Ethical Algorithms

NOTE: This piece was written by the AI Perplexity with slight editing by Jim Prues

Ethics in Algorithms: Why They Matter Now More Than Ever

Algorithms are now embedded in the fabric of society, powering everything from healthcare diagnostics and financial decisions to social media feeds and criminal justice assessments. As their influence grows, so does the urgency to ensure these systems operate ethically, transparently, and fairly.

The Expanding Reach of Algorithms

Algorithms increasingly make or influence decisions for and about people—often without their knowledge or understanding. This opacity raises the stakes: algorithmic choices can shape lives, reinforce or mitigate inequalities, and even sway democratic processes. In 2025, the demand for ethical assurance and transparency has never been higher, as consumers and citizens become more aware of the profound impact these systems have on their daily lives.

Key Ethical Concerns

• Bias and Discrimination: Algorithms can perpetuate or amplify biases present in their training data, leading to unfair outcomes in areas like hiring, lending, and law enforcement. Without regular audits and diverse development teams, these biases may go unnoticed and unaddressed, disproportionately affecting marginalized groups.

• Transparency and Explainability: Many algorithms, especially those based on deep learning, function as “black boxes,” making decisions that are difficult for even their creators to explain. This lack of transparency erodes trust and makes it hard to contest or correct errors, particularly in high-stakes domains.

• Privacy and Data Security: Algorithms often rely on vast amounts of personal data, raising concerns about consent, misuse, and exposure of sensitive information. Techniques like differential privacy and federated learning are being adopted to mitigate these risks, but challenges remain.

• Accountability: When algorithms malfunction or cause harm, it is often unclear who is responsible—the developer, the deploying organization, or the algorithm itself. This ambiguity complicates legal and ethical recourse, especially as systems become more autonomous.

Why Ethics Are Essential Now

• Loss of Public Trust: Recent surveys show declining trust in AI and algorithmic systems, with only a quarter of Americans expressing confidence in conversational AI as of 2024. High-profile failures, such as biased hiring tools or AI-generated misinformation, have highlighted the real-world consequences of neglecting ethics.

• Societal Impact: Algorithms shape access to resources, opportunities, and justice. Unethical systems can reinforce existing inequalities or create new forms of harm, making ethical oversight not just a technical issue but a societal imperative.

• Regulatory Momentum: Governments and organizations are moving toward stricter regulation, requiring impact assessments, transparency, and fairness audits for high-risk applications. Ethical frameworks are evolving from optional guidelines to essential business practices, with significant investments directed toward responsible AI initiatives.

Building Ethical Algorithms

To address these challenges, organizations must:
• Implement transparent, “glass box” AI systems that provide clear explanations for decisions.
• Regularly audit for bias and involve diverse stakeholders in development.
• Prioritize privacy through robust data governance and privacy-preserving techniques.
• Establish clear accountability structures and intervention points for human oversight.
• Foster a culture of ethics through ongoing training and inclusive teams.

Conclusion

Ethics in algorithms are not a luxury but a necessity in 2025. As algorithms wield greater power over individual and collective destinies, embedding ethical principles—honesty, transparency, fairness, and accountability—into their design and deployment is crucial for maintaining public trust and ensuring technology serves humanity rather than undermining it.

Seeds of Change

It is obvious that we need a new cultural model that better reflects reality—who we are, where we are in time, and what is happening – World 5.0.

It is no diversion to mention this here, because we can’t just fix our political system without addressing a far wider core of issues. The whole military/industrial/media/government complex is on trial. This Juggernaut has contrived to define “reality” and to tell us what we want. It sold us the stories of fear, the stories that said we should not trust. It sold us the stories that said we should not love our brethren if they look or act differently. They said they knew best. Just give them the money.

Enough! Politics may or may not be local, but survival is. It’s not just the financial markets, it’s the pattern. Food and energy costs, continued war and violence on our streets, dysfunctionality at every turn. Corruption, lies, malfeasance. Disaster capitalism. We clearly require something different. We require a new operating system.

