Free Palestine
Free Palestine!
A group in support of a Free Palestine and an end to the Israeli occupation.
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Mar 28, 2008
Updated: Nov 17, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Seven Policy Switches for Global Security
Resource Info Edit
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Network [Add] · [List] · [Visualize]
  |
About [Edit]
Paper and slides presented to a NATO Science meeting. "Together the switches define a practical strategy for global security, for a serious attempt at revival of co-operation, ecosystems and prosperity." Comments and criticisms welcome!
Click on the 'files and photos tab above, then the file name then download. Thanks, James
Draft (not yet published): Seven Policy Switches for Global Security
NATO Advanced Research Workshop. Split, Croatia 17th-19th June 2009
James Greyson security AT blindspot.org.uk
Abstract: Everyone desires a secure life. Yet the security of more and more regions is undermined by unreliable and unequal availability of basics such as energy, water, food, natural resources, funds, co-operation, trust and hope for the future. Shocks such as the credit crunch, infectious diseases, climate instability and ecological collapses are converging towards a ‘planet crunch’ where security would become a fond memory. Traditional policy-making, that manages problems separately and incrementally, offers only the illusion of protection against impending unaffordable and irreversible shocks affecting all people. Future security anywhere requires all facets of security everywhere. This ‘global security’ ambition can be sought with a new era of policy-making that encompasses the indivisibility, scale and urgency of all planet crunch issues. This paper offers a selection of seven simple ‘policy switches’ (or ‘leverage points’ in complex systems). Each policy switch offers an expanded vision of people’s role on Earth and a whole-system change to implement it. Together the switches define a practical strategy for global security, for a serious attempt at revival of co-operation, ecosystems and prosperity.
The proposed policy switches are:
1. The strategy of aiming to reduce problems can be switched to reversing them with ‘positive development’. Less bad is not good enough.
2. Education can inspire a culture of joined-up thinking and engagement by switching from predetermined to curiosity-led learning.
3. Economic growth can be switched from consuming the basis for further growth to building it by correcting markets with ‘precycling insurance’.
4. Rapid global disarmament can be launched by switching from Gross Domestic Product to ‘Gross Peaceful Product’, that omits weapons-related transactions.
5. Exploitive commodification of the Earth’s surface can be switched to guardianship by international treaty that interprets ownership in terms of responsibility to future generations.
6. Surplus accumulations of financial wealth, which would be wiped out by the planet crunch, can be switched by the wealthy into investments that secure all forms of wealth.
7. Global financial stability can be regained by switching money creation from the private sector to central public authorities and local currencies.
Comments (1 - 18 of 18)
|
|
Flag comment for removal blindspotter 13 days ago
Very perceptive comments Greg, thanks. Your suggestion that 'the 8th switch is us' is my favourite of all possibilities I can imagine.
|
|
The eighth switch may very well come when enough people feel lost, as the daily system they have been used to does not support their lifestyles anymore. As a group, we seem to have this mode of operation where we do not move toward real change until it is our only option. Even here the question would be, if a large contingent of the developed world feels this "wildnerness experience", would we be willing as a group to move forth into truly outside-of-the-box implementations to become sustainable? A part of this would depend on if people would give themselves the ability to reflect back on the system they have been within; like a fish out of water, but realizing once removed from it, that the water is terribly polluted and has been for a very long time.
From the standpoint of violent vs. peaceful revolution, keep in mind how relatively peacefully the Soviet Union and S. African Apartheid dissolved, and how China has moved forth into an expansive economic shared prosperity over the past couple of decades. Sometimes things can happen in ways we can barely even dream of.
I see the eighth switch as humanity as a group, waking up to our highest idea of what we are capable of implementing; the 8th switch IS us. Our voice can then demand change that works for everyone, rather than at the expense of most. We have never done this on a grand scale before. It is occurring as we speak, and this phenomenon is accelerating. When the whole group is ready to change, our working groups may be capable to help lead the way. |
|
|
Hi Martin. I'm glad of your thoughts and I observe the same 'reality' of exploitive approaches to all forms of security that you do. I do hope this does not apply to most people who in my limited experience are generally well-intentioned towards others. However we are all trapped in the 'reality' of the current paradigm that recruits everyone into some degree of exploitation whatever their intentions. I appreciate your dilemma that a peaceful solution has not previously been found and that revolution is no guarantee of success (since the leadership may change but not the paradigm). I love the idea that there might be an 8th switch to convince people in power.
