international relations

Hot take: Greenland's Masterstroke. Greenland agrees to voluntarily join the United States on the condition of immediate statehood. It then uses that leverage to push the US government towards more sane governance, including the impeachment of Donald Trump, the reinstatement and strengthening of institutional guardrails, and the repair of ties with the EU. Once those objectives are achieved, Greenland then secedes, gaining full independence with the consent of a future US administration.

🔮 Join for A Future You Love, Aug 28-29. We're hosting another online forum! This time two days of imagining a better future. Be a featured writer by signing up here. Or just show up- add the event to your calendar so you remember to hop on. More about the event- Imagine being 10, 20, 50 years into the future. It's awesome- better than you expected. What went right?

Check out more details on the site- www.uptrusthq.com/future. 

It would be awesome have everyone that regularly posts claim a writing spot- 

What would you want to see preserved or enhanced in the future?

For this event, a Future Claim comes from your personal imagination of a future world you love being a part of. What’s it like? Whether or not you feel the world is headed that way or if it could given our current course.

This can be far future or in a couple of years. It can be a bold idea, a quiet hope, a fear, or something you think more people should talk about.

You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to be a sci-fi writer. You can come with an unfinished idea or something you’re pondering.

Some examples:

• “I love how everyone speaks openly about their mystical experiences of oneness with God, and we help each other integrate these awakenings with our unresolved psychological problems.”

• “Jobs, family, and status don’t define us in the future I love. Instead, we’re defined by our character transformations.”

• “We will treat grief as a kind of activism. Crying in public is revered again, like when you read about women beating their breasts in ancient societies.”

• “I’ll see dozens of micro-homeschool pods as I walk around my neighborhood. Each running different experiments with different models of education.”

Not sure where to start? Try imagining yourself 5, 10, 20 or 50+ years from now, and finish one of these sentences:

• “I’m so happy because ___.”

• “Wow, I can’t believe [this incredible thing actually happened]”

• “It’s so amazing that [x problem was solved by y]

• “It’s so amazing that everyone now has [z thing that belonged to only the super lucky (rich, or dedicated)]”

   

Future thing not working for you? Try these:

• “I hope someday we stop pretending that ___.”

• “If we keep going this way, ___ will happen.”

• “I believe we could build a future where ___.”

Then ask yourself: Why do I believe that? What’s at the heart of it?

That’s your Future Take.

What are today's radical Second Enlightenment/Renaissance Dangerous Ideas? Once upon a time, in a continent now known as Europe, radical thinkers gathered in private homes to discuss radical ideas for the world. Through countless discussions, debates, and writings, they envisioned the future that we now live in.

At the time, these ideas were radical and could easily lead to death and exile. Thus, why they needed to gather in private.

Some of these ideas included

- Downfall of royalty and nobility, allowance for "public" to vote for their government
- God as not a personal deity that's interfering on a daily basis and favoring some over others
- Belief that each person should be able to dictate their own spiritual life
- Allowing "free" markets to dictate what's developed versus central command
- Equality before the law, a universal set of laws should equally apply to everyone regardless of background

And more. Of course we can debate on how the ideals fell short of reality. Or how a lot of these ideas actually have earlier origins in Christianity and so on and so forth.

But, my Q is what are the radical ideas of the future, now?

So much of the current discourse is around trying to return to where we were in the 1990s/2000s or earlier. Rarely, has anyone really shared a big visoin of the future. Closest is some transhumanist dream of merging with AI and creating some sort of multiplanetary cyborg future. 

Some wide suggestions:

- We need a world government with real power in order to solve coordination problems of the global scale.

- We should have one monetary dominant currency that's based on crypto

- All assets (physical or digital) should be backed with a crypto so we can easily track its ownership as well as give gradient rights like renting access

- Separation of Church & State was a interim step that doesn't ultimately work. Need a universal church that allows for multiplicity of local contextual religions that's integrated with State & Marketplace.

