Before I forget to make note of this for my Kahatika Project I must embed a couple of videos of interest. The first I am interested in as far as a movement to encourage empathy

The second is the CEO of Whole Foods talking of the importance of love in business.
I’ve made note of this before but it’s great to see some business leaders seeing the light.

I’ve just finished watching Bill Still’s “The Secret of Oz”

and just for good measure I watched his older offering of “The Money Masters”

Close to five an a half hours of documentary watching. These films give an interesting historical timeline to world events and their relationship to availability of money at the time.
I’m not an economist but in a nutshell the film proffers as fact that “He who controls the money supply, controls the world” and that this control is presently held by unelected officials and thus are unaccountable to the people.
Essentially this means there is no such thing as democracy in the world today, just the illusion of it.

To it’s credit these films don’t just dramatically expose the problem but offers a quick and seemingly easy solution. Bill Still, like me, has a plan to “Save the World”. His solution, which incidentally I see merit in, is monetary reform.

The essence of his solution is to firstly hand back control of the money supply to elected officials (Governments) and for them to issue the money debt free backed purely by good faith in the economies they represent. (i.e. Fiat currency) This function becomes a utility for the benefit of citizenry. Secondly, to abolish fractional reserve banking over a two year period by recapitalising the banks by issuing more money until their reserves have a one to one ratio to their outstanding loans. The bank’s business model changes over this period to essentially become brokers bringing together buyers and sellers of debt. They can still make money but nowhere near as much as they can now.

If it weren’t for the fact that in the past assassinations have been financed, wars have been started, and politicians have been bought, in an effort to stop this solution from happening, it would all seem quite simple and logical.

My solution of Kahatika is a little more subtle than this and works to similar ends but from a different angle. It may well be the step that makes Monetary Reform possible and meaningful.

The teachings of Aristotle by Michael Sanders via Harvardjustice.org cite the absolute neccesity of being involved in politics in a journey which persues virtue. Thirteen minutes into the video below we learn that in this regard practice is all important. Big business is entrenched in Politics. Many years ago I got out of big business because I believed that the politics wasn’t for good, and that I wasn’t in a position to change that fact.

Aristotle believed to live outside the politics you either had to be a god or a beast, I’m neither. But how do you turn business politics back to their original purpose? For the Good.

In aquiring any skill, albiet the skill is the art of virtue, requires practice.
Take swimming for instance. The first practice lesson could be throwing a toddler into a swimming pool and pulling them out if they looked like they are about to drown. That’s one way to get them to practice. Another way may be to encourage them to play in the shallows, building their confidence, practise water skills, play successively more swimming like games. Finally the child learns to swim.
Why is Business Politics so much like being thrown in a swimming pool as a toddler?

Dave Meslin’s talk reminds me somewhat of the sentiment of Edwards Deming’s proclamation that 96% of of all business problems are created by the system. Individuals want to do a good job, the system provides barriers to stop them.

#4 Heros I relate to my blog entry “As if you needed a Reason to Save the World”

I believe what Dave says in his talk is even more applicable to the business community than the greater civic community he speaks of.

Ricado Semler has moved from Maverick Businessman to Maverick Educator in recent years.  Why?

The link below takes you to a 2005 you tube clip about his company Semco, which includes an interview with Ricardo.

The Caring Capitalist

Ten minutes in he states that culture change in business is difficult, time-consuming and expensive and best effected before individuals enter the workforce. Do we have the luxury of not doing both? If not, how do we institute sustainable business practices through corporate culture change in an affordable and speedy manner?

You’re thinking, perhaps Kahatika has something to do with that.

An enduring dilemma for any economy is that once entrepreneurial companies successfully turn into larger firms, they often become the enemies of innovation and the next generation of firms. This is a problem that economists and policymakers and corporate leaders have wrestled with for a century with no resolution. ~ Karl J Schramm

Is Kahatika the Answer?

Tony Robbins contends that people are in general more motivated  towards the absence of pain than they are by the pursuit of pleasure.

I wish it weren’t so but I’m not disputing it.  What absence of pain is in play for those joining the following movement?

Short term alleviation of the pain of remembering you’re in overdraft, your partner left you, you haven’t got work or you’re going to work tomorrow when you don’t want to. The fear and anxiety of just living.

The buzz you get from overcoming the fear of being thought a fool gives you a chance to forget the fears and anxieties you live with every day. Likewise the buzz from being part of something or simply the buzz from doing something physical with your body.  The natural drugs we use to get us through our lives.

What happens to the movement when the music stops? Like the rate of hits on this video there is a peak and then a waning of enthusiasm. Viral distribution can only go so far.

How can we keep the buzz going by systematically tackling our fears and anxieties and thus moving forward as individuals and as a group?

Kahatika is the answer and I’m looking for the First Follower.

If you are intent on Saving the World do you take a Top Down or Bottom Up approach?

Bottom up, as in, rally people to a cause.  Get at least some enthused enough to take some action. i.e. Change to buying energy efficient light bulbs. Excellent work but when you do the numbers pretty ineffectual in your effort to save the world.

Top down, as in, I am global supreme leader, you will only use energy efficient light bulbs or I will ensure you are punished for not doing so.  We have the United Nations and the Security Council to dictate and enforce but that too seems pretty impotent with respect to saving the world.

