However, one battleground that doesn’t get much attention is what I believe to be the most important, the most comprehensive, and the most vital battle that we paradigm shifters face: Agriculture.

If you want an industry that envelops nearly every issue our society faces today, look no further than agriculture.

Particularly in the United States, the agricultural industry is completely out of whack and, if not revolutionized, agriculture will not serve a beneficial purpose as our society continues.

Agriculture is the most unequal battleground today.

The two staples of our diet – corn and soybean (both in more products than you think, check your nutrition labels) – are controlled by one company, Monsanto. 80 percent of corn, and 93 percent of soybeans are grown and sold by Monsanto. A host of other food products are controlled by Cargill.

The immense economic and political clout exercised by Cargill and Monsanto allows them to promote the harmful use of GMO seeds with deadly pesticides. Many people believe that after the downfall of DDT, pesticides were no longer used in the United States. This could not be further from the truth. Companies like Monsanto engineer seeds that are resilient to a specific type of pesticide, made by one of the powerful petrochemical companies. Through multi-million dollar lobbying, these companies then convince the government that these pesticides are safe to use, and convince farmers to purchase their farming techniques by saying that it’s the most efficient and profitable way to farm. What ensues is chemicals in our food, contaminants in our water, environmental degradation, and insurmountable debt on the farmer, whom is then forced onto a vicious treadmill run by big agriculture.

By reading the book “Organic Manifesto,” by Maria Rodale, you will get clear and cohesive perspective on big agriculture’s socio-politico-economic ramifications.

Rodale talks about the benefits of local, organic food production, which will aid our society’s challenges. Among many, these are a few of them:

Climate Change and fossil fuel emissions is directly related to agriculture. Our current system uses fossil fuel in every step of the food production process – from big tractors that run on gas, to the petrochemicals that we spray on the GMO seeds that are made using loads of energy, to the methane emissions from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), to the long distance transportation of the products from farm to table.

Human health is another issue. Big agriculture has a symbiotic relationship with fast food, and products containing high-fructose corn syrups. Big agriculture can afford to sell ingredients and food at an incredibly low price to vendors and brands that in turn sell these harmful foods to us. The low purchase cost creates a self-sustaining market. However, the harmful production practices and deadly pesticides in our food are externalized. We marvel at the high rates of cancer and illness in today’s society, yet we don’t look at what we are putting into our bodies.

Crony capitalism and big business politics are also perpetuated in our current agricultural system. We think ‘big oil’ is the only harmful industry getting preferential treatment on Capitol Hill. Cargill and Monsanto give thousands in campaign contributions to political figures, not including their effective lobbying abilities (Monsanto spent over $8 million lobbying in 2010 alone).

What’s more, these companies continue to demand enormous subsidies from the government. Not only do these subsidies perpetuate the dominance of agricultural monopolies, but they allow for the surplus dumping of food products overseas to developing nations. These developing nations see our products as cheaper alternatives to developing their own agricultural industries, and are also urged (often by law) to engage in foreign trade through IMF and World Bank economic restructuring. In Egypt, for instance, loans from the IMF have mandated increased foreign investment and trade. As a result, the agriculture they do have is exported to Europe and the United States, and all other food products are imported. The exported goods create profits for a select few, while the rest of the country is mired in poverty due to food insecurity and volatile market prices – precisely the cause of the Arab Spring!

Domestically AND internationally, big agriculture’s clout silences the voices of small, independent, organic farmers trying to grow healthy food at a reasonable price, and creates instability throughout the globe. Maybe the #occupy movement should occupy Monsanto’s headquarters instead of Wall Street!

By moving away from big business agriculture and supporting local, organic foods the consumer will have power over these companies. We need to start thinking about what we put into our bodies, and realizing what ripple effects our decisions have on everything in our society – from climate change to economic inequality. The battle over agriculture unites so many of today’s challenges that it simply cannot continue to go unnoticed.

The myriad contributions of the loose affiliation of genii who orbit “The Next Edge” represent a vast resource of applications for human potential, particularly addressing the emergence of collective and collaborative interdisciplinary addresses to various problematic manifestations of the legacy paradigm.

