Vi avskyr overvåkning, men vi legger igjen flere digitale spor enn noensinne, de fleste frivillige.

(Another Norwegian article, this time from Morgenbladet a week ago. It’s about surveillance vs. digital footsteeps we voluntarily leave behind).

Dagens mest romantiske mail mottatt: «Jeg hadde tenkt til å fri, men så var du ikke online på MSN.»

Denne oppdateringen kunne jeg lese i twitterstrømmen min nylig. Det er søtt og morsomt, men også absurd. Absurd fordi det er bruddstykker av svært privat informasjon, og jeg kjenner ikke personene som har skrevet dette.

I 2009 er det tilsynelatende ikke grenser for hva vi forteller resten av verden om oss selv (vel, noen grenser har vi, men mer om det senere). Det er spesielt interessant siden 9. november var 20-årsfeiringen for Berlinmurens fall og protestbevegelsen mot datalagringsdirektivet aldri har vært større.

Foto: Bente Kalsnes

Mens jeg sitter og skriver dette, kan jeg gå inn på iPhonen min og applikasjonen Tweetie 2, og få en oversikt over folk som kvitrer i mitt nabolag, helt ned på gatenavn og husnummer. Vel å merke har disse personene valgt å oppgi sine geografiske posisjoner til Tweetie. Det er ikke fritt for at jeg skvatt til da jeg skjønte omfanget av denne applikasjonen.

Og Facebook har skjønt at det er mulig å systematisere all den personlige informasjonen folk legger igjen i statusfeltet. På samme måte som Google har utviklet en influensaanalysator basert på folks søkevaner (Google Flu Trends), har Facebook utviklet en «Gross National Happiness Index», en BNP for humøret. Ved å analysere ordene folk bruker i statusfelt, kan Facebook måle hvor glade eller nedfor amerikanerne er (bare amerikanske Facebook-brukere blir analysert). Så langt har 31. oktober (halloween) og nasjonaldagen 4. juli vært blant høydepunktene i amerikanernes humørsyklus. 2. november, derimot, var en av årets nedturer. Hvorfor vet jeg ikke.

Jeg skulle gjerne likt å vite hva George Orwell, forfatteren av 1984, hadde tenkt om denne utviklingen. I 1949 skrev han om det komplette overvåkningssamfunnet, om Storebror og om fjernskjermer: «Fjernskjermen var samtidig mottager og sender. Den fanget opp enhver lyd som Winston laget hvis den var høyere enn lav hvisking, og så lenge han holdt seg innen det synsfeltet som metallplaten dekket, kunne han dessuten både bli sett og hørt.»

Det er selvfølgelig store forskjeller mellom den formen for overvåkning som Orwell skrev om, som østtyskerne opplevde bak Muren og som alle vi som er imot datalagringsdirektivet protesterer mot. Når Staten står bak «fjernskjermen», lytter til telefonsamtalen eller ser hvem som sender e-post til hvem, føles overgrepene brutale.

Når vi selv rapporterer via statusfeltene i sosiale nettverk vi befinner oss på, har vi tross alt et valg i forhold til hva vi inkluderer eller ikke. Vi gjør det av fri vilje, ikke plikt eller påbud. Vi opplever det som positivt å kunne dele personlig informasjon med kjente – og mange ukjente.

Og noen sperrer har vi, selv om grensene varierer enormt. Da jeg spurte mine venner om hva de ikke deler på sosiale nettverk, dukket nok en gang det vanskelige skillet mellom personlig versus privat opp.

Noen skriver ikke om ektefeller, barn og politikk, andre holdt seg unna «deppestoff». Private detaljer fra eget liv som involverer andre, var noe en venn styrte unna. Om bestemora var syk, så skrev han ikke om det på Twitter. Sykdom og sorg er tema som mange konsekvent ikke skriver om på sosiale nettverk. Heller ikke negative følelser, seksualitet og økonomi. En annen venn skriver aldri om sitt privatliv eller kjærlighetsforhold. Men hans politiske meninger får vi flust av.

Vi viser sporene våre og liker det. Enn så lenge.

Concluded

Sustainche today was surprised in receiving substantial help in fully understand Germany’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development. The Federal Government was handed over a report prepared by a team of international experts reviewing the present German National Strategy for Sustainable Development. Well, to make it short: The expert team does not consider the strategy to be a strategy, not to mention that they can’t recognize a comprehensive and cross-cutting vision for the future, which they deem necessary until the year 2050. Sustainche is not surprised to reading something as strong as this ! 

Sustainche fully agrees that the document For a Sustainable Germany is far away from what he personally would consider being a vision. A well-known vision is for example when United States President John F. Kennedy in 1961 announced that until the end of the decade Americans will walk on the moon and will safely return to Planet Earth … which – by the way – is perfect objective formulation.