As we establish the priority of the Totality of Now and the failure of the old systems to support us, we recognize that our three most basic requirements [beyond air and water]: food, energy and shelter, are best met on a local level.

We must literally rebuild this thing from the ground up. And that means a new-found cooperation, dedication and trust in growing our communities. We have little choice.

World 5.0 makes no claim of initiating the emerging movement toward compassion, sustainability and pluralism. As aptly described in Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in The World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, we are in the midst of an epochal transformation of human culture, and one that has been in incubation since at least the 1960s. Hawken describes the incredible development of hundreds of thousands of non-profit groups and agencies that are creating connections through networks that support their missions and by adding their voices to similarly-minded groups.

What World 5.0 does lay claim to is being the simple term that describes this new interpretation of ourselves, appreciates our reality and understands the direction we must take to enhance our awareness, rebuild our lives and restore our global ecology. Home at last.

Now there are millions of examples of the new world emerging, just as there are of the old world crumbling. It is a transmigration of energy. The long darkness of earlier world views is being expelled, and in its place a new world of peace, love, friendship and sustainability is emerging. It is long in coming, and we do not see it if we’re watching news provided by a conglomerate.

This new pattern can also be considered from the vast scope of how climate change requires a planetary response, a first in our history. It can be considered in a small American farmer who chooses to go organic, or the school teacher who embeds herself into her community, or the former drug dealer that starts a halfway house to help their neighbors and vitalize their neighborhood. It’s happening at both the macro and micro levels.

It can be seen in the energy revolution taking place, where fossil fuels and nuclear power are now seen as poor options, and renewables are creating a new pecking order. The whole idea of sustainability thinking wasn’t even on our cultural map until recently, though wiser folk throughout time have understood this on some level.

Most importantly, we’re seeing it in ourselves. We interpret the world differently than we used to. Old belief systems are breaking down. And while many of us have yet to appreciate just what this new world is, we know in our hearts we’re in the midst of something completely different from anything we have known before. It’s not difficult to see in this World4 culture, with elitism, fascism and fundamentalism running amuck, that we’re becoming kinder and more understanding of each other. The InterWeb is an external reflection of some internal coming together that we’re experiencing now.

The point is, we as a species have been waiting for this time since we climbed out of the trees, or at least since we gained higher consciousness from earlier hominoids. If that time, some 200,000 years ago, describes our human birth, these times are calling us to human adulthood. This comes on the heels of our very dangerous adolescence.
As astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out, we engendered a very dangerous time in the 20th Century with our wars and bombs and ever-more sophisticated technologies of death. At least 100 million human beings were killed in the 20th century at the hands of other humans—a trait we dare not let continue. The machinations among the ruling elite that typify the last age will clearly doom us to a nasty and brutish existence in the coming years if they are not stopped.

– from the book Home At Last by Jim Prues

When Is Reality?

What is reality is a trick question, because it is so dependent upon place. Yes, both your interior state of being, and your particular place on this Earth. So many questions about reality, especially in this broken culture which misunderstands everything. Reality for each of us is dependent on where we are in space, yet what is absolutely clear is when reality exists.

Reality exists only Here in time only Now, where everything everywhere is happening all at once. According to chatgbt…

“This present moment—the “tiny point in time” we’re all sharing—seems like it should be a common reality for everyone, but it’s actually deeply subjective because of the way each person perceives it.

1.  Perception and Interpretation: While we might all be sitting here at this exact second, each of us is experiencing it differently. Sensory processing speeds vary, as do interpretations of what we’re seeing, hearing, and feeling. Imagine a sunset: one person might see beauty, another feels nostalgic, and yet another is focused on the science of light scattering. These individual interpretations mean the “reality” of that sunset differs for each person.
2.  Individual Attention: Our focus directs our reality in each moment. Someone might be absorbed in their phone, while another person is watching the trees sway in the wind. What we choose to focus on in each moment filters our experience, shaping a different subjective version of reality even if we’re in the same room.
3.  Memory and Context: Each moment exists in the context of our past experiences and expectations. A sound or a sight may trigger a flood of memories or emotions in one person, while for someone else, it’s just a neutral experience. This layer of personal history infuses the present moment with meaning that is unique to each individual.
4.  Time Perception: Our sense of time is subjective; for some, a minute may seem to stretch forever, while for others it flies by. This subjective experience of time adds another dimension to how each of us feels the present moment.

