Planetary Initiation

Let's explore what's happening on the planet

Planetary Initiation

Next Sunday, Jan 30, at 1 PM EST, I am offering a lecture followed by an open discussion. We will explore the thesis that humanity is currently undergoing a planetary initiation, and that our survival requires profound systemic change. Planetary Initiation is free for paid subscribers to this newsletter and otherwise $15. GET TICKETS HERE.

Current Thoughts

At the moment, I am a bit awestruck by this lengthy and meticulous deconstruction of NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and Daos from Folding Idea. I never heard of Dan Olson before, who has built up a large following vlogging about video games and film editing. This video does a tremendous service. Olson basically reaffirms what I have been saying and what I have been gleaning from critical sources such as Jacobin (“Crypto is a Giant Ponzi Scheme”), the Crypto Syllabus, and so on. It has momentarily set me back as, despite my reservations, I want to experiment in this area by collaborating with friends to launch a DAO.

My idea is that the DAO could be something like a distributed multimedia studio - like a decentralized Warhol’s Factory - and that it would be defined by principles / tenets so that the content created through it would promote ecological and social regeneration in some form (for example, a purely dystopian project, like another zombie apocalypse film, would not be something the DAO could produce), as well as the “consciousness Renaissance.” One aspect of it could be a think tank on how to apply principles and ideas from the Peer2Peer Wiki, which seems the most substantive effort to define the next economy. If people reading this want to collaborate with me on this project, please send me an email (daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com).

I love the abstract concept of a decentralized autonomous organization, but I don’t want to support crypto-economics that lead to Libertarian, Far Right outcomes and the financialization of everything. I feel this might be the same kind of mistake as one I made for many years that I deeply regret: For years I posted on Facebook all of the time, addicted to the Dopamine hit of instant engagement. I did far more to build their hideous platform than my own. I have 26,000 friend and followers on Facebook, but I have no way of reaching out to them. Facebook controls my audience via the algorithm. The “decentralization” of Web3 could be a Trojan Horse that allows for new levels of corporate control. Perhaps our DAO can be combined with a cooperative, which operates in a more traditional legal framework.

Pandemania

I was happy to see this dialogue between Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity and Brett Weinstein of Dark Horse. We are reaching a watershed moment with the pandemic. I agree with Weinstein: “The generalist approach is absolutely crushing the specialist ‘what does the data say?’ approach.” From very different starting points, Weinstein and Martenson have reached some identical conclusions about the way the pandemic has been weaponized and the narrative controlled to benefit hidden interests. By the way, I am not saying that Weinstein or Martenson are perfect, but I find them useful, particularly Martenson.

For me, Robert F Kennedy’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, was most helpful in revealing how the pandemic simulation exercises conducted over the years (some funded by Bill Gates) led to the rigidified, almost mummified, monological response we have seen from global authorities and the mainstream media. They continue to follow marching orders. I find the concept of a “false awakening” to be persuasive. We may find that now we start to get back some freedoms but in a more limited form, with the provision that they can be taken away again at any time. This is akin to what happened after 9/11: the introduction of new temporary measures that turn into permanent bureaucratic and surveillance structures, adding to the dead, unsustainable weight of this society.

Massive protests against enforced vaccines, vaccine passports, and mandates occurred across Europe last weekend, as well as smaller ones in the US.  The NY Times notes that, in Germany at least, there is a new alliance between sectors of the Right and the Eco-Left against vaccine mandates. This is a hopeful development and I am sure we will see much more of it.

I see Russell Brand and Joe Rogan as key media figures groping toward a new synthesis between Right and Left that could be important for the near future. I agree with the Left’s critique of the economic system and the need for structural changes to reduce wealth inequality. I don’t think the working class supporters of the Right are far from grasping this. However they must overcome the false nationalism and worship of wealth that are among the factors that blind them, just as the Left has to break through its judgmental tendencies.

This potential synthesis of the “Multitude” on the Left and Right is the one thing that truly threatens the control of the global power elite. This is why, of course, the Democratic Party in the US did whatever it had to do to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the Presidential nomination. I suspect Sanders would have wiped the floor with Trump (imagine the debates). The establishment stifled what could have been a truly Left Wing populist movement to deliver a pathetically familiar scenario of weak, craven Democrats owned by corporations, unable to fight or interrupt our slide toward Fascism.

Indigenous Egalitarianism Vs Technocratic Authoritarianism

I just read After the Fall: Being American in the World We Made, by Obama’s former speechwriter Ben Rhodes. Rhodes considers the rise of authoritarianism around the world, which has been boosted by the corruption and hypocrisy revealed by the United States over the last decades. It isn’t a bad book, but I don’t think his analysis is deep or systemic enough, which I suppose isn’t surprising. As I write this, Russia’s plan to annex Ukraine is on the verge of potentially triggering a new world war. Putin is clearly betting on the West being too weak and divided to stop him. Russia and China are dangerous antagonists, and the global situation seems dire, almost hopeless. Closed, authoritarian societies are out-maneuvering open, Democratic ones right now.

What gives me most hope at the moment — suggesting where we might locate a potential antidote — is anarchist anthropologist’s David Graeber’s last work, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, written with archaeologist David Wengrow. In its early chapters, the book proposes that the European Enlightenment was actually, in great measure, a response to the indigenous philosophies that Colonists and Imperialists had come into contact with in the New World, in Canada and North America. Ideas of freedom, equality, and democracy did not exist in Medieval Europe. Ever since then, the Westernized Europeanized mind has been moving closer, in these areas, to Native American views. As the authors point out, our ideas about human freedom, democracy, sexual equality are most closer to that of an indigenous person of the 16th Century than they are to the European / Catholic view. This suggests an arc of progress, however tenuous.

Graeber and Wengrow argue that we have made a mistake in believing there is an inevitable trajectory toward larger, more complex and more hierarchical societies, or that technological development inherently represents progress. Our system is not as indomitable as it seems. In fact, it is quite shaky and fragile. Right now, it feels like the future is up for grabs.

I have been reviewing ideas from my book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (now available as an audio book here), on prophecy and consciousness shifts. I feel that what Graeber and Wengrow point toward — the potential renewal of our social imagination in not only envisioning but tangibly constructing new forms of human society — might be part of the prophetic unfolding we will experience in the next decades. But this is not something that will “just happen.” Human beings — we ourselves — have to deliberately make it happen, coming together to create new forms of shared, cooperative power (as Peer2Peer Foundation explores). We still don’t know how to do that, and we don’t have enough people, as of yet, aimed at such a mission.

I could expand most of these paragraphs into longer essays and perhaps will do in some cases, but I am hoping that many of you can follow and feel into what I am talking about, making the linkages between seemingly divergent phenomena. Please feel free to ask me to elucidate in the comments. Please also let me know what you want me to focus on in future newsletters. Also let me know if you like receiving my newsletter in this somewhat looser, more discursive format.

I am available for one-on-one consultations, in person or online. This can be on a writing project, business project, or something else. I am not a psychotherapist nor a life coach. I have valuable insight to offer in many areas, from a unique perspective. If you need me, I am here. Initial consultations are one and a half hours (although this is customizable) and include a follow up email or call, as needed. We can continue with future meetings at a lower price. Sign up here.

Latest Projects

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl audiobook

Afterlife: Is There Consciousnesss After Death? Ebook