For Polar Bear Sustainche a vision is more than a technical description of individual isolated pieces; it is rather a mosaic of nicely designed, comprehensive and cross-cutting objectives and full of positive energy and joy which makes people say: WOW, YES, we want to discover this unknown territory ! Sustainche is sure that if Christopher Columbus would just have told his comrades how to technically build a ship to cross the great ocean, they would have never ever arrived in America … which at that time they thought to be the Indies ! “If you want to realize a vision, you need to implant a GREAT wish deep in the heart ! Only than the entire universe will provide support”, Sustainche thinks and Aristotle would add: “The whole is more than the total of its individual pieces.” 

So, we return to joy and happiness … which seems to be a major problem in Germany … . Of course, we know that Polar Bear Sustainche has a very special understanding of happiness; this includes simply to ‘zivej’ … However, Sustainche knows that also some human mammals perceive that gross national happiness (GNH) is more appropriate than gross national product (GNP) to describe the quality of life. The term gross national happiness (GNH) was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization, soon after the demise of his father, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. It signaled his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. Gross national happiness is the unifying vision for Bhutan’s five-year planning process and all the derived planning documents that guide the economic and development plans of the country. While conventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH claims to be based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of gross national happiness (GNH) are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. “How nice !” Sustainche is happy  

Germany’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development does not know words like joy and happiness. This is although ‘quality of life’ is indeed mentioned ! However, what is understood as to be quality of life ? The indicator areas outlined are: Economic prosperity (gross domestic product per capita and growth – of course !), Mobility (Is it … ?), Farming (Bravo !), Air quality (Yes !), Health (Wow … hunting smokers !), Nutrition (Yeah !) and Crime (Burglaries in homes … hmmm … strange Germans; do they think that quality of life is improved if there arrives only one bandit per year in your home ?). “This is a rather technical perception, isn’t it”, Sustainche wonders. 

In a widely cited study, ‘A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge to Positive Psychology?’ by Adrian G. White of the University of Leicester in 2007, Bhutan ranked 8th out of 178 countries in Subjective Well-Being, a metric that has been used by many psychologists since 1997. In fact, it is the only country in the top 20 “happiest” countries that has a very low gross national product (GNP). 

By the way: “Happy” Germany is ranked 35th … “GNP” Germany is ranked 4th …

We live in a world of stories, facts and numbers. Numbers often drive politics even though many do not understand what those numbers mean. Numbers appear to be definite. One and one make two. Really? If you have two apples, that is one and one making two. What if one of the apples is rotten? Is it still two apples? What if one of the apples is smaller than a plum? Is it still two apples? What if one is a horse apple or an Adam’s apple? Numbers are simple only in theory.

Numbers also and often unfortunately drive ethical discussions: “the greatest good for the greatest number, etc.” One critical number in this society and many other is the Gross National Product. Often subjected to interpretation and re-interpretation depending on your policy view, this number is considered the measure of success for a society. That no one is exactly sure what it means or that we are often ambivalent as to whether or not money can buy happiness. We often yield to the tyranny of this number. Ethical thinking does not stop when confronted by a statistic. It is something of a wall to be climbed over but much thought has to overcome the complex and the mundane.

France has been confronting the question of how to measure the country’s prosperity, through Gross Domestic Product or the Happiness Index. Today, it was announced that GDP has won out over the other measure.

In 2007, the French Government commissioned American Economist, Joseph Stiglitz to develop economic measurements that included happiness and other quality of life measurements.

There have been modifications to the simple idea of GDP in the past. For instance the United Nations uses the Human Development Index which is based on measurements of life expectancy, education and standard of living.

Gross National Happiness measures sociological and psychological elements as well as economic ones to determine a nation’s success. It was expected that Stiglitz’s ideas would move French measurements in that direction. But it was not to be.

These days I realize that on my blog I’m sharing only common things, kind of unimportant and uninteresting; there are some other nice things that I’m keeping them only for myself, like the perfect egoist I am.

India. Big country! It is a pen island and even if it is surrounded by ocean, it has a lot of neighbours. And not every kind of neighbours; India has very interesting neighbours. My last discovery is Bhutan.

I make a research about this country and I found it very interesting:

• It is located on the eastern end of Himalaya Mountains,
• 75% of its territory is covered by forest,
• The main religion is Vajrayana Buddhism (75%), followed by Hinduism (24%),
• It has a guiding philosophy called Gross National Happiness (GNH) that is an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than gross national product,
• It is considered to be the happiest country in Asia and 8^th-happiest country in the world,
• It uses to be one of the most isolated nations in the world; the TV and Internet have been introduced in 1999.
• It doesn’t have any railway,
• India is helping them training their army, trying to build a railway, financial – 60% of Bhutan’s budget expenditure is financed by India’s Ministry of External Affairs,
• It is very inaccessible by many foreigners: if you want to travel in Bhutan you have to sign up with a tour operator and to pay a $200 fee/day; independent travel is not allowed in Bhutan.

