputting the model--only ideas would compete with each other. The process would not be hampered by the prestige, or the lack thereof, of people inputting the modeling process. Nor could anyone personally profit from taking a part in the process. The "profit" would lie in making it possible for all to design and to strive for the optimal home ever possibly obtainable with no one excluded from the process of doing so.
In essence the shaping of human society on any level, from a local community government to global concerns, driven by the desire to approach the ideal, would supersede, eventually, any form of government in existence currently, because once a justified, unified objective would be identified, the actions to achieve it would always be defensible, and because no one ever would be excluded from the political action. There is a qualitative difference between the way the society would be governed by using the modeling process and the way politics is being conducted currently. Today our future is being shaped by a very small portion of humanity, with a huge proportion of people who cannot influence their future significantly. Much discontent thus generated will create problems in the future, problems that will be resolved to the satisfaction of only a few again--the number of problems will be increasing till they will be "solved", for a while, by some major societal catastrophe.
In contrast, no one ever would be excluded from modeling the ideal state of the world--all who would care to live in a better world would always be able to improve on the ideal. No one's effort in modeling of the ideal and in contributing to achieving of the ideal would be wasted--actions small and actions big will all flow coherently into the realization of the ideal--both in the model and in reality. Differences that there are among people and cause so much unhappiness in real life could be dealt with, could be resolved in the model, in most cases pre-emptively.

Sustainable education springs from the need of bridging the current reality with the desired state of affairs.
With a visible, collaboratively being created, and generally upon agreed model of what our ideal common reality should actually be, it would always be possible to see what the discrepancy between what is desired and what actually exists currently, in relation to the ideal, is. This discrepancy between the desired goal and what there is in reality (in respects to the desired goal) alone would be the driving force of sustainable education (I am alluding to Fritz's description in The Path of Least Resistance--Fritz 1984--of how "structural tension" between the desired objective and its "current reality" drives the creation of desired results).

Sustainable education always makes sense, because at each point the whichever particular knowledge that is being acquired is clearly "seen" (by comparing the modeled desired reality with the current reality) as being necessary to know in order to achieve that which is desired.
The start of the modeling process itself would be the start of sustainable education.

Conclusion.
Most problems that humanity experiences are human made, and this fact implies a hope--it might well be within human powers to effect the healing of our world.
The "old" way of doing things will never do; obviously the "old" way got us to where we are now. We cannot look back trying to find solutions to our present problems, because any "solutions" from the past helped to get us exactly to where we are now. Any solutions based on humanity's experience from the past that have been tried have been proven ineffective, so far; ineffective in trying to deal with issues that really matter--fulfilling basic human needs satisfactorily--QED.
We have to look, as if, into the future for solutions, more precisely--we have to design our future to our collective satisfaction, and then we can work to make this designed future our reality. It is very important to know what it actually is that we desire to have.
Alone the existence of a constantly updated, evolving model of an ideal state of the Earth would greatly improve even our current political process by "seeing" to what degree each political decision would, or would not, help to achieve the ideal state.

References.
Fritz, Robert
The Path of Least Resistance, Salem, MA, DMA, Inc., 1984, ISBN: 0-930641-00-0

Mahayana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana#Bodhicitta, a one out of many Internet searches--terms: "Mahayana" and "Bodhicitta".

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Natural Human Rights
and
Ecological and Social Sustainability.

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Good Homes, not More Prisons is the Answer.

Most people who populate our prisons come from substandard homes. Homes, that instead of being havens where one replenishes one's strength to be able to live as a productive member of the community, are a source of existential anxieties, mostly because "homes" are becoming less and less obtainable due to their ever-rising cost, which causes an ongoing decline in quality of what a "home" should be: "an environment offering affection and security" (an apt definition according to WordNet Search - 2.1.).

