The Universal ‘Source of the Issue’ Solution
Societal-systems – as society’s formalised determinants of culture-and-direction – contribute to ‘manufacturing’ our collective-psychology.
And, nature demands all societal-lifeforms have a culture-and-direction that:
‘maximises the earnestness and capacity of individuals to
‘put their society before themselves’ (i.e. natural-morality)’.
Thus, societal-systems that aren’t ‘society before self’-consistent serve as perpetual own-goalers.
Currently, we are confronted by exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) calamities, which are solely due to the absence of just a single (yet indispensable) societal-system.
The reason this absence is inherently significant is because, without it, we are forced to put ourselves before society, which is a turning-on-its-head violation of ‘society before self’ natural-morality.
In turn, this means we have inferior relationships with our conscience, our family, our society, our government, other human societies and our non-human environment.
For example, many believe it is justifiable to rip others off – such that potentially every one of those relationships is denigrated – because ‘that’s business’.
Thus, The Universal Solution to our Socio-Econo-Enviro- catastrophes is to, rather than relying on scientific gadgets as we muddlingly swat at symptoms, get to the source of the issue by correlating our societal-systems with natural-morality.
Specifically, as Priority 1, we need to introduce The Universal Survival Income (USI) such that we no longer
perpetually force and train citizens to put themselves before society in obtaining their Personal Survival Income (PSI).
For many, the first step may be to watch Planet of the Humans …
‘While not directly suggesting nature-consistent societal-systems as the solution, this myth-buster is a cold-water splash that gives us a wake-up chance’ – The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO)
For a balanced enlightening film critique, please read Emeritus Professor (School of Science, Griffith University) Ian Lowe’s article in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/3-times-michael-moores-film-planet-of-the-humans-gets-the-facts-wrong-and-3-times-it-gets-them-right.
Covid-19: The Quintessential Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) Circularly Catalysing Calamity
Covid-19 is a SEE circularly catalysing self-fulfilling calamity because it is both:
- SEE calamity manufactured – i.e. the poor (Socio-), struggling to engage in the market (Econo-) invade the greater environment (Enviro-) and live too close to live wild animals; and,
- SEE calamity manufacturing – i.e. the resultant shut-down causes an increase in all problems including the environment. That is, no matter the short-term environmental respite, Covid-19 ramifications will not only ultimately lead to economic compensatory catch-up but also, inevitably, a planet-wide baby boom.
May 15, 2020
Hi
Many environmentalists are exasperated over Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs’ Planet of the Humans documentary because they believe it weakens the much-needed unity required to fight Climate Change; however, since matters obviously aren’t improving, The CDO believes the film is precisely the considered step-back required because, while the current typical environmentalist’s zeal is understandable and even commendable, until now, only offered ‘Snake Oil’ scientific-gadget and swim-against-the-current regulatory remedies, their prescriptive method is flawed.
As imparted in the film, the problem is: not knowing what to do yet intent on doing something, we’re prepared to do anything even if it is detrimental to what we wish to achieve.
[The horrendously insidious irony – not only are we rampantly exterminating our environment but those we have been looking to for salvation – i.e. our scientists – are leading us down a bogus path, which, including via shieldingly making us feel better, is only exacerbating and hastening the disaster. Scientists often understand the effects; however, in general, they don’t at all understand the root cause, which isn’t all that surprising given science is only a subset of philosophy and, these days, our education system doesn’t teach philosophy.]
So, we need to step-back from Climate-Denier and renewable-energy rants and take another more sober and nuanced look at why we – not Big Oil or billionaires etc. – are behaving so inappropriately against our own interests.
First, Climate Change isn’t our only Enviro- problem, there is also habitat obliteration, biodiversity extinction, food source degradation (such as collapsing fish stocks) and plastic in our waterways and food chains and, ‘the herd of elephants in the room’, human-over-population.
Thus, disproportionately focusing on Climate Change is a fool’s gold endeavour.
Second, as well as Enviro- catastrophes, we also have Socio-Econo- ones, which cannot be subordinated let-alone ignored.
For instance, disempowered Indians cannot be prevented from escaping the dustbin of intergenerational electricity-absent poverty just to make us feel good that we have stopped one mine.
