Sustain-ABLE

As a young teen I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to save the world. One idea I had was to create the perfect government.

I don't know how I got this crazy idea, but instead of debating legislation, all the variables would be fed into a computer, and the device would make the decision, which the government leaders would follow. In my fictional world, the computer was called Computo. By using Computo, the government made the BEST decisions instead of POLITICAL decisions.

Sustain-ABLE

Now, 35 years later, I'm not giving up on my idea of saving the world. Okay, here's my latest idea: What we need is a think tank that would focus on only one task -- creating a sustainable society. Now, the goal is NOT to create utopia, but only to make the world sustainable enough so that we don't destroy ourselves, our planet, and other animal species.

To start, we would give a group of visionaries the task of charting out perpetually sustainable ideas. Every time they ran into a social barrier, they would need to step back and say, "What is causing this resistance?" And then they would need to design a strategy to address that challenge.

Every aspect of society would be "on the table" and the visionaries would do their visioning without budget concerns.

A few ground rules would be put into effect:

• The strategy must include ALL people, and human health must be considered, including mental, physical, and social health.
• Humans must be allowed to live a reasonably comfortable life.
  
• The well being of animal life, I mean ALL animal life, must be factored in.
• Each generation must leave Earth in as good or better shape than how they found it.

As a starting point, the people in the wealthy countries must adopt a more simplistic lifestyle. This would immediately remove massive strain from the Planet. We can all have smaller cars and houses and still be happy. Most importantly, we must all have smaller families.

The think tank would recommend public policies to our elected officials. All recommendations would be based on the long-term, instead of the short-term. If politicians are unable to make their decisions based on the distant future, then we need to find out what forces are blocking them from doing that.

Human behaviors must be modified. How can we end cigarette smoking and religious fanaticism, which are two of the greatest banes on society? How can we get the general public to accept science instead of following the mythology of ancient desert savages?

What other human attributes are essential for long-term survival? Should our dream society be democratic and capitalistic? I'd say that preserving freedom is essential, but we also need to act in a more socialistic way. We all need to contribute to the common cause of creating a clean, safe, and healthy planet for our children, and other animals as well.

We must come to grips with our animalism. A lot of our religious traditions are arrogant -- we must deal with this self-conceived notion that we are better than other animals, or that we have a "soul" and they don't. Once we realize that we are a PART of the great web of life, and not the foolhardy "masters," we will have taken a major step forward.

Could Get Creepy

Admittedly, this entire thing could get out of control. What if we started doing brain procedures to create favorable behavior? What if we socially engineered our children to make them good little tree huggers? We might accomplish our goal, but could lose our freedom of thought. And "freedom" must be preserved throughout this process.

What if we really do create Computo and use Him to make our decisions? Will the masses simply turn to him as a deity? Will we have created our own master, who rules over a healthy, green planet, but sucks our free will away at the same time?

Are the forces at play here so conflicting that survival of humanity is hopeless? Can we carefully decide what tradeoffs and what rights we are going to sacrifice to ensure human perpetuity? Or should we live free and happy now, and not worry about the ruin we our leaving our children? And if the current iteration of humanity is doomed anyway, shouldn't we just live it up and not worry about all the cigarette butts on the street? Can't we have peace in knowing that some other species may evolve to a high intelligence and replace us? Can the apes turn human again?

Certainly, when you review all the conflicting values, it's certainly easier to just worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster and not worry about life past our lives. We raised our kids to be tough -- they can wallow in the sea of crap that we've left them, and they can work it out. Or can they?

The Goose has much to think about, but I'm starting to get a really exciting vision. Stay tuned.