So, even in this shared point in time, we’re all experiencing it through unique filters—our memories, focus, feelings, and perceptions. This subjectivity is what makes every “now” deeply personal, even though we’re all in it together.”

Typical craptastic response from AI.

Life, and hence we, exist only in this moment because it is only this moment where eternity and time co-mingle. We are being in eternity and doing in time, both at once. It’s the central truth of our existence. Life Is, and it is nowhere else. So simple, and yet so foreign to us for the reasons chatgpt gives us above.

And yet it is only when we ground ourselves Here, ever mindful of this present, this presence, that we can learn to master our intent and learn joy. Knowing our eternity releases us from fear. And what is left when the fear is gone is something we can all enjoy.

Of course, me as a younger man and for most folks the idea of being with fear seems impossible. So it was for me when I would grind my teeth at night and worry over so much. It was a book called ‘A Course in Miracles’ that opened the door to my questioning just about everything I learned growing up.

And then 20 years ago I was struck with the idea of our new operating system, World 5.0, whose central tenant is ‘the totalilty of now’. It never leaves, only we so often leave THIS with our overactive brains. You can know this moment even as I do, and knowing it never ends, there is nothing to fear.

Much more on the site World5.org if you haven’t been there, including a free PDF download of my book, World 5.0 – We Move From Here.

The Declaration of World 5.0

[This declaration is the short form of the mission this book invokes. It is
available as a video on the World 5.0 site, http://world5.org.]

We, the people of Earth, in light of The Three Truths, do ordain and engender
World 5.0. These truths are first: We live in Eternal Awareness and
this constant flux of energy. We are one. Second: Here, of prime
concern is our intent: fear or Love. And third, only Love makes us
happy.

We ascribe to the principles of integrity, justice and balance in our transactions
and relationships, as the only way to ensure transparency and hence
fairness. We promote localism as the best method for augmenting
health and ecology. And we connect human rights and environmental
health, knowing that failure to protect one inevitably leads to failures
of the other.

We utterly denounce war and violence. There is no greater scourge on our
planet today than hostility, furthered by nation-states and the
military/industrial/media complex. There is no viable excuse to kill
or to invoke suffering on another. We withdraw our support from
any institutions that continue to condone war and violence.

We encourage pluralism and autonomy, where each of us is valued and
respected. The meager distinctions of gender, color, class, looks,
religion, sexual preference or wealth are of no consequence in light of
our true nature. We allow no ideology or morality to come between
us, as we are far better served by ethics. We support and revel in
our families, friends and communities, as these are the lifeblood to
happiness.

We require a transparent, global financial system for any and all currencies
based on a universal, InterWeb-based standard, bringing light to
fraudulent trading schemes. This model decentralizes power and
fosters honest trade, allowing for far greater freedom in how we
design and live our lives.

We engage in the exchange of goodwill, of ideas and of goods and services.
We create, design and build our systems and infrastructure based
on sustainability, ecology and a resource-based economy. Clean air
and water, access to food, healthcare, energy and information are all
inalienable human rights.

Already we embark on the redesign of our culture, just as already we embark
on finding our true selves. The signs of healing and remaking are
everywhere, and the unholy din of the old culture draws thin. Within
World5, we leverage our connection to All and each other to remake
our world

Of prime concern is restoring ecology to our Earth. Sustainable, organic
food production is required, as is renewable energy production.
Ancient forests must be preserved. Cradle to cradle is the only viable
model for the production of goods, and localism provides the key to
minimizing our consumption, while maximizing our health.

