Foundation
Before we can make any real and lasting change, we need to make sure we have a solid foundation on which to build. To create this foundation, we will need to have the knowledge (facts, information and skills) to understand the issues, to recognize what is true and what is false, and to come up with and to evaluate solutions to our problems.
To understand the issues, we will need to learn more than a little bit about things like politics, law, logic, economics, medicine, engineering, and science. In addition, we will need to understand many other different things. These would include, but would not be limited to, such things as our history, our philosophy, our place in the world, and what is and is not possible.
To recognize what is true and what is false, we must first understand that we do not always see the world as it really is. We see the world through the unique lives that each of us has lived. In addition, other individuals and groups have tried to manipulate us with misinformation and lies, and we have often lied to ourselves. Therefore, we need to understand how our lives have shaped the way we see the world, we need to understand our own biases, we need to be able to recognize when others are trying to manipulate us, and we need to find reliable sources of information.
Although most of us do not want to admit that we allow others to manipulate us, our worldviews, cognitive biases and moral values can allow that to happen. Our worldviews are our philosophies of life and views of the world that we constructed for ourselves, which may or may not be accurate. Our cognitive biases are the filters and shortcuts that our ancestors evolved to make decisions that helped them to survive, but which may not always help us in our modern world. Our moral values are the guidelines that assist us in deciding between right and wrong, but which may sometimes lead us astray.
Then, with this knowledge and understanding, we will be able to build our foundations, to set our goals, to analyze our problems, to find and to test solutions, and to come up with a plan to meet our goals and to implement our solutions.
With the knowledge and understanding that I have worked to acquire, and after much thought and consideration, I ended up settling on a philosophy of life that is my foundation. What I came up with is very similar to one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. My version would read something like the following.
“Respect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all current and future living things”.
This means that all current and future living things deserve the rights and the protections needed to live a life of their choosing unless it unfairly infringes on the rights of others to do the same. The only “harm” that we should be allowed to do to others would be the result of fair and honest competition or the appropriate response to what harm someone else has done or is trying to do to us or to others.
This can also be stated as I did in the Rules subsection of the Introduction as "do no undue harm", "protect everything from undue harm", and "allow all living things to live their lives their way".
Along with coming up with a philosophy, I came up with some corresponding guidelines to help me test the ideas that I or others have come up with to see if they would in fact solve the problems we face in our world and our modern civilization. Basically, these guidelines are just some requirements that must be met for me to deem any idea to be worthy of consideration.
At the very forefront of these guidelines are the concepts of "do no undue harm", "protect everything from undue harm", and "allow all living things to live their lives their way". Beyond that, an idea must also respect the right of everyone and every living thing to have a fair and equal opportunity to work towards getting all that life has to offer. Unless an idea can be implemented so that it at least passes these tests, then it will not work and should not be considered.
With my philosophy and guidelines in mind, I came up with some new ideas for solving the problems that we face in our world today. These ideas are meant to help us all live our lives in better harmony and cooperation with others and with the world around us. By implementing these ideas, I truly believe that we would make the world a better place for all living things in the near and distant future.
Even though I have formulated my philosophy, guidelines and ideas over many years of study and careful thought, I will acknowledge that there may likely be some new and better ideas out there waiting to be discovered.
As I learn new things, I am always using what I learn to refine my existing ideas and to look for new ideas. Nevertheless, I do not think we have the luxury of waiting for the absolute best ideas to come along before making some needed changes. Therefore, we may need to make do with the best ideas available to us right now so that we can start to solve our problems, and then update our plans as better ideas come along.
Of course, for my ideas, or those of anyone else, to be implemented, others will need to know about them and to understand them. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to document my ideas for putting us on a path towards a better and brighter future, so that they can be read, discussed, refined and implemented. To get started, we will first need to review some information that will help to set the stage and to get us started thinking about our future path.
To find our future path and to solve our problems, we must all start with an open mind and a knowledge of the issues. We must look at the latest and greatest of our accumulated knowledge from many different disciplines, which would include, but not be limited to, logic, history, science, engineering, philosophy, sociology, religion and government. We need to use this knowledge to put together a good understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Next, we cannot take anything for granted. We must question and analyze everything. As needed, we will need to come up with some new ways of seeing and doing things. I did this while working on my ideas for our future path and I found that even some of my previously deeply held beliefs turned out to be wrong.
By utilizing the best of our current technology and knowledge, and by applying some appropriate guidelines, we can move towards solving today’s problems. In addition, we can find a path that will take us into a better, brighter and more sustainable future, where all living things can have richer and more rewarding lives.
Of course, even with the vast amount of knowledge we have today, there are many things left for us to learn. In fact, some new discovery may greatly change what our future will look like. Even so, we cannot count on some future discovery to save us from a bad path. Therefore, we must map out the best future that is possible with what we know today but make our plans flexible enough to take advantage of any new discoveries and to come up with solutions to any new problems that may crop up.
Unfortunately, many of today’s problems do not have easy solutions or we would have solved them already. In addition, when looked at separately, many of our problems may not even seem to have a workable solution. One difficulty is that the current solution to a previous problem may be preventing us from finding a solution to some other problem. For example, just locking up a criminal in prison for a few years may solve a short-term crime problem, but unless we reform these criminals and stop creating new criminals, we will continue to have a long-term crime problem.
In addition, some individuals may feel that a given course of action is the solution to a problem, but other individuals may have very different ideas about a solution. The problem here is that many so-called solutions may work with some individuals’ lifestyle choices, but not with those of others. A good solution to a problem must work for everyone.
Therefore, we need to look deeper than just our current or short-term problems. The key to solving our problems is to look at the big picture. We must look at how everything in our world and our civilization works together as a whole. Then we can put together some overall principles that we can use to guild us in solving all our problems for the long-term. Basically, this will mean coming up with a new model for a civilization that would not have our current civilization’s problems and then finding the best way to convert our current civilization into this better one.
In the following sections, I will try to provide some understanding about ourselves and some information that will help us be better informed and that will help to explain the foundations of my ideas for a better and brighter future.
Worldview -
Our worldview is the foundation of how we see and interact with the world.
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