Club of Amsterdam Journal, January 2022, Issue 239

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CONTENT

Lead Article

Chasing the dragon
By Peter van Gorsel

Article 01

The Ocean Economy will eclipse $3 trillion by 2030
By CaspianReport

The Future Now Show

“It is all about the right focus”
with Annegien Blokpoel

Article 02

Three financial firms could change the direction of the climate crisis – and few people have any idea
by Jan Fichtner, University of Amsterdam, Eelke Heemskerk, University of Amsterdam, and Johannes Petry, University of Warwick

News about the Future

> Startup Europe
> Global Gateway

Article 03

Exploring the TRUE cost of ditching fossil fuels.
By
Just Have a Think

Recommended Book

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems
By Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

Article 04

The Chef’s Menu: Bugs, Plants, and Anything He Can Forage
By The New Yorker Documentary

Climate Change Success Story

Energy Islands - Denmark

Futurist Portrait

Riane Eisler
social systems scientist, cultural historian, futurist


Tags:
Blue Economy, Business Development, Carbon neutral,
Climate Change, Culture, Denmark, Economics, EDUCATION,
ENERGY, Evolution, FOOD, Gambling, Human Rights, Humanity,
Impact Investment, Investment, Leadership, Mass Media, Ocean,
Ocean acidification, Peace, Population, Spirituality, Startups, Wind




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Felix B Bopp

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Riane Eisler: “Both the mythical and archaeological evidence indicate that perhaps the most notable quality of the pre-dominator mind was its recognition of our oneness with all of nature,which lies at the heart of both Neolithic and the Cretan worship of the Goddess. Increasingly, the work of modern ecologists indicates that this earlier quality of mind, in our time often associated with some types of Eastern spirituality, was far advanced beyond today's environmentally destructive ideology.”

Abhijit V. Banerjee: "Our reaction to the other is closely tied to our self-confidence. Only a social policy founded on respect for the dignity of the individual can help make the average citizen more open to ideas of toleration."

Lead Article

Chasing the dragon
By
Peter van Gorsel






"Chasing the dragon" is a metaphor for the pursuit of the ultimate high in the usage of some particular drug. If gambling is an addiction for a lot of people this expression could very well stand for the lottery and gambling. Across the globe millions of people spend money on lottery tickets, scratch cards and (online) gambling. A gambler may be the second oldest profession in the world. Gambling is one of mankind's oldest activities, as proved by writings and equipment found in tombs and other places.


Gamifying the industry

Every self-respecting city has a casino. Online gambling has grown from a minor industry on the Internet to a substantial global phenomenon taking full advantage of the Digital transformation and the possibilities to gamify the industry.


National lotteries

Lotteries are found in nearly half of the world's countries, with annual worldwide lottery ticket sales topping $115 billion. National lotteries have been around for so long that they seem to be an integral part of the financial landscape. The Dutch State Lottery (Staatsloterij) has been around for almost three hundred years.


Reward system

Gambling means that you're willing to risk something you value in the hope of getting something back of even greater value. It stimulates the brain's reward system much like drugs or alcohol can and do often lead to addiction.


Skewed systems

Lotteries are open contests by virtue of the game of chance rather than skill or knowledge. As any lottery is skewed towards the negligible aspect of winning unimaginable prizes, more tickets are bought by those that should know better. But knowing is not the same as behaving as such. Promoting their financial future at the expense of the present transforms people into "jackpot chasers or dragon chasers''.


Failure or chasing

No one in their right mind enters a lottery, scratches a card, visits a casino or goes to one online with a chance of striking it rich. But failure matters less than chasing the dragon. The dazzling prospect of all that money in your bank account blinds the average player, triggers his biases and disturbs his already weak sense of rationality. Does it make financial sense to play in lotteries or gamble in is very dubious. Have you ever met someone who knew someone who knew someone who won the jackpot? This has not put people off spending on lottery tickets or casino tokens for a carefree future. This is about as likely to happen as a black swan arriving at your door with a very large check in its beak.


