Time to tidy up the world for visitors?
If you have not heard the news that the pentagon is going to disclosure the existence of UAP's or as us old timers call them UFO's, after being way over-excited at the idea of aliens being here, I got to thinking is our house in order for such a visit. We are all use to our mother popping over and having to tackle that sink of dirty plates and sweeping the floors, however if the mothership is coming, it is going to take more than ten minutes of tidying the world up before putting the kettle on and hoping that they are not going to look in the space room of chaos. No intergalactic advance civilisation is going to expect us to be perfect but quite frankly we have a lot that we are going to be embarrassed about, now I am sure every planet has it world war, throwing nukes around like toddlers stage, that is probably part of going up, but once you are mature you are suppose to start acting like it.
Now I know some of you are going to argue that the aliens are not going to start talking or that they do not exist, and that is valid, I am totally open to argument and evidence (but fighter pilots talking about fast moving object is a good evidence that something is travelling fast, like six hundred gee acceleration fast) though I admit it could be Iceland playing one of their famous pranks. However what is important is would we be ready for a visit if aliens deciding to start buzzing our nukes and military (which would seem like a good way to knock on the door for aliens as you want the military not to over react and get use to the idea of being humble), and should we not start acting like we are going to be visited so that we have a house to be proud of and not be embarrassed (maybe they are giving us time like a very polite uncle, so that we can hid the sex toys, drugs and blueberry vodka bottles).
To be honest it is going to take more than ten minutes to tidy up the whole world, but we have shown that we can act in an emergency, we can do what is necessary and if the reward is being visited by aliens I feel like it is worth the effort to do it quickly (and the return on investment would be immense if they came with gifts, alien technology anyone, sounds like fun). However it would be rewarding just in terms of having a happy planet that was not destroying itself where people can live up to their potential without others having to suffer without a share of the pie of prosperity. That we could live in a world with a stable climate and environment, where we could share the planet with other mammals, lions, elephants, whales, instead of destroying them, deliberately or through a failure of our duty of care to those who are weaker than us, and it should not end at cute animals, the homeless, mentally ill, the sickness of drug addiction, they deserve to benefit from our duty of care too.
There is a long list of problems but there are solutions (I hate it when people only point our the problems without any solutions of their own), though I freely admit that I make the assumption that given the chance people act well if they are free of fear and have presence with love. I also think that we are required to act from the bottom up as well as the top down, and that people want to be good citizen in service of a greater mission (something lacking in the individualistic modern economies), and cleaning up our act for the visitation of alien civilisation is a mission that we can all get on board with for a mix of reasons and motivations. It is time to spring clean and to put the winter of struggles behind us, and there is no denying that money matters.
Which would be my starting point in the great spring clean, you have to get the supplies in, you have to empower individuals to be able to act rather than just surviving and I believe that the people will act well and with purpose given the chance. There is no more powerful instrument than universal basic income for this purpose (there are still two billion people living on less than a dollar a day) which would mean a thousand dollars a year would lift everyone out of extreme property (one less thing to be embarrassed about with the aliens) and would give us a huge army with which to make the world a better place. The greater the basic income the more we all could do, a twelve thousand dollar basic income would mean that even Americans could start operating free from the fear of bankruptcy if they get ill, they could take more risks, start more businesses, have more great ideas and just a hundred Googles, Facebooks, or Amazon type success stories would be more than enough to cover the whole cost of the basic income project on it's own.
With that financial fear gone, people would naturally turn to the climate disaster that is happening, they could invest in quality rather than fear driven defensive actions, they might not hate their lives so much that they need to go holiday four times a year, they would drive less, rural communities would be preserved as people would not have to leave for work, they would want the luxury good of a stable climate as well as laptops. There is a plan for dealing with this crisis, it is just being adopted slowly instead of with urgency, it needs a big push, like when we were going to the moon, we need investment, and new technology to be developed, not in ten year but now, we want people to take the kind of risk that only a basic income could afford individuals to take (and most companies fail because of owners living costs in the first year).
A steady income also, according to Woolf, allows you to move past hatred and bitterness, which sadly we currently have an abundance of and is probably one of the most universal experiences for all people, second only to the universal experience of fondness towards those people we are close with emotionally or physically, and a fixed income increases the reach of our fondness beyond family, friends, community, even to the whole world. Also if there was not such a disparity in income between people, immigration would stop being a problem, people stay where they are if they are happy, whether that is between countries, or rural and urban areas. I hope if anything can make us act like one family is finding out that the human family is just one of many families throughout the universe, and the idea that we would leave our family behind in slums and poverty, should be unimaginable, and we would be embarrassed if aliens turn up.
That is the question underpinning this article what are we going to be embarrassed by when visitors come a calling, we are going to be observed as a whole, the way that we treat the most unfortunate is the way we are going to be seen, and the way we are acting at the moment is not a pretty sight, it is not the best that we can do. The larger question is why we are not acting with self-observation without the help of aliens, maybe we are just too use to the mess, we can not see the ill and homeless in our streets, the billions in poverty, the unhappiness of the struggle that is used to control us through the instruments of fear, loss your job, family, home, and then criminalize you for it. It might be in the government interest to control you, to divide and conquer, split us into identity politics groupings, and letting you have a steady income would be giving it's power away, so it might not happen, but you can create your own income.
The change can come from the bottom up, we can defeat these methods of control, we can create wealth ourselves, spread the knowledge, help other to do the same, the less you spend the less you are supporting the government in your suppression. Investing into capital, means you control that capital, you buy a home to free you from rent, you grow vegetables to have healthy food, solar panels gives you energy independence, you liberate yourself from cars to avoid government control and enrichment, you can become invisible to the state if you choose to and spread your knowledge to others. When governments are so clearly failing to act in our collective interests, it is necessary to act at a personal level to not add to the problem, to sort out your own backyard and clean up your own home.
We should always act like we are going to have visitors, to look after our own space like we are the visitor, that we wish to be treated like a guest everyday. A clean home with room to breathe and everything in it's place uplifts our spirits, it makes us glad to be home, it enriches our environment and gives us freedom to create both art and pleasurable space for our families to live. When we develop a habit of acting from a duty of care, it is natural to extend that care to our communities, both for them and our families that live in that community. It becomes a community that we are proud to live in, that attracts others towards it and spreads it's virtue outwards, and who knows maybe we will even attract some guest from other planets, now is that not a good reason to start acting like the kind of world that is attractive to all kinds of visitors and even to ourselves.
