Chapter 39: How Will Life Change and How Will It Stay The Same in the New Paradigm?

Some things are the same regardless of the paradigm. People eat, sleep, form families and friendships, recreate, work, have disagreements and conflicts, act wisely and stupidly, have triumphs and defeats, are born, live, and die. Other aspects of human life are culturally or individually defined.

The new paradigm will vastly reduce and, to some degree, eliminate unnecessary and preventable hardships, conflicts, stresses, and suffering; yet we dare not assume that it will end all human and social problems.

Whenever we embark on a new endeavor for the betterment of life, we naturally, unconsciously tend to set high, sometimes unrealistic, expectations, regardless of whether it’s a new job, relationship, religion, or socio-economic paradigm. It’s very important that we be aware of these expectations keep in mind that, while the new paradigm will dramatically improve most aspects of our existence, it won’t eliminate all problems.

If we go into the Transition with unrealistic expectations of perfection, then when it doesn’t match them, we may abandon it in disillusionment rather than persevering and doing the work needed to succeed. Just how in a new romantic relationship that may be deep and lasting, expecting life to be problem-free predisposes it to disappointment and failure, so it is with a new socioeconomic paradigm. Things will improve greatly, but not all human problems will be solved.

Every personal and social human endeavor requires work, adaptation, perseverance, and a learning curve. This is true of even the best relationships, projects, and undertakings. There will be unexpected challenges, snags, and issues. We’ll need to stay with it, work through the challenges, troubleshoot, learn, and improve. Crafting a new socioeconomic paradigm is a huge undertaking. It will include challenges. That does not invalidate it! Yet against the backdrop of aspects of the human condition that are universal, many, many things will change in the new paradigm. A number of sectors, jobs, and industries will cease to exist. There will be no need for marketing, sales, financial services and transactions, credit services, debt collections, insurance, realty in its current sense, billing, corporate law, lobbying, and many other jobs and sectors.

Other jobs and functions will remain but fundamentally change.

One example is accountants. Their skills will still be needed to track, forecast, balance, and track actual, authentic demand and recommend adjustment of the supply of goods and services to meet those demands, to perform inventory functions, to perform load balancing, and monitor use of natural resources and reclamation when necessary. Their skills will also be important in implementing trade agreements with countries still operating under the old (current) paradigm.

The task of engineers and designers will change. Instead of being tasked to arbitrarily keep redesigning pre-obsolescent products to drive the self-devouring cycle as happens now, their mission will be to design and produce the best goods and services, both backwards and forwards compatible, that are practically achievable at the state of the art, and make enough of them to supply everybody who needs or wants them, plus a small surplus to cover unforeseeable wear and tear.

Healthcare professionals will be freed from the dictates and meddling of insurance companies, accountants and administrators, allowing them at long last to focus only on the health and treatment of their patients. The tyranny of the bottom line will end. Time currently wasted on billing and coverage-related paperwork will be freed up for the actual practice of medicine. Burnout will become a rarity.

Out-of-work marketers and advertisers will find new channels for their skills in education, public information, technical writing, performing arts and other fields that will open up and expand.

Legal professions will change fundamentally in some areas, but little or not at all in others. Corporate, landlord-tenant, and the financial aspects of family and tort law will cease to have any relevance. Financial crimes and penalties will cease to exist. In place of monetary fines, rehabilitation and standardized person-hours of community service or in restitution to wronged parties will be levied. Contract, probate, and property laws will undergo fundamental redefinitions and recalibrations in accordance with the operating principles of the new paradigm. Crimes against persons and property will change little. Some behaviors currently defined as crimes will cease to be, while some behaviors currently legal will be criminalized. We can realistically expect the overall crime rate to drop significantly.

Many goods and services, including but not limited to food and fuel production, power generation and distribution, will shift from mammoth centralized, corporate-run facilities to integrated distributed, peer-run small to mid-scale operations at the community, neighborhood, block, and single building level. Home and community gardens, windmills, solar installations, waterwheels and the like will predominate. Composting of both human and plant waste will produce both fertilizer and some portion of fuel for cooking and heating. Self-composting toilets will save water on a large scale. Passive energy building designs will greatly reduce energy consumption. National defense will strengthen as the populace is trained in community self-defense and guerrilla warfare, in support of defense forces in case of foreign invasion or attack. Citizens will learn to view arms as tools to be mastered like a car or tractor. Unstable and abusively violent people will, of course, be kept away form all weapons. Eventually we will evolve to the point of not needing to defend ourselves from each other; meanwhile this will strengthen defense while reducing criminal violence.

The quality of all goods and services will improve dramatically to the best attainable, universally durable, backwards and forwards compatible, and easily serviceable. Once all needs are filled, production will dial back to minimal levels needed to cover breakage and population growth. Waste, pollution, and resource depletion will plummet.

After a possible initial period of high demand as inferior products are replaced by the superior ones of the new paradigm, the typical work-week will settle at approximately half to one-third of what is currently. Once everyone’s needs are supplied with durable products, production will scale back to the trickle needed to replace breakage and supply small population growth. Stress levels will be minimal. With more free time, people will be able to devote more of their time and energy to diverse, creative pursuits. Quality of life will improve on every level.

People will also no longer have to waste any of their time or suffer stress associated with paying and disputing bills and taxes, sorting out scams from legitimate offers, wrangling with bureaucracies, cutting coupons, or wading through a relentless barrage of advertising, junk mail, pop ups, and other useless sensory clutter.

Quality of life will improve in myriad ways. For example, the current practice of retailers of frequently forcing store employees to spend long hours rearranging merchandise simply because employers know that doing so increases the likelihood of customers buying more stuff, will cease. Items will be placed in ways that maximize ease of stocking, cleaning, maintenance, and consumer access. This one change alone will save a lot of time for store colleagues and for consumers, who will be able to count on knowing where things are.

We’ll spend more of our time in gardening, local infrastructure maintenance, and other community activities and projects. This will increase our sense of empowerment, ownership, engagement, and interconnectedness. Isolation and alienation will largely fade away. Well-being will grow accordingly.

Transportation will become much more diverse and less damaging. Fossil fuels will decline to insignificance. Public transportation will expand greatly, as will infrastructure to support more diverse modes of transportation and make them safe and appealing. We’ll see more electric, multi-fuel, mechanochemical, maglev and human-powered vehicles, as well as horses, camels, and donkeys. Innovations will be common, with the best ones catching on. Here as well, stress will decrease. Pollution will decrease. The pace of life will become balanced and sustainable. Universal form factors will guarantee that engines, brakes, and other components will be easily interchangeable. All transportation will be freely available to each and all of us.

The phasing out of fossil fuels will dramatically improve air and water quality and significantly slow global warming. With no profit motive, there’ll be no reason to engage in fracking, clear-cutting, strip-mining, or the dumping of toxic waste. On a national and global scale as more countries Transition, this will go a long ways towards undoing the damage that human industrial activity has done to the ecosystem over past decades.

Relentless pressure to meet aggressive production, sales or distribution targets will end, as will dysfunctional hierarchical socioeconomic power structures. There’ll be no need to constantly come up with currency to ransom one’s continued existence in the face of its default denial. There’ll be no wolf at any door. Peers will no longer be competitors for scarce opportunities or resources. Just imagine the unprecedented surge in mental and physical health and well-being, mutually-supportive social relationships, and vibrancy of individuals, families and communities!

Mental illness won’t magically disappear. Abusive personalities won’t suddenly become benign, though they won’t be able to use rank, position, or finance as vehicles of abuse. Bullies will still be bullies. But the overall level of thriving and well-being will dramatically improve.

Those with mental or physical illness will have full, unobstructed access to all treatment options. There’ll be no financial or budgetary restraints or barriers. Nobody will have to skip, ration be denied treatment for financial reasons.

There’ll be no such thing as “economic necessity” pushing people into occupations that are meaningless or miserable to them, or for which they aren’t suited, to survive better or at all. Each of us will be free to pursue our passions and talents, and thus live the most fulfilled and meaningful lives while making our best possible contribution to our communities.

Jobs that nobody wants to do will be addressed in several ways. First, we might ask ourselves, for example, if we really need street sweepers if, instead, each social unit will sweep the street in front of their house or workplace. Some such tasks can be automated, once automation no longer deprives anybody of livelihood. Any remaining such tasks can be treated similarly to jury duty: to be performed by each of us occasionally by random selection. Thus nobody will be forced to do such tasks permanently.