- Everyone should have the right to end their life 

- Everyone should have basic universal income

- All land should be on a lease basis that defaults back to commons after death of leaser. Renewal is possible but not guaranteed.

- Voting should be mandatory (it is in AUS)

- Education funding should be equally applied rather than local property tax basis.

- Alcohol should be heavily taxed, weed should be heavily taxed, other psychedelics should be legalized

- Any company that takes in public funding should have to give away partial ownership shares back to commons

- A social trust score should be assigned to everyone. Everyone can review you. You cannot see your own score. Others can only see your score if you give them access.

- Owning large property w/o using it or doing conservation should be heavily taxed

- More services should be offered on a net worth basis rather than fixed cost.

- You should be allowed to pay 0 taxes but then you lose access to all public services (ER, police, fire, protection in foreign countries, extra fined for highway access) and you're listed on a database as such so others can charge/discount people on that basis

My author page. Please check out my author and give us your opinion of it.

My author page. Please check out my author and give us your opinion of it.

My author page. Please check out my author and give us your opinion of it.

Just Violence Requires Due Process.  

• Stopping an untrustworthy regime from developing nukes will sometimes justify targeted bombings.
• Trump's decision to bomb Iran was not justifiable because he does not have the authority to declare war on another country.
• Trump's lack of respect for due process and honesty make him an untrustworthy advocate for peace.
• Americans should not tolerate offensive and unconstitutional use of our military.

An US - Iran Thread, especially as it relates to personal sense-making and 'waking up' frames. I'd love help making sense of what's going on. I don't have a lot of geopolitical history other than reading books by Tim Marshall and I don't even really know what kind of questions to answer, so here are some of the ones I'm thinking about. I'll post some thoughts about them in different comments below so we can start a bunch of convos if anyone likes.

• How do we embody love in response to global events?
• Nondual ethics... ?
  • eg there's obvious love/compassion for all leading to a "no war" and noninterventionism, but also how to make sense of involvements, boundary enforcements and safety and prevention as expressions of the infinite; there's Arjuna on the battlefield in the Gita; activism / spirituality as engagement in world affairs a la Terry Patten, or the Bauls of Bengal, or Islam for that matter?
• Catching our projections onto what's happening and taking responsibility for that in ourselves; 
  • how can we help each other do this, see the world as the mirror it is (projection makes perception); eg not spiritually bypassing our pain by putting it out there
  • and also do it without disengagement or "spiritually bypassing" the geopolitical realities of our world?
• Recognizing and side-stepping drama triangles, including meta-drama triangles of making drama trianglers wrong or victims
• Illusions of control — mostly it's not up to us, yet also we're interdependent and much more than individuals and it's up to someone?

An US - Iran Thread, especially as it relates to personal sense-making and 'waking up' frames. I'd love help making sense of what's going on. I don't have a lot of geopolitical history other than reading books by Tim Marshall and I don't even really know what kind of questions to answer, so here are some of the ones I'm thinking about. I'll post some thoughts about them in different comments below so we can start a bunch of convos if anyone likes.

• How do we embody love in response to global events?
• Nondual ethics... ?
  • eg there's obvious love/compassion for all leading to a "no war" and noninterventionism, but also how to make sense of involvements, boundary enforcements and safety and prevention as expressions of the infinite; there's Arjuna on the battlefield in the Gita; activism / spirituality as engagement in world affairs a la Terry Patten, or the Bauls of Bengal, or Islam for that matter?
• Catching our projections onto what's happening and taking responsibility for that in ourselves; 
  • how can we help each other do this, see the world as the mirror it is (projection makes perception); eg not spiritually bypassing our pain by putting it out there
  • and also do it without disengagement or "spiritually bypassing" the geopolitical realities of our world?
• Recognizing and side-stepping drama triangles, including meta-drama triangles of making drama trianglers wrong or victims
• Illusions of control — mostly it's not up to us, yet also we're interdependent and much more than individuals and it's up to someone?