Here in the United States, we look to The Declaration of Independence and
Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution to initiate a new constitutional
assembly. The three-headed monster of corporatism, militarism and
elitism has no place within World5. With the help of The InterWeb,
we intend a document that simplifies the law, restores justice and
balance, and honors Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Further, we intend a Constitution of the Earth in an effort to mitigate climate
change and to restore stability and health to our planet. Research,
advisory and governing councils, working together, can provide the
wisdom and will for this effort. The Earth is a living breathing body
and our only home.

Finally, we Now initiate the Federation for Peace. This Federation belongs to
those of us who take the Oath of Peace. We renounce the ideologies
of hate and terror, and align ourselves with the Peace of Eternal
Awareness, to create Peace on Earth. As the InterWeb is the mind of
World5, The Federation for Peace is the heart.

This we declare: We Love; We Live in Peace; We Move from Here; Welcome
to World 5.0.

The Enemy Is Always Fear

In our utterly corrupt and confused and abusive culture, it’s no surprise that our strategies for finding happiness in our personal lives are lacking. How could it be otherwise? Money is supposed to be the great strategy for happiness, yet the obscene wealth of the Bezos, Musks and others has not led to unheard of levels of joy. Indeed, they seem no happier than anyone else, broadly speaking.

As we inherently know, more money does not mean more happiness. Assuming we’re getting by financially, we can X that one out.

The tv, internet voices or whatever has all sorts of remedies to remove the obstacles to happiness. Only problem is they’re all bogus. A pill, a fresh relationship, a new car – not going to help. The road to happiness is within, and the obstacle to your happiness is your fear. Let’s confirm why this is true.

We first have to back up a bit to understand the nature of reality and what is happening with this thingie we call Life. Life happens, is happening, only Now. This moment in time is where we, and everything exists, and nowhere else. Whaaaa? That’s not what we learned growing up! We’ve learned so much that is false from the old broken culture, we’re ready for a reset that encompasses a truer foundation.

So, how could Now be the only time that exists? It’s quite simple really, and obvious if we know how to look. You see, there is some truth in religion, speaking of the Eternity of God (for Christians), and describing us as God’s children. Which requires that we must be eternal as well. Like begets like. The whole damn universe, or universes, exist only in this infinitesimally small point in time where the future becomes the past. Kind of mind-boggling from the old world’s perspective. Yet that doesn’t make it untrue.

Think about your own life. Do you not feel like your fundamentally the same person you were ever since you became aware of your sense of self as a small child? Of course you do, because of course you are. All the years since you found yourself in a human body, you’ve been the same. Events never stop, the world ever turns, and yet we are always Here. Your body and behaviors have changed, you’ve learned, yet you’re still you.

The other side of our Eternity is the infinite sea of Energy we’re ever a part of. We don’t doubt this side, as each moment we’re living attests to this infinite energy. One of the reasons sports has such great appeal is because of the totality of Now. No going back once the ball is in the air. The suspense we feel, the quieting of our minds as we wait for the ball to do something good or bad (from our perspective and that of our team). It gives us a little tiny bit of a sense of our Eternity. We are experiencing Life right Now, and there is no other place in time where we can be.

Now back to fear. Having narrowed reality down to this moment we are all sharing, we have a much clearer vantage point for addressing our thoughts and emotions. The question becomes ‘How do we feel Now’. And how are we reacting to the ever flowing events in our lives?

This is a question of our intent. Our intent is the core of our being, our ‘soul’ in the Christian tradition. And what are our options? Ha! We know something of our options from all the ugly we experience in this corrupt culture we live within. What we learn as part of the truth of our existence is the requirement of integrity. There is no way to find the peace and love inherent in this Eternal Moment if we don’t take care of our responsibilities or if we act like a ‘hater’, taking advantage of others or acting poorly towards them. Look at most any CEO or politician.

As we come to understand the tremendous value of integrity in finding happiness, we also begin to see that fear always presents itself when we’re out of integrity. Hard to feel great about oneself when we’re ripping someone off or ruining someone’s life. I can’t understand how our ‘world leaders’ can act with such ignorance. As noted, money is a false god.

