Syntropic World

From the Times of Israel, December 20th 2024 Report: Netanyahu won't attend Auschwitz liberation anniversary event, fearing arrest by Poland. The history, the tragedy in this headline. The true victims of horror become the pariahs to the degree they cannot attend a memorial for the horror they suffered because they dispensed a similar horror on others. Yet still, the mirror of hypocrisy is argued as justified by the state of Israel, supported by the major players of the West. The argument has been lost to most - to people who find the level of violence and colonisation enacted by Israel indefensible.   From ABC News Australia, December 20th 2024 All 51 men found guilty in French mass rape trial that turned Gisele Pelicot into a feminist hero. A woman stood in the face of the most disgusting, decade-long abuse and turned shame towards those who deserve to be shamed. To this day, rape shames the raped. But Gisele and her courage to have her trial made public has given the world a view of the banality of rape by the ‘everyman’.  Behind these two headlines is a larger story unfolding. The slow but persistent shattering of the dominant, misogynistic, colonising, millennia-long grip of power by those who believe they have the right to cruelty to others.  A woman who has been abused while unconscious by her trusted husband, the father of her children, and a man who only knows how to dispense abuse in the pursuit of power. We have a long way to go but continue, we will. https://lnkd.in/gkPbS-Wd #syntropic #syntropicenterprise #syntropicworld #beautyofbeginnings

Enshitification Three weeks ago my Instagram account was hacked and taken over. I was working against the hacker in real time, I even knew where they were operating from. But they were faster than I and my account was gone. I then spent 7 hours trying to get it back, two of those hours with a Meta customer service person. I was grateful to actually be speaking to a human, because a few weeks before that my Starlink internet went down, and we did not get a response from them for 48 hours, and it was only through chat. The Meta service person advised me to write an email, told me how to do it, who to send it to, and then said, it would take 48 hours before they get back to me. That was three weeks ago. Zero response so far. Two of the richest companies in the world, run by the two richest men in the world, offer the minimal, bare bones customer service in the world. Why? Because they are a monopoly, and they have us locked in. They do not care. They do not care at all. Cory Doctorow coined a word for this experience. Enshitification. The Australian Macquarie Dictionary made this the word of the year for 2024. Enshitification goes like this. First, they treat the customer well so they can build a huge platform. Then they invite Business to Business - sales on the platform. They don’t care about the customer any more, only the business. Once they have the customers and the business locked into the platform, where the leaving costs are very high, they then shift to becoming all about themselves and how much money they can make by exploiting both the customer and the business. Now they do not care about anyone. In their minds, they have won. Their platform is enshitified. We are the losers. And we are. No need for customer service. There is no competition. Screw the customer. It will work for them until it doesn’t. I have always been ambivalent about social media. Its deliberately algorithmic addictiveness. Clickbait. Conspiracy propagation. Fear mongering. Hate stirring.  As someone said, the CEO of a car company has highjacked the US government using his social media platform. That kind of power in the hands of one person never ends well. But here we are. Supposedly caught in the tentacles of the greatest exploiters and extractors by numbers the world has ever seen. What does this mean to me? Social media will never inform my strategic business message delivery. I will not be captured by those who own every single thing I write on Social Media. (Or Audible) I may use Social Media as an adjunct. But never as the main platform. I revert to email. The long haul of building what Kevin Kelly described as true fans. Quality work. Word of mouth. Generosity. Kindness. We must recognise that the colonising part of capitalism, vital to its existence, has never gone away. With Social Media, it has simply morphed to look differently.   https://lnkd.in/gYDsv62e #beautyofbeginnings #syntropic #enshitification

Bad leadership Doesn't trust their people. Micromanages. Lies. Manipulates. Cheats to get the best deal. Is corrupt. But their people see this. They watch. They talk. Then they walk. I am stunned that bad leaders keep getting cushy jobs. They do this for several reasons. Their bosses like the spoils, that extra zero on the bottom line that comes with lying, manipulation and corruption. Sometimes, the boss secretly or not so secretly likes the corruption. The lack of ethics on insurance claims. The budget manipulation. Do it, but don’t tell me. They also get the cushy jobs because they lie about their ability. They tell a very embellished story of skills. And because of their ill-gotten gains, they can tell a story of profit that can be sweet music to the ears of an owner or boss. But at what cost?   I wonder if they treated their people with respect. If there was trust. True synergy. Team spirit. All-together now. I wonder if the outcomes would be as good, if not better. Certainly, they would save on recruitment and hiring, and staff turnover. Time not micromanaging and having every task being double or triple handled. Bad leadership is endemic. It suits the requirements of neoliberal capitalism. Profit at all costs. People don’t matter except as utilities and commodities. Kill the competition, because capitalism hates competition. They want monopoly. Neoliberal capitalism is an insatiable beast. If we allow it, this beast will eat us all. The bad leader will have their fork in the beast, seeking that last line of profit, even as the beast becomes corrupted.   In Syntropic World, we believe the greatest exponential technology available, the one that unleashes more potential than anything, is people working together synergistically. Profit is the precession of great work by people given a context to be great, held together by exceptional steward leadership. When people are treated well, given a fabulous context and work towards a purpose they care about, everyone, including the world, is better for it. https://lnkd.in/gwN4K_fq #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings #syntropic #leadership