Daydreams of desire

Lotteries are designed as "daydreams of desire" but also as an unattainable status position. Lotteries and gambling rely on a potent behavioural mixture of biases and gamification. Gamification is all about customer retention. It is the application of game-playing elements to the industry. Common gamification elements include leader boards, points, timers and badges. Prizes big enough to override any scepticism and small rewards nice enough to keep you hooked to the dream and the hot breath of the dragon. When the top prize is very large, ticket buyers appear indifferent to the fact that their chance of winning is minuscule, states Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and slow.


Plucking the Goose

If raising tax money is all about plucking the most feathers off of the goose with the least amount of squawking, the lottery is the best way to do that. It's a disguised way to collect private money but governments like it because it's one of the only ways you get people to volunteer to pay. There are of course the comfort zone biases that a part of your wasted money goes to cultural and good causes, relieving the Government of that task.


Cognitive bias

The root cause of gambling addiction starts at an emotional level, wherein addicts use gambling as a means for coping with daily life stressors and pressures. Gambling in any kind of form is riddled with biases of which we only discuss a few. Cognitive bias plays a big role in gambling and is an error in thinking that affects the decisions and judgments that people make. Meaning that a series of losses will not necessarily act as an incentive to stop gambling, as the pathological gambler will believe they will eventually win.


Monte Carlo fallacy

The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, is a deep-seated cognitive bias that can be very hard to overcome. It's the incorrect belief that, if a particular event occurs more frequently than normal during the past, it is less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa). The fallacy is associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the usual number of sixes.


Gambler's conceit

Gambler's conceit is the fallacy described by behavioural economist David J. Ewing, where a gambler believes they will be able to stop a risky behaviour while still engaging in it. This belief operates during games of chance, such as casino games. The gambler believes they will be a net winner at the game, and thus able to avoid going broke by exerting the self-control necessary to stop playing while still ahead in winnings. This is known as "I'll quit when I'm ahead."


Quitting while ahead

Quitting while ahead is unlikely since a gambler who is winning has little incentive to quit, and is instead encouraged to continue to gamble by their winning. We all tend to remember or seek data that supports a hypothesis we have already and forget or disregard details that contradict our hypothesis. This is called confirmation bias, and it has led many gamblers astray.


Hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is probably the most fun bias of all of these, and it is exactly what the name suggests. It's looking back after the fact and identifying all the things that should have been so clear to you now that you know the outcome. The last bias is preference reversal that causes individuals to deviate from their seemingly rational choice and take more risky decisions. In certain circumstances gamblers and investors will choose a second option which differs from their original rational first choice.

Keep an eye out for our next journal which looks at the question: Do investors share biases with gamblers in their risk-taking behaviour?'.



About Peter van Gorsel

Publisher, gamification expert, brain & behaviour marketeer, education expert, strategist and free thinker

 




CONTENT

Article 01

The Ocean Economy will eclipse $3 trillion by 2030
By CaspianReport

 


The oceans are in the worst condition they have ever been, but the Blue Economy seeks to link economic growth with sustainable ecosystems.

The 'Blue Economy' is an emerging concept which encourages better stewardship of our ocean or 'blue' resources. ... Similar to the 'Green Economy', the blue economy model aims for improvement of human wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

 

 

 


At least half of Earth's oxygen comes from the ocean.

Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean. The majority of this production is from oceanic plankton — drifting plants, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize.


Ocean acidification is mainly caused by carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere dissolving into the ocean. This leads to a lowering of the water's pH, making the ocean more acidic. ... Currently, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas for human industry is one of the major causes.

Source: Google

Ocean acidification is expected to impact ocean species to varying degrees. Photosynthetic algae and seagrasses may benefit from higher CO2 conditions in the ocean, as they require CO2 to live just like plants on land. On the other hand, studies have shown that lower environmental calcium carbonate saturation states can have a dramatic effect on some calcifying species, including oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. Today, more than a billion people worldwide rely on food from the ocean as their primary source of protein. Thus, both jobs and food security in the U.S. and around the world depend on the fish and shellfish in our oceans.

