Good-world-association's Start here to envision the good world

A New Year resolution: Learn to use this space to honour all the work Garsett is putting into creating it. The intention is to invite and assist one another and begin the better world by creating it as a shared inner vision.  A draft vision/manifest to be discussed/modified Questions about the draft manifesto: ·                  Is intentional social change a realistic project? ·                  Is there purpose guiding the process we know as Life? ·                  Is evolution a purposive process? ·                  Is there a purpose guiding the evolution of humanity? ·                  Is it helpful to separate the interests of humankind into specific categories? ·                  Is ‘our’ universe a place of abundance, or of scarcity as Malthus and Darwin insisted? ·                  Is there a benign intelligence underlying existence? ·                  Can we participate in the cosmic purpose of this intelligence? ·                  Does humanity have a unique role in the universe? ·                  Is the individual human being of importance in the cosmic context? ·                  Is there a deeper satisfaction in daily life waiting to be recognized and realized? ·                  Are we, each, conscious agents of evolution? ·                  Is the universe itself an entity in process of evolution? These questions need to be discussed because there are so many viewpoints that would give a negative response. If we are not satisfied with dialogues among the converted, it is important, I think, to understand why those negative views are held. (I have come across at least one person in cyberspace who argued that the human species is so destructive to the rest of life on this planet that it deserves to be wiped out completely. There are also many voices which clearly state that the carrying capacity of the planet in terms of human numbers is less than two billion. The consequences of this mental set are not spelled out but should be. We have to ask these people, "what should be done about the four billion+ of us whose existence is such a dire threat to the rest of the biosphere?") However, the motive for such desire to understand people who hold poles-apart ideas should not be based on the hope of gaining converts to our views, but rather to genuinely appreciate the different world views fellow human beings live by. If, in the process of such "investigation", it is found that there are misunderstandings or hitherto unconsidered aspects at the base of these more negative frames of mind, we can hope that a better approximation to "truth" can also be facilitated. There is, fortunately, an ever increasing number of persons who can overcome certain ingrained intellectual habits and certain anatomical illusions and are beginning to distinguish a Noosphere which is like a halo around the Biosphere; but even among these, agreement is far from being reached as yet on the question of whether this 'corona' of reflective peri-terrestrial substance has, or has not, finished its planetary evolution. (Teilhard de Chardin, The heart of Matter, 1950) (Finding out about using WebAssistant features What should go into this part  Forum URL  [                               ] (WebConference/Forum location, not shown when left empty) of the Main Page Options? ) OK, I know now. If there is an existing discussion space relevant to this site, a button is added to the available options to take the user there. A very neat feature Now I need to find out the significance of the three HTML options in the More Options box.. .  (helpref: font style changes apply to whole page. Is this intentional?