A very simple remedy of this situation would be to recognize that human physical bodies have basic requirements that must be met for humans to be able to function properly. If those basic requirements are not met, then the stress thus caused generates various physical and mental dysfunctions that impair the capability of humans to function well and to be effective in meaningfully contributing to the welfare of their communities. To be able to take care of one's basic needs is a natural, unalienable human right, because without honoring this right the whole society suffers. As it is now, this right is not being honored, to the extend that even just to sleep and rest is not legal, unless one is able to purchase this right.

The benefits of honoring and defending this right would be far more greater than could ever be assessed on monetary basis. Without having this right our social miseries will keep on escalating to the point of destroying the whole of humanity.

That this right is not being recognized and honored is due to the fact that the right to pursue happiness at the expense of others (read: the right to pursue profit at others' expense) is placed above more, for the benefit of the whole system, important considerations.

A physical place, where the very basic requirements necessary for one properly being able to function in one's community could be very simple, with no frills--not much more than a safe and a sanitary campground--for a start.

It is still not too late for us to become fully humane. All we have to do, is to give ourselves a big break. Honoring the very basic natural human rights will be, even in the short run, immeasurably cheaper than the cheapest prisons possible.

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Defining Sustainability (?).

Since there are so many opinions on what the term "sustainability" should mean, the best way to arrive at a definition that would be best defendable, would be to actually model "sustainability", using all of the varied available definitions of "sustainability", to see graphically in a model to what degree all those definitions really are sustainable.
In a model that would represent either a region, or even the entire Earth, it would be readily seen how a which definition based on managing of a virtual reality (that would mirror reality as close as possible) is effective, or not.

The reason, the need for wanting to define "sustainability" is to know what "sustainability" is, in order for humanity to actually, eventually, become sustainable. If we don't know what that that we desire looks like, what it should be, then the chances are that we will never achieve it.

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Designing Sustainable Future for the Earth.

It appears to me that as the subject of "sustainability" is gaining popularity, the definition of sustainability is becoming less focused; although there is a myriad of projects whose concern is professedly "sustainability", "sustainability" is becoming progressively less likely achievable, because it is hard to achieve something that we don't know what it actually is.
It is not that individuals would not know what "sustainability" might mean to them, but it is that each person's "sustainability" might be very different, if not even at odds with, from what "sustainability" might mean to others.

Not the least problem with "sustainability" is that mercenary concerns rate, in most instances, higher than any other; thus "sustainability" might just be an excuse for achieving higher economical gains. This distorts the meaning of "sustainable"/"sustainability" considerably even further.

"Sustainability" could be modeled, creating a "picture" of what an ideal "sustainable" future of any geopolitical entity on Earth should be, using as input all the various ideas that virtually all people might have about what "sustainability" might mean together with the sum total of what we know of Earth in order to see how each and any of those ideas would fare under "real" conditions in a model.
The Earth is facing unprecedented hardships caused by human ignorance, and by modeling the future we would eliminate the very costly process of deciding what works and what doesn't--in trying to remedy the situation--by the currently used "hit, or miss" method.

The Earth future, at any point of time, is a result of the actions all the inhabitants of the Earth take in order to ensure a satisfactory future for themselves and for those whose future matters to them. But because our desires for a satisfactory future are, not infrequently, at odds with the desires of others, the final outcome--the future that we experience now-- usually pleases only a few.

It would be different should all the discrepancies that there are among all the individuals' wishes for future resolved harmlessly in a model, rather than with often tragic consequences in real life.

Such modeling of our common future would be a profound educational experience for all those who would participate in this modeling process, because individually we usually have but a very limited view of all the factors that go into making a future to happen, and the modeling process would show clearly where all those deficiencies might lie. In the modeling of our common future we would learn what we actually need to learn for a satisfactory future to happen.
By directly participating in designing our own future in a model our education would become meaningful to us; furthermore--we would learn at our own pace, and only that that would make sense to us--we would learn "on-the-job". We would not be learning something that would not have a direct connection with our lives.

We have all the technology necessary for designing of the future. By using "distributed computing", software for which is available in the form of "open source", the model could "reside" on all of the participants' computers thus eliminating the need for any physical structures. The process would be accessible to anyone interested in having a hand in the creation of one's future--something that our current reality denies to most.