Source: NOAA

 

CONTENT

The Future Now Show

“It is all about the right focus”
with Annegien Blokpoel


 

If we all know what is happening with the world, and if we see how fast the changes are taking place, why are we so slow in responding?

Annegien Blokpoel addresses in this short presentation what are some key blockages for faster introduction of (impact) innovation to the global economy. She proposes some tricks to break through the current paradigms in investing, part of solving (pieces of) this complicated puzzle.

 

 







Credits

Annegien Blokpoel
Catalyst investor, venture builder, strategy and management advisor
Founder & Managing Partner, PerspeXo
the Netherlands
https://perspexo.com



Felix B Bopp
Producer of The Future Now Show

clubofamsterdam.com

The Future Now Show

https://clubofamsterdam.com/the-future-now-show



You can find The Future Now Show also at

LinkedIn: The Future Now Show Group
YouTube: The Future Now Show Channel



CONTENT

Article 02

Three financial firms could change the direction of the climate crisis – and few people have any idea

by Jan Fichtner, University of Amsterdam, Eelke Heemskerk, University of Amsterdam, and Johannes Petry, University of Warwick





Jan Fichtner
Eelke Heemskerk
Johannes Petry

 

Dirty deeds done cheap. Mangulina

A silent revolution is happening in investing. It is a paradigm shift that will have a profound impact on corporations, countries and pressing issues like climate change. Yet most people are not even aware of it.

In a traditional investment fund, the decisions about where to invest the capital of the investors are taken by fund managers. They decide whether to buy shares in firms like Saudi Aramco or Exxon. They decide whether to invest in environmentally harmful businesses like coal.

Yet there has been a steady shift away from these actively managed funds towards passive or index funds. Instead of depending on a fund manager, passive funds simply track indices - for example, an S&P 500 tracker fund would buy shares in every company in the S&P 500 in order to mirror its overall performance. One of the great attractions of such funds is that their fees are dramatically lower than the alternative.

In 2019 there was a watershed in the history of finance. In the United States, the total value of actively managed funds was surpassed by passive funds. Globally, passive funds crossed US$10 trillion (£7.7 trillion), a five-fold increase from US$2 trillion in 2007.



This seemingly unstoppable ascent has two main consequences. First, corporate ownership has become concentrated in the hands of the "big three" passive asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. They are already the largest owners of corporate America.

The second consequence relates to the companies that provide the indices that these passive funds follow. When investors buy index funds, they effectively delegate their investment decisions to these providers. Three dominant providers have become increasingly powerful: MSCI, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Steering global capital flows

With trillions of dollars migrating to passive funds, the role of index providers has been transformed. We traced this change in a recent paper: in the past, index providers only supplied information to financial markets. In our new age of passive investing, they are becoming market authorities.

Deciding who appears in the indices is not just something technical or objective. It involves some discretion by the providers and benefits some actors over others. By determining which players are included on the list, setting the criteria becomes an inherently political activity.

Especially relevant are the dominant emerging markets stock indices, particularly the widely tracked MSCI Emerging Markets Index. This is a list of large and medium-sized companies in 26 countries, including China, India and Mexico.

MSCI sets the standards for countries to qualify for inclusion. Above all, they have to guarantee free access to domestic stock markets for foreign investors. If a country is included, massive amounts of capital will flow into their national stock market almost automatically. As a result, MSCI and the other big three providers' rival indices are now effectively steering global investment flows.

For example, when Saudi Arabia was recently added to the list of qualifying countries for these indices, it was predicted to trigger inflows into the Saudi stock market of up to US$40 billion. And when Saudi Aramco, the largest global oil producer, went public last year, it was fast-tracked by the same three index providers into their emerging markets indices. Millions of investors around the world now unknowingly hold shares in this controversial corporation - either through owning emerging markets index funds or having pensions that hold such funds on their behalf.