Some people, like my partner and my daughter, are good people, all the way down, all the way out, in every way. They think of others, first. They will rise to an occasion, as needed, doing whatever they can. They do not lie, cheat, deceive, abuse, gaslight, manipulate, or disrespect. In their presence, we know we are held, loved and safe. Just by being kind, good and considerate, we, those graced with their presence, become better people. In my moments of meanness, or petty anger, my partner reaches for the tool of comedy to shake the ick off me. He usually succeeds. Sometimes, I hang onto my petty grievance, marinating in my righteous indignation just a little too long. He has more patience than I. When others cross him, you would have to know him very well to detect the anger. Politeness is a default, even then. Goodness in people is such a precious experience to behold. Against a sea of lies and deception, nasty people doing cruel things to others, violence enacted on the majority of the world in one form or another - goodness is to be cherished. Goodness that refuses to turn sour against overwhelming odds of a system designed to break down any expression of goodness. I look for goodness in others. I seek to live goodness in myself. To persistently act with goodness is a living prayer to a future we hope for. https://lnkd.in/gu64_XBh #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #beautyofbeginnings #syntropic #goodness

The boy who cried wolf. We know the fable. It has been told in many ways as a cautionary tale. Tell enough lies and the moment you tell the truth, no one believes you.  But paradoxically, tell the same lie over and over, and establish enough mass around the lie, and people begin to doubt the truth and believe the lie. Practised liars know how to game the system. Lying is their currency, their skill.  They do not care for truth or have any interest in what people think about what they say, as long as the lie achieves its purpose of fame and vainglory. When the institutions the public is supposed to trust hide behind half-truths, obfuscation, and overt deception, it becomes harder to discern truth from lies. And so the public does not trust a word.  Into this void steps a consummate liar seeking power. Propagating lies. Repeating lies when the evidence is clear it is a lie. Over time, what was clearly a lie is doubted. The spell is cast. It is an especially powerful spell when the people have been hollowed out of dignity and possibility. The people are played. We are played. The greater power is integrity. Syntropy. Love. Truth. But it is a long game. To act with integrity, to choose integrity every day, especially against the well-laid path where lies profit more in the short term, requires courage and commitment. Those who choose this path and rail against Little Atrocities, stand out in the crowded field of the compromised. https://lnkd.in/gxRQdqhp #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropic #beautyofbeginnings #integrity

How cruel is meritocracy On paper, it sounds great. Those of merit get the prize. Such a persuasive argument. Rational. And horribly enduring. Yet, like all things, when we fail to include context, when we fail to look at merit through a systems lens, we end up rewarding only one class.  Born into privilege, given access to the best of everything, and then a direct line to the already powerful, meritocracy works well when you start in the higher classes of society. Baked into the myth of meritocracy and reinforced through all media is the story of the winner and loser. This story is deliberately told to younger people so meritocracy can thrive and endure. The shame of the loser. But without any context, and certainly zero equality. It is a sick disease that seeds superiority in those who begin higher up the ladder, and shame and unworthiness that are baked into the psyches of those who start far down the ladder. When we are indoctrinated to believe that success is based on winning, success is based on merit, and we strip out context, those who begin their lives with privilege, who know no other world, can easily look upon all the ‘losers’ and see lesser people. This justifies how they treat the losers.  The unwashed. The undeserving. Trash.  One step from dehumanising. And then violence, be it physical or systemic, becomes easy. https://lnkd.in/gzDGKXcS #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropic #beautyofbeginnings

The guy about to take over the USA health system has asked for the FDA to revoke the polio vaccine. The last orthopaedic surgeon in Northern Gaza was shot in the head by the Israelis while walking to the hospital.  The children of Gaza are the largest group of amputees in the world. And they are at risk of getting polio because of a lack of vaccines. The young man who assassinated the CEO of a company that perpetuates horrific violence every day is lauded as a folk hero. And coal and gas mining, digging deeper for oil, making more stuff, keeping the engine of the capitalist machine running, rules the day. Just another normal day in a world gone mad. Meanwhile, the sunrise this morning was stunning.  There is no one simple solution to this beast of a problem we suffer. Much as we might desire it.  I want to think we have the capacity, we humans, to be kind to each other.  I want to think we can learn from our mistakes. This is the point of history, after all. This is also why we need wise elders.  Wise elders are not to be found in the halls of power. We need to look elsewhere.  When we hand over our moral, cognitive and spiritual choices to men who haven’t a shred of wisdom or kindness, we will get the medicine the world needs. Bitter. Brutal. Cruel. And those who pay the highest price will be - as always - the innocent. The children. The creatures.  https://lnkd.in/gSEBX83i #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropic #beautyofbeginnings #wisdom