The relentless cacophony of advertising pollution that assails us in all media will cease, once and for all, as will the waste of resources (such as paper for junk mail), work hours, energy, and brain power that generates it. Scams, hard-sells, come-ons, pyramid schemes and other predatory practices will cease and become… impossible. What is basic for commercial survival in the current paradigm will have no reason to be.

All media will be filled with authentic artistic creations, useful and accurate information, lively dialog, entertainment, and meaningful content. Imagine no pop-ups, ads, junk mail, spam, or other forms of advertising! Just the decrease in depletion of our forests, with no paper being used for printed ads, coupled with reforestation projects, will accelerate the restoration of our depleted forests. Without the unending torrent of ads, we’ll have much more mental, sensory and emotional space and peace. We’ll no longer find ourselves driven by unending, skillfully-programmed “needs.” Our needs and desires will, at long last, be fully authentic, fully our own. Here as well, our stress levels will drop precipitously.

Under the current modern feudal paradigm, media are primarily responsive, and responsible, to shareholders, executive boards, and sponsors. Popular content is cut if it offends a CEO or major sponsor. In the new paradigm, media will be only and solely responsible to consumers. Reporters will be free to devote themselves to true investigative journalism, rather than pleasing their employers and telling the story that they’re ordered to tell.

Artists, inventors, pure researchers, and other creative and innovative people will no longer have to spend most of their time and energy on making money to constantly ransom their existence. They will no longer have to try to fit in their creative pursuits in whatever scraps of time are left after they go to their job, pay their bills, and de-stress from doing so. We can look forward to a prolific, sustained surge of high-quality performance and other art, technical and scientific innovation and discovery, and a true Renaissance to dwarf the one we study in school.

Media will be freed of the entropic imperatives of the current paradigm. In the absence of profit motive, investors, “the market,” and corporate hierarchies, they will become responsive to the public. The arts will no longer be stratified into stars and starving artists. Many world-class artists who, for financial reasons, are never seen or heard under current modern feudalism, will emerge onto the stages of the world, enriching all of us. The privileged status of “stars” will fade away. Former stars will no longer be beset with intrusive fans, paparazzi, and con artists trying to get their money. All artists and inventors will be masters of their own creations.

Freed from “marketability” concerns, artists, inventors and researchers will be unfettered and truly free to pursue their authentic expression and work.

Live venues, galleries, and laboratories will proliferate and thrive.

Under the current modern feudal paradigm, many performance venues book acts using the “pay to play” model. They don’t care how good you are. You pay them their fee; they book you. You typically have half an hour to an hour. If you bring in more than your fee, then you can keep the difference. If you want to record or videotape your act, you have to pay their people to do it with their equipment. Many venues overheat their space, to make patrons thirstier so that they’ll buy more drinks. In the new paradigm, these practices will cease altogether. Venues will rediscover the concept of booking the best acts, once profit motive is extinct.

Current “stars” will find their privileged celebrity status will scale down a lot. They’ll still be appreciated, but will no longer live as a kind of nobility. They will also enjoy the company of many equally excellent artists who never “made it” under the current paradigm.

Those few “stars” whose success has come more from marketing than from talent and excellence will either find other pursuits, or will grow and develop their own abilities.

Under the current paradigm, artists, researchers and other innovators are mostly dominated by corporations, investors, shareholders, and other parasites. Though huge profits are generated, innovators and artists themselves are paid a tiny fraction of what they generate, often ten percent or less. Most stars are no exception. Artists are often expected to pay travel expenses and crew salaries out of their own cut.

The severity of the dynamics are reflected in the language. People often don’t refer to “music,” “cinema,” “healthcare,” or “electronics.” They speak of “the <music, movie, healthcare, electronics or other> Industry.” Economics has taken precedence over art, science, or invention, which are seen as means to the default end of profit.

Artists who decline to be guided by profitability or be controlled by corporate hierarchies are basically dismissed as unrealistic and not treated seriously. Art and research, which are fundamental expressions of our humanity, are reduced to products to be mass-produced and marketed, like toasters or skateboards.

Scientists and engineers are treated similarly to artists under current modern feudalism. If you can’t show how your employer can make huge profits from your research, then you won’t be able to do it. If you do prove profitability, then according to your contract or employment agreement, your employer owns the rights to anything that you develop.

Pure research usually gets cut in favor of potentially-profitable research. Now we even see space exploration being subverted from a frontier for humanity, to a playground and exploitable commodity for billionaires whose employees struggle to make ends meet.

Art, in all of its forms, is a fundamental expression of our very nature. It connects, unites, heals, entertains, and enriches us. Science is the honest quest for knowledge and understanding of how the world, and we ourselves, work. It often yields technology that improves our quality of life. Art, since, and human beings ourselves have been chained to the yoke of profit motive for the relentless hyper-enrichment of the modern feudal lords and the consolidation of their power and control, for far too long. That will end.

The current alienation and isolation of people will fade in the resurgence of community-oriented, interconnected activities. From practical forms like community-based agriculture and energy generation, to the stronger emphasis on local production-consumption cycles, to time freed up from shorter commutes and reduced work schedules, to community theater, sports, workshops and other activities, a strong culture of symbiotic interconnectedness and belonging will emerge. Our fragmented society will knit itself back into wholeness, sustainability and continuity.

Populations will most likely decentralize somewhat. Much unoccupied land and all unoccupied living and working spaces will be directly available to those who need them. People in disadvantaged and neglected areas won’t be trapped there by economic “realities,” so many will likely either improve their current dwellings, or move to less crowded, more hospitable areas. Urban centers will become less overcrowded. Quality of life will greatly improve.

Any person, family or other social unit will be able to freely move into any unoccupied dwelling, or build a home on unoccupied land, through appropriate legal pathways of course. Skilled architects, construction crews, electricians, plumbers, carpenters as well as materials will be readily available to make it happen.

We will need laws to ensure that such moves and claims are handled in a fair, safe, and equitable manner. No person will be allowed to bully their way into a home or facility already inhabited or used by another. Similarly, former landlords will not be able to claim properties being used by former tenants or extort inhabitants in any way, while their right to possess their own homes and production facilities will be protected. We’ll need reasonable legal means to settle disputes over land or buildings, and for the filing of claims.

Those who live in slums and “projects” will be free to stay or move. Both will happen. Those who stay will have direct access to materials and skilled professionals to help them to repair, upgrade and improve their dwellings and surroundings. There’ll be no economic power structures disempowering them. The conditions that gave rise to the dysfunctional violent, criminal, exploitative subcultures prevalent there, will be removed. Such patterns will steadily fade over time. Some will cling to the old ways, so we’ll need to be vigilant in order to curb and contain violent behavior. Former slums will thrive.

In education, most subjects that are taught now will still be taught, with a few additions. The prevailing academic culture will, however, change massively. There will be no such thing as, or need for, funding in order to be able to get things done. Academic inequities will quickly fade. There’ll be no need for students to strategize and stress over long-term economic survival strategies, no impending time of being thrown out into the caustic socioeconomic world with its implicit denial of one’s right to even occupy space. Stress and pressure will give way to passion for learning and the joy of discovery. Economic survival strategies will be replaced by dream fulfillment. Default denial of one’s existence will dissipate in the new default affirmation of the rights and dignity of every individual and group. Destructive competition, toxicity, adversariality, win-lose dynamics will give way to symbiotic, win-win, co-operative, empowering patterns.

From kindergarten to Ph.D, education will empower and encourage, not constrain and indoctrinate.

People will no longer choose a skill or field of study for the money, prestige, or power it confers. Some people will still pursue a field for which they aren’t suited, without realizing it until they get into the field. A person who faints at the sight of blood would not be at home as an EMT. If you struggle with math, then electrical engineering might not be a good fit. Any student will have no obstacles to changing their course of study at any time. No one will be prevented from pursuing their dreams, interests, and passions for socioeconomic reasons. Your only limitations will be your abilities, your determination, and your discipline.

Imagine graduating with no student debt, no rent or mortgage to pay, and no worries about how to survive! Imagine being able to go directly from school or other training, to working in your field in a high-engagement, low-stress environment! That’s what education will be like in the new paradigm. The very concept of debt will disappear entirely, along with all of the predatory and abusive behaviors arising from it.

There will still be class-work, homework, labs, essays, lectures and such. There may well be competition to be the best; but none of this will impact one’s prospects to live and thrive.