When China was added to the key emerging market indices in 2018, reportedly after heavy lobbying from Beijing, the capital steering effect was expected to be larger by an order of magnitude. It was estimated that the long-term inflows into Chinese stocks would be up to US$400 billion.

The future role of index providers

The three dominant index providers' income mainly derives from the funds replicating their indices, since they have to pay royalties for the privilege. The providers are therefore currently enjoying a fee bonanza. For 2019, MSCI reported record revenues and said the assets tracking its indices were at all-time highs.

Our research suggests that these providers' brands are so well established that competitors will struggle to take away that business. This suggests that MSCI, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones will increase their role as a new kind of de facto global regulators.

Soaring & Passive. Alexandra Gigowska

Arguably the most important aspect of their private authority for the future of our planet pertains to how corporations tackle climate change. BlackRock recently made headlines with plans to divest from firms that make more than 25% of their revenues from coal. Yet this only applies to BlackRock's actively managed funds: most of its funds track indices from the major index providers, so they will keep investing in coal until the providers remove such companies from their indices.

Similarly, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street all recently announced they will increase their range of so-called ESG funds, which profess to exclude the worst performing firms according to environmental, social and governance criteria. Again, these criteria are increasingly defined by the index providers, using proprietary methodologies. As The Economist has noted, the providers often decide which companies to include based on whether they go about their business sustainably rather than what business they are actually in.

For instance, Saudi Aramco produces few emissions extracting oil from the ground. It's a comparatively "sustainable" oil company, but it's still an oil company. Most ESG indices include industry leaders in each sector and exclude worst performers - irrespective of the industry. Consequently, many ESG funds still heavily invest in the likes of airlines, oil and mining companies.

Best in the sector? Steve Buissinne/Pixabay, CC BY-SA

They are also sometimes quite arbitrary about who qualifies as a good performer. For instance, the American bank Wells Fargo is ranked in the top third by one index provider, while another ranks it in the bottom 5%.

In short, this tightly interlinked group of three giant passive fund managers and three major index providers will largely determine how corporations tackle climate change. The world is paying little attention to the judgements they make, and yet these judgements look highly questionable. If the world is truly to get to grips with the global climate crisis, this constellation needs to be far more closely scrutinised by regulators, researchers and the general public.

 

Jan Fichtner, Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Science, University van Amsterdam, Eelke Heemskerk, Associate Professor Political Science, University van Amsterdam, and Johannes Petry, ESRC Doctoral Research Fellow in International Political Economy, University of Warwick



This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.


The CORPNET research group
uncovers, investigates and aims to understand global networks of corporate control in contemporary global capitalism. The five year project started in September 2015 and is funded by the European Research Council (ERC starting grant). It is located at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam.


CONTENT

News about the Future


> Startup Europe
> Global Gateway


Startup Europe

Startup Europe strengthens networking opportunities for deep tech scaleups and ecosystem builders to accelerate the growth of the European startup scene.

Startup Europe is an initiative of the European Commission to connect high tech startups, scaleups, investors, accelerators, corporate networks, universities and the media. It is supported by a portfolio of EU funded projects and policy actions such as the EU Startup Nation Standard, Innovation Radar and the Digital Innovation and Scale-up Initiative (DISC). It is fully aligned with the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) strategy of the European Commission.

The Startup Europe One Stop Shop offers entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem builders trusted information and support on topics ranging from scaling up, investment opportunities and networking.

 


 

Global Gateway

The European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy launch the Global Gateway, the new European Strategy to boost smart, clean and secure links in digital, energy and transport and strengthen health, education and research systems across the world. It stands for sustainable and trusted connections that work for people and the planet, to tackle the most pressing global challenges, from climate change and protecting the environment, to improving health security and boosting competitiveness and global supply chains. Global Gateway aims to mobilise up to €300 billion in investments between 2021 and 2027 to underpin a lasting global recovery, taking into account our partners needs and EU's own interests.

President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “COVID-19 has shown how interconnected the world we live in is. As part of our global recovery, we want to redesign how we connect the world to build forward better. The European model is about investing in both hard and soft infrastructure, in sustainable investments in digital, climate and energy, transport, health, education and research, as well as in an enabling environment guaranteeing a level playing field. We will support smart investments in quality infrastructure, respecting the highest social and environmental standards, in line with the EU's democratic values and international norms and standards. The Global Gateway Strategy is a template for how Europe can build more resilient connections with the world.”



CONTENT

Article 03


Exploring the TRUE cost of ditching fossil fuels.
By Just Have a Think





Dave Borlace


Fossil fuels are inextricably linked to our everyday lives and it'll be impossible to phase them out in the next three decades. At least that's what the fossil fuel industry would have you believe. But new studies have looked at precisely what we DO need to do to rapidly rid ourselves of the largest historical, and current, cause of the global climate emergency.

Video Transcripts available at
www.justhaveathink.com





 

CONTENT

Recommended Book


Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

By Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

 


Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it.

Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change - -these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there --what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable.

In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect and show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of the day. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.



Abhijit V. Banerjee



Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is an Indian economist. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Banerjee is a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (along with economists Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan) and a Research Affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action, a New Haven, Connecticut based research outfit dedicated to creating and evaluating solutions to social and international development problems, and a Member of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty. He was awarded 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. He is also the recipient of the inaugural Infosys Prize in the category of Social Sciences (Economics).



Esther Duflo



Esther Duflo is a French economist, Co-Founder and Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Duflo serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is Director of the Center of Economic Policy Research's development economics program. Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health and policy evaluation. She was awarded 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. She is the youngest person and the second woman to win the award.



CONTENT

Article 04


The Chef’s Menu: Bugs, Plants, and Anything He Can Forage
By The New Yorker Documentary

 

 



“Little Fish,” directed by Edward Columbia, follows the chef Bun Lai as he closes his renowned sustainable restaurant to focus on practicing what he preaches — living off nature as a food source.



CONTENT

Climate Change Success Story

Energy Islands - Denmark





The world’s first energy islands will be constructed in Denmark, exploiting our immense wind resources in the North and Baltic seas. The energy islands will serve as hubs that can create better connections between energy generated from offshore wind and the energy systems in the region around the two seas.

The offshore wind turbines around the islands will be able to supply green electricity with a capacity to power at least five million households. The Danish Energy Agency is leading the project.

The energy islands mark the beginning of a new era for the generation of energy from offshore wind, aimed at creating a green energy supply for Danish and foreign electricity grids. Operating as green power plants at sea, the islands are expected to play a major role in the phasing-out of fossil fuel energy sources in Denmark and Europe.

  • The plan envisages the establishment of an artificial island in the North Sea that will serve as a hub for offshore wind farms supplying 3 GW of energy, with a long-term expansion potential of 10 GW.
  • The energy island in the Baltic Sea will be Bornholm, where electrotechnical facilities on the island will serve as a hub for offshore wind farms off the coast supplying 2 GW of energy.

Denmark has a long history of exploiting the strong winds from the sea to produce electricity. We constructed the world’s first offshore wind farm in 1991, and in the climate agreement of 22 June 2020, the Danish legislature decided to build on that legacy with the construction of two energy islands. In light of the decision reached by Danish politicians, the Danish Energy Agency is now drawing on domestic expert knowledge as well as extensive experience and skills in this field with a view to taking a historic and ambitious step on the road to phasing out fossil fuels.

After political agreement on the energy islands have been reached, the Danish Energy Agency are playing a key role in leading the project that will transform the two energy islands from a vision to reality. The islands are a pioneer project that will necessitate the deployment of existing knowledge into an entirely new context. Working together with well-established actors in the industry and the highest level of expertise in the field, our goal is to find the best solutions to the aspects of the project that remain unsolved. We are exchanging knowledge, performing quality assurance on solutions and working every day to further the green transition and ensure a reliable supply of electricity to Danish power sockets.


How many solar panels do I need for 1 gigawatt?

