The focus of this ­cat­a­log is to show­case a vision for human­i­ty, and our world, to arrive at by the year 2050. To achieve this vision, and to break from many of the harm­ful trends of today, we believe our think­ing needs to become more imag­i­na­tive, more dar­ing, and more emboldened.

While the fol­low­ing sec­tions will offer infor­ma­tion about inspir­ing peo­ple, col­lec­tives, and events we believe are pos­i­tive­ly shap­ing the future, this com­pendi­um is not com­plete or exhaus­tive. Every­thing is always chang­ing, espe­cial­ly con­duits of inspi­ra­tion. The infor­ma­tion in the cat­a­log rep­re­sents what we have the capac­i­ty to see and explain at this present moment. As always, and as with every­thing, this infor­ma­tion is ever evolving…

To help pro­mote think­ing along these lines and reclaim inno­va­tion as a fun­da­men­tal human abil­i­ty, this cat­a­log con­tains sys­tem the­o­ries, regen­er­a­tive prin­ci­ples, and insights from our col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence and per­spec­tives accrued over decades work­ing in the inno­va­tion busi­ness sec­tor. Beyond our pro­fes­sion­al back­grounds, we are gath­ered as con­cerned world cit­i­zens in con­ver­sa­tion around how to do bet­ter by one anoth­er and our plan­et. To this effect, we set out to describe what the roots of mass trans­for­ma­tion look like in 2019, how these con­di­tions mir­ror oth­er epochs, and how con­di­tions for change might grow in detail, dimen­sion and scale by 2050.

As indi­vid­u­als with our own his­to­ries, pro­cliv­i­ties, and ener­gies, we are aware of the lim­i­ta­tions in our per­spec­tives. Yet as a group com­mit­ted to address the effects of glob­al issues we run up against every day, we feel well posi­tioned to assem­ble our research around alter­na­tive prac­tices we find inspir­ing, diverse ways of prob­lem-solv­ing, and what we believe are the key ingre­di­ents to a just, sus­tain­able and cre­ative future.

As the authors of this text, our intent is to share ideas on top­ics of inter­est with­in our stu­dios and fos­ter dia­logue with our friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues, chil­dren, or any­one who wish­es to com­mu­ni­cate per­spec­tives on life and our chang­ing world. The sub­sec­tions of these pages hope to enliv­en dis­cus­sion around the loose def­i­n­i­tions of inno­va­tion, and how this human fac­ul­ty for imag­i­na­tive, rad­i­cal change can dri­ve us for­ward. We are writ­ing this cat­a­log as a response to dehu­man­iza­tion, defor­esta­tion, and degra­da­tion every­where, as much as to add our voic­es to the call for de-com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion, de-enclo­sure, and de-growth.

We believe that human­i­ty already pos­sess­es many of the tools, knowhow and capa­bil­i­ties for choos­ing inclu­sive and regen­er­a­tive solu­tions that can be used to tack­le the sys­temic prob­lems we face on this plan­et. We believe we need to rec­og­nize humanity’s amaz­ing abil­i­ties, as well as under­stand where we’ve gone wrong, and the chal­lenges we’re up against. By doing this, we can begin to restore rela­tion­ships between peo­ple and plan­et by lever­ag­ing our abil­i­ty to inno­vate and align our activ­i­ties with uni­ver­sal laws of nature. We must acknowl­edge that sol­i­dar­i­ty and mass mobi­liza­tion is the linch­pin of change, and draw upon prin­ci­ples and pat­terns that have the pow­er to uni­fy. We must depart from a hos­tile sta­tus quo and move bold­ly into more uplift­ing soci­etal agree­ments. At that point, we can apply our lessons, expe­ri­ences, and col­lec­tive knowl­edge to rebuild alter­nate sys­tems that allow us to live lives of pas­sion and authen­tic­i­ty. In this way, we will cre­ate ide­al con­di­tions to expan­sive­ly explore our universe—from our most inner to our far­thest out­er spaces—together.