[Stopping one mine in one country is like seizing a big haul of narcotics – with supply diminished but demand still extant, price rises, which encourages:
- New entrants into the market;
- Existing uncaptured suppliers to supply more; and,
- All new and remaining suppliers to supply inferior product.
This is the reason The War on Drugs is a failure.
By the way, the solution to The War on Drugs is as simple as riding a bicycle – i.e. attack demand as well as attacking supply.
Exterminate demand by:
- First, implementing The Universal Survival Income, which will dramatically lower stress and, therefore, escapism; and,
- Second, have addicts registered (by, say, 3 doctors) such that they can go, not just to a safe-injection room, but to a safe-injection-and-safe-drug room where they, for free, receive non-contaminated government-supplied drugs along with, should they seek it, help to regain their control.
Then, analogous to people smuggling, with the profit gone, the supply will also go.
That is, there will be little demand flowing through to criminals and, therefore, no incentive for criminals to get someone addicted.
In this way, with law enforcement continuing to attack what’s left of supply, via attacking both supply and demand, The War on Drugs will be won such that, with our society predominantly free of the scourge, police, courts, prisons, hospitals and social workers will be dramatically freed-up.
Anyway, one issue (especially the generic one) at a time….]
In any case, such ad-hoc policies will inevitably engender swim-against-the-tide push-back, which is why our societies are experiencing increasing polarisation and vitriol that, if not tempered, will lead to societal collapse.
Thus, we must fight all our Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities holistically and simultaneously, which means fighting them at the level of our collective-psychology, which, rather than referencing the supposedly innate dark human weaknesses of greed and excess etc., refers to the need for appropriate formalised culture-and-direction ‘manufacturing’ societal-systems.
[For example, all other things being equal, a person raised in China or Saudi Arabia under their societal-systems – both formal and informal – is obviously going to have a different psychology than if they had been brought-up in Australia.]
Third, these Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities are not stand-alone problems – it is not a coincidence they are all simultaneously peaking – they are only symptoms of a single disease at the very core of our societies – namely, of systemic natural-morality (‘society before self’) violation.
Nature is all about genetic survival/reproduction, which means it’s all about genes successfully competing.
And, the way genes survival/reproduction compete is via individual-lifeforms.
However, for an individual, competing directly is often far less effective than competing indirectly – i.e. via cooperation.
In addition, with individuals sharing common genes particularly with immediate family but also, generally, with those of the same species, notwithstanding a prioritisation hierarchy, which typically places offspring first, it is often evolutionarily compatible for an individual to help others.
Thus, for these two reasons, we have Cooperative-Competition.
Cooperative-Competition is maximised when individuals sacrifice their own interests for the best interests of the group – i.e. ‘group before self’.
This will maximise a group’s ‘stability-prosperity’, which is analogous to an individual’s ‘survival-reproduction’.
Regarding groups, members cooperatively-compete so as to:
- Survival/reproduction compete; and,
- Assist others to survival/reproduction compete.
Cooperative-Competition’s supreme manifestation is ‘society’.
Thus, in societal-species – in which Cooperative-Competition is the optimal way to survival-reproduce the species’ genes – ‘society before self’ maximisation evolved as the default.
Then, eventually, there evolved sentient-animals in which ‘society before self’ became conscious as, what may be termed, ‘natural-morality’.
And, natural-morality ‘society before self’ conscious-decisioning was achieved via trust, empathy and individual-to-individual familiarity.
In sentient-societies, Cooperative-Competition is maximised via maximising individual animals’ earnestness and capacity to put their society before themselves.
Nevertheless, this conscious-decisioning also manifested as decisions to leave the society, which, if in conjunction with others, created a new society.
Next, there arose humans who, though originally living in hunter gatherer societies of familiarity, ultimately settled then grew so large as to become ‘societies of strangers’.
With societies of strangers no longer able to rely on long-term relational individual-to-individual familiarity, trust was drastically undermined and security breakdown increasingly rampant.
Hence, in societies of strangers, maximising Cooperative-Competition was no longer the natural default.
Thus, in order to compensate, there arose government, which implemented top-down infrastructure in the form of regulation and enforcement.
In this way, in addition to individual-to-individual trust, which was still extremely important at the localised level, there was added artificial societal-wide trust-invoking systems.
And, ideally, the role of societal-systems is similarly to maximise people’s earnestness and capacity to put their society before themselves thereby maximising Cooperative-Competition and, ultimately, societal stability-prosperity.