Yet if we comprehend the Totality of Now, we better understand our intent and its power. And we begin to see how fear is attendant to bad behaviors.

Easy to argue that there are a thousand reasons to fear that don’t involve bad behaviors. Agreed. Yet those fears disappear when the threat is removed. The fear I speak of doesn’t leave. It becomes stress or some other form of fear -hate, anxiety, neurosis or ‘just’ stress. It’s because we’re out of alignment with Life itself. (God if you prefer.) Bound to make us fearful.

So. what’s the alternative? Glad you asked. The counter to fear is Love. Love is what’s left once our integrity is restored and we let go all the negativity of the old culture. Love emerges within us on a grand scale once we get rid of the obstacles to Love. In truth there is only one obstacle. The only real enemy – fear.

The trauma the old culture has caused makes all this that I say much more difficult to understand. Our daily (right Now) lives are too much and too often a struggle. We cannot put our fears in boxes. We must get to their core, their falseness. We are living in eternity. There literally is no fear in God.

Love is indeed letting go of fear. This game/battle/learning is all happening Now. There is no other point in time that exists. Your body knows. It’s your ground for this experience. Use your intent to focus on breathing and being in your body. Let go when others attack or the world gets you down. Letting go right now is always your wisest choice. Happy to be with you…

Welcome to Eternity

Our lives have not been easy. Life on Planet Earth has not been easy for a long time, maybe ever. Being biological, as we are, and at least self aware enough to recognize this truth, we are humans.

A great reason Life on Planet Earth has not been easy for us is the rise of nation-states and the Corporation, both generated by unholy humans in their quest for power and control. Our borders are considered sacred by most tribes, even though most were generated by the British Empire before it was usurped by the United States Empire.

And yet there is one simple truth that has held since the beginning of time. And this truth is that we are eternal, living in eternity. It can be no other way.

Of course our biology will fail, it’s how biology works. Birth, growth, adulthood, aging and death. We know the pattern. What we do not recognize is that even Now, as always, we are living in eternity.

My sense is that our spirits choose this earthly existence because of the inevitable challenges of biological life. And the corresponding opportunities for vast growth. Angels and other non-physical types know eternity. They live it without the distractions of survival.

Those we know who have passed on are still with us. Many of us sense their presence even with their lack of physical form. Those yet to be born are with us as well, waiting for their turn on this earthly turning.

Here’s the simple truth. We are always living in eternity. It is our home. And yet we are even still ever moving through time, another inevitability. How can this be?

It is so because Now, this tiny point in time where the future becomes the past, is where we can find and recognize our eternal nature. And indeed, this Now we are ever sharing is always shuttling us through time. Eternal Awareness and Infinite Energy, co-mingling only Here in this place in time. We are Life, two elementals with opposite characteristics. Quite bizarre, and yet clearly true.

It is a great failure of the current state of science that ‘The Totality of Now’ is not the central declared truth of science. From the simplest two-slit experiments to hadron colliders, the Nowness of the experiment/experience is clear.

This is the truth of sport as well. It is this movement through time, we can never go back, that makes sports so captivating. So too are live performances captivating. The play, the live music, the acrobat, all capture our attention because of the fleeting nature of time. Failures and triumphs. And yet we are always Here, living in Eternity.

Of course, the recognition of this simple truth does not serve those few who control our corrupt and broken culture. We have been abused, traumatized and confused to the point where even this most simple of ideas seems foreign. It is not. This Life we are sharing is all there is. Life, and we, exist only Now.

So, as it is. We are all together for a very long time. Best we not forget this, the struggles of biological lie within a broken culture not withstanding. It may well be that these dangerous and auspicious times are designed to bring the truth of our Eternal Home Here in Life to the culture at large. One can hope.