Our inten­tion is to tell a sto­ry about what we believe con­sti­tutes pos­i­tive change. We want to explore a dar­ing spec­trum of pos­si­bil­i­ties that can start to chip away at a malig­nant sys­tem and —more importantly—strengthen sys­tems that pri­or­i­tize thriv­ing life. The sec­tions of this cat­a­log evoke cri­sis and res­o­lu­tion, his­tor­i­cal anec­dotes about rev­o­lu­tion, along with tools, prin­ci­ples, and pat­terns that have served peo­ple and plan­et well over dif­fer­ent loca­tions and var­i­ous ages. Our goal is to acknowl­edge Earth’s sacred capac­i­ty for heal­ing, repair, and renew­al. We believe the best approach we can take is to main­tain an open per­spec­tive and lis­ten to insights from oth­ers who share wis­dom of phe­nom­e­na fun­da­men­tal to inspir­ing sys­temic change. By inte­grat­ing nature’s observ­able and mys­te­ri­ous prin­ci­ples, we can cre­ate a wild­ly pos­i­tive future.

We hope you find the same joy and inspi­ra­tion in read­ing this cat­a­log as we did in com­pil­ing it. Have a won­der­ful journey…

Piece by piece, sec­tion by sec­tion, set­tle into a stream and ride the cur­rent, or jump around.
No right or wrong. See where intu­ition takes you, dear reader.

“In this ide­al text, the net­works are many and inter­act, with­out any of them being able to sur­pass the rest; this text is a galaxy of sig­ni­fiers, not a struc­ture of sig­ni­fieds; it has no begin­ning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by sev­er­al entrances, none of which can be author­i­ta­tive­ly declared to be the main one; the codes it mobi­lizes extend as far as the eye can reach, they are indeterminable…the sys­tem of mean­ing can take over this absolute­ly plur­al text, but their num­ber is nev­er closed, based as it is on the infin­i­ty of lan­guage.” — Roland Barthes, SZ, 1970

The act of read­ing can become an act of writ­ing. As the read­er draws mean­ing from pas­sages, they can infer pos­si­bil­i­ties poten­tial­ly unknown to the authors. When French the­o­rist Roland Barthes dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed between a read­er­ly text and a writer­ly text, he was explain­ing how nar­ra­tives can lend them­selves to interpretation.

In that open space for explo­ration, we may find our words offer­ing ideas beyond the scope of our own imag­i­na­tion. In writ­ing this cat­a­log, our desire is that each read­er will help bring forth new dis­cov­er­ies and under­stand­ings to the top­ics under consideration.

Every­one has val­ue and is a cre­ative force by virtue of one’s very existence.

As a con­cept, inno­va­tion cuts to the core of what makes the human ani­mal so dis­tinc­tive. Inno­va­tion illus­trates how we, as a species, can cre­ate and prob­lem-solve on such mas­sive scales.

From the moment our ear­li­est ances­tors start­ed fash­ion­ing basic tools from the mate­ri­als around them, we began to shape our envi­ron­ments in ways that allowed us to achieve increas­ing­ly com­plex goals. This urge to improve appears to be hard­wired. Bio­log­i­cal­ly, it is thought that we’ve evolved rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle since we began this jour­ney, but our abil­i­ty to inno­vate has man­aged to take us to the stars.

The more imag­i­na­tive we con­tin­ue to become, the more inven­tive and far-out our inno­va­tions might sub­se­quent­ly be. Future solu­tions to cur­rent chal­lenges are sleep­ing with­in us. By ask­ing per­ti­nent ques­tions, prob­ing com­pelling notions, and per­sis­tent­ly press­ing the lim­its of knowl­edge, we can awak­en the beast of inno­va­tion and har­ness its pow­ers for our ele­vat­ed purposes.

Every­body can inno­vate. All peo­ple have the abil­i­ty to find new and bet­ter ways to solve prob­lems and help one anoth­er live up to our fullest poten­tial. Once all peo­ple have free­dom to do so, we can pre­pare the ground­work for a world that encour­ages the pur­suit of cre­ativ­i­ty across all lay­ers of society.

Inno­va­tion is every­where, it’s always present. Inno­va­tion thrives in open dis­course. And yet, it’s long been clois­tered off in secre­tive labs that demand con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ments in fear of com­pa­nies los­ing their com­pet­i­tive edge.

This cat­a­log is a response to siloed think­ing and behav­ior. Inno­va­tion in the future has be “out­ward” instead of “inward”. Inno­va­tion for every­one requires imple­ment­ing dri­vers to estab­lish a uni­ver­sal base­line sat­is­fy­ing all lay­ers of Maslow’s Hier­ar­chy of Needs.

The more we real­ize every person’s capac­i­ty for inno­va­tion, the more coop­er­a­tion is pos­si­ble between peo­ple. This is a cru­cial com­po­nent for respond­ing to the mon­u­men­tal chal­lenges inten­si­fy­ing before us. We have to demand that this change hap­pen. The more we refuse to change, the more we stick to our unsus­tain­able mod­els of indus­try, the bet­ter chance we have of lead­ing our­selves some­where dystopi­an. We need to strive for big, bold action that will hap­pen fast. This is a piv­otal time to shift course and self-actu­al­ize on an incred­i­ble scale.we look into this pri­ma­ry rela­tion­ship, the clear­er it is that we still have much fur­ther yet to go.

In the fall of 1968, the first Whole Earth ­Cat­a­log offered a first look at Earth seen from space. The ­catalog’s sub­ti­tle, “access to tools”, sug­gest­ed a wide-­rang­ing scope of ­counter-cul­ture alter­natives to that era’s sta­tus quo.

Fifty years after the Whole Earth Catalog’s first pub­li­ca­tion, we won­der how its themes of ecol­o­gy, self-suf­fi­cien­cy, and holism can be updat­ed to account for the sweep­ing cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal change that has occurred over the inter­ven­ing years. Although some of the con­tent with­in that book may appear quaint in ret­ro­spect, in our minds, much of it should remain rel­e­vant to con­tem­po­rary sen­si­bil­i­ties. Some of the tools from the Whole Earth Cat­a­log include: Geo­des­ic domes for pre-fab shel­ter, veg­e­tar­i­an cook­books for healthy diets, and even ear­ly per­son­al computers.

Con­verse­ly, the avant-garde tools we’re deal­ing with in our cur­rent cli­mate include: shape-shift­ing / 4D mate­ri­als, auto­mat­ed robot­ics, and inves­ti­ga­tions into AI and quan­tum com­put­ing. Cer­tain as cater­pil­lars con­tin­ue to change into but­ter­flies through meta­mor­pho­sis, so too do we believe inno­va­tion will trans­form dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the com­ing decades. Yet, no mat­ter how advanced our capa­bil­i­ties become, basic tools should not be negat­ed. Ham­mers, fire, wheels. Eye con­tact. Breath­work. These are tools that will nev­er go out of fashion.

We believe prac­ti­tion­ers of inno­va­tion will soon begin direct­ing ini­tia­tives to replace the prof­it-dri­ven mod­el. After all, it doesn’t mat­ter how much mon­ey you have when your city is sub­merged by the ris­ing oceans. So we need to see our way beyond the sta­tus quo and make our work as acces­si­ble as pos­si­ble so oth­ers can join forces with us. Inno­va­tion must focus on whole sys­tems, begin­ning with sys­temic issues most in need of revi­sion. Our cat­a­log acts as an inquiry into human-made prob­lems and the prob­a­ble solu­tions we have found thus far. Chang­ing Mat­ter refers to shape-shift­ing pri­or­i­ties, sub­jects of focus, as well as mate­r­i­al con­cerns. We are inspired by the pro­posed abil­i­ty of the mind to direct mat­ter and the poten­tial for humans to respond to our ongo­ing cre­ation of waste with inno­v­a­tive approach­es for renewal.

We feel our­selves step­ping into change. Our per­spec­tives con­tin­ue to open and syn­chro­nize around new sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tions and spir­i­tu­al insights which con­tin­ue to con­firm our reliance on the nat­ur­al world. The more we look into this pri­ma­ry rela­tion­ship, the clear­er it is that we still have much fur­ther yet to go.