Finally, out of human ‘society of strangers’, there arose The Industrial Revolution, which, among other things, is characterised by the convoluting of the link between individuals’ survival consumption and their survival production.
That is, whereas subsistence farmers cultivate what they eat and barter extra for other goods they need, a machinist or a lawyer, for examples, may produce nothing at all of their survival consumption needs.
Accordingly, such production-consumption de-linked societies of strangers, in order to maximise the earnestness and capacity of citizens to contribute to their society, required Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’s (UOI) societal-systems consisting of 4 cornerstones:
- Universal Liberal Democracy;
- Universal Education (including Philosophy);
- Universal Healthcare; and,
- Universal Survival Income (USI).
Yet, as far as the author is aware, until now, humanity has had no such relevant Big Picture narrative.
Hence, with humanity unable to follow this natural-morality-consistent societal-system implementing narrative, the default – i.e. nature – took the reins via its tool of evolution.
With evolution the toughest and most ruthless of task-masters, it works in one of two ways – either:
- The species adapts; or,
- The species becomes extinct.
Either way, in sentient-animals, it usually means enormous suffering.
Thus, in the case of the first 3 UOI cornerstones, in some human societies, there was adaptation such that the relevant societal-systems evolved.
However, this evolutional opportunity cost has been and continues to be astronomical.
That is, the opportunity cost of humanity’s 260-year failure to realise what it needed (and, via the appropriate narrative, manage its implementation) is that it has instead been subjected to nature’s winding scenic Socio-Econo-Enviro- catastrophe tour, which, among other things, gave us Marxism, Communism, World Wars, potential nuclear holocaust and a legacy including the authoritarian states of China, North Korea and Russia.
In sum, the opportunity cost is a massive incomprehensible cacophony of Unnecessary Suffering.
Yet, we still haven’t realised it.
We still haven’t realised, far from surpassing nature and/or being in control, we are just pawns in nature’s uncompromising game, let alone what the game requires of us …
In any case, the first 3 UOI cornerstones existence in most of the First World (and the reason they are First World) is no coincidence.
However, regarding the fourth, in the West, in its place there grew a virus-like substitute, which, probably far too politely, is called here, The Safety Net Income (SNI) system.
The SNI consists of societal-wide (rather than business specific) minimum-wage regulations, pensions, disability allowances, unemployment benefits, student payments and a plethora of other individual and family subsidies.
It has created enormous multitudinous problems and Unnecessary Suffering – everything from an inefficient labour market to stigma to Class & Identity Warfare – yet the most fundamental of its catastrophes is that rather than encouraging us to put our society before ourselves it does the exact opposite by forcing, indeed, training us to put ourselves before society via insisting, before anything else, we personally attain our Personal Survival Income (PSI).
Accordingly, reaping what we sow, amongst other things, instead of an efficient exclusively demand-driven economy, we have an own-goal (partially supply-driven jobs-for-jobs’-sake) one, which, also among other things, wasting resources and turbo-charging Materialism, disproportionately sabotages our environment.
Thus, our collective-psychology has been distorted by societal-systems that do not correlate with nature.
This is the source of our exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities.
So, in the absence of The Universal Survival Income societal-system, unknowingly, we resort to fighting symptoms on all fronts – examples, a bit of social-housing here (Socio-), a bit of Fair-Work there (Econo-) and a biomass (Enviro-) subsidy to a profiteer.
This is doomed to be unsuccessful, which means, sooner or later, we must implement The USI; however, the longer we leave it, the more damage (including that which is irreversible) is done, which also means the more Unnecessary Suffering is borne.
And, paramount, unlike the other 3 UOI cornerstones, nature’s tool of evolution isn’t moving us forward toward The USI – i.e. we are not adapting.
That is, while the other 3 cornerstones could evolve, notwithstanding the evolutional pain, in a somewhat linear societal development manner, The Safety Net Income (SNI) system substitute, akin to Coronavirus on the lungs, acts as an evolutional inhibitor.
Furthermore, the SNI system spawns, cultivates and is ingrained with Class- and Identity-Warfare, which, as we cling like addicts to the SNI – self-deludingly demanding just a little more in the forlorn hope everything will be okay – it circularly spawns distrust and antipathy toward, among other things, the salvational Universal Survival Income (USI).
