The first hour starts with Jeremy Rifkin's concluding his Dec 2009 presentation, "The Empathic Earth", by talking about the potential for technology to extend the world's "central nervous system". With the help of a short section from Ivan Illich, I give my understanding of this as a global gift economy system in which people can state their feelings, in which no one has control, but everyone has influence over others. This leads into the conclusion of a 2008 interview with Charles Eisenstein (author of
Ascent of Humanity) about the personal implications of changing over to living in the gift.
Our second hour concludes the Charles Eisenstein interview and then continues with a rousing speech by David Korten, entitled "
The Great Turning - From Empire to Earth Community", in which he highlights his discovery at the Rio conference that,
psychopaths aside, almost all of humanity want the same things - peace, healthy food, community, fulfilling activities. Korten asks how, for the last five millennia, has empire's story of humans as ruthless and aggressive been allowed to dominate public discourse? In this era of global communications and global problems, he suggests, people are finally learning that our differences are merely superficial, that all of humanity is one, and that the sooner we bring an end to the story of division and strife, the better
everyone's chances.
Thanks to Virtual Renderings for the David Korten speech. ★ Start a Discussion about this episode (
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