A Reckoning

This is the Outline / Table of Contents for a book, in rough draft.

RADICAL INSIGHT:
Big Picture Connect the Dots:
Ecology, Technology, Economy, Democracy, Fear

Introduction:
The planet and human civilization at a tipping point

1. This Unprecedented Moment
"May you live in interesting times." Chinese curse
Seven Revolutions: Industry-Technology-Science, Democracy, Information, Money, Social Systems, the Environment, Thinking
Critical State, the Cautionary Principle
Pattern Recognition, the Roots of Human Intelligence
A watershed moment

2. Bad News / Good News: Is a Big Picture possible?
"If we're not careful we're going to end up where we're headed."
   William T. Wiley (based on a Chinese saying)
A Failure of Imagination
Is a Big Picture possible?
The Seven-Way Race
Bad News: components and dynamics
   scale, complexity, speed, momentum,
   cascade effect, feedback loops
Good News: best case scenarios
Bad News: worst case scenarios
Re-imagining possibility

3. Crisis? What Crisis? the Conceptual Emergency
"Our significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with
which we created them." Albert Einstein
Levels of Thinking, Different Thinking
An Inventory of Stupid: from Mindsets to Denial
Liberal v. Conservative Thinking: Empathy, Irony, Tolerance, Insight
Obsolete World Views
The Seventh Revolution Must Come First: Toward a Global Mindshift

4. Information, Democracy, Freedom
"If you can't change your mind, are you sure you have one?"
Berkeley bumper sticker
From Free Will to Democracy
From Hitchcock to Nixon: What do we know, when do we know it, and how do we know?
Paradigm Shift: Thomas H. Kuhn
Information: science, theory, practice
Information and Democracy
Medium as Message
Subtle Information

5. The Problem with Technology
"The human makes the tool, then the tool remakes humanity and the world."
Technology as Information: Unintended Consequences
Technology as Power and Control
The Cycle: Imagination to Addiction
True and False Power
Foresight: the Cautionary Principle

6. The Balance Sheet / Bottom Line
"How much can we get for this planet?"
Imagining Extremes: the L-Curve
"Externalities:" Price v. Cost
Real and Fake Economies
Other boring stuff about Economics
The Advertising Tax
The "Pathology of Wealth" Taboo
Zero Sum: Economy Equals Ecology
A Reverse Shock Doctrine

7. Radical Insight: a Global Mindshift
"The 'Socialists' have to get green and the Greens have to get mad and they all have to lock arms because they're two sides of the same deal." author
Cognitive Dissonance
Burying a Dead Mindset
The Power of the Unconscious: Power, Love, Knowledge
A Merger of Movements
The Next / Last Phase of Globalization
A Biblical Metaphor: Ejection from Eden

M.E.R.G.E.S. Manifesto
A Movement for Everyone's Rights and Global Environmental Sustainability
Principles and Protocols, a Proposal