Hence, rather than the call being for The USI, overwhelmingly, it is for yet more of the SNI – for example, increase Jobseeker, relax Jobseeker obligations and add a Job Guarantee.
Thus, the great problem with the Safety Net Income system is, far from being an interim step towards The USI, from its minimum-wage regulation inception, it has actually derailed The USI’s evolution.
So, with nature possessing no direct evolutional path to achieving its natural-morality imperative, unable to successfully attack the virus (the SNI), it is attacking, in every-way possible, its host – i.e. our entire society.
That is, unable to take the ‘adapt’ route, evolution is defaulting to the societal ‘extinction’ route, which is manifesting as exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) intrusions.
Hence, these SEE catastrophes will only stop when our collective behaviour becomes sustainable, which will only occur when either our societal-systems are natural-morality-consistent or our societies collapse.
In the latter case, assuming humanity isn’t completely obliterated, this will allow new societies – potentially with natural-morality-consistent systems – to arise.
This unnecessary societal collapse is kind of like the necessary militarising of a new army recruit – i.e. entering the military, there’s no direct path to get you to be a soldier so, in recruit camp, the army first breaks you down to something approaching your essence and then, second, rebuilds you into a more disciplined focused reactive soldier version of yourself.
However, in the case of The Universal Survival Income, there is another choice.
Rather than leaving nature to evolutionarily collapse our society, we can self-implement The USI, which requires educating a critical-mass of our citizens (or at least our leaders) to understanding the following three narratives:
- The generic natural-morality (society before self) Cooperative-Competition narrative;
- The post-Industrial Revolution Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) societal-system narrative; and,
- Our exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities as being symptoms of our societal-systems violating natural-morality – particularly the absence of The Universal Survival Income (USI) – narrative.
Then, on that following-the-big-3-narratives basis, we can consciously implement The USI.
[Please note: The implementation of The USI, will dramatically assist in the provision of the other 3 UOI cornerstones as all are interrelated – for example, a child brought up in a family with financial and societal-stigma pressures, is far more likely to have problems with health and education, which will ultimately erode their capacity to contribute to the Liberal Democratic system.]
Overall, it is tremendous news that we are just one simple (Unnecessary Suffering relieving) policy reform step away from solving our Socio-Econo-Enviro- catastrophes such that those remaining are manageable.
In addition, because we have the capacity to understand nature enough – i.e. understand the 3 stated narratives – and to consciously implement our own societal-systems, we also have the capacity to achieve not just short-term ‘stability-prosperity’, which, in other organisms, can lead to plagues, but to achieve ‘sustainable stability-prosperity’.
The Universal Survival Income (USI):
It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
…
Switching to the Planet of the Humans documentary – https://planetofthehumans.com/ – in The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s opinion, it is the most valuable contribution to our collective consciousness this century.
Although it doesn’t tell us how to get our environmental policies right, it does clearly convey that gadgets won’t save us.
Regarding scientific discoveries and gadgets, of course they can be environmentally beneficial; however, indirectly, our misuse of them is precisely what has got us into our present Enviro- calamity.
Regarding the environmental movement, significant segments have been accused of doctoring the truth, which is misguidedly counterproductive to their own aims.
For example, personally, I wonder why it wasn’t common knowledge our recycling industry was akin to a house of cards.
Why was it only when China stopped receiving our ‘recycling’ junk, which resulted in our recycling industry collapsing, that most of us first learnt the farce of our garbage being transported to the developing world and dumped for ‘processing’.
Many in the environmental movement must have known and should have told us truth.
Anyway, advocating for The Universal Survival Income is the perfect way for environmentalists to start-over because:
- Having a single focus, which also happens to be directly heart-warmingly natural-morality-consistent, is radically easier than the ad-hoc swim-against-the-tide fight-on-all-fronts mayhem we’ve had until now; and,
- Saving the world from its environmental catastrophes is impossible without it.
Specifically, The USI will guarantee people what they need to survive, which throughout the world will radically temper:
- Land clearing;
- Procreation;
- The social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work (keeping in mind paid-work is the most significant contributor to our environmental problems);
- Materialism; and,
- Waste including inefficiency especially in the economy.
Regarding our markets The USI will streamline our own-goal (jobs-for-jobs’-sake partially supply-driven) economy into an exclusively demand-driven one.