This Transformation We Require

So we’ve been taught, and grown up, in a culture that values money and its attendant power above all else. Why is this case instead of say, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being our top priority? It’s actually quite simple. It’s because 600 years ago the British Crown made ‘The Corporation’ a viable business entity. Horrible idea.

Which makes on wonder about nation-states as well. There’s been the natural evolution over the ages, from small villages to cities, city-states and more recently nation-states. Not as horrible an idea as ‘The Corporation’, but one that has seemingly outgrown its usefulness. Some might argue that it’s usefulness was pretty seriously challenged by European colonialism, which so much reshaped the world to support Empire’s ruthless agenda.

Since WWII the U.S. has taken over the mantle of Empire, trying to bend the world so that U.S. hegemony can continue forever. Ain’t going to happen. The trends that supported corporate and nation-state growth are no longer trends. And the supposed virtues of corporations have been seen for what they are. Bullshit, lies, corruption and falseness at every turn. We need a new way forward.

Even the ground rules of the old culture are busted. We assume, and Einstein even postulated, that there are an infinite number of points in time, just as there are an infinite number of points in space. He was wrong. There is only one point it time where Life, and hence we, exist. The point of Life is Now. Less punny, the totality of Now just aught to be the central tenant of any culture. In this one it’s a wildly foreign idea. Yet that makes it no less true.

Once we narrow the playing field of time to Now, we begin to see more clearly the power of our intent. Our collective lives are a mess, pollution is everywhere, if the nuclear war doesn’t kill us, the climate chaos will. Ugly times. And yet, locked into the reality of Now, we understand that we still have options on how we think, feel and act. A tremendous freedom awaits those of us who hold this truth tightly.

Oh yes, and learning Life is relegated to this tiny point in time where the future becomes the past offers another requirement. We are all Here together. Always. We are all always moving from here. Together. A pretty refreshing notion as well.

So we need to find our common ground first. Perhaps then we can begin moving together to solve our horrendous problems.

Our problems, from generations of abuse and corporate overreach all over our planet, are legion.

This Consumer Culture

I imagine that in ancient cultures the goal was water, food and getting basic needs met. Beyond that explore, play, learn, even as other animals do. Getting along was a given. The tribe shared the vibe.

From there we’ve found ourselves gobbling up plastic crap to no end, from our grocery bags to gadgets. We were taught that money is the road to happiness, and more is always better. He who dies with the most toys wins. It’s not only ruining our planet, it’s not making us happier. It was all a lie.

New phone. New car. New shit. We adore it. We’ve been well trained.

The tribe in that ancient culture had a greater sense of abundance than we do. No monthlies, credit cards and the fears of lack so many of us hold. It’s worth noting that they met their needs locally, water, food and wood for energy. We have the same needs now. We just have a corporate greed/corrupt government model today. It is this that must be transformed.

This War Machine

Living in nation-states that disagree sure seems like a great system if you’re in the war business. Recall that a whole slew of nation-states were drawn up by the British Empire. Fuck. And there are amalgamations like China, one political system reigning over a huge number of tribes. And places like the U.S., where we wiped out the indigenous people and brought a bunch of slaves along. Land of the free my ass.

It’s generally been like this since Medieval times, the greatest change being the equipment of war. Catapults hardly compare to the many death machines this war machine has come up with. And now AI and the robots are coming. And of course the frequency. In the Middle Ages we had breaks between our wars.

As many of us recognize, the war in Ukraine goes much deeper than Putin, no angel, wanting to claim Ukraine to remake the old USSR. It’s all part of the demented maniacs willing to destroy we humans out of their greed. The many unknown forces determined to keep us abused and confused, we cannot let them continue. It is this that must be transformed.

This Corrupt Political System

The corrupt political culture, here in the U.S. and on display across the globe, is so evident it needs no discussion. There are a few relative beacons, like the very northern European nations (Norway, Sweden, Finland) but there aren’t a lot of great examples.

At the same time we have a ton of dictators, authoritarians and fascists. This makes for terrible lives for millions and even billions of us as these ‘leaders’ care nothing for you and me. And it doesn’t look like it will fix itself. While it is my sense that most of us humans are pretty decent folk, our politicians and leaders clearly are not. It is this that must be transformed.

