My friend Ivan, over on his Restored World blog and under the above headline, has suggested the world he would like to awake to in 2030. It is worth reading as it captures many of the things which should result from my earlier posts on Reforming Society and Environmental Reform.

Ivan asks that we think about what should be added to his list of 13 items, and I thought I would do that here. None of my thoughts should come as a great surprise to regular readers.

Ivan’s list seems to concentrate on the physical: things which have to tangibly happen, like energy generation. But what I think is missing are a number of important attitudinal shifts.

Perhaps least of these, in my mind, is that humanity becomes much more open about sex and nudity. I have a whole page here On Nudity and Naturism (and sexuality) as well as having blogged about it many times, most recently here.

Something that Ivan implies, but doesn’t state explicitly, is to my mind one of the two most important aspects. We need to have ethical government. Without it few of Ivan’s desires will come about because there will be insufficient drive to make them happen, so we’ll be stuck in the current dysfunctional consumerist and money-oriented society. That is a big paradigm shift which I believe will enable everything else, rather than flow from Ivan’s ideas.

The other essential paradigm shift seems to me to be for there to be a shift in the whole mindset of Joe & Josette Public and John & Jane Doe. The current mindset is entirely selfish and childish. We’re seeing it with Donald Trump in the USA, and Boris Johnson in the UK. Both are interested only in what they want (ie. money and selfish power) and are essentially behaving as adolescent-brained six-year-olds: “Me invincible! Me want! Me! Me! Me! Now! Now! Now!”. And I’m sad to say that the vast majority of the populous, at least in the developed world, is exactly the same. This mindset has to undergo a complete paradigm shift to one which is much more ethical if there is going to be ethical government and any possibility of Ivan’s wishes coming to fruition.

[Incidentally, there’s a useful summary article on Ethics: paradigm shifts that need to be made for the transition from Pierre Calame, Chairman of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress.]

As I keep saying: it ain’t going to be easy. While it is good to look at the concrete, physical, changes one desires they aren’t going to happen without these two major paradigm shifts. And in any programme of change the paradigm shifts are always the hardest thing to achieve.

Wish us luck – we’re going to need it.