I was awake very early, just after 3 AM. No alarm. I rarely use an alarm. At the gym by 3:30. I took this photo of the sunrise at 4:15 AM. Then I went for a 6 km run and had a swim in the ocean to cool down.  For some, this type of morning might sound like a mild horror story. But for me, it is heaven. I love the quiet. I adore the dawn. I need to move and be out in nature. I think about luxury. Reverting to the online etymology dictionary, I was surprised to see that the origins of luxury meant sexual intercourse! Then, from Italian, luxus "excess, extravagance; magnificence, and Old French luxurie "debauchery, dissoluteness, lust”. Not what I was expecting as I consider the luxury of my life. Against the backdrop of hyper busy, endless striving, the hungry ghost, the manufactured desire for relevance, and for so many, the sheer effort just to stay above water, luxury is time. Luxury is to be able to pause, to sit, to think. To sleep well and wake up without an alarm. To choose to move slowly, or fast. To have my kind of morning. It is also to stop scrolling, turn off the news and read a novel, watch a movie, walk the dog. And to do all of this when the Molochian machine seeks to have us do otherwise. https://lnkd.in/ggg77XDr #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropic #beautyofbeginnings #luxury

From the etymology dictionary online.  Violence - ”an injury, irreverence, profanation," from past participle stem of violare "to treat with violence, outrage, dishonour,” An act of physical violence against another is one expression of violence. But violence comes in many forms. Another form of violence is to deny people access to life-saving health care, even the insured. Violence is to bring people to their knees through low wages, exploitation, aggregated power, and reduced access to law, housing, and hospitals. To cripple people with debt. For the press secretary of the USA to state that violence against a CEO of an enterprise that perpetuates violence in everything they do, every day, is unacceptable, is to dismiss the systemic, insidious, cruel violence of the corporations and the governments and institutions, lobbyists and sponsored-by-violence politicians. These actors live violence - they take earnings from artists, musicians, authors. They take our data and use it both for extreme profit and to weaponise the very people the data is extracted from. They throw people into the trash can of disposable when there is nothing more to extract. They sanction genocide. I am against killing. I am against violence. But when we fail to look at the actions of people held under enormous, systemic, endless violence in context, we are pointing fingers in the wrong place, seeking to blame the poor and crushed. This pattern is repeating in every corner of the world. The true perpetrators of systemic violence want their victims to hold all the blame and be labelled violent. Or terrorists. Or whatever hate term is in vogue. Before we rush to judge, look at the whole, the full context. All forms of violence are to be condemned, not just the convenient ones. https://lnkd.in/g_wwR2Sb #syntropic #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #violence #beautyofbeginnings

What I am optimistic about The mighty Pacific is cross-dressing as a lake this morning. The change from a few days ago is stunning to behold. From violent and unfriendly to humans, she is now a reflection of peace. This is a good reminder that change can come to all things, even things that feel impossible.  Consider Syria. While we are yet to see if the change is for the better, a cruel regime was toppled with seeming ease. Let us not forget, though, the decades of protest, with those protestors playing the penultimate price on many occasions. How easy is it to forget that every dissenter made a difference? We must also pay homage to the timing. A seemingly perfect set of circumstances, at the prices of the lives of many so far removed. Like Ukraine. If a body of water that has more power than most human-constructed things can move from violence to calm in days, then so can cultures.  For the body of water to do this, currents and winds from across the other side of the world make the difference, taking days or weeks to arrive. Weather forecasters do their best to read the signs. The signs are often there. The predicted timing is imperfect. Let us read the signs. They are there for all to see.  A deep and systemic global hollowing out of the middle and lower financial classes, a hollowing that has been designed and seeded decades ago. The global rise in the cost of living. No one individual government, which opposition governments like to claim. Rather, the structures of capital, corporations, political power, the rise of oligarchy, the monopolisation of all the dominant players of tech, media, mining, energy and pharmaceuticals.  Through a global cost of living crisis, the determined, resolute stirring of hate by the oligarchs and their puppet politicians - to keep people conquered and helpless, keep them divided.  A complete shunning of the urgency of addressing climate. Instead, the last gasp grab for money and power.  The relentless rise of authoritarianism and fascism - promoted as the solution to the problem of the ignored and hollowed-out people. Our cultural, geopolitical Pacific equivalent is a mess, not hospitable for humans. The polarity is peaking, reaching breaking point. But we are not done yet with pain and suffering. The finale will be brutal.  Only then, only after breaking people in the millions, billions, might the end of the perfect storm find a way to peace.  No, I am not optimistic about these next few years. What I am optimistic about is the ability of humans to rise through ashes. To topple the gold statue facsimiles of leadership, all glitter and greed.  I am also determined to have models, maps and tools forged through these current times that show a way through, out and forward. Where the sacredness of life is central to all. This is Syntropic World. https://lnkd.in/gQjRJh-k #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropic #beautyofbeginnings