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The core idea behind The Plan is that we can continue to incrementally try to correct the world’s various problems from where we are

or

we can reverse our approach and see what it would all look like if we began from what we’d consider a viable solution to the world’s ills and then worked backwards to see what it would take to get us from where we are to that place.

The problem with our current ad-hoc incremental approach, of course, is that we’re simply pulling our hand away from the fire whenever it gets too hot.   We’re not consciously headed anywhere using this semi-mindless management-by-crises approach.  Perhaps, we might stumble our way into a viable solution to the world’s problems if we go on like this – but it seems unlikely, doesn’t it?

The Plan‘s goal, simply stated, is to rearrange things so that humanity can live on this planet indefinitely.  And to live here within a small enough footprint so that we doesn’t overrun the planet’s renewable resources and thus destroy this cradle world that birthed us.   And also that we can live here in such a way that the other evolving life-forms on Earth, rather than being driven to extinction by our presence, can find their own way to sentience or whatever else awaits them in their own evolutionary futures.

To manifest and maintain such a future will require hard choices.  And hard choices are not what we’re good at as evidenced by all of human history.   So, some level of coercion and control will be necessary to get us from here to there and to maintain things once we were there.

There’s an unspoken implication when one proposes solutions that involve elements of coercion and control that there must be a solution that doesn’t require these elements.  And that any solution that contains them cannot be the right one.

I strongly doubt that there are any viable solutions without such control given human nature.  Though I am in profound agreement that any solution considered should strive to minimize authoritarian limitations.

How reasonable is the idea of imposing controls on ourselves?

Well, stop a minute and look around.   Restaurants outlaw smoking inside.  Building standards mandate a certain strength for concrete foundations.  Laws forbid murder, rape and theft.  Tax laws collect money for public infrastructure.  Lead pipes are outlawed for plumbing.  We paint white lines on our streets.  And we could go on ad nauseam.

Everywhere you look, we’ve placed restrictions upon ourselves for the common good and most of us would agree that the Rule of Law is a good thing.

The list of our laws is nearly infinite and most all have one essential thing in common;  they exist to protect some greater good.

So, unless someone can come up with a Plan that yields similar results without coercion and control, I would say that “Give me liberty or give me death” is a bit overrated as an evolutionary strategy.

So, if the goal is worthy, what then are we willing to trade for it?

Population control?  Controlling land development?  Disallowing the freedom to believe that the world was made in seven days and that evolution is a myth and that science perished when post-modernism arose?  That people and corporations have the right to make as much money and to collect as much political power as they like even if it is to the detriment of the rest of us?

Most everything I discuss under the rubric of The Perfect Storm is an issue we need to get under control for our own good.   And most of these issues have, as their root cause, the fact that we are still unconsciously living out our inborn Biological Imperatives.

We are at the 11^th hour, my friends, and none of these questions are easy.   But I think it is certain that our current ad-hoc approach will lead us nowhere but into oblivion so we need some new out-of-the-box thinking.

You may be thinking, “OK, I get the basic idea – so where’s the Plan?”

It is not my purpose here to suggest specifics.   Only to point out that we need to decide where we would like to get to as a first step and then to open discussions on how we might get there and what compromises we’re willing to make to get there.

– Dennis