During a recent conversation immersed in this intersubjective milieu I had an AHA! moment, I realised that the ‘group’ and its interactions are a veritable fountain of vital contributions to the common future of our species and this planet.

There is a proposed “project in development” which seems aimed at expressing this potentially beneficial scenario on a scale which enhances the emergence of interconnected systemic contexts which are generative and life affirming. The ‘form’ of such an ideasphere need to be represented digitally and simulated iteratively in order to accelerate its evolution.

As a service to all sentient beings, this would represent a true integration of the full spectrum of diverse approaches to the nurturing of the continuance of life on this planet. As a resource to all those who are activating new paradigms and applications of such emergent thinking it is imperative that an intuitive interface be developed which can scale to any requirement for access. This interface will also require in itself the capacity to learn, evolve, and contribute to the project as it unfolds.

I am suggesting a conscious symbiosis of nature, intelligence, intuition and technology as a logical trajectory for the continuing evolution of life on Earth. I am not proposing some kind of contrived techno-topia – I do not have a fixed vision of what may ensue – just a deep resonance with what is required in order that what comes next can do so.

An open vista, a wide canvas, calling us to aim our collective view to possibilities, mark dots of insight for each other, to evoke more dots and connections until a do-able vision or projects emerge. With enough resonance that people wish to join and nurture, committed to bring from seed to fruition.

A meme
to meditate about
what it means
to be in a tribe,
to lead, to follow, or
to get out of the way.

Embrace the we among us.


Let them thrive.


By choice, you are part of the we.


And if not you,


someone is.


Making you part of us.

2012-01-18 (i) inspired by The Next Edge

Download TribesQA2 (pdf, 1.4MB) Co-created with Triiibes.com in 2008.

For a while now, I have found the term “sustainable” irksome. It is the prevailing buzz word for fresh thinking, green ideas, and describes a product’s or system’s ability to last, over an extended period of time. Much like CSR has driven the need for corporate public displays of greenness, so too have modern thinkers and producers needed to attach “sustainable” or “sustainability” to their overall aspirations so as to find some credibility.

(Please keep in mind, I am not shooting down these terms or ideas completely. I would simply like to view the terms and the corresponding paradigm in a different light.) 

However, until this SPUR forum, I had never heard “sustainable” phrased in such a way – and it makes perfect sense.

Sustainable derives from the word sustain - to “support” or to “keep from giving way,” according to two online dictionaries. One might conjure up the image of a tired man struggling to hold up a battered planet.

The problem with the term is that sustaining something is accepting that the current state is a sufficient and healthy enough state to continue.

You don’t have to look very far to see the extremes that our planet is enduring from human exposure and exploitation.

Go to the slums of India and see the pollution of marshlands and streams due to unsanitary living conditions. Visit the nonexistent mouth of the Colorado River at the Sea of Cortez due to excessive damming. Observe around the world the rampant desertification of fertile fields due to harmful farming techniques. See entire mountains decapitated throughout North America due to mountaintop removal for coal mining.

With challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, water pollution, and others, we humans need to do our best to replenish and rejuvenate our Earth to make up for our past transgressions, if we want a healthy and prosperous environment to inhabit for generations to come.

Growing up, I always heard the phrase “Leave a place better than you found it.” Our goal as responsible caretakers of this planet should be just that – and it should be the central philosophy for every single aspect of our lives. Contentment and acceptance of the status quo must not be anywhere near our vein of thought.

That is why we cannot just simply sustain, we must regenerate.

Regenerative systems, regenerative products, regenerative thinking all acknowledge the need to sustain, but also the necessity for continual improvement over generations. These regenerative ideas are inherently designed to promote both present and future achievements that benefit both people and planet. Our goal should not be to just last over an extended period of time, but to continually improve our conditions over that period.

The book Cradle to Cradle, by Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart, tackles this idea of regeneration thoroughly. He tells the reader to think about the entire life cycle of a product – how it’s made, how it gets to the consumer, how it’s consumed, and how it’s disposed of. Why not create a product whose byproducts actually help to rejuvenate the environment or serve a useful purpose for another industry. What if we could make a shoe that is fully biodegradable, which could discompose to enrich soils. What if we made laundry detergent without harmful chemicals, but then to it added key nutrients so the dissolved detergent would help clean a polluted water supply. The innovation is out there, but we must put our intelligence and energy into action.