If you want to read more about it here it goes:

The official website of the Kingdom of Bhutan.



The Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress has been created at the beginning of 2008 on French government’s initiative.

Increasing concerns have been raised since a long time about the adequacy of current measures of economic performance, in particular those based on GDP figures. Moreover, there are broader concerns about the relevance of these figures as measures of societal well-being, as well as measures of economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

Reflecting these concerns, President Sarkozy has decided to create this Commission, to look at the entire range of issues. Its aim is to identify the limits of GDP as an indicator of economic performance and social progress, to consider additional information required for the production of a more relevant picture, to discuss how to present this information in the most appropriate way, and to check the feasibility of measurement tools proposed by the Commission. Commission’s work is not focused on France, nor on developed countries. The output of the Commission will be made public, providing a template for every interested country or group of countries.

The Commission is chaired by Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University. Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, is Chair Adviser. Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE), is Coordinator of the Commission. Members of the Commission are renowned experts from universities, governmental and intergovernmental organisations, in several countries (USA, France, United Kingdom, India). Rapporteurs and secretariat are provided by the French national statistical institute (Insee), OFCE, and OECD.

The Commission held its first plenary meeting on 22 – 23 April 2008 in Paris. It published its final report mid september 2009.

http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm

]]> http://supportpolygamy.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/king-of-bhutan-are-you-happy/ Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:39:32 +0000 polygyny http://supportpolygamy.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/king-of-bhutan-are-you-happy/

“After they wrote that I had four wives, they couldn’t think of anything else bad to say.” – The King of Bhutan (now abdicated the throne to his son)

Bhutan is the only nation on earth that values the happiness of the nation more than money. Here The ex-King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, is pictured with his beautiful four wives:

The marriage of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to Ashi Dorji Wangmo, Ashi Tshering Pem, Ashi Tshering Yandon and Ashi Sangye Choden, all sisters, was to be held at a Buddhist temple in Punakha Dzong, the seat of the ancient capital of Bhutan (1988).

But the monarch claims he married his four queens — aged 23 to 28 — 9 years earlier, in 1979 but never announced it, for reasons not fully explained. Bhutanese officials, however, now claim his nine-year-old marriage was “private” but “known” inside his tiny mountainous country.

During those nine years, foreign visitors were always told the king was a bachelor.

The King modestly drives a Toyota, and the King’s four wives, all sisters, and all beautiful, each have their own license plates “ BHUTAN 4”, “ BHUTAN 5”, “ BHUTAN 6,” and BHUTAN 7”. The Head Abbot has “ BHUTAN 2” and the Crown Prince drives “ BHUTAN 3”.

Facebook just create a “Gross National Happiness” indicator thanks to the analysis of positive and negative words inside user’s status updates. Then, Facebook statisticians built charts like shown below to illustrate users’ daily mood.Find out more about this new Facebook analysis, here.

En analysant les mises à jour des statuts de ses membres, Facebook a réussi à créer un indice national de bonheur appelé « GNH » (Gross National Happiness). En agrégeant les mots à connotation positive et négative contenus dans les  statuts des utilisateurs, il est possible d’obtenir l’humeur générale du jour, explique Adam D.I Kramer, statisticien chez Facebook. Les données de cette étude ont été rendues publiques le 7 octobre 2009. On peut les observer sur ce graphique :

On remarquera que les utilisateurs sont sensibles aux fêtes nationales telles que le 4 juillet, fête nationale des Etats-Unis. Au contraire, parmi les jours les plus maussades, on retrouve le 22 janvier 2008, jour de l’effondrement du marché asiatique ainsi que du décès du jeune acteur Heath Ledger. Le 25 juin 2009, jour du décès de Michael Jackson arrive en seconde position. A en voir le graphique, le moral des américains est assez changeant. Attendons que Facebook se lance dans l’analyse de l’humeur d’autres nations. Les comparaisons seront très certainement intéressantes !

Sources : 01net.com, benefice-net.branchez-vous.com

The picture is showing a part of the Tigers nest Monastry in Bhutan. The country where the concept of Gross National Happiness was born.

One of the challenges of making the world more eco-friendly, and in taking steps to protect the environment, and even help slow global warming, is the great expense involved in many of the proposals around the globe for dealing with the Earth’s conservation issues.

One country that may be getting rewards in the form of funds from international environment organizations for protecting its forests and water is Bhutan.

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked nation in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and is bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by People’s Republic of China. Bhutan is separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by West Bengal. The Bhutanese call their country Druk Yul (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་) which means “Land of the Thunder Dragon“.

Bhutan used to be one of the most isolated nations in the world. Developments including direct international flights, the Internet, mobile phone networks, and cable television have increasingly modernized the urban areas of the country. Bhutan has balanced modernization with its ancient culture and traