Cur­rent Condition

We live in strange times. Our world con­tin­ues to be in a state of tran­si­tion, yet the scale and effect of change is rapid­ly accel­er­at­ing. What once seemed rou­tine now stands out as pecu­liar. Per­spec­tives are shift­ing. Aware­ness is blos­som­ing into awakening.

We’re see­ing mul­ti­ple glob­al shifts in atti­tude, ide­ol­o­gy, and pow­er struc­tures. Tra­di­tion­al insti­tu­tions have reached the lim­its of their abil­i­ties. As out­dat­ed mod­els stag­nate, they lose people’s trust and ulti­mate­ly col­lapse. Dis­rup­tion unfolds on every lev­el. Eco­log­i­cal­ly. Soci­etal­ly. Per­son­al­ly. We feel it in our core. Crises abound.

Inequal­i­ty con­tin­ues to rise every­where. The 8 rich­est peo­ple now own as much col­lec­tive wealth as the poor­est half of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. End­less con­flicts fuel ongo­ing human­i­tar­i­an crises. Sui­cide rates in the US went up 25% in the last 20 years. Total envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe is now an all too real pos­si­bil­i­ty, yet we’re still fail­ing to prop­er­ly com­mit to the changes we des­per­ate­ly need.

Our tech­ni­cal capac­i­ties are improv­ing faster than ever. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the same can’t be said for the health of our plan­et and soci­eties. We have been led to believe that the devel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy is the great­est mark­er of human progress, but this nar­ra­tive doesn’t hold up to scruti­ny, and must be rejected.

Tech­nol­o­gy in itself does not offer sal­va­tion, it has to be moti­vat­ed by a high­er pur­pose. The prac­tice of inno­va­tion has been dilut­ed into a form of waste­ful incre­men­tal­ism, in which minor alter­ations are used to jus­ti­fy inces­sant con­sump­tion. What a ter­ri­ble waste of such immea­sur­able potential!

Much tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment has vast­ly improved life for those of us lucky enough to have access to it. Yet it’s still built on the backs of oth­ers. Renew­able ener­gy is paving a path toward a future with­out fos­sil fuels, poten­tial­ly avoid­ing the cat­a­clysm of man-made cli­mate change. We can renew our­selves as well.

We have the phys­i­cal tools we need to build a world in which we can all have our basic needs met. We have the meth­ods to cre­ate bet­ter stan­dards of liv­ing. We even have huge num­bers of peo­ple who want to work toward this par­a­digm. So what’s stop­ping us?

The tools of inno­va­tion have become cen­tral­ized and monop­o­lized. The trap­pings of ego, end­less growth, and a demand for short term prof­its has left us bur­dened with a con­stant del­uge of prod­ucts and ser­vices that do far more unseen harm than good. Our bod­ies, minds and plan­et are crack­ing under the strain.

Rerout­ing

The process and inten­tion of inno­va­tion must be rede­fined and divert­ed from ego­cen­tric pur­suits to efforts con­scious of entire eco-sys­tems. This means rerout­ing from a sys­tem based on con­stant growth and per­son­al accu­mu­la­tion toward one that seeks bal­ance, holis­tic well­be­ing and regen­er­a­tive fortitude.

We need a mass shift in our col­lec­tive val­ues, and to enact rad­i­cal new poli­cies that ben­e­fit the major­i­ty. We must carve out a strong, opti­mistic vision for how to live healthy, mean­ing­ful, con­tribu­tive lives, and deter­mine the way to real­ize this pur­pose­ful future.

Indi­vid­u­als, col­lec­tives, gov­ern­ments, and com­pa­nies must enter into a new social con­tract using strict leg­is­la­tion to cur­tail the abuse of cor­po­rate influ­ence, until a dras­tic shift in con­scious­ness makes this unnecessary.

Full trans­paren­cy of val­ue chains must be made a rigid require­ment for cor­po­rate oper­a­tion. Adver­tis­ing should be phased out of pub­lic space, allow­ing us to reclaim our atten­tion with­in our own neigh­bor­hoods, and decon­di­tion us from brand obsession.