This is why I love the term Regenerative. It forces us to think about the greater systems at play and how to actually make them better - not just less bad.

Our planet should be a point of pride. Some say that our presence on this Earth is inherently bad and that human existence, at its very core, goes against the environment. In contrast, regenerative thinking says that we are a part of the cause, but we are also an integral part of the solution – and we must integrate our potential benevolence into everything that we do. By using our collective intelligence and endeavor we can make our marriage with Earth not just sustainable, but help it be continually improved over its lifespan.

1. Theory-in Use: Words, Seated

Here is the starting point (as far as we can define one when looking at wholes): The way in which we do things (in life, in organizations, at work…) rests on assumptions, ideas, theories, and worldviews. As a supporting theoretical perspective on this stance, I have found   Argyris/Schoen’s distinctions between espoused theories (what we say we do and why) and theories-in-use (what is really guiding our actual behavior)[1] a very helpful distinction.  Contemporary research in the cognitive and biological sciences provides much additional insight as to why it is appropriate to be skeptical of our own statements regarding what we say our motivations for decisions are. The superior processing speed of information in our emotional and movement systems regularly outpace the conscious brain with its much slower speeds (and limitations in attention) – we literally “don’t know” a lot about what drives us, even when we think we do.

In light of this, when looking at change methodologies “in action”, what is very striking to me is how very  “mental” and “verbal” in their conduct and emphasis they mostly are. Yes, there may be sophisticated conversations about spirituality and values, vision and energy – and yet, as the actual activity of it, you will usually find: People sitting and talking (or otherwise producing words). This is where much faith for change resides – words, seated.

2. A Very Brief Exploration of Underpinnings

This raises the question: What are the theories-in-use which drive this form (words, seated)? What are we perpetuating, possibly without intending to do so, by carrying forward these particular theories-in-use embedded in the form without making them transparent and available also to change within a change process?

The following is a condensation of some observations, a miniscule philosophical excursion, and summaries of spoken comments by individuals whom I have worked with over time:

From a very young age, practices of education and views of intelligence emphasize the mind. Hence, a focus on the “mental” level becomes correlated with competence, success and status.  The underpinning philosophical strands of Descartes (Cartesian split between mind and body) as well as Enlightenment-age views on the primacy of rationality are well-embedded here, and are carried forward into organizations and workplaces.   Further along the path, expressions of emotions, ease, fun and joy in the workplace also become labeled as symptoms of insufficient commitment or seriousness and thus, lack of professionalism, further reducing the frame of what “work” (and valuable employees) are: A head that is carried around on a body, without valued emotional or sensing components while engaged in this process of “business”.

Interestingly though, we are presently in fairly turbulent times. Word of disruptive shifts, needs for new ideas, demands for creativity fills the offices, executive search lists and various publications.  At the same time, a fair bit of literature documents that much “change management” is not working all that well, by and large, even though significant resources are applied to it. So, where is the gap?

3. Means or End?

The way I look at it, one factor for the limited impact made with change processes, is that of not looking at the “how” (the theories in use) of change tools – such as how we view humans, how we exclude a huge aspect of human capacities from the change or problem-solving process, how we define ourselves as two- or thee-partite structures –a view of humans as not-whole and not-biological entities separate from our ecologies.

When working with groups in business, in particular, I have found that “making a lot of words” around these “how” aspects as a starting point is not very useful. More often than not, words and abstractions about unfamiliar terrain create indifference, resistance or confusion – and practically no momentum.

Instead, it has been a more productive approach to act as a facilitator who is guided by and embodies assumptions of a different “how”, thereby opening doors into new experiences.  The experience, be it a breathing pattern which creates relief by freeing up a long-established “stuckness”, be it an experiment with tasting mindfulness and an attendant state, be it the exploration of new patterns of movement and its connection to judgment, communication or organization culture, or whatever particular exercise is used at the time, gently and with immediacy informs a person of a new option or possibility.