The Way Forward Is a New O/S

While healing and restoring are much needed ingredients, we start with a new yet ancient paradigm. We recognize that we exist within Life, and that Life happens only now. Ergo, we only happen Now. This necessitates that we are All Here Together as well. There is quite literally nowhere else in time we can be. All else is speculation or memory.

Once we grasp this great truth, we can focus our attention, our intent, on how we are playing this living moment. Our fears and pains are seen more truly, where they can be more easily released. And we must begin by healing ourselves. Otherwise whatever new system emerges will end up corrupt as well. Integrity is requisite, and is only found where we humans are able to heal and grow.

Once we have our own selves together, we can begin to remake this crazy world we find ourselves living in. We reject the legal status of ‘The Corporation’ and its effect of globalism, which is a terrible system for getting our needs met, but a great system if your own goal is making gobs of money.

Our priorities could be peace, good governance, localism, organic food and learning, without which we are at the mercy of corporate control. Of these objectives, localism most directly strikes at the heart of the corporate controllers. There are innumerable cases where sourcing needed materials comes from the other side of the world because it makes corporate financial sense, though it makes no sense at all for a healthy culture to be doing such things.

We Must Rise Up

As the great historian and intellectual Noam Chomsky has noted, there’s hardly a time in human history where substantive change occurred without the citizenry rising up. Politicians and demagogues are not inclined to give up power unless confronted by citizens that will no longer tolerate their corruption. We see that quite clearly here in the United States.

For Progressives, locked into the two party system, the lesser evil typically means voting for Democrats, in spite of their lust to appease their corporate owners. The Republicans are off the charts now, going to any lengths to make this country ‘white and christian’, which it has never been. Whether we consider the maybe 10 million indigenous people or the maybe three million slaves, non-whites have played a huge role in our country’s history. Sadly, it’s a very ugly history.

Yet we find ourselves now facing a great precipice. If we do not change our children and grandchildren face much more cruel lives. Our climate chaos continues to wreak havoc, and the permanent war paradigm destroys entire populations in the name of greed. We must rise up.

Now is the time we change or perish. Welcome to World 5.0…

We Are So Fucked – Russell Brand speaks with Noam Chomsky

Corporate Boat Versus Life Boat

In the muddle of these times, progressives ’embrace’ the democratic party because they have no alternative. We in the US live in a duopoly, where our votes are limited by the two party system.Democrats feign policies efforts that would improve our lives, but damn, they’re stymied again, and again, and again. The Republicans are now well adrift from reality, with many aligned with traitor Donald Trump, and nearly all of them given to ideology that does not befit us, and a lust for power that makes corporate interests ever the priority. It’s all too damn ugly.

We may begin to see another option if ranked voting, such as Maine and Alaska have recently initiated, takes hold. But for this election and the near future, the dems are all we have. Sad.

The Republicans began their trajectory in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, the democratic party took a turn toward neoliberlism with the Clinton presidency in the early 1990s, and it has only gotten far worse with more recent ‘leaders’.

With this context, it’s clear we must make our voices heard more loudly than they have been, as the data shows are elected leaders pay almost no attention to our needs and interests, and all the attention they want to Corporate Overlords. Super Elites. Ideological Controllers. See, they’ve been so successful in keeping us duped that we don’t even have an accepted term for these bastards.

I needn’t remind that these bastards are destroying our planet’s biological life at a horrific pace, we humans included. That precious resources are used for yachts and rockets and endless bullshit because these bastards have almost all the money. The yacht is a nice metaphor for the corporate boat, which has controlled our culture for hundreds of years.

Warned again and again, even by our founding fathers, that corporations inevitably corrupt other institutions, we see now how far we are under their thumb. The recent decisions by the utterly bogus Supreme Court to overturn a woman’s right to her body, the regulation of guns and the EPA’s power to regulate can all be easily linked to these bastards.

