Darwin's not wrong. We just need to squeeze 100+ years of societal transformation into 10 years without killing ourselves. It IS possible. Here's how...

We’ve all heard the parable that given enough time, a room full of monkeys typing randomly could produce Macbeth.¹ Likewise, we all have an innate belief that as a people, as a species, that given enough time, we can deal with just about any adversity. Recessions and depressions, plagues, wars and revolutions come and go, but we always do get through it in the end. Almost always better off, and quicker than we thought, despite the butcher’s bill always paid.

We believe that there is as much a future ahead of us as there is a past. We believe and trust that our actions, and those of our family, neighbours, friends and colleagues, and the countless public and private institutions in our world, will, with the proven wisdom of Darwin - and in the fullness of time - devise the winning solutions that will assure our fate as a species.

But what if we don’t have time?

At this moment in time, on this day, it seems that our institutions, and the leaders that lead them, are insufficient alone to address the myriad existential issues we are facing from climate change and war to income and social injustice. These issues are hardly being addressed singly, let alone in the aggregate.

I would argue that the most pressing issue however, is the threat to democracy. The centuries long evolution from Magna Carta to the United Nations, so costly to so many, also created a world that is even now today on the cusp of an Age of Wonder. But the curiosity, courage, spirit and drive that fueled the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and our Information Age can only thrive if nurtured by broadly humanistic/democratic principles. And unique to our time is the intersection of fascism and AI driven technology. It took just years for the Chinese government to disenfranchise and imprison its 12 million Uyghurs in a digital gulag from which escape is virtually impossible. This is the new gold star '‘must have’ for autocrats everywhere, and China is only too ready to sell.

I submit that humanity has just years - not decades - to conceive of, test, refine and execute the staggeringly many solutions that, first assures that humanist democracy prevails, and then substantively addresses the gordion existential issues noted. And I further submit that it is fruitless to only count on our existing institutions and the leaders that lead them. They are too encumbered by legacies that bind them to our many pasts, certainly not to our shared future.

We need to somehow take the next 100 years (or more) of societal evolution - of transformation - and compact them into the next 10 years. It is that or trust to the fullness of time.

That sounds like magical thinking, but not having any other options can be motivating. And there is another option: that is to connect, empower and mobilize the broad coalition of centrists/moderates who together, represent the largest, wealthiest cohort in the world, into (for want of a better term) a movement of unprecedented scale, scope and breadth. Not to replace or unseat existing institutions, but to augment and support them in a purposeful and very literally powerful way. To have the self-assumed agency to start to substantively transform the way leaders lead in 10 years.

The schematic for such an entity exists - the scaffolding for an eco-system that can hyper-accelerate and compact 100+ years of systemic, global transformation into 10 years. It was conceived of, tested and refined by alost 1,000 people from 35+ counties, who invested over 20,000 hours of their time over a four year period. I know it’s possible I know it can work. It has to. We have no more time.

To learn more, please check out my recent writings on Substack, but the best place to start is here:

Do you think the world needs a Plan B? Consider the DEMOS Project.

Photo: https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/evolving-darwinism/

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem_in_popular_culture