In turn, this opens avenues into accessing new resources and enables new thinking (the thinking mind catches up ..). By working with a wide range of human facilities, over-use of one (typically, linear thinking) is reduced and energy becomes available. Gradually, through increased experience and practice (as well as reflection and conversation – they have a place!), more salient questions emerge, further choices become available, new theories-in-use are formed. An integrated newness manifests on multiple levels. Over time, states of higher integration (both biological and social), resiliency and resourcefulness are available to make the change at hand – or lead to the discovery that greater integration, resiliency and resourcefulness are the change that was needed in the first place.

Minimizing waste, through either cradle to cradle and/or local economies, is crucial for improving our environment and our quality of life.

Our waste problems stem from the Consumer Culture in which we live.

The idea of ‘throwing away’ has been around for a very long time. When you think of waste, you think of waste as the ‘something’ after some thing has been consumed – mainly trash and fecal matter. These wastes can pose big issues for human society. If not treated properly and removed from our living area, filth and squalor ensues, potentially creating devastating diseases and conditions. The middle ages saw the Bubonic Plague, among other diseases, rise up from the filth of European cities. In fact, our obsession with trash and throwing things away stems from an evolutionary phobia of creating filth, because 1000 years ago, what we didn’t throw away did actually kill us. Accordingly, society has done a great job of saving itself from another waste-borne epidemic by creating efficient and effective waste management.

At the heart of modern waste management is the landfill dump – a place far, far away that most first world citizens only hear about in stories. You just throw it out/away and it’s gone. This system is effective, but not sustainable. Our land resources are ever shrinking and so should not be allocated to holding old products that we can’t or don’t want to use anymore. Also, we continue to waste enormously useful resources in the products themselves that we throw away – not just the land the dumps occupy.

That’s post-consumer waste, but what about pre-consumer waste?

Often in our consumer state of mind, we neglect to consider what waste goes into creating the products we consume, and then throw away. In recent years, through recycling, composting, and conservation initiatives, we have done a good job of considering the post-consumer side, but not the pre-consumer side of waste. What goes into our products is often more harmful than what happens to them post-use. We waste so many resources (both environmental and human) in the production process. Many of the issues we know about. However, when the product is ready for our consumption, we often become blind to its production.

Why do we fail to acknowledge the inputs?

I attribute this disconnect to our passive Consumer Culture.

Ignorance is bliss, and ignorance is profit. Much more so than post-consumer waste, pre-consumer waste seems evermore daunting and impossible to fix. Producers create products that we love to use. Some products give us convenience, some efficiency, some beauty, and some give us connection to others. What’s more, supporting these products are advertising and peer pressures that drive consumption. Following the trends of the media, family, neighbors, we feel the need to have more shoes, the newest cell phone, more movies, more appliances, (the list goes on). Sure, everyone loves something new – a new item, vision, or thought – anything new – stimulates our brain. However, these new items are often a low quality at unjustly low costs, with built-in obsolescence to incentivize buying the ‘newer’ item next year.

In our modern Consumer Culture, we don’t care where it’s from or where it goes when we’re finished with it – we only care about what is in front of us.

This culture’s effects are far-reaching. We absorb information without interacting with it. We consume together instead of create together. Many families and friends spend ‘time together’ in front of a television, watching a movie, or playing a videogame. We drive in isolated automobiles instead of using public transit or walking. Long ago are the days of using physical maps to find your way, much less asking people for directions. We now plug an address into an automated GPS and follow the route. In our modern culture, creative interaction has lost out to quick, joint consumption. We are creatures consuming in the present, and neglecting to consider its cause and effect.

In reality, what we consume should be tied to where its from and where its going, not just because the stages are intrinsically connected, but because acknowledging a product’s entire life cycle can strength our relationship with the product and make us want to consume it even more.

Imagine consuming a product that you know:

a) was produced by an industry which employs workers who take pride in their product

b) did not harm the environment and in some cases helped heal our planet

c) was produced in a way that harnessed its byproducts to help create other useful products

d) was sold to you locally for a fair price

e) is a high-quality, long-lasting product

f) can be upcycled or decomposed into another high-quality, useful product to empower another industry after its current stage is finished.