Like you, I look forward to better ideas from others about what that 8th switch might be. Perhaps it has something to do with people observing that our 'reality' is constructed and so can be reconstructed? Those people would then no longer be stuck expecting change-as-usual and could re-envisage security (to include for example liberty) and help those in power realise that they share the fate of the rest of the world, whether or not we get our act together. Or is the 8th switch just to try to do it even though current 'reality' makes it seem so unlikely? Ideas invited! |
|
While I find the approach presented here very interesting and engaging I think that it falls short of reality for a few reasons. The first and most important reason is maybe that while most people desire a secure life (for me personally that is not a high priority, I feel liberty is much more important, and what do you make of "danger is fun"?) only very few want it for everybody. Actually most people want a secure life at the expense of others, e.g. many wear arms to protect themselves, ready to shoot any other person infringing on their security. A defensive war is still a widely accepted political measure. The most appalling part of it, however, is that a very small group of people draws their security of wealth and immense power from the induced insecurity of a multitude of others. Have a look at "The Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man" in this respect, or Jean Ziegler's The New Masters of the World. They exploit the insecurity of others for their own gains, they are willing to destroy the environment for their purposes and probably think that their wealth and power will protect them from the consequences. That is why we witness "preemptive" aggressive wars, the collusion of media, politics and the military-industrial complex or structural poverty of a majority of the world's inhabitants. The people presently at the helm of the centres of power have no interest in switching to a secure life for everybody, it is actually against their interests to allow that.
History teaches us that it will take no less than a revolution to wrench power from those people. And even then there is no guarantee for success.
Thus, and if we want a peaceful transition as I suppose, we need some eighth switch, which allows us either to convince those in power it is in their best interest to abandon it, to change their strategy to gain wealth and power towards one that brings security to everybody or to wrench power from them. I fear the last will not be possible peacefully.
Mahatma Gandhi has tried this for a subcontinent and came very close to success but failed at the end, with the splitting of India, hundreds of thousands of dead and India and Pakistan remaining in the grip of the colonial powers. We must suppose that those colonial powers played a crucial role in bringing about this failure.
It will not be easy to do better than India with Gandhi, and it will not go without sacrifices, but we nevertheless have to try. Gandhi shook the earth by boycotting just two industrial products exclusively supplied by the colonial power: cotton and salt. Maybe that is a good point to start at: what industrial products could possibly be boycotted to gain attention and to increase security and sustainability? Three come to my mind: centrally distributed energy (electricity, oil, gas...), agrochemicals and industrially processed food. Boycotting these could mean substituting them with small scale, i.e. locally produced renewable energy and switching to organic agriculture and local food production using natural fertilisers, e.g. animal and human manure and urine. Even a decrease of 10% in the consumption of each globally would be like an earthquake.
I am looking forward to better ideas. |
|
|
I'll want to stand behind anything that takes on the mega-muddle as a whole; my main constraint is time. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for a course or some way of engaging enough people fast enough. Perhaps the 7 switches will be offered out by some institution that people don't expect, in the way that NATO cultivated the research? Or perhaps it can be grass-roots? The course-maker that Bowo found seems to make this possible?
The paper was written with transition initiatives in mind. The vast thinking and effort that goes into local transitions could really take off if a little attention was given to making the global stuff really work for once. Could this be the key that opens the door that all the local transitions have spent years pushing against? |
|
Deborah,
I think that would be up to James. And WEversity (a.k.a. WE University, a.k.a. WiserUniversity) has morphed into a much simpler discussion forum at present. Have a look at WiZiQ though, this one is an instant online course maker that could be useful. Even for Transition Initiatives classes.
Cheers, Bowo |
|
|
so is there any way that we could repurpose this material and use is as a free course in We University? So much of the thinking coincides with what is proposed by Transition Initiatives.
|
|
|
Good on you Louis! The realisation that things cannot recover without such macro change is still a long way from any big business agenda (any big biz folk reading please prove me wrong) and I agree with you that it seems more likely to spring up first within business than government. Big business is not nearly creative enough, but they are ahead of governments by a mile in my experience (any government folk reading please prove me wrong). Another nice option would be for some powerful international agency (there are a bunch of them) to take it up and run. Us folk living at the grass roots can help by spreading the word.
|
|
James, all my prior reservations have gone. You have supplied a brilliant summary of all the macro-aspects of our future - I deal at grass-roots, but am aware that big business needs to be steered in new directions (governments will be forced to go with them) and I applaud you work in that sphere, which scares the bejeesus out of me.