Would there exist a model of what to all an optimal future should look like, the currently available process of creating our common future that currently is in the hands of people whose interests are not necessarily identical with that of those they represent would benefit by the fact that every one could compare the performance of those who govern to that what actually should be happening.

The possible uses for such a model would be many.

Please, let me know what you think of the idea. There is more about the idea at:
http://www.modelearth.org

Thank you, sincerely - Mr. Jan Hearthstone.

Notes.
A general observation pertaining to the sustainability of a solution to problems of sustainability could be that simpler, less complex social structure permits easier monitoring of processes affecting the ecological conditions, and, vice versa, that simpler solutions to ecological sustainability problems require a less complex society to implement those.

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Mahayana and Ecological and Social Sustainability.

Mahayana is a view that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all phenomena across all time and space, and that any one's well-being depends on the well-being of every other being across all time and all space.

A Bodhisattva is one who strives to realize the ideal of Mahayana, and therefore regards the well-being of all other beings as important as one's own.

To live ecologically and socially sustainably means to acknowledge the need of all other beings to live well also.

The need for living ecologically and socially sustainably is implicit in Mahayana.

Therefore an aspiring Bodhisattva would help all beings to be mentally and physically optimally well, and therefore an aspiring Bodhisattva would promote the way of living ecologically and socially sustainably.


Please dedicate your practice to the optimal benefit of all beings of all three times and ten directions of space, starting here and now; on Earth, in these troubled times.

Links:
Creating Peace
An Invitation

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Designing the Future of the Earth Collectively:
A Grand Unification of All Science Effected by Making All Available Knowledge Useful for Solving Earth's Problems.

Most differences that there might be among people could be resolved in a model, rather than, as it is a common practice, in real life with results that are not always satisfactory.

A desirable future for any geo-social entity could be portrayed in virtuality by using input from anyone who would care to do so, however, it would not be personalities inputted into the model, but rather ideas that would shape this virtual world. A world that would not be much different from our own Earth, except that in this model better ideas¹ would "win"/prevail on the basis of defendability from any point of view. Eventually a model of Earth would emerge that would be as close to being ideal as possible, a model that could serve as a basis for real life decisions affecting a satisfactory future.

Any ideas inputted into this virtual Earth would be tested against each other and against all data bases available that hold data pertaining to life on Earth--availability of resources, atmospheric conditions, socio-political conditions, possible demographic trends, etc., etc.

Any and all sciences would find a meaningful application in this model.

This model would unify all the disparate attempts at making the Earth a better place to live by coherently dissolving differences in the ultimate goals of those attempts, projecting all those goals into a virtual reality, where the viability of the which every notion could be tested.

A model that would be thus being created could be the ultimate authority for a broad range of purposes--from government to education--an ultimate authority, because should anyone ever disagree with the portrayal of the virtually optimal conditions for life on Earth as presented in the model, they would have the option to improve on it at any time.

This idea of modeling the future collectively is also presented at http://www.modelearth.org
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Footnote:
1. Better on the grounds of being more conducive to establishing as optimal conditions for all life on Earth as possible, and on the grounds of compatibility with all the data bases available containing as much about life on Earth as possible.

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I would like to extend the license for this proposal to anyone being able to try to present the idea--resolving any differences of any people in a model peacefully, rather than in real life with possibly grave and irreversible consequences--in a clearer way.
Also--if any of the above is unclear, I would very much like (if only for my own edification) discuss any of the above with anyone.

Thank you sincerely -
Mr. Jan Hearthstone (BA Anthro UH at Hilo, May 2002).

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CREDIT

for the ideas presented in
"MODEL EARTH"
goes to
Mahayana Philosophy
and to
The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz.
(Salem, MA, DMA Inc., 1984, ISBN: 0-930641-00-0.)

DEDICATED

to the optimal physical and mental well-being of all beings anywhere and anytime.
© - Modelearth - 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 - modelearth at gmail dot com