There will no longer be a job market to train students to enter. Access, survival, and resources will no longer be artificially scarcified due to lack of funds. Both educators and students will be free to focus solely on the educational process, on the talents and passions of students, and on the real needs of the community. Education will become dramatically more efficient and productive, and accessible to all.

In colleges and universities, innovation, seminal research, and creativity will surge. Primary and secondary education will flourish at unprecedented high levels, with no scarcity of funding to enforce cuts in staff, curricula, and resources. For-profit schools will choose either to reorient themselves in harmony with the new paradigm, or to close. In that case, their infrastructure will be reactivated by new teams.

In the current modern feudal paradigm, the most affordable food is often of poor quality, while higher quality food is out of reach of most wage earners. In the new paradigm, all food will be of high quality, and available to all.

A myth of the current modern feudal society is that poor people tend to be obese and less healthy due to poor eating habits and laziness, when in fact they simply can’t afford healthier food. This resembles the logic of slave owners who forbade teaching slaves, while claiming that slaves were mentally inferior, to justify treating them as beasts of burden.

Healthier foods naturally experience high demand, since people want to be healthy. Sometimes, foods are also marketed as healthy that may not be. The normal operation of the law of supply and demand ensures that healthy foods are significantly more expensive than less healthy foods, following the same pattern as all things medical, dental, and legal. When you’re working for $9 an hour and spending a third to half of your pay on rent, you can’t afford $25/lb for range fed organic meat. You can barely afford $5/lb for “cheap” hamburger. This contributes to the vast disparity in health and life expectancy between the modern feudal lords and modern serfs and peasants.

Supply is often artificially tightened, specifically to drive prices up. This is the normal functioning of the principles of the current socioeconomic paradigm.

The operating principles of the current paradigm lead to tragic waste and inefficiency. A lot of food is thrown out because it’s blemished, considered un-sellable, its packaging is open, it isn’t sold by closing time, or it was ordered but not picked up. If underpaid, overworked employees eat it or take it home, they’re fired. If anybody else takes it, even from the dumpster, they get run off or arrested. Farmers have even chosen or been paid to limit their harvest or destroy tons of good food, in order to keep prices high. Meanwhile billions of people are hungry. Under the current paradigm, it’s preferable to destroy some food, than to let someone have it without paying for it. Hunger amidst plenty is an inevitable result of the paradigm.

None of this will happen in the Post transition society. Food will be high quality and universally available to all. There’ll be no reason to throw good food away. More food will be produced and eaten locally, reducing damage and loss in transit and increasing freshness. Quality will improve across the board. There’ll be no stratification into high-end, mid-range, and poor quality versions of food, reflecting the change in all sectors. Even imported and processed foods will similarly improve in quality.

Under the current paradigm, many areas have laws limiting or forbidding home food production, under the guise of health and safety zoning laws. The real reason for such laws is to keep property values high, as well as to protect the interests of large agribusinesses, whose profits would suffer if most people were growing much of their own food. In the new paradigm, such laws and regulations will be immediately stricken. People will be encouraged and supported to produce their own food, power, entertainment, art, culture and other necessities.

Some people will be more inclined than others to engage in gardening, energy production or other such projects. Nobody will be pressured or forced to do so. Those who do, will gladly share their expertise and produce with their less-inclined fellows. The new shift towards community involvement will reverse most current alienation, engender a sense of connection and mutual support, and belonging. Health and quality of life will grow substantially because of this.

Aging seems to be inevitable, regardless of culture or socioeconomic paradigm. Many traditional cultures venerate and value their older members as fountains of knowledge and wisdom. Under the current paradigm, elders are viewed as a burden on family, friends or society, and treated accordingly.

Where our rights, freedom, options, and the respect with which one is treated are determined by our place on the socioeconomic pyramid, the only seniors who can buy quality of life and respect are those at the top, the modern feudal lords. When the rest of us modern serfs and peasants become unable to bring in money to ransom our existence, we are consigned to a barely minimal existence and excluded from most of society.

It’s usually seniors’ families who take care of them, with little or no assistance. Some families are able to work together to include and care for their elders. Some families have the will, but not the means. Some seniors have no family, or are estranged from their families. When families do embrace their elders, in this culture of isolation and alienation, stresses often arise that can tear families apart and cause breakdowns. Such societies are harsh to all serfs and peasants, but especially brutal to the elderly.

Modern feudalistic societies are mainly oriented towards youth, primarily because they’re at the beginning of their wage-earning and consuming years, especially young families with children. There’s more profit to be made from them than from seniors.

When an elder’s island-family can’t care for them, seniors usually end up in for-profit senior homes. Caregivers are usually poorly paid and treated, physically and emotionally overworked, leading to resentment, poor morale and lack of motivation. Such facilities are businesses, which must minimize expenses and maximize profits to survive. They charge residents the most the market will bear, provide as few services as they can get away with, and pay caregivers sub-living wages. At most needful and vulnerable time, all too many elders are neglected and even abused as a result, except among aged modern feudal lords.

In the new paradigm, this will change dramatically. Finances will no longer exist, and so will no longer determine the quality of care that an elder gets who needs it. The universal standard will be the best care humanly possible. Where there aren’t enough facilities, new ones will be built and staff trained.

There’ll be no profits, no stock, no currency, and no hierarchy. The principles and priorities driving decisions and policies will be human and community wellbeing, thriving, and empowerment, and long-term sustainability.

You may wonder if there’ll be enough people who’ll want to devote their time to caring for seniors. It’s an intense, physically and emotionally demanding vocation. Not everyone has a compatible temperament or interest. Please keep in mind that under the current paradigm, caregivers are typically paid sub-living wages, treated poorly, and shown little respect, which puts off many who would otherwise be drawn to it.

In the new paradigm, freed from the pressures of having to constantly come up with ransom money to pay the wolf at the door, many natural caregivers who currently can’t afford to work in that field, will surely enter it. Those who worked as caregivers just to have a job, any job, and whose hearts aren’t in it, will naturally gravitate to pursuits more fulfilling to them. The quality of care that seniors receive will greatly improve as a result.

Currently there are seniors who could physically and mentally live independently, who are forced by “economic necessity” to live in low-end “senior housing”. They will be free to find a place of their own or with friends or family. The resources of the community will support and respond to their needs.

The proportion of seniors who need to live in senior facilities will shrink for yet another reason. Families who currently have the will but not the means to care for their elders, will no longer be constrained. There’ll be no financial barrier to expanding the house, building a “mother-in-law apartment” or making other accommodations. Professional caregivers, nurses and others will be available when needed or wanted. Increased social integration in the new paradigm will yield the “village” that it takes to care for a child… or an elder. The extended family will likely become more common. No person or family will be an island.

When our natural instinctive social, cooperative and nurturing traits meet and are amplified by the psychological reinforcers of the new paradigm, seniors having no one to care for them will find themselves in a supportive, caring milieu. This could happen to any of us. Heightened social and interpersonal interconnectedness and integration among all generations and sectors will mean that no one will be left out or left to fend for themselves, unless they expressly desire to be. Working together for mutual benefit, caring for each other – these are at the core of our nature as human beings.

No socioeconomic paradigm can reverse the effects of aging or magically heal and restore estranged families. The new paradigm will, however, remove the caustic, alienating financial pressures and stresses that currently strain, break, disempower, and isolate individuals and nuclear families from their extended families and community. All of us will enjoy far less chronic toxic stress and far greater fulfillment. Human dignity will be restored to each and every one of us. None of us, including elders, children, the disabled and the infirm, will be cast aside or resented as economic burdens.

Young people will also see great positive changes. They’ll no longer be targeted by relentless marketing and advertising preying on their vulnerabilities, no longer conditioned to be compulsive consumers. As a result, they’ll develop naturally into more authentic, empowered, critically-thinking, creative, unique and realistically confident adults than is common under modern feudalistic paradigms.

The preponderance of prepackaged diversions and activities will give way to a resurgence of creative, spontaneous play and activities.

Educators have noted that each generation of students appear to have a shorter attention span and fewer dreams or passions beyond money, consumer goods, and mass-produced entertainments. Creativity, passion, and curiosity about life likewise are declining. Relationships are shorter and more superficial. Social anxiety is widespread. Some of this is due to the shift from in-person to digital interaction. This is not a rant against a generation. It is the acknowledgement of a tragedy, and there is a bigger set of factors involved.