3.125 Million Photovoltaic (PV) Panels.

What is GW in renewable energy?
India will easily achieve the target of 50 per cent share of energy from non-fossil fuels and also the 500-gigawatt (GW) renewable energy capacity before the deadline of 2030 set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh.

How big is a GW?
The gigawatt (GW) is equal to one billion (109) watts or 1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts. This unit is often used for large power plants or power grids.

Source: Google

Green electricity for our neighbouring countries

The energy islands’ initial capacity of 5 GW and eventual capacity of 12 GW means that Denmark will end up generating more electricity than it needs. Therefore, the electricity will be exported to our neighbouring countries, contributing to the green transition beyond Denmark’s borders.

Efforts to establish connections to foreign grids are already underway; Denmark has entered into political agreements with several of its neighbours to commence joint analytical efforts to connect the energy islands to their grids.

The two energy islands are to be completed in 2030.

German 50Hertz and Energinet have entered into an agreement to carry out the studies which, before the end of the year (2021), are to identify whether it is possible and advantageous to construct an electric cable connection between the two countries via Bornholm as a future energy island.





 





© Energinet

Energinet is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. It is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate and Energy.

Energinet is collecting information from the preliminary studies which will form the basis for the future work of designing and constructing energy islands, offshore wind farms and the intervening infrastructure.

  • The environment and nature studies are expected to start in autumn 2021.
  • Factors will be investigated separately for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, as the conditions are different.
  • The geophysical conditions in the North Sea are currently being mapped. The seabed and soil layers are being examined, with the aim of describing how foundations for wind turbines and the like can be established with minimal environmental impact.






Denmark's $34BN Energy Islands Could Solve Europe's Power Problem


 

 





CONTENT

Futurist Portrait


Riane Eisler
social systems scientist, cultural historian, futurist



Riane Eisler is a cultural historian, systems scientist, internationally renowned keynote speaker, and president of the Center for Partnership Studies.


The mission of the Center for Partnership Systems is to catalyze movement towards partnership systems on all levels of society through research, education, grassroots empowerment, and policy initiatives. CPS’s programs focus on promoting human rights and nonviolence, gender and racial equity, child development, and new metrics that demonstrate the financial contribution of the work of care.

We draw from the latest social and biological science including neuroscience, connecting the dots between the personal and political to address root causes rather than merely symptoms of dysfunction and injustice.

 


Eisler’s pioneering multidisciplinary, systemic approach has impacted many aspects of scholarship, society, and life.

Peace
Evolutionary Theory
Human Rights
Politics and Economics
Spirituality and Religion
The Environment and Population
Business and Organizational Development
Education and Leadership
The Arts, Literature, and Mass Medi
a

 

Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future
by Riane Eisler and Douglas P Fry



Nurturing Our Humanity
offers a new perspective on our personal and social options in today's world, showing how we can build societies that support our great human capacities for consciousness, caring, and creativity. It brings together findings--largely overlooked--from the natural and
social sciences debunking the popular idea that we are hard-wired for selfishness, war, rape, and greed. Its groundbreaking new approach reveals connections between disturbing trends like climate change denial and regressions to strongman rule. Moving past right vs. left, religious vs. secular, Eastern vs. Western, and other familiar categories that do not include our formative parent-child and gender relations, it looks at where societies fall on the partnership-domination scale. On one end is the domination system that ranks man over man, man over woman, race over race, and man over nature. On the other end is the more peaceful, egalitarian, gender-balanced, and sustainable partnership system. Nurturing Our Humanity explores how behaviors, values, and socio-economic institutions develop differently in these two environments, documents how this impacts nothing less than how our brains develop, examines cultures from this new perspective (including societies that for millennia oriented toward partnership), and proposes actions supporting the contemporary movement in this more life-sustaining and enhancing direction. It shows how through today's ever more fearful, frenzied, and greed-driven technologies of destruction and exploitation, the domination system may lead us to an evolutionary dead end. A more equitable and sustainable way of life is biologically possible and culturally attainable: we can change our course.

 

Conversation for Change with Dr Riane Eisler : Exploring the New Possible

 

 


CONTENT

 

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