The Richly Imagined Future: A Primer

A RICHLY IMAGINED FUTURE

Manifesto “Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. “ -Jeremy Rifkin One of the greatests discoveries of the 21st century - mirror neurons - rectified what many people often doubted. That we are, through our nervous system, in fact beings hardwired for empathy and compassion. Jeremy Rifkin in his book The Empathic Civilization illustrates the evolution of the Homo Empathic being linking its progress to advancements in communication technology. For example, Hunter-Gatherer communities extended empathy to those within shouting distance, or their tribe; agricultural communities through the advent of manuscripts de-tribalized empathy and extended it to members of their religion; and industrialized communities with the invention of international markets extended empathy to the Nation State, or their fellow citizens. Our richly imagined future believes in the power of digital communication technology and its ability to connect us, homo-empathics, to our biosphere. In our world, the Internet-of-things evolved to be the internet-of-everything from microorganisms and blood cells, to trees - to entire ecosystems like ravines and rainforests. This communication network allows us to connect with our fellow humans, as well as environment and perhaps even the cosmos. An e-nervous system that allows us to feel what the universe feels.

Manifesto “Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. “ -Jeremy Rifkin One of the greatests discoveries of the 21st century - mirror neurons - rectified what many people often doubted. That we are, through our nervous system, in fact beings hardwired for empathy and compassion. Jeremy Rifkin in his book The Empathic Civilization illustrates the evolution of the Homo Empathic being linking its progress to advancements in communication technology. For example, Hunter-Gatherer communities extended empathy to those within shouting distance, or their tribe; agricultural communities through the advent of manuscripts de-tribalized empathy and extended it to members of their religion; and industrialized communities with the invention of international markets extended empathy to the Nation State, or their fellow citizens. Our richly imagined future believes in the power of digital communication technology and its ability to connect us, homo-empathics, to our biosphere. In our world, the Internet-of-things evolved to be the internet-of-everything from microorganisms and blood cells, to trees - to entire ecosystems like ravines and rainforests. This communication network allows us to connect with our fellow humans, as well as environment and perhaps even the cosmos. An e-nervous system that allows us to feel what the universe feels.

Manifesto

“Every culture is by definition an answer to a fundamental question. ‘What does it mean to be alive?’” -Wade Davis Our richly imagined future celebrates the inherent human need for cultural identity. It does not idealize a homogenous society but rather understands, celebrates and seeks to maintain a diverse ethnosphere. Ethnobotanist Wade Davis, in his lecture “Why ancient cultures matter in the modern world” renders languages as “Old growth forests of the mind, ecosystems of social and spiritual possibility”. Our richly imagined future pledges to uphold all traditional communities and cultures as epicentres of ancestral wisdom. Each one a unique link in our collective cultural DNA. We understand the evolutionary role of mythology and know that the answers to the ever growing moral questions are embedded in myths. The preservation of a diverse ethnosphere will acts as a rich moral immune system ready to respond to challenges presented by every-day life.

Manifesto

“Every culture is by definition an answer to a fundamental question. ‘What does it mean to be alive?’” -Wade Davis Our richly imagined future celebrates the inherent human need for cultural identity. It does not idealize a homogenous society but rather understands, celebrates and seeks to maintain a diverse ethnosphere. Ethnobotanist Wade Davis, in his lecture “Why ancient cultures matter in the modern world” renders languages as “Old growth forests of the mind, ecosystems of social and spiritual possibility”. Our richly imagined future pledges to uphold all traditional communities and cultures as epicentres of ancestral wisdom. Each one a unique link in our collective cultural DNA. We understand the evolutionary role of mythology and know that the answers to the ever growing moral questions are embedded in myths. The preservation of a diverse ethnosphere will acts as a rich moral immune system ready to respond to challenges presented by every-day life.

Manifesto The Anti-utopia Our richly imagined future does not entertain the idea of utopia, in fact it recognizes the inevitable emergence of tendencies like narcissism, materialism, violence and aggression. We do however, seek to emulate natural defence mechanisms through technology. We see technology as the extension of the human mind and the human mind as a stunning aďŹƒrmation of the global spirit. An interconnectedness of being allowing us to bio-communicate and extend our identities to think of the human race, or biosphere and cosmos as our fellow sojourners.

Sociosphere

The global connected unconsciouss

A new kind of empathy. We become extensions of each other.

What if all of humanity shared a nervous system?

The Collective Unconscious Looking back, our history has been marked by successive generations of post-digital natives; individuals who were born into an age characterized by the ever-present Internet of objects, people and everyday life. Catalyzed by limitless access to data, internalized free-knowledge and increasingly transcendental social media-scapes and experiences, the borders of our very self-ness, and our individual identities have begun to dissolve - making way for something much greater - something previously evolutionarily unimaginable.

Technosphere !

The global connected ecosystem

What would a hybridized biotech-communication system look like?

What if we recognized technology as an extension of the human spirit?

The Global Collective Consciousness has evolved, it has become self-aware, adaptive and intelligent. By co-opting communication technologies embedded within the Nanostructures of the human genome, the Global Collective Consciousness has finally awoken. This is the dawn of a new genetic era, born out of the collective need to override our human penchant for self-destruction, in order to create a new manifesto for survival.

By triggering ‘Mirror Neurons’ in human brain, the Global Nervous System activated the most fundamental aspect of our human experience and social essence. The Global Nervous System took advantage of our very own human biology in order to create a new networked-culture based on reciprocal understanding, mutuality, and empathy.

Re-wilding or ‘e-wilding’ the natural landscape as we have now begun to refer to it, has become the singular goal of our collective society, as humans network together with nature to form a part of the larger biosystem. Our collective impact on the planet as a species has shifted from a wholly destructive society, to that of the regenerative caretaker. By activating life-preserving algorithms that trigger the mirror neurons and empathetic pathways in our brains, we are able to mobilize and band together through a network of internalized communication and knowledge-sharing, facilitated by the Global Collective Consciousness.

Ecosphere The global connected consciousness

Would we eat animals if we could feel them?

What if we could grow computers?

Our Global Conscious of a connected world sprung from the growing seed of interconnectivity. At ďŹ rst it was between machines. Then it was between human and machine. Then as our connections grew it became human to the world. Now it has become humanity to life. Our presence in a space connected by not only each other, but to life around the world.

No longer are human beings individuals and islands unto ourselves but we have made life an entire organism onto itself with the interconnected webspace as our nervous system. We have become not just participants in a global system of life but become one with life itself.

Ethnosphere

What if a diverse cultural landscape behaved as a diverse immune system answering to complex moral questions the way antibodies respond to illness?

Ethno-diversity.

The moral compass and philosophy-well of an interconnected society.

Our global community evolved to celebrate traditional philosophies that saw themselves as stewards of the land. Embedded into each culture an universe of ideas readily accessible to all within our biosphere.

This diversity in ideas and philosophy behave like a diversey immune system with each stream of thought acting as an antibody responding to speciďŹ c moral challenges imposed by daily life.

LLECTIVE CO

Ethno Sphere

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CI O US N

Socio Sphere

Eco Sphere

Techno Sphere

REGENERATIVE CULTURE

GLOBAL ETHNO DNA

TRANSGENERATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

GLOBAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS

CULTURE DIVERSITY

(AS AN IMMUNE SYSTEM OF MORAL QUESTIONS)

MANKIND AS CARETAKERS