A major cause is also the constant, unrelenting torrent of advertising propaganda, which assails children at all ages. This conditions and predisposes them to feel an insatiable “need” for whatever is advertised, and reinforces compulsive consumeristic behavior. Human connection, creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking aren’t reinforced. Getting money and “stuff” is reinforced. What is reinforced, predominates.

Loving parents naturally tend to want to give their kids what they want, as long as it isn’t harmful. Sadly, under the current paradigm, this further reinforces children’s focus on “stuff.” Advertisers learned, over generations, how to exploit healthy parental instincts and subvert them to serve manufacturers’ profit-imperative by compulsively buying their products and services. Parents and children are kept in the self-devouring cycle like oxen in a yoke, sacrificing their time, energy and humanity to further enrich the modern feudal lords and their corporations.

From a commercial viewpoint, this inadvertent curtailment of children’s development is good for profits. Every dictator, alongside advertisers of a few decades ago, would give their eye teeth for the skill and sophistication of modern marketers and advertisers, who have perfected the art of funneling their propaganda into every sensory channel, via all media.

Not too long ago, we encountered ads on radio, TV, on billboards, and in periodicals. It wasn’t constant immersion. Now we are immersed in it almost constantly, as mentioned above and also via our cell phones and computers in pop-ups almost every time we click and many times when we don’t. Technology with huge positive potential is also subverted to tap our minds and pocketbooks to feed the profit-and-power addiction of the modern feudal lords and their corporations.

Yet another arbitrary stress on kids and teens is knowledge that upon reaching adulthood, they’d better have a good economic survival strategy in place in order to be able to pay the monthly ransom for their continued right to eat, live, and occupy space. Very likely they’ll be on their own. Their parents simply probably won’t be able to help them much after that. In the U.S., career planning ideally begins in grade school. The current socioeconomic paradigm has inevitably led to the steady decline in public education in the face of relentless, ongoing pressure to privatize education, diverting resources to “charter schools” and other for-profit versions, most of which under-perform relative to public schools. This leaves most children disadvantaged.

As with all other aspects of life in modern feudalism, the quality of education that one gets is determined by their place in the socioeconomic pyramid. The current laissez-faire trend in the U.S. towards big business and the ultra-wealthy has accelerated the stratification. Most jobs pay sub-living or barely living wages. Better jobs are scarce (by design). Competition is fierce. Very few will “make it.” Most will struggle in a lifelong losing battle for survival.

The stress on a grade-school child, knowing that they have to make career and academic choices now that will give them the best shot at making a good living (not fulfilling their dreams) as an adult, that they’ll have to out-compete at least ninety-five percent of their peers in order to even be in the running or else be stuck in a bleak existence, is debilitating, traumatizing, disempowering and soul-crushing.

Once you graduate from college or trade school, you face a new set of barriers. Most hiring managers want people with both schooling and experience. You have only schooling, unless you did an internship, which would have meant working for free. Having a job is the only way to get experience. If you are hired, most employers use your lack of experience to justify paying you sub-living wages until you prove yourself, which can take years. Under modern feudalism, employees are disposable, easily replaced, and devalued. You have to convince a skeptical hiring manager why they should hire you instead of any one of hundreds or more other applicants.

Many youths in disadvantaged areas find drug dealing, theft, robbery, gang membership and other criminal careers more appealing than dead-end, sub-living-wage jobs in the food service, retail or hospitality industries with poor treatment and no benefits.

When viewed closely, organized crime and gangs are hard to distinguish from legal, “legitimate” businesses. Both view their moneymaking activities as “just business.” Both respond to the ubiquitous reinforcers built into the socioeconomic paradigm, by pursuing the imperative to maximize profits. Both minimize expenditures and maximize income. Both tend to be ruthless against competition, defiance or impeding of their agendas and will not hesitate to devastate lives and communities if it comes to that. To a young person with few options, it may seem wise to consider both. Immediate gratification of conditioned consumeristic impulses takes precedence over all.

In the new paradigm, none of the forgoing will exist. There will be no advertising, no conditioning to feel a programmed “need” for consumer goods. There’ll be no need for young people to develop economic survival strategies for a competitive economic battlefield, no threat of any “wolf” at their door. From childhood through adulthood, young people will be safely able to focus on learning, discovering and exploring themselves and the world around them, developing their personhood, talents, interests, dreams and goals, and pursuing them in a setting that supports, encourages, and empowers them.

There’ll be no barriers or constraints due to “financial realities” blocking their options or access to education, training, materials, and other resources that they need. Interpersonal relationships will tend to be more authentic than now, since there’ll be no socioeconomic stratification to reinforce dysfunctional socialization.

Any young (or any age) person, who wants to play an instrument or sport, explore any scientific, artistic, or other pursuit, will have direct, unrestricted access to all that they need. Go to the nearest supply depot to get materials and tools, find yourself a teacher, and go for it. No parent or school will tell an aspiring student, “I’m sorry, my child, we just can’t afford it” or “We cut that program due to lack of funds.”

With no onslaught of advertising and no conditioning of consumeristic reflexes, young people will develop their own, unique, authentic aesthetics, passions, and interests. Aside from the challenges of parent and peer relations or puberty, children and teens will experience a time of fulfilling discovery and growth that will continue into adulthood. The extinction of socioeconomic stratification will likewise extinguish most kinds of toxic competition that are reinforced and common in today’s modern feudalism. The natural kind of healthy, friendly, good-natured competition that seems to be part of growing up, will take its place. Parents will have more time and energy to share with their kids, since they’ll be free from the artificially-inflated workload of the self-devouring cycle, and from the stresses of operating under dysfunctional hierarchical social structures under constant economic pressure.

Work will take much less of our time, as discussed previously. Once everybody’s needs are met with durable, high-quality goods and services, most sectors will scale back to minimal production to cover breakage and population growth. Stress will plummet dramatically. Pressures of individual and nuclear family economic survival will no longer create crippling fragmentation. Nuclear families will tend to interconnect into extended families. Families, individuals and communities will naturally spend more time interacting in affirmative, enjoyable ways. Generation gaps will tend to bridge as people reintegrate and reconnect in their communities as is our instinctive nature as humans. Mental, physical, emotional and social health and wellbeing will surge to heretofore rarely seen levels. Endemic fragmentation of families and communities will heal into healthy, cohesive, symbiotic interconnection, once dysfunctional socioeconomic patterns no longer reinforce, or enforce, alienation and isolation. Our core nature as social beings will reassert itself in ways that will strengthen us as individuals, families, and communities.

Growing up in the new paradigm will be much more fulfilling than under current modern feudalism. Healthy, fully-engaged youth will become healthy, symbiotic, fully-engaged adults, living fulfilling lives, making their best contribution to their communities as a result of pursuing their dreams.

Life will improve immeasurably across the board; yet it would be a tragic error to assume, even unconsciously, that all human woes will disappear. They won’t.

We’ll still go through growing pains, interpersonal issues, aging, sickness, accidents, disappointments, death, natural disasters and more. Not everybody will get along. Some generational intercultural, religious, ethnic or other enmities will probably remain. There may still be bullies, psychopaths, sociopaths and abusers. Cultural or family expectations may still clash with individual aspirations. One important difference, however, will be the fact that nobody and no group will be able to use hierarchical rank or socioeconomic position to force their dysfunction on others. Rarely will arbitrary pressures, stresses, or dynamics create avoidable tragedies.

Every society and culture will still inevitably go through changes. Every generation in every country will have a different experience than every other. Natural events, new technologies, discoveries and concepts, fads, emergent changes in the zeitgeist and other unpredictable factors will always be with us. This creates some degree of intergenerational stress, which can become a strength, where there’s a climate of open, mutually respectful dialog in which all parties learn from each other.

For much of the twentieth century, the trend was that each generation could realistically look forward to better quality of life than their parents. Sadly, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, young adults confront a world in which they will have to work more hours than their parents, and suffer diminishing quality of life for their efforts. Alienation and fragmentation, driven by the pressures of surviving under the modern feudal socioeconomic power structure, have reached unprecedented levels. If the Transition were not to happen, this trend will only get worse over time. The consolidation of wealth and power into the hands of the modern feudal lords is rapidly approaching a threshold analogous to the event horizon of a black hole. Our future depends on Transitioning as soon as possible.

We will do well to anticipate, as best we can, the vastly different experiences of three specific generations: the last generation to grow up under current modern feudalism, the generation that lives through the Transition, and the first generation to grow up in the new post-Transition paradigm.