Once we rec­og­nize that we are liv­ing only one prob­a­bil­i­ty among count­less prob­a­ble ­lay­ers of exis­tence, we ­begin to tap into a vision of real­i­ty as diverse and mul­ti­va­lent as quan­tum mechan­ics proposes…

We imag­ine a gen­er­a­tion in which a crit­i­cal mass of humans attain enlight­en­ment, form a lib­er­at­ed civ­i­liza­tion, and become self-empow­ered to help oth­ers join an accel­er­at­ed path to jus­tice. There have always been many peo­ple who also share this vision. And there are many peo­ple who can teach us to prac­tice this kind of self-actu­al­iza­tion. As par­tic­i­pa­tion with­in this field of aware­ness increas­es, human inno­va­tion will dra­mat­i­cal­ly evolve.

First, much about civilization’s pri­or­i­ties and orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture will have to change. One of the main obsta­cles to enlight­en­ment is our busy sched­ules. Respon­si­bil­i­ties, between work and per­son­al lives, often pre­vent us from access­ing the space and time need­ed for ade­quate reflec­tion. To real­ly ques­tion the sys­tems that require so much of our atten­tion, we need to first be able to know that we can tran­scend the lim­i­ta­tions posed by the mod­ern world.

The lives we live in our three-dimen­sion­al plane of exis­tence are only part of what is occur­ring at any giv­en moment. We believe that the acti­va­tion of five or more dimen­sion­al realms is one of the major, influ­en­tial areas of future exis­tence. The fifth dimen­sion tran­scends space and time. Access­ing this dimen­sion will require a self-aware­ness informed by prin­ci­ples of quan­tum mechan­ics and an under­stand­ing that mul­ti­ple prob­a­bil­i­ties can occur at once. We are expe­ri­ence itself, and there­fore con­duits of change. Occu­py­ing a per­spec­tive that accounts for more than four dimen­sions allows us to take the first essen­tial step in mov­ing beyond the phys­i­cal and men­tal lim­i­ta­tions we con­tin­ue to perceive.

The fate of human­i­ty is not to go extinct for lack of imag­i­na­tion. The fate of human­i­ty is to open up our col­lec­tive imag­i­na­tion to invent inspir­ing real­i­ties based on pio­neer­ing prob­a­bil­i­ties. An evolv­ing under­stand­ing of quan­tum physics helps reveal the mir­a­cle of how con­nec­tions through res­o­nance are not depen­dent upon space and time. Oth­er emerg­ing fields of study, like epi­ge­net­ics, show how we have a hand in cre­at­ing our phys­i­cal bod­ies. Our bod­ies reju­ve­nate along the con­di­tions that our thoughts pro­vide. A body stressed by neg­a­tive thoughts moves in one direc­tion, while one with a healthy, relaxed mind can move down an entire­ly dif­fer­ent path. If you think joy then you feel joy. More and more peo­ple are begin­ning to under­stand this con­nec­tion and that ris­ing aware­ness is cat­alyz­ing a new real­iza­tion of who we are as a species. There is so much more to the phys­i­cal realm than what we see and the data we record. We would be wise to think more about what we do not see or understand.

The sanc­ti­ty of our plan­et requires a quan­tum leap in col­lec­tive con­scious­ness. The major­i­ty of humans must acknowl­edge we are con­nect­ed to life every­where and imme­di­ate­ly change our behav­ior to respect this uni­ver­sal truth. The future of our plan­et is not the only area that depends on this shift. It would be naive to pre­sume humans are the only species that pos­sess com­plex intel­li­gence. Out of the bil­lions of observ­able galax­ies, it feels more than like­ly that oth­er cos­mic cul­tures have already advanced to incred­i­ble evo­lu­tion­ary states of exis­tence. We find it inspir­ing to think about how those species are also ready for our par­tic­i­pa­tion in a greater evo­lu­tion­ary exis­tence. And then, what future prob­a­bil­i­ties might emerge?