There is a way out of this morass for each of us. We transform ourselves, away from mindless noise on the screens and toward our true selves. We each have on. Even these bastards. Yet they are so far from knowing themselves that that fat guy can way more easily fit through a needle. A few things for starting…

Turn off the screen. So much useless, time sinking, distracting horseshit  that whatever of value exists in that ream it’s not worth chasing. Far wiser to learn to sit with yourself, breathe, notice your body and what’s happening within the place you are in, knowing we are all here in Life together. So  we not only move the goalposts, we change our entire life’s game.

Ending our fear is the requirement behind finding our authentic selves. Because our authentic self is Love, which is antithetical to fear. Love is the Energy side of our eternal Tao. Yang. Just as Eternal Awareness is our Yin. We have much to release and let go.

And we must start with ourselves so that we bring authenticity, and its attendant integrity, into our lives. We change the framing of our lives and how we spend this preciousness of Life we share. So this is the Life Boat. So THIS experience of living we are sharing Now, is, quite literally, the Life Boat. Or the First Truth as I call it.

We give our attention to personal healing, which is what I describe above, because healing our lives together and our planet requires that we are healing ourselves already. Then we can begin our efforts to transform this corrupt and broken culture. Indeed, we must rise up.

And as we become more and more authentic we understand and appreciate the messaging we give ourselves on how we best participate, best let our voices be heard, within this transformation process we are undertaking. Our nearly fearless selves understand our place in All This.

And this is what World 5.0 is about. It’s yet another name for our Life Boat. Embracing ourselves, embracing each other, embracing our Earth, and above all, embracing This Life We Share Forever.

Uprising in Sri Lanka

As our human plight continues, the latest outrage has turned the people of Sri Lanka into revolutionaries, storming the capital and forcing their president to flee the country.

Sri Lankans have taken to the street for months to demand their top leaders step down as the country spiraled into economic chaos that left its 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials, including medicine, fuel and food. After demonstrators stormed the presidential palace and several other government buildings last week, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled and then resigned.

Much of the protesters’ ire is focused on Rajapaksa and his family’s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades. But many also blame Wickremesinghe for protecting Rajapaksa. During demonstrations last week, crowds set his personal residence on fire and occupied his office.

All of this comes on the heels of neighboring India’s massive farm protests, where millions of farmers surrounded major cities, sometimes for months on end, as their shitty government attempted corporate takeovers of crops and practices.

Sadly, storming the capital doesn’t put food in your belly. So many of our sisters and brothers are suffering these days from the diabolical schemes of nation-state governments doing the bidding of ruthless corporations.

Just recently the Sri Lanka parlament voted for a new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe , yet the citizens are clearly unhappy about this newly minted leader. He is very much of the ilk of the former president, and a former prime minister.

“We are very sad, very disappointed with the 225 parliament members who we elected to speak for us, which they have not done,” said Visaka Jayawware, a performance artist in the crowd. “We will keep fighting for the people of Sri Lanka. We have to ask for a general election.”

Like so many other nation states controlled by our corporate world, Sri Lanka is in a horrendous debt situation with China and the International Monetary Fund. Sri Lanka is bankrupt; it is unable to pay for imports of essential goods, including food, medicine and fuel, in part because it is unable to service existing debts given its essentially empty coffers of foreign currency. Spiking inflation has a vast swath of the country’s 22 million people in need of food assistance. Schools and many businesses remain shut, while ordinary citizens wait days in mile-long lines for gas.

Change the time and name it might be Greece, or Poland, or any number of countries where corrupt politicians sell out their citizenry for personal wealth. Naomi Klein identified this process as “Disaster Capitalism”. I like to point out that capitalism isn’t inherently bad, yet it is indeed terrible as enlisted by corporate interests. Honest capitalism is a fine thing. We just don’t have that in our world.

As the ultra elites behind the corporations continue this pattern of destruction and ruined lives, the only hope is transformation. Which is why I remain so enchanted with World 5.0.