In the new paradigm, all generations will prosper. In place of chronic artificial scarcity and inaccessibility of resources, there’ll be abundance and universal access. In place of the current every-one-for-themselves toxically competitive culture where even friends can be a potential threat to livelihood, will come a culture of mutually-reinforcing benefit. Our core strengths as social humans will reassert themselves. Subsequent generations will set new standards as to what it means to thrive.

The pre-Transition generations will have a lot of healing to do, a lot of relearning of survival mechanisms and strategies. They may become insecure, disoriented, and unsure of themselves for a time. They will need patience and active, sustained compassion and support from the Transition generation from post-Transition generations. The Transition generation will grow up in a time of massive reorientation and redefinition of many of our most fundamental social dynamics. They will benefit from the experience, wisdom, support and compassion of their parents’ and their children’s generation. It will be vital that we consciously and deliberately engage in mutually-respectful dialog and support, especially among these three generations. This will also establish a new constructive pattern going forward.

Without toxic socioeconomic factors exacerbating them, we can expect racial, ethnic, religious and similar tensions to de-escalate, at least somewhat.

In both Medieval feudalism and dominant modern socioeconomic feudalism, economic control of resources and currency inevitably creates stark, destructive stratification into feudal lords and their vassals, and the serfs and peasants, with a very small “professional” class in between. Such control has been, and is still being, used quite successfully as a means to exclude targeted groups and individuals from access to everything from living space, to jobs, to education and just about everything else. Targeted groups vary from time to time and place to place across the globe and the millennia.

Where currency is compulsory to constantly ransom our existence, to block or restrict anyone’s access to ways to access currency is to block and restrict their ability to thrive or even live. Goods, services, basic needs, freedom, respect and opportunity are kept scarce. It’s the inevitable outcome of the core imperative of “the law of supply and demand” integral to the paradigm itself. Such default chronic scarcity gives rise to resentments and blame between just about every impacted group and just about every other. This keeps us divided, conquered, and playing the “game” as we blame each other rather than recognizing that the paradigm itself is the problem, not each other or even the modern feudal lords themselves. The feudal lords naturally encourage and magnify such divisions. They instinctively know that the moment we do unite to focus on the paradigm, the “game” itself, their power and control are soon to be over. They fear a popular uprising that may involve violence against them. In the Transition, they will have nothing of the kind to fear; but they won’t believe that until it’s complete. Even when they do understand that they’re in no danger from the Transition, remember that they are addicts, addicted to privilege, power, opulence and control over others. Most of them will react as addicts of any kind react when the object of their addiction is removed. We will respond with strength and compassion.

In the new paradigm, every one of us will enjoy the right to access all that we need and most of what we desire (some things may be beyond our ability). No person or group will be in a position to block, control, or impede another’s access to anything that they themselves don’t use directly. Some personalities, ethnicities, religious groups etc. may still not get along; but none will be the other’s boss, landlord, or hierarchical superior. Footing will, by default, be equal. There will be no socioeconomic power for anybody to abuse. If any party resorts to physical violence or coercion, they will be charged with the appropriate crime, sentenced accordingly, and offered therapy to help them with their violent impulses.

Under the current modern feudalism, scientific research and technological development are generally expected to justify themselves in terms of profitability, and to orient themselves to that end. Vastly many research and development projects are suppressed and languish from lack of funds, never to be pursued, because they don’t meet that primary criterion.

Some research and development is more actively suppressed. In the U.S., the Supercollider was abandoned, half-completed, due to political pressure opposing the very idea of taxing corporations to support pure research in the public sector. The early public transit system in Los Angeles, California, was actively suppressed from maturing to support the growing metropolis, by a combined group of corporate interests who used bribery, intimidation, slander, and even murder to kill the embryonic system. Los Angeles has been utterly dependent on private cars ever since, to the detriment of all residents.

Globally escalating dependence on fossil fuels has brought us to an unprecedented survival crisis due to the impact on the world climate. It also puts oil-producing corporations and countries in a position of unfettered power over most of the world, which is abused routinely. Yet there are a plethora of mature and emergent, sustainable, non-polluting technologies that can easily replace most energy, transportation and other applications now filled by fossil-fuel devices. Many of them would dramatically reduce and curtail environmental damage, neutralize the power of oil producers, increase security, create plentiful new jobs, and improve quality of life for everybody. The petroleum industry has devoted vast resources and spared no efforts to suppress the adoption of these technologies and keep the world dependent on fossil fuels for as long as possible. Recently-developing countries like China and India are repeating the same destructive mistakes of the U.S. and Europe, rather than learning from them. Profit-addiction overrides even survival instinct itself.

The current socioeconomic paradigm is a runaway mechanism that inevitably consumes everything and everybody in its path in order to generate an inexorable funneling and concentration of wealth, control and power into the hands of a microscopic handful of modern feudal lords and their corporate fiefs. That is the normal functioning of this paradigm. Science, art, engineering, government and all human endeavors are yoked, controlled and to serve that end. After the Transition to the new paradigm, the current feudal lords will detox from their addiction to wealth, power, privilege and control, and will receive compassionate treatment and support to re-empower themselves as peers among peers and find fulfilling niches in the new paradigm. Scientific research and development will at last be free, unrestricted, and able to evolve as the human spirit moves it, expanding our knowledge, improving our quality of life, and, hopefully, adding to our wisdom.

Science is an expression of our instinctive drive to gain knowledge and understanding of how things work. It is intimately linked to our survival and ability to thrive as humans. The most significant developments and discoveries have almost always happened when research was free to proceed spontaneously. When yoked to profit motive, inferior results result; our horizons shrink to encompass not much more than the quest for consumer goods.

The course of pure research often can’t be predicted. Discoveries emerge, which usually lead to technological innovations that improve our quality of life. The resulting expansion of our understanding of the universe, of the world around us, and of ourselves, often inspires us individually and culturally, and gives rise to artistic innovation and social progress as well. Our lives are enriched in lasting ways. This almost never happens when research is chained to profits. Look at the difference between the societies of today, versus Medieval societies that believed in a flat earth with the sun going around it, a universe only six thousand years old, and the divine right of kings. Post-transition societies will be to our current societies, as those are to medieval societies.

Astronauts and cosmonauts have reported lasting positive impacts on their lives from being and working in space. The expansion of knowledge, understanding and horizons, driven by curiosity, the drive for understanding, and the desire for life-improving innovations, coupled with the thrill and even pride and satisfaction of discovery, will spark research and innovation, far more effectively than profit motive ever could.

In the new paradigm, choices of which competing technologies to or not to develop will be guided by very different criteria than in today’s profit-driven model. The questions to ask will be which line of development will best enhance human happiness, well-being, empowerment and fulfillment? Which is more sustainable, less polluting or environmentally destructive? Which is less likely to involve unsafe or unsatisfying work conditions to produce? The answers to those questions will be drastically different from the answers to questions like which will bring the greatest profits for our company, the fastest, and for the longest time? Needless to say, support for fossil fuels will plummet; air and water quality will improve dramatically, as will our health and quality of life.

Cultural myths in current societies suggest that, without “market forces” to drive them, innovation and productivity would stall. In practice, the opposite is true. The reinforced economic behavior in the current paradigm has done more to stifle inquiry, research and development than any regime since the Middle Ages. The myth “conveniently” keeps us playing the “game,” producing and consuming to maintain and fortify the wealth and power of the modern feudal lords, who’ve become addicted to the status quo. We go on, generation after generation, bearing the crushing weight of the socioeconomic pyramid upon our backs, until we Transition to the new, non-hierarchical paradigm. This dynamic is on display in the behavior of the U.S. government between 2016 and 2020. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of the reality and critical severity of human-caused climate change, the government downplayed and denied the facts, withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, canceled existing environmental protection measures, took massive steps to increase dependence on fossil fuels, vigorously suppressed even the discussion of climate change in the very agencies tasked with the research, replaced competent scientists with unqualified political operatives, and suppressed any shift to existing, mature alternative technologies while falsely claiming that the shift in technologies would destroy livelihoods, even though in fact far more new jobs would be created than lost. In the new paradigm, currency will be obsolete and such changes won’t impact livelihood. The above responses, however, are the inevitable and predictable behavior of addicts (the modern feudal lords and their vassals) confronted with the prospect of losing the object of their addiction (wealth, power, opulence, and privilege). As mentioned before, government in this scenario responds primarily to the agendas of the modern feudal lords. We have all unwittingly participated in enabling this state of affairs. We have held them up as success stories and role models. We have played our role as serfs and peasants. We have thus reinforced their addiction rather than diagnosing and treating them as we do with people having most other forms of addiction.

