The Simpler Way: An Outline of the Global Situation, the Sustainable Alternative Society, and the Transition to It by Ted Trainer

About

The word nooventure is derived from the Greek nous meaning mind, and the English venture meaning an undertaking that is of uncertain outcome, daring, or dangerous.”Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think”, a great teacher once said. To it, can be added that “what humanity thinks, civilization becomes.”

Thus, the quality and outcomes of both our personal and collective nooventures sets the course civilization took, is taking and will take, and many of our thinking is in dire need of change, for a flourishing civilization to emerge.

My name is Wibowo Sulistio and this is my personal ventures in noosphere, in the quest for a life-sustaining civilization design. Hope you find something of value here.

Namaste

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Must-Read Insights

“The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress.” (Bertrand Russell)

“Man knows himself only to the extent that he knows the world; he becomes aware of himself only within the world, and aware of the world only within himself. Every object, well contemplated, opens up a new organ within us.” (Goethe)

“Our capacity to see and change the world co-evolves with our capacity to see and change ourselves.” (Robert Quinn)

Miniature Earth

If earth were a village of 100 people, this is how it would look like. A beautiful presentation of the human family in a blue planet.

The Earth Charter

The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental values and principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world.

It is an expression of hope and a call to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history. The Earth Charter’s inclusive ethical vision proposes that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. It provides a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues.

Spiritual Imperative by Satish Kumar

The true mark of civilization is to maintain a balance between material progress and spiritual integrity. How can we consider ourselves to be civilized when we don’t know how to live with each other in harmony and how to live on the Earth without destroying it?A civilization without a spiritual foundation is no civilization at all.

A Life Lived Whole by Parker Palmer

Living integral lives is daunting. We must achieve a complex integration that spans the contradictions between inner and outer reality, that supports both personal integrity and the common good. No, it is not easy work. But, by doing it, we offer what is sacred within us to the life of the world.

One for All and All for One, a World-Changing Revolution in the Making

A war without a battlefield, a war without an enemy, a war that is everywhere, a thousand civil wars, a war without an end. It’s rewriting the rules as to what counts as truth, and what constitutes value. Just as antibodies rally when the body is under threat, people are joining together to defend life on Earth. This movement of movements may be the last, best hope for humankind, and non-humankind likewise.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy by Dr. Albert Bartlett

We have to educate all of our people to an understanding of the arithmetic and the consequences of growth, especially in terms of populations and in terms of the earth’s finite resources. We must educate people to recognize the fact that growth of populations and growth of rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

Economy vs. Earth, Just So Much And No More by Donella Meadows

The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever. Companies must get bigger. National economies need to swell by a certain percent each year. People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more - ever more.

The first commandment of the Earth is: Enough. Just so much and no more. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the Earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops. The planet does not get bigger, it gets better. Its creatures learn, mature, diversify, evolve, create amazing beauty and novelty and complexity, but live within absolute limits.

Money Versus Wealth by David C. Korten

Instead of creating wealth, our money system is depleting our real wealth: our communities, ecosystems, and productive infrastructure. What to do?

The Happy Planet Index by the New Economics Foundation

What is the point of having a great amount of production, if the people doing the producing are unhappy, and the land cannot sustain the same level of production so that collapse and more misery will ensue?

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics: what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness). The resulting Index of the 178 nations for which data is available, reveals that the world as a whole has a long way to go.

It’s Democracy Stupid! An Agenda for Self-Government by Tom Bentley

Politics cannot change society unless it can persuade people to change the way they themselves behave. It must help people to develop and express their own identities in ways that contribute to wider social goals.

A Well-Being Manifesto for a Flourishing Society by the New Economics Foundation

While many policies tend to focus on enhancing people’s incomes by expanding the economy, this has not tended to result in higher levels of well-being. This manifesto seeks to answer the question “what would politics look like if promoting people’s well-being was one of government’s main aims?”

Winning the Great Wager by Alex Steffen

We don’t say it in public, but we’ve placed a giant wager here on the future of the human race. If we win that wager, we win everything: a future of endless potential and a planet worth living on. If we win that wager, there is reason to believe that H.G. Wells was right and that “All of the past is but the beginning of a beginning, all that the human mind has accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.”

Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century by Willis Harman

We are living through one of the most fundamental shifts in history - a change in the actual belief structure of Western society. No economic, political, or military power can compare with the power of a change of mind. By deliberately changing their images of reality, people are changing the world.

Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable World by Ervin Laszlo

The road on which humankind finds itself is not sustainable: it is about to bifurcate. This is the meaning of a macroshift. The speed of our collective evolution is unprecedented: we are rushing toward a major bifurcation, and most people do not even know it. It is high time to shift our gaze from the rearview mirror to the landscape ahead.

The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community by David Korten

Earth Community organizes not by domination, but by partnership, between human, and with nature. It unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all.

Redesigning Civilization as a Healthy Living System - the Thinking of Elisabet Sahtouris

When we humans, after all a very young species, drop our adolescent arrogance of thinking we know it all and read the wisdom in our parent planet’s accumulated experience of living systems design, we too will mature as a species, to our own benefit and that of all other species, as well as the planet itself.

Optimum Population, the Central Feature of a Life-Sustaining Civilization Design

Central to the things that we must do is to understand that in the intricate web of crises, population growth - too many human - is the immediate cause of all our social and environmental crises. It is increasingly apparent that the long-term sustainability of civilization will require not just a leveling-off of human numbers as projected over the coming half-century, but a colossal reduction in both population and consumption.

Taking Action for Sustainability: The EarthCAT Guide to Community Development by Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Christian Layke and Melissa Everett

This workbook can help if any of these statements apply to your situation:

• You feel that most of the “solutions” being proposed are band-aids — they don’t address the roots of the problem, and sometimes make things worse.
• You know that your community should be doing something about global issues, but you don’t know where to begin.
• Several issues over the past few years have been divisive for your community, and you need a reliable way to bring people back to the table to discuss policies and programs in a pro-active way.
• You have some ideas for the betterment of your community, but don’t know how to make them a reality.
• A lot of people in your community are resistant to trying new things.
• Most of the efforts already underway seem fragmented; you’d like a sense that people had a comprehensive and long-term view of where the community is going.
• The community will never have the money to accomplish …….. (fill in the blank).

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