Should you watch the film, as you do so, please consider the likely effects of The Universal Survival Income.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (Australia)
https://citizens-dividend.org/
https://www.facebook.com/paul.ross.798
https://twitter.com/paulross2
Humanity is being confronted by a perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Environment Catastrophes including:
1. Social:
a. Internal: mental illness, domestic violence, drug & alcohol abuse etc.
b. External: our weaknesses boost Democracy’s enemies, which is currently enhancing international rivalry such as with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran;
2. Econo: absolute poverty, relative income inequality, unemployment, homelessness etc.; and,
3. Environmental: ecosystem destruction, species extinction, human population explosion, plastic islands, climate change etc.
Hypothesis: This is due to a single foundational ‘Society-Individual Interface’ contradiction whose deleterious effects are cascading through every facet of society.
The relevant contradiction is the partial absence of the natural-morality-derived ‘Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’ (UOI), which consists of the four cornerstones:
- Universal Liberal Democracy – [In Australia] Yes;
- Universal Healthcare – Yes;
- Universal Education – Yes;
- Universal Basic/Survival Income (UBI/USI) – No, not yet.
The Socio-Econo-Environment-Harmonising Universal Survival Income (USI):
It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
The Taxpayer-to-Citizen-Transfer [Note: Unlike the Current System, this is not a ‘cost’ but a ‘transfer’.]Around $20,000 per year x 18 million (non-incarcerated in-country adult Australian citizens) + $5,000 x 4.5 million (children) = $386 billion (2018 figures).
This may be achieved by:
1. Reallocating $150 billion of the $175 billion Social Services budget (yes, we are already spending half of what we need), which still leaves $25 billion to top up pensions and disability payments;
2. Abolishment of the Tax-Free Threshold ($35 billion); and,
3. Insertion of a 20% full-breadth GST (no – it’s not regressive if the disempowered are net beneficiaries; also, the wealthy and multinationals’ capacity to avoid a GST is particularly limited), which results in $200 billion minus $60 billion (from the current 10% gap-ridden GST) equaling an additional $140 billion.
In addition to this $325 billion total, there will be massive human-capital, efficiency, societal-involvement and trust gains, which means, not only is the USI easily afforded, we will be, at least, twice as prosperous such that it will amount to a win-win-win in which all community segments – the wealthy; the middle-class; and, the currently disempowered – all win.
In the process, the economy will also be transformed from an ‘environment-destroying jobs-for-jobs’-sake’ ‘own-goal’ one to ‘an efficient production of goods and services we desire’ one.
Then, there is the massive permeating benefit of achieving full-employment.
That is, with everyone both taken care of and invested with the freedom to say ‘no’ to an employer plus the rectification of the present social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work, which will dissipate the stigma of not having paid-work, this means there will be a massive flow of power to the disempowered and working classes, which will result in a workers’ paradise.
Yet, this workers’ paradise will enable significant labour-market deregulation (i.e. everyone is already being looked after so, while we may continue to feel an emotional attachment to, for instance, economy-wide minimum-wages, in practice, there will no longer be a need for them).
And, this means our (pre-Covid-19) 5.7 million volunteers can get paid something and our young, elderly, relatively unskilled, disabled, unpaid-carers, 600,000+ unemployed and 1.1 million+ underemployed can, if they desire, get paid-work (or, more work) and, generally, there is full-employment such that ‘anyone who, at the going rate, wants a job, can get one’.
In addition, the USI will eradicate the current welfare-to-paid-work distortion where there is a disincentive to acquire paid-work because, in doing so, one loses one’s welfare.
Furthermore, full-employment will result in wages and conditions being bid-up.
And yet, business, as well as benefiting from deregulation, rather than having to tolerate the current crop of unhappy conscripts, will benefit from an army of volunteer workers, which given, with regard to morale and productivity, ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’, will deliver massive productivity efficiencies.
This means our tradables’ sector – especially manufacturing – will roar back to life.
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s Commitment:
1. Short-term (interim) – At the 2022 Australian Federal Election (unlike in 2019), at least one registered political party will have the USI as its signature policy such that the USI is an election issue; and,
2. Medium-term (end) – At the 2025 Australian Federal Election, the winner has a mandate for the implementation of a USI, which it then prosecutes.