However, I want to know a lot more about.... all of it |
|
|
Many thanks Marios! Yes, GPP would create the economic conditions for initiatives like Global Zero to flourish. Imagine no nukes, then no WMD, then no longer any need for high spending on violence and defence against violence. Imagine a security paradigm so clever that it championed the global systemic fixes to heal our disturbed world and to prevent a thousand unaffordable unwinnable future conflicts. |
|
Dear James, Very good points. Well said. The GPP concept can boost the GLOBAL ZERO initiative, http://www.globalzero.org/. Signatories for Global Zero include former US President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, businessman Sir Richard Branson, Ehsan Ul-Haq, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Pakistan, and Brajesh Mishra, former Indian National Security Advisor. Switching money creation on our monetary system, and applying glasnost in the center of our system is well overdue. Everybody talks about systemic failure, but they fail to identify the cause and give the right medicine. Marios |
|
James, I have flagged my previous comment for removal, so that I don't artificially reduce the value rating for your work. (You are correct in assuming that I thought I was rating how well WiserEarth is serving the larger community.) Let me see if this system permits me to input a higher rating now... Steve |
|
|
Dear James, You contacted me about 10 days ago regarding your use of Systems Thinking. I would really like to help you, but this site is not one I have ever really used. As a result (or maybe because I use FireFox), I cannoot make the download process work for your documents. I also do not immediately see any way to email you directly. I will keep looking, but if I do not succeed (or if you read this before I do), please email your documents to me at " steve at trimtabmanagementsystems dot com" I will be happy to look at them that way and get back to you. Thanks in advance for your understanding. Sometimes these social networking sites (at least in my humble opinion) are more trouble than they are worth. ;) Best regards, Steve |
|
|
Very kind thanks Roger. I'm not a NATO employee but contribute research to their Science for Peace and Security Programme. If this paper is published by them I hope it will find its way into their thinking, as they seem to be calling for new ways to do 'security'. Although the policy switches are simple, they are also not obvious. I don't know if it could possibly spread through any voting system - what do you think? Best of luck with your great initiative. Like wiserearth as a whole, you're part of the buzz that is waggle-dancing around the world in response to our human version of 'colony collapse disorder'. |
|
Thanks for posting this, James, and for making the BlindSpot meme our own. Who knew that deep within NATO, of all organizations, there bloomed such a patch of good ideas? Roger Eaton |
|
Good work!
|
|
|
Cool, thanks Michael! I did that list of blindspots briefly a year ago. The last NATO paper Systemic Economic Instruments for Energy, Climate and Global Security looks at this stuff in categories; the 'decoy attitudes' that cause blindspots and the 'patchwork policy' that results. My suggestion for these things is just to look out for situations where problems have either resisted solution for a long time or suddenly got bad on a big scale. In those situations we should expect blindspots and can hunt for big opportunities that policy-makers are missing. Boiling frogs is a great analogy for how we've become conditioned to wriggle but not jump. The precautionary principle is neat and the trick to making it work is to use it to design a problem-reversing economy, not just to inhibit the worst of today's problem-worsening economy. Yes I enjoyed that dialogue too and hope that we can notice the brink and jump the right way. |
|
This is brilliant James. I read the blindspot overview and was amazed by how you were able to recognize all of these critical blindspots. I'm interested in seeing if you could categorize these blindspots into a few groups or themes, which would allow people and especially policy makers, businessmen, the advocacy world, etc., to formulate better policies. Reading it made me really think about the boiling frog analogy.
As well as the precautionary principle wikipedia: The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.[1] The principle implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative explanation. In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the precautionary principle is also a general and compulsory principle of law.. And this brilliant discussion from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (movie as a whole was ok, but this discussion must be my ALL TIME favorite dialogue ever): Professor Barnhardt (Nobel peace prize winning professor): There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem. |