Would these characteristics of a product be appealing? Notice too, that step (f) returns back to step (a) seamlessly.

You see, ignorance is bliss and profit, but knowledge is, too. Knowledge that your consumption is inherently good and contributing to a more fair, more efficient, and more complete society can be powerfully addicting and rewarding. I believe that if we take entire product loops and life cycles into consideration, leveraging efficient and benevolent production, our consumer culture can proactively benefit and not cause detriment to our society.

Occupy My Soul

The only way to describe what has happened to myself and a number of Occupy Vancouver organizers (and I suspect many other occupy organizers across the world) is to realize that we have been occupied by occupy! We have been captured and consumed by something that we don’t understand but that has served to rock our world; and that we know is something deeply important. Fortunately as we transition to Phase II (post encampment phase), we have some time to reflect.

On the surface occupy is a political movement. In actual fact it is much more… It represents the crystallization in our psyche of both a deep sense of injustice (the political aspect that is getting the headlines) as well as a deep sense of loss of meaning… in ‘ordinary’ life. Things have gone so far wrong that we don’t know what to say or do. When given the chance to register our dissatisfaction we did so without reservation and with relentless commitment and fervor. We were willing to push boundaries of all sorts.

The last couple of months has left many organizers both exhausted as well as exhilarated… unable to explain to where they have been transported. As we sit, reflect and deepen our personal dialogue, our resolve continues to deepen and take on a different tenor. We realize that this not a dress rehearsal and that the serious work begins now.

The extreme circumstances with which we have been presented (the need to defend our space, physical and psychological, from a systematic onslaught brought forth by the ‘system’), has only served to build real solidarity. True resoluteness and mutual respect is developed in the face of enemy fire. Those that have been standing together, in battle, have experienced something our adversaries have not. Our power is not reliant on, or reinforced by, institutional structures. We don’t have the luxury of the police force, city bylaws etc to support our strategic objectives. We don’t have the luxury of exercising power from a distance. Our power has been realized at the front line… by standing side by side with each other…

We occupy, because we chose, in particular moments, not to move.

We occupy because this is our space and this is our time and we cannot be moved.

We occupy because there is something deep inside that tells us to do so.

We occupy because justice is not something that is defined by the legal system. It should, if things worked properly, give rise to the legal system.  Justice flows from something higher… something deeper.

We occupy because we are a part of a larger architecture that leaves us with a sense that our actions are meaningless; that there is no way, within the ‘system’, for those without substantial material wealth to actually be heard or to meaningfully impact the ‘system’.

We occupy because we are tired of going through the motions. There is something deeply wrong with normalcy as represented by ten hour workdays for corporations that rape the planet… and where the only time for oneself and one’s family are the two meagre weeks a year of holiday these institutions choose to grant us.

Why do we serve institutions anyway? Why do abstract entities have influence at all on the time I can spend with my friends and family? What is a corporation and how did it come to control my actions… madness has ensued….

We are being robbed  of our essence, our individuality… our uniqueness… our humanity… Enough is enough! There is something deeply wrong and it is time that we, as a culture, come to realize, understand, and expose its roots.

We want to reclaim our connection to ourselves and each other through the creation of alternative ways of being in the world. Practically this will include the creation of new forms of community that are localized and sustainable; the creation of new forms of exchange that supplant fiat currencies and all the associated baggage that comes from money (as an exchange mechanism) becoming and end in itself and the sole guiding principle for all our activity. We want to reprioritize activity, production and consumption for states of Being… supplanting states of Doing as the guiding principle of behaviour. We want the guiding principles for our activity to be love, mutual respect and care for our planet. There should not be any debate about the importance of environmental priorities. It should be self evident that without the health of the planet, human civilization is doomed. Why is this not self evident?