This is the stage where many give up, the realisation that no matter what we do, the world is running head long towards a cliff and there is no stopping it.  The rationale is “I don’t think it will happen in my natural lifetime – what happens after that is of little consequence to me”.  Our thoughts are probably true, we don’t reflect on them too much because they make us think of ourselves as selfish bad people,  we use it just enough to be able to live with the enormity of the problem.  Some get to old age, thinking we are that much closer to the cliff than when they were born, feeling sorry for the generations to come, but happy that they won’t be around to experience it.  Many believe the top down approach is working with things going perfectly to plan.  God (The Global Supreme Leader) has it all in hand. Revelations is literal and we should all rejoice as we approach the edge of Armageddon.

The jeux de position Top down versus Bottom up presents in a quest to save the world would indicate the quest is pointless.

If we look at risk versus reward. It it is personally less risky to believe in God.  (A supreme Global Leader whoes existance can’t be proven and must be taken on faith) If God doesn’t exist you personally no worse off than those who didn’t believe in God. However if God does exist, and paradise is something you aspire to, the the reward is high for no risk. 

Unfortunately as a group the same analysis doesn’t hold.  If motivation to take action of individuals believing that the future is under control and it isn’t, then Armageddon is a self-fulfilling prophesy regardless of your beliefs. Personal saviour, group demise.

Our motivation for personal survival, here on earth, and in the afterlife for those who believe in it, could be used to veer us away from the cliff. No Armageddon. We would all survive. Including future generations.

A mechanism which hooks into our primordial survival instinct to accentuate activities that promote group survival is required.

That primordial Survival Instinct is often interpreted as Greed. Was Gordon Gekko right? Can Greed be good?

I’ve not posted a new Blog for a while because I’ve been playing an online game called UrgentEvoke. I came across it through following a Linkedin group called Social Impact Games. The objective of the Game was to “Save the World” although I note from their latest Home page they are now purporting to only “Change the World”. Never-the-less the essence of the game is to make positive change by crowd-sourcing support for ideas that impact on issues identified through crowd-sourcing. Ultimately the game wants to inspire its participants to act in the real world by taking action based on ideas. It is run by the World Bank and directed by Jane McGonigal who designed the game.

Given that their were prizes of mentorships and seed capital I thought I would give it a go. Another opportunity to further consolidate and document my thoughts about Kahatika.

I have long since realised that the design of Kahatika could be interpreted as a never-ending slow moving game.  In today’s real time communication environment you may observe that the attraction of something that moved slowly might have limited appeal. Like only appeal to those that engage in postal chess.  Kahatika has elements in it’s design to ensure engagement and to retain interest between rounds of participation.

I have contributed multiple items related and unrelated to Kahatika over the last Month or so to UrgentEvoke, some of which contain circular references back to this blog.  My Profile on UrgentEvoke is the access point for all of this content and can be found here.

As I finale of the game and a mechanism to make yourself eligible for prizes there is a process of submitting a final blog to say what you would do if you were successful in attracting seed capital from the World Bank. Combined with a private email to the game administrators my final submission can be found here.

The content I submitted which relates to Kahatika is as follows:-

http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/challenge-the-network?comme…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/learning-compassion

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/the-dangers-of-designing-a

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/more-realistic-look-at-money

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/we-need-to-make-practical-use

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/others-also-see-the-need

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/barry-schwartz-on-the-loss-of

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/learn5supply-of-money

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/need-to-open-the-debate-to

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/act1-shadowing-richard-branson

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act6-donation-lifespring

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/imagine5-a-new-direction-in

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act4-philanthropists-need…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/commitment-four-the-long-…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/distilling-the-evidence

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/this-social-innovation-game

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-little-red-hen-revised

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-journey

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/kahatika-1

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/what-motivates-you

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act1-shadowing-richard-br…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/learn1-innovate-on-existing

The following TED talk delivered by Bill Gates speaks of his one wish to halve the cost of energy while simultaneously reducing carbon output from the production of energy to zero. He speaks of energy miracles and explains his preference for a particular miracle he favours.

I started to wipe the sweat from my brow. I don’t have to do this “Save the World” thing. Someone else is about to do it. Not only that, it’s  Bill Gates. He has a track record of performing miracles.  He has more resources at his disposal than any other individual on the planet. This will get done.

Then again, if you take note of what Bill has to say 15:20 -> 17:00 into his talk about the 2020 report card. He realises his punt on a miracle may be wrong. To reduce risk, others must also take a punt. We must accelerate innovation in all realms and even he doesn’t have the resources to back all of it.

His releasing fireflies into the audience indicated that we need to think about all ideas as it’s ideas where innovation comes from.

Only a small proportion of the global population regard their individual role as one of Research and Development, yet it’s Research and Development that we hold responsible for innovation. Bill Gates pleads for Government direct investment and incentives for R & D and yet delivery mechanisms will only deliver investment to a small portion of potential innovators.  This is conventional wisdom and doesn’t look outside the box.

Perhaps changing the system of innovation to increase individual participation is the way of meeting our new world goals. Not surprisingly, this smacks of Open Source Philosophy and hence not mentioned in his speech.  What is mentioned in the Question and Answer session at he end of the Talk with Chris Anderson is Bills inability to share detail due to the conventional wisdom of non-disclosure agreements.

At this point I remember that Kahatika is a way of having your cake and eating it too.