It is important to see clearly and recognize the psycho-social dynamics and behavior of the modern feudal lords in the context of addiction, rather than to see them as bad actors to be punished or shamed. We must not underestimate the impact of addiction. Many experiments and studies have shown that addicted animals and humans will pursue usually their addictions, even to the direct, serious and immediate detriment of their very survival and that of others. The modern feudal lords fit the addictive pattern. We will bring the best outcome if we anticipate and respond to the reactions of the modern feudal lords to the Transition, based on and guided by understanding their addictive disorder, which in this case has been enabled for generations. Their detoxification will be an unusual challenge for them and for those helping them.

Even competition will become more productive in the new paradigm. Instead of taking place between corporations for market share via marketing and advertising, it will occur between researchers, developers and designers competing to create the best design or discovery. Collaboration will expand dramatically, leading to an enormous acceleration of progress and productivity. With no corporate-controlled “intellectual property” laws stifling collaboration, researchers and engineers will be free to share information to their hearts’ content. The pace and scope of progress will dwarf what’s possible under the current paradigm.

Those who believe in the current feudalistic socioeconomic paradigm strongly oppose taxing the ultra-wealthy or their corporations, and devoting tax money to public education, healthcare, and social safety-net programs of any kind for those who fall by the wayside. They claim and believe that such assistance causes recipients to become lazy, dependent, and settle into a multi-generational pattern of “gaming the system.” This contrasts with actual statistics, which show that only a very minute percentage of recipients stay on assistance longer than a few months to less than five years.

Such people usually resent paying taxes towards helping those who are struggling and down and out, as they think of them as an unwelcome burden. The privileged and well-off believe the myth that poor people are poor because they’re lazy, stupid or otherwise morally defective. Some have even said that anybody who can’t afford health insurance doesn’t deserve it, which is a subtle way of saying they don’t have a right to live. This is yet another inevitable result of the modern feudal paradigm itself, which scarcifies resources and sets up conditions pitting person against person and group against group, where the gain of one always comes at the detriment of the another.

Ironically and unsurprisingly, in countries under this paradigm, the percentage of tax money devoted to social programs is dwarfed by the percentage spent on subsidies and tax breaks for mega-corporations and the modern feudal lords driving them, who fiercely object to having any of what little tax they pay, go towards social programs and assistance for those who struggle to survive, and convince many susceptible working people that social safety nets threaten their survival. The fact that this state of affairs isn’t widely known reflects the fact that this paradigm goes against our deepest instincts. Otherwise it wouldn’t be hidden. Yet it is strongly reinforced in the paradigm. Those who know this are mostly the feudal lords and their vassals. On some level, they know that this situation is cause for shame, and don’t want to be universally known as the biggest welfare recipients in their society! Such a society conflicts with our core nature as a deeply socially cooperative, collaborative, mutually-supportive species.

Our species would have died out, if our prehistoric ancestors had operated under modern feudal socioeconomic principles. The stronger would have driven the weaker out of existence, then would have turned upon each other. The last human generation would have ended with one lone survivor, the ultimate “alpha,” alone and extinct.

Yet, it is legitimate to ask what effect social safety nets have on recipients? Do they reinforce laziness and disengagement, or do they empower people to recover and thrive under their own power after only a brief time of receiving aid as intended? Furthermore, how will the demonstrably tiny sector of people who do fit the definition of “generational welfare,” be affected by the new paradigm, and how will their responses impact the greater community?

In a society where one’s options, freedom, and very survival hinge on a constant inflow of a certain amount of currency, there will be a few people who, when given aid, become conditioned to depend on it. Yet actual statistics show that this is a miniscule segment of the population. The argument to the contrary is similar to the myth of “anybody can make it.”

Real-world data shows that ninety-nine percent of recipients of assistance from social safety net programs, receive such aid for four years or less. At any given moment, around 21.3 of the U.S. population, are receiving assistance. That means that about 0.2% of the whole population receive assistance longer than four years. The actual percentage who fit the definition of “generational welfare” is less than 0.2%, since some percentage are on “public assistance” for longer than four years, but less than a lifetime. 97% of us have received assistance from social safety net programs, at least once in our lives, by the time we’re sixty-five. This disproves the myth that social safety nets reinforce laziness and disengagement. Social safety nets are working as intended: helping people get back up from a downturn.

Among long-term welfare recipients are people who are actually working, but whose wages don’t cover living expenses. Under the operating paradigm, a large percentage of employees are guaranteed to be in this situation. Even if every person makes their best possible effort, the pyramidal socioeconomic wealth and power structure will stay the same. What is being reinforced, in this case, is not individual laziness and dependency, but employers paying employees sub-living wages while counting on public assistance to make up the difference.

Under the current dominant modern feudalism, it’s literally impossible for more than a very few to ascend the socioeconomic pyramid beyond the lower levels. If somehow a large percentage did manage to do so, the paradigm would collapse. Resources available to communities, as well as individuals, is determined by their socioeconomic status. People growing up in disadvantaged communities have inferior schools, higher stress, poorer or insufficient nutrition, less confidence, and an uphill battle trying to get education or training to prepare them for well-paying jobs. The few individuals who do “make it,” only highlight the multitudes of their equally talented, hardworking peers who never do. Such successes give the illusion of a way out; but in fact, your chances of duplicating your peer’s “success” is about the same as duplicating your neighbor’s big win at the casino.

What strongly reinforces laziness and suppresses motivation, is being paid sub-living or barely-living wages, treated disrespectfully or even abusively, and driven beyond reasonable endurance. When that describes all of the jobs that you can realistically hope to get, your motivation to work, and to give it your all if you’re on the job, is not reinforced. “Welfare queens” are rare. If you present them with jobs that offer a big improvement in quality of life, empowerment, respect, and choices as opposed to staying on welfare or joining a gang, nearly every one of them will jump for it. Otherwise, don’t dare to judge them!

The fact that so many people, at one time or another, need financial assistance of some kind, is symptomatic of the built-in flaws and inherent dysfunctionality of this dominant paradigm.

It is our deep instinct for mutual support as a strongly social species, that drives the existence of social safety net programs in countries burdened under the modern feudal paradigm, in response to the widespread harm caused by human behavior as shaped by the paradigm itself. Instead of blaming folks who receive assistance, we will reinforce working by configuring society so that working is an empowering, affirming, engaging experience that yields a good quality of life. The only way to do this, is to scrap the current paradigm and replace it with one what empowers and reinforces the best in us.

This will change quickly in the new paradigm. Those born during and after the Transition won’t have any old, obsolete survival mechanisms to unlearn. If you were born before Transition, it’ll be easier than you my think, to ease into the ways of the new paradigm. There’ll be no money or need for it; so it will no longer be a barrier. Every one of us will have direct access to what we need, and at least most of what we want. Current “welfare queens” will lose welfare, and won’t need it. In the new paradigm, no segment of the population will be a burden on another. Every person will have unobstructed freedom and access to pursue their dreams and goals.

Lack of funds will no longer cripple schools and other infrastructure in currently disadvantaged communities. Teachers will have access to everything they need, regardless of where they are. Students will enjoy a universally high level of education and training. Want to become a doctor? A carpenter? An engineer? A mechanic? As long as you have the necessary ability and discipline, there’ll be no barriers or locked doors to block you. We will all be freed of the tyranny of currency-addicted feudalistic socioeconomics. Our unseen, but very real, economic chains will fade away like a bad dream.

Those among us who are long barred from our dreams or even survival by stifling economics, will, for the first time, have direct access to all resources. Some have stopped trying because of a chronic state of defeat, having learned to think, “What’s the use?” People will very quickly avail themselves of their new freedom and access, once they realize that it’s real.

Ethnic, religious, tribal, and racial antagonism will be harder, and take longer, to resolve and heal. We can expect, however, that such dynamics will diminish. Group will no longer be pitted against group to vie for scarcified resources. In the new synergistic, symbiotic societies, no one will be another’s boss, landlord, or hierarchical superior. There will be no power positions to be abused, and no rank to be pulled. This will work against the institutionalization and setting in stone of prejudice, discrimination, and disenfranchisement.