I ask this question rhetorically… We know that it is self evident, but that capitalism reinforces, by its very nature, the worst aspects of human nature; greed, avarice and self interest. Hence, the centralization of financial power, that is also intrinsic to capitalism leads to an triumvirate (corporations, the political process and the media) that serve to reinforce the existing power structure, maintaining the wealth and benefits of a few at the extent of the many…

We occupy because we have had enough… haven’t you?

In solidarity…

Suresh Fernando

Occupy Vancouver Organizer

If you haven’t heard about Janine Benyus, it’s about time you have. Janine has been at the forefront of biomimicry for a number of years now. She co-founded the Biomimicry Institute, which has morphed into various projects, including its current form as Biomimcry 3.8, a global network of scientists, thinkers, and consultants working together and learning from nature in order to solve humanity’s biggest challenges.

This TED talk is from Oxford in 2009, in which Janine gives examples of nature’s uncanny ability to perform complex tasks seamlessly and effortlessly. My favorite example, among many, is the Namibian Desert beetle’s evolutionary ability to collect water molecules from fog and turn it into drinking water for sustenance.

It is important to realize that for all of our strengths as humans, we are still a part of nature. For thousands of years, humans have been scared of nature because its complexities exist beyond our understanding. Our fear has continually given us humans the pretext to attempt to conquer nature and control its complexity. However, as we are discovering, the harder we push against nature, the harder it fights back. We must embrace the complexities of nature and learn from its intelligence so that we can inhabit Earth in an effective and mutually beneficial way.

By taking holistic views of our infrastructures and process, we might be able to conduct humanity in an efficient, productive way that benefits the planet and effortlessly connects us back to our nature.

Enjoy the inspirational talk!

Why, do you ask, would CSR die? I thought it was just gaining momentum?

 The Issue

While some intentions may be good, CSR has an Achilles’ heel – a tragic flaw – because it is tied to public relations.

Since the advent of ‘responsible’ business over the past decade and a half, thousands of companies have spent millions of dollars on ‘sustainable’ practices, through self-imposed audits and consultations.

However, the companies who are able to hire consultants to shift business practices are large corporations – the likes of Walmart, Coca-Cola, etc. What’s more, these corporations have the budgets to promote these changes in the media; the result of which has seen a ‘sustainable’ gold rush – a ‘green’ rush – where corporations must show some type of commitment to the “People, Planet, Profit” mantra. However, this peer pressure has given way to pure PR stunts and empty promises (Greenwashing has become an epidemic in the CSR world, unfortunately).

So why does this happen?

“People, Planet, Profit,” CSR, Corporate Sustainability, (whatever you want to call it) cannot, and should not exist as a viable strategy for large corporations. The socioeconomic systems (deregulated and ultra-consumer driven) they prey on and in which they were born, cannot be sustained if we want to change our planet for the better.

Look at Dasani Water (owned by Coca-Cola): You have probably seen the water bottles that tout a green “plant bottle” symbol. While this may catch the eye as a “green” product, there are a number of things to consider.

First of all, ‘plant bottles’ are only made with 30% ‘renewable’ material. This material is actually sugarcane. Where Coca-Cola gets this sugarcane it does not publicize (or at least I can’t find it), which means it probably comes from farms that use heavy pesticides, a lot of water and fossil fuels, and are sold in a highly-saturated marketplace, driving down the profit of sugarcane producers for the benefit of corporations like Coca-Cola – all facets which perpetuate unsustainable farming practices (much like the hidden costs for farming corn used for ethanol).

Apart from the sugarcane itself, the other 70% of the bottle is NOT plant-based, which means its same-old petrochemical plastic. So, Dasani’s batting .300 – a good average in baseball but not for helping the planet.

Even still, Dasani’s bottle is still a plastic bottle! Regardless of whether the bottle recycles or not, plastics take tons of fossil fuel to produce, and end up with minimal uses after the recycling process (which takes enormous amounts of energy, as well). What’s more, plastic bottles are only recycled 27% of the time, with the rest ending up in landfills.

Ideally, from a pure recycling standpoint, Dasani should use glass bottles, which can be either reused or fully recycled. From a consumer perspective, use a reusable canteen or cup!

That’s just one example of “greenwashing” for you… there are countless others that show the cunning of big corporations that pull the wool over the eyes of the casually mindful consumer.