We must refuse to sac­ri­fice the well-being of oth­ers for the sake of con­ve­nience. Work and life must be forced back into bal­ance, giv­ing work­ers more time to spend with friends, fam­i­ly, and to pur­sue per­son­al pas­sions. Exper­i­ments with uni­ver­sal basic income must be accel­er­at­ed to spread the con­tin­u­ing gains of glob­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and to help us escape the ham­ster wheel of the dai­ly grind.

Sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy must pri­mar­i­ly be used to advance the social good. New col­lec­tive own­er­ship log­ics should replace pri­vate own­er­ship as we tran­si­tion out of cap­i­tal­ism. Acces­si­bil­i­ty, inclu­siv­i­ty, and respon­si­bil­i­ty need to become the new ral­ly­ing cries of innovation.

Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from ancient con­cep­tions of our sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship to nature, resources and our­selves, we must devel­op new met­rics by which we judge our suc­cess­es or fail­ures. We must embrace the cur­rent moment of chaos as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reset, and push for­ward togeth­er toward a new glob­al logic.

Inno­va­tion should not dis­rupt for the sake of nov­el­ty or com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty, but look only to replace that which cre­ates no ben­e­fit, brings harm, or demands too high a cost. Thor­ough risk assess­ments need to be per­formed before tak­ing action, to ensure we under­stand the poten­tial impact of our cre­ations. Inno­va­tion should seek to address the deep­est root of the sys­temic issues and bias­es we face, in order to rebuild from the ground up. In this sense, inno­va­tion speaks to a new way of think­ing, feel­ing, and act­ing, rather than sim­ply giv­ing us more pow­er­ful tools to inflate the issues we’ve devel­oped over the course of human history.

Momen­tum

We at PCH Inno­va­tions seek social, cul­tur­al, and envi­ron­men­tal har­mo­ny with tech­nol­o­gy by cre­at­ing human­is­tic, empath­ic and high­ly adap­tive sys­tems. We see our­selves as stew­ards of our plan­et, rather than its mas­ters. We orga­nize through the spir­it of coop­er­a­tion, not com­pe­ti­tion, safe in the knowl­edge that our suc­cess does not depend on another’s failure.

In the new glob­al log­ic, exploita­tion will final­ly be seen as a blight, not a fea­ture of social evo­lu­tion. Spir­i­tu­al reflec­tion will begin to erode the mass obses­sion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with sta­tus and pow­er. Those who cling to out­dat­ed, dam­ag­ing ways of being will be chal­lenged at every turn, and their world­view exposed as dan­ger­ous, harm­ful, and inhumane.

This over­ar­ch­ing change will not hap­pen overnight, nor will it hap­pen by acci­dent. It needs opti­mists to stand up and be count­ed; any­one who dreams of a bet­ter, fair­er, health­i­er world, and who wants to play a role in build­ing it. Com­mu­ni­ties need to be re-estab­lished, and bonds of sol­i­dar­i­ty must be strength­ened through empa­thy, com­pas­sion, trust, hon­esty and integrity.

Inno­v­a­tive solu­tions will emerge through col­lec­tives of active dream­ers prac­tic­ing local­ly – unit­ed in vision, strength­ened by diverse per­spec­tives, and sup­port­ed by pro­gres­sive policies.

Intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty will become tru­ly open-source, facil­i­tat­ing free access to meth­ods, tools, and design and engi­neer­ing blue­prints. This is how we move for­ward. The pow­er of the col­lec­tive gen­er­ates momen­tum; the task is too great for any one indi­vid­ual, no mat­ter how resource­ful they may be.

Rad­i­cal cre­atives and hereti­cal thinkers have always held the key to ush­er­ing in the next era of glob­al soci­ety. Now is no dif­fer­ent. PCH Inno­va­tions strives to aim high­er, take respon­si­bil­i­ty, and man­i­fest the poten­tial of inno­va­tion to repair the fab­ric of life.