Chapter 28: The Transition
Clarification
This chapter describes the earlier overnight-transition model, which has been superseded by a gradual, community-based roadmap. The passage below that refers to physically fighting opponents reflects an earlier formulation. The current position: Transition does not initiate or employ violence. An individual may protect themselves or another person from an immediate physical assault using only the minimum necessary action, ceasing when the danger ends, with prompt compassionate care for every injured person afterward.
Additional passages later in this chapter — comparing political opponents to impaired people, proposing "reservations," and characterizing dissent as mental illness — have also been superseded. They are preserved with strikethrough markup and followed by clarifications.
The Transition will end the current dysfunctional, unsustainable, profoundly destructive socio-economic paradigm and replace it with a fully functional, synergistic, empowering symbiotic paradigm that will facilitate every one of us to thrive in a win-win-win, dynamic, self-evaluating paradigm designed to evolve and improve over time. Untold unnecessary suffering will end. Like in all beginnings, we will experience many challenges as we implement the new paradigm, learning as we go, making some mistakes and learning from them. We must go into it determined to see it through and not be discouraged or dissuaded by difficult or unexpected challenges. We will do best if we keep in mind that, while the new paradigm will eliminate or greatly reduce strife, inequity, disempowerment and many ills of our societies, it is not a magic pill that will make all problems go away. We must be prepared to do the hard work needed to realize this most worthy and beneficial cause, and never abandon the goals. Our goal is vibrant human societies in which all are thriving, empowered, and symbiotically strengthening and supporting each other. Many well-intended revolutions end up punishing, vilifying, and even brutalizing those clinging to the old regime. We must not let this happen in our Transition. In crafting a compassionate, empowering society, we must keep in mind that some people will be displaced from their jobs, making them confused or afraid of the Transition. Some will oppose it vehemently because they are heavily invested or strongly identify with the old paradigm. People are adapted to the paradigm that they grew up in. While we will have to be firm and uncompromising in preventing them from forcing a return of the old systems, we must treat them with compassion. Their whole world will be changing. That’s scary. We must treat all people with respect and dignity, and exert ourselves to the utmost to help such people find niches to thrive as valued members of the community. Even if those who oppose the Transition put us in the position to have to physically fight them, we must do so with the goal of minimum harm with the goal of neutralizing the threat, never with intent to punish or exact revenge. [Superseded — see clarification above.] Once the threat is gone, we will render aid and support to all wounded, with no blame or grudge. Let us learn from the difference between how the Allies treated the Germans after World War I, and how they treated the Germans and Japanese after World War II. The punitive terms ending WWI set the stage for WWII. The respectful terms and reconstruction ending WWII led to a thriving era for both Allies and Axis countries. Based on experience from revolutions and paradigm changes in the past, many who cling to the old paradigm will be terrified that they’ll be attacked, purged, and punished. We must make sure that that does not happen. Such acts would destroy all that we seek to build: an inclusive, empowering, compassionate renaissance society of highly-realized people thriving in symbiosis with each other. None must be excluded. As we act to prevent such people from re-imposing their dominance, we must do so with the same frame of mind with which we would take the car keys from an impaired family member to prevent them from driving, and offer support in adjusting to and finding their place in the new paradigm. [Superseded — see clarification below.]
It will be important to do our best to identify, in advance, jobs and sectors that will be displaced or made obsolete: the financial industry, marketing, advertising, corporate law, and many other whole sectors will cease to exist. Those jobs will disappear.
Yet remember that there will be no need for currency. Every person or social unit will own their own home by default. Access to all resources will be direct, free and unobstructed. Job loss will not impact survival or overall quality of life.
As many jobs will disappear, many new ones will come into being in whole new sectors: alternative energy, infrastructure, agriculture, the arts and sciences, and many more fields will grow tremendously. Many who will be displaced from their former jobs, will find their skills and expertise can be adapted to new niches opening up. Since education and training will be free, there’ll be no obstacles to learning new skills, expertise, and trades. We will greatly expand social and psychological support systems, making professional counseling freely available to all who are having challenges finding their way in the new paradigm. No one will be left to struggle alone in an adversarial, unsupportive environment.
If there turn out to be some few individuals who are literally incapable of being fulfilled or adapting to the new paradigm, we might consider setting up small reservations where small communities can function under a limited version of the old paradigm, subject of course to being prevented from imposing it beyond their community of consenting individuals. There will be no “re-education” brainwashing programs.
The few who cannot function without having wealth and power over others, are suffering from a mental illness or personality disorder. We will treat them with respect and compassion, and offer them the best life possible while preventing them from imposing their impulses upon others. They will not be harmed or disrespected, nor will they be allowed to harm others. The goal is to forge a society that has well-matched places for every one of our vastly diverse population, marginalizing or excluding none.
Clarification (September 2026)
The passages above — including the car-keys analogy, “reservations,” and the characterization of opponents as mentally ill — used language that conflated political disagreement with psychological disorder. The following replaces them.
Dissent is not illness. Opposing Transition, preferring the previous economic system, wanting to live within hierarchical structures, or advocating for capitalism is political expression — not a psychological disorder, and not grounds for confinement, segregation, or mandatory treatment.
Conduct is different from belief. A person who expresses nostalgia for privilege or advocates for a different economic model exercises a protected right. A person who attempts to impose subordination on others against their will, seize shared resources by force, or coerce compliance — from any direction, whether to reimpose oligarchy or to exact revenge on former oligarchs — may be restrained through lawful, transparent process based on demonstrable harmful conduct, not beliefs or personality types.
Persistent harmful conduct. When a person repeatedly imposes their will on others through coercion or abuse of position, Transition responds first with support — mediation, counseling, community accountability. If the conduct persists, the minimum necessary restraint is applied based on documented conduct, not diagnosis or political views, subject to independent review.
Voluntary pluralist communities. Adults may freely create or join communities organized around any social model — hierarchical, religious, anarchist, or any other arrangement — provided participation is genuinely voluntary, every person retains the practical right to leave without penalty, no one is subjected to coercion or brutalization, and the community does not impose its model on outsiders. Research such as Christopher Browning’s study of Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Ordinary Men, 1992) demonstrates that hierarchical authority structures can override individual moral judgment and entrap even voluntary participants, so independent external safeguards and regular confidential check-ins must be maintained for all such communities.
No operational planning of violence. People may hold and express any view, including opposition to Transition. What is not protected is direct incitement to imminent harm, conspiracy, or operational planning of attacks — in any direction.
The goal remains: a society with well-matched places for every one of our vastly diverse population, marginalizing or excluding none.