Corporations are not going to change their entire business models to improve the world because, well, they’d be entirely different businesses! In this age of constantly fluctuating stock prices and economic uncertainty, CEOs and shareholders deem it unacceptable to do anything that would potentially lower a corporation’s stock valuation – even if it could potentially benefit them in the long term.

Big money takes time, effort, and more money to shift its model, and it’s dependent on government, subsidies, and a complex infrastructure to survive.

It becomes increasingly evident that harmful big business looks like a 95 year old – inflexible, slow-moving, dependent and nearing the end of a long life.

Solution:

Our time is just beginning.

I propose a slight amendment to Elkington’s phrase: “Local People, Local Planet, Local Profit”.

The future of economy, with ever-increasing energy costs both at the pump and in our atmosphere, is becoming increasingly local – not global. We must conceive of business models and systems to benefit local businesses, which take to heart Elkington’s principles.

With the emphasis on local, we will be able to see immediate and long-lasting improvements within our own communities – equitably, environmentally, and economically.

By starting a business that creates well-paying local jobs, you will find local markets emerging through a revitalized local economy that will, in turn, support your business over the short and long term.

By starting a business that not only refrains from pollution but helps clean the environment, we will live in a healthier, more pleasant community.

By starting a business that taps into local infrastructure and serves the community with a high quality product for a competitive price, you will carve a niche big-box business could only dream of exploiting.

Take advantage of startup venture capitalists that share your values, as well as local, state, and federal grants.

The movements of urbanism, #Occupy, credit unions, energy conservation and renewable energy, all point to a paradigm shift towards local, dense environments, where we can build communities and businesses that promote the true calling of “People, Planet, Profit”.

And, if achieved locally, these business models and initiatives can be replicated across multiple locales, especially with the ease of modern information sharing and collaboration.

Local is the new global – get on board – it’s timeless.

Examples:

1. Tools main function similarity can be measured by 3d distance at the same time..

2. The same idea can be expressed with 2 different abstraction levels; their distances can be measured by the time that separates the 2 expressions from being in the same 3d coordinates in space..

3. .A feeling can be expressed by describing an emotional state, or by a metaphor that represent a similar emotional state trough the description of a scene from nature. Their distances can be measured by the time that separates the 2 expressions from being in the same 3d coordinates in space squared.

Like in the previous examples we tend to start understanding things in life based on their mathematical relationships (WARNING: If we base ourselves just in math to explore phenomena we will be able to consider and obtain only mathematical aspects of reality). We became unable to think about the existence of a bigger picture: a single and indivisible completeness called universe. For which the concepts of intuition, awareness and life need to be included if we want to describe it in a more precise way.

Math is one of the many artifices that emerged as a byproduct of the human ambition of increasing the complexity of their own cultures, as well as the creation and evolution of language.

Nowadays with the exponential increase of textual information, the need of creating automatic methods to help us understand different aspects of language lead to the evolution of a new discipline called Natural Language Processing, which includes tasks such as evaluating the opinion expressed about a product and translating a text to a different language.

When this discipline was created scientists considered language as something that could be evaluated in isolation from the context where it was generated, but son scientists realized that methods where not working properly and one of the main problems was that the same English Word can have a different meaning and/or connotation if they emerged from people that belonged to different socio-economical classes.

Currently a huge amount of people learned quantum physics when they were in high-school  it must be obvious that we live in a complete and indivisible universe(multiverse) ,highly interconnected where  everything influences everything else. Isolated systems do not exist; they cannot be immune to the influence of any kind of external force.

Even dough most people fully agree with the previous paragraph: The human race makes many suffer horribly and die in war, famine, injustice, poverty and oppression. They are making a conscious choice of not providing a good life for humans.

Evidently they don’t want to care and they are also able to forget: All frameworks, which are considered true, limit the range of awareness which allows us to understand/perceive/be/flow-within the universe. They also get us closer to to make real our ideas of predict/control important factors of reality. This is extremelly dangerous because we never know when we might feel the need to show that we deserve to decide the future of other humans given our superiority (A.K.A lack of self-esteem).