We will each have our own personal issues and challenges. Addiction or alcoholism won’t magically disappear; nor will mental or physical illnesses, disabilities, impact of prior traumas etc. What will change, however, is that every one of us will have unobstructed access to the healthcare providers and treatments that can help us, regardless of whether we are currently homeless, or a billionaire. The working poor person who currently has little or no help accessible, will, post-Transition have access to the same level of care as the President or Prime Minister. This will inevitably lead to a high level of engagement, empowerment, and fulfillment among all members of the society.

Even those few people who really want to sit around and watch TV all day, will not pose a problem. They’ll be too few to have a major impact on the society, and will pose a burden to no one. In the reinvigorated and re-engaged social climate of the post-Transition paradigm, such phenomena will become more and more rare.

Once the modern feudal paradigm is gone, there’ll be a lot more flexibility and freedom of lifestyle, which will probably result in a proliferation of new and experimental lifestyles and communities. Many may resemble kibbutzim or other past atypical social models, as well as new and novel ones. The new paradigm will be self-reevaluating, actively examining results in real time and adapting or adjusting accordingly. Experimental communities will be encouraged, and will keep track of what works and what doesn’t, in terms of human happiness and thriving in a mutually-supportive dynamic, and share their ongoing observations on the universal social access web site. At long last we’ll form a society that learns from its successes and failures, and adapts accordingly. The longer the new paradigm operates, the greater and deeper will be our understanding of what social paradigms do and do not work. Bullying, exploitation and social power politics will gradually fade into the historical past as anachronisms.

Modern feudalism, by its very nature, suppresses all other socioeconomic paradigms. It must do so in order to survive. Thus we see zoning laws severely limiting how many non-related people can live on a piece of land, and massive tracts of land are off-limits to us peasants and serfs, due to belonging to wealthy modern feudal lords and their corporations. Lack of funds is another barrier to finding a locale for social innovation. In the new paradigm, concepts of property and ownership will fundamentally change in ways that remove almost all barriers to novel, well-motivated social and familial experiments.

New laws and guidelines will be crafted to facilitate equitable resolution when more than one person, family or other social entity want to use the same land. Universal access does not mean “anything goes.” We will need to create reasonable limits on how much land or other resource a person or social entity can own. Such limits will need to be fine-tuned with growing experience, so as to prevent the disproportionate ownership and control of resources by some, effectively depriving others, which would create a new feudalistic power structure. Yet the limits must not be arbitrary, galling, or stifling.

We’ll still need zoning laws, in order to prevent a noisy factory from disrupting the life of a residential community. Many zoning laws, however, will be stricken or changed in major ways.

Realistically, some experimental communities may develop into dysfunctional or destructive forms, such as charismatic autocracy, cult formation, bullying, coercion, forced groupthink and conformity, or encroachment and imposition upon non-consenting people or even neighboring communities. We will need a compassionate legal framework and procedures for intervention to disband such dysfunction and render therapy, healing, and/or social and individual counseling or guidance, not at all from a punitive or judgmental paradigm, but rather in the same frame of mind with which we would step in to stop a runaway train.

We humans have always tended to adorn ourselves. We have aesthetics regarding clothing, jewelry, music, dance, etc., which vary widely from person to person, family to family, and culture to culture. Under the current modern feudal paradigm, however, aesthetics are skillfully manipulated by the fashion, entertainment, and other industries via highly effective propaganda called advertising. Our natural aesthetic impulses, as well as our socioeconomically-reinforced personal insecurities, are harnessed and yoked to generate massive profits. Fashions are systematically changed more and more often, in order to induce people to keep buying the latest. Spontaneous, authentic aesthetics, adornments, tastes, and fashions don’t develop because of this programming. Add to that the general programming that we all experience growing up, which predisposes us to respond to advertising, peer pressure, and the perception of needing to buy high-end items to appear as high on the socioeconomic pyramid as possible in order to experience better treatment, respect and options in such societies, and we see the almost compete suppression of spontaneous, authentic individual and cultural expressions. This whole dynamic is another example of the modern feudal lords and their vassals gaining yet more wealth and power at the expense of us serfs and peasants. The system is functioning as designed, the nonviable, unsustainable game is being played as it’s meant to be played.

Once the current feudalism is shut down, the new paradigm will quickly see the re-emergence of spontaneous, authentic aesthetic expressions, both individually and culturally. In the inner and outer peace that we’ll experience in the absence of advertising and marketing, we’ll begin to hear and share our own inner voices, tastes, and aesthetics. Expressing them will give us a deeper sense of fulfillment and well-being than was ever possible under the constant multimedia sensory bombardment that we have now. Free of the current yoke of serving profits of the feudal lords, our aesthetic and artistic expressions will diversify dramatically, bringing in a Renaissance that will dwarf the classical one that we study in school. Art, music and fashion will be home and community grown, not mass-produced. Conformity will be much less of a factor, though it probably won’t disappear entirely.

We can expect that the norm for human interactions will become more honest and open, since there’ll be no pressure or reinforcement to appear more “successful” or wealthy than one is, and no need to constantly fight to counter a default socioeconomic negation of your right to live, occupy space, and function. We will see our fellows no longer as potential competitors for scarcified resources and opportunities, but as potential allies and partners in mutually-beneficial undertakings.

There will still be dedicated and talented designers and artists in all media. There will be lively dialog between creative innovators and the public, to the benefit of both. Pure and genuine, creative aesthetics will replace programmed, molded ones. Freed of the ramifications of current intellectual property laws, people will be free to copy or improvise upon creations of such artists, and vice-versa. Nobody’s livelihood will be negatively impacted as a result, and innovators will be acknowledged by their admirers and imitators.

In this environment of the new paradigm, most likely we’ll see a proliferation of creative user-customizable accessories, materials, kits, and media. People will spontaneously share and copy expressions that they like. Instead of a set of conditioned consumeristic responses, art, science and fashion will become a vastly enriched, creative personal and social process embodying an unprecedented renaissance. Of course, not everybody is a seamstress or artist, so such cultural leaders will not lose their audience.

Under the current modern feudal paradigm, most decision-making is made and implemented in a strongly top-down hierarchical model. Decisions and policies are made by those at the top of the command structure and imposed on those beneath them all the way down the pyramid. Any who challenge or defy such decisions, will probably be fired, losing their livelihood and ability to survive, and be handicapped in finding new employment by negative references from the defied employer.

This dysfunctional, unsustainable paradigm gives the appearance of efficiency. Decisions can be made quickly by the ones in charge and passed down the chain of command to be immediately implemented and obeyed. There is little to no discussion, other than the giving of orders. Such “efficiency” comes with major prices, however, similar to how the use of meth or cocaine gives the illusion of heightened energy, productivity, and stamina with little or no sleep or food, until the crash occurs and the damage to the body and psyche becomes clear. In both cases, the damage far outweighs any benefits. Regrettably, the most people are conditioned and accustomed to accept this model as “normal” and function within it, according to its operating principles which only serve to disempower them and yoke them to the metaphorical millstone producing even more wealth and power for the people at the top of the pyramid at the expense of the rest of us who produce that wealth. This is how the paradigm works, how it’s designed. From us serfs and peasants to the CEO modern feudal lords, the paradigm keeps going specifically because we all keep living our lives and behaving according to its conditioning.

In spite of their illusory appearance of efficiency, all hierarchical social and economic structures have major built-in flaws that far outweigh any perceived benefits.

Though this has already been covered, it bears repeating since it flies in the face of what’s considered to be normal and natural in all cultures living under these paradigms. Humans in positions of power, even limited power, tend to become corrupt. The degree varies from person to person; but the trend is overwhelming. The exercise of power takes on a life of its own and becomes a goal unto itself. This behavior is strongly reinforced in the current paradigm, while there is little or no reinforcement for contrary behavior. The brain centers for compassion and empathy have been shown to shut down when a person has found his or herself in a position of power for an extended period of time. Exercise of rank and position becomes its own end, independent of any intended functional purpose of the hierarchy.

Every hierarchical social structure includes the imperative principle that the chain of command must be respected, period. This guarantees that, when there is abuse, corruption, incompetence or dysfunction at any level in the hierarchy, it will be institutionalized, set in stone, codified into policy, defended, replicated and set in stone going down the hierarchy. The social environment becomes rife with distrust, antagonism, backstabbing, frustration, fear, resentment, fragmentation, de-motivation, destructive forms of competition, abuse, exploitation, and bullying. Such paradigms have been shown to be at odds with human nature, reinforcing our most destructive potentials while suppressing our most constructive ones. To continue using such paradigms is futile and dangerous.

The new paradigm will completely replace hierarchical socioeconomic social structures with peer-based ones. Realistically, we’ll go through a period of adjustment as we unlearn survival mechanisms formed in the current paradigm and learn the necessary skills to operate in the new paradigm. This is to be expected. Change is often challenging. We will need to be patient with ourselves and with each other as we learn how to operate and function as peers. It may seem daunting at first; but the needed skills can be learned and mastered. We are fully capable of mastering them. We’ll learn to function effectively with no command structure, and be much better off for it socially, functionally, individually, and in terms of quality of life.

Each of us will be empowered to make our fullest contribution. We will all benefit from being able to speak freely without fear, knowing that we are heard and listened to.

The new paradigm is based on ones that have already been shown to work better than the hierarchical ones that now dominate the world. There’ll be no rank for anyone to pull, no way for any of us to impose our ideas upon our fellows. When two or more competing visions or ideas are proposed, they’ll be examined and discussed by all participants. Those still on the table will be implemented in prototype or proof-of-concept form and then re-examined. Those that remain will be those that are the best solutions. This will stimulate innovation at new levels of excellence.

The current hierarchical paradigm is heavily driven by the visions, ideas and goals of those at the top of the pyramid. Initiative and input from those down the command structure are suppressed by default, more strongly so the further down one is on the pyramid. Initiative from above always overrides that from below, while the ideas of those at the top usually don’t go through the kind of thorough critical examination that would catch flaws or drawbacks. We end up with a stilted, crippled, maladaptive environment and process that produces inconsistent results that fall far below the level of quality and consistency that will become the norm in the new paradigm.

In the new paradigm, each of us will be able to freely express ourselves, with no fear of being written up, censured or bullied by a superior, or losing livelihood.

Hierarchical social structures are antithetical to, and incompatible with, any form of free and democratic society governed synergistically and symbiotically of, by and for its people for the good of each and all. The authoritarian, dictatorial nature of the current paradigm is quite visible at this time in history in the United States, where trends over decades have created a socioeconomic and legal environment where employees can be fired by employers for nothing more than displeasing the CEO or any superior, regardless of their job performance. We can be fired for expressing, on our own time, political, religious or other views that our employers don’t like, or even for aspects of our personal lives that in no way affect the performance of our job. At this time, “religious liberty” is being misinterpreted, for example, to mean that an employer can fire, or not hire, someone for just about anything about them that they don’t like, as long as they justify it as being a religious objection. There is no corresponding protection for the religious liberty of the employee. In Medieval feudalism, the feudal lords likewise held the power to exclude, persecute, exile or otherwise act against any in their realms whose religious, political, or other beliefs or affiliations they didn’t like. Modern feudalism is functionally no different. Tyranny is tyranny, whether it’s a government, an army, a religion, or a corporation imposing it.

Once we have climbed the learning curve, the new paradigm will empower us to more closely approach a truly free, democratic, empowering and symbiotic society than has ever been even remotely possible under any variations of the current paradigm.

Every one of us will have free and unrestricted access to all media, from newspapers, to radio and television, to the Internet, to communications. There will be no advertising of any kind, though when appropriate, there will be public service announcements. The technology will rise to the best standards possible according to the state of the art.

Content originating in un-Transitioned countries will still have ads; but they will fall on uninterested eyes and ears. Why would anyone living in a country where currency is obsolete and there’s universal free access to all superior-quality goods and services, have the slightest interest in any content from any ad? Transitioned viewers will have little patience for commercial-infested content. On the other hand, un-Transitioned viewers will naturally tend to prefer content from Transitioned countries over their own country’s commercial-heavy content. Transitioned content will naturally tend to out-compete un-Transitioned content among consumers.

How will we find goods and services that we need, you may wonder? The central database and Internet portals will have easily-searchable databases, using the combined best features of the search algorithms from all software houses, where we’ll be able to find out what’s available and where to find it. Specifications will be purely factual, not “spin.” New technologies, developments, innovations, weather events, and anything else concerning the public will be broadcast on all media as they occur. We will miss out on literally nothing in the absence of commercials. The Internet will become host to a public discourse of unprecedented benefit and productivity, giving rise to an unparalleled, sustained Renaissance.

A few problems and challenges may not be solved in the new paradigm. Social media, video game, and TV addictions will probably still persist to some degree. Addiction has its own psychology and physiology, regardless of socioeconomic system. Also, the trend among younger people to interact more through their screens than in person, may still continue. The solutions will most likely be quite challenging and not simple.

Yet such phenomena will most likely decrease quite a bit. The current paradigm generates a highly stressful, adversarial, predatory, disempowering, dehumanizing, toxic social environment. The new paradigm will generate a dynamic, empowering, life-affirming, synergistic, symbiotic society. Most likely, this will encourage and even reinforce such addicted people to re-engage with their fellows and their communities in mutually-beneficial ways. The need to “escape” from a dysfunctional world will be gone, as will the advertising that currently conditions people to believe that they “need” things that they’d never need otherwise. And the emergence of new addicts will almost certainly diminish. But we need to be ready to give support to those among us who still struggle with addiction, in every possible effective way.

Functions of inventory management, accounting, load balancing and resource management will still be relevant, though they will have no function involving currency. Such functions will address real, physical issues such as how much or many of something there is, where it is, and how much or many need to be produced to satisfy known demand, with a small reserve to accommodate the unforeseen. In the event of actual shortage, the goal will be to resolve it in the most compassionate, equitable way, involving the participation and cooperation among all affected parties.

To support the new production and distribution models based on fulfilling the real needs of all of the people, we’ll do well to use the universal Internet portal to track and coordinate demand, production, distribution, and consumption of all goods and services, as a direct real-time communication channel between users and producers and distributors. The longer this system will run, predictive algorithms will learn and get better and better at anticipating need and other variables, bringing greater and greater efficiency.

The self-devouring cycle will end for good. In the new paradigm, production will proceed at levels needed to support real need due to breakage, immigration, and population growth and maintain to-be-determined small balances on hand to cover unanticipated needs that may arise. Once just about everybody has what they need of any product, service or other resource, its production will dial back to the minimum needed to keep small reserve supplies replenished.

The same online forum will also be a channel of contact between service providers, such as doctors, plumbers, and construction workers, and those who need their services. This will not function as an organ of central control, but rather, as digital choreography for the logistics and coordination between providers and clients.

The work-week will decrease significantly for most of us, especially once the equilibrium between need and production is as closely reached as possible. Quality and longevity of goods and services will universally soar. With the end of the self-devouring cycle, waste and pollution will be dramatically reduced, to the tremendous benefit of our efforts to mitigate the current ecological and meteorological crisis. Built-in obsolescence will become a thing of the past.

Air and water quality will surge as polluting, damaging technologies are replaced by sustainable ones. Landscapes will see a great decrease in litter and waste.

With the entropic drag of enforced societal currency dependence out of the picture, lack of funds will no longer be a real thing, much less a barrier to pursuing projects. No scientific, engineering, artistic, social or other research or creative project will be quashed for lack of funding. The question of likely profitability will have no meaning. We will see a world-changing increase in scientific, artistic, technological, medical, social and other innovation. Pure research will surge once again. Back in touch with our primal drives and proclivities, we’ll see increased originations in space and underwater exploration, medical innovation, constructive social and organizational experiments, and artistic expression. New goods and services will emerge as well. Our collective and individual hearts and imaginations will be fired up, inspired, and infused with optimism and anticipation of wonders and benefits yet to come.

Under current modern feudalism, the age of art, science, and exploration for their own sakes and for the benefit of humanity has been subsumed and yoked to generate profits and power for the modern feudal lords. We’ve been conditioned to shrink our horizons, dreams and aspirations to focus on the constant stream of stuff for sale. Human relations have also suffered from the primacy of focus on what can be bought and sold. We have nearly ceased to dream or even experience curiosity spontaneously. In the new paradigm, we will awaken from this cultural and social catatonia, rediscover our passions, our curiosity, or interconnectedness, our creativity, and our indomitable heart and spirit. We will once again yearn to explore the stars and most likely we will go on to do so! This is most certainly worth committing to bring about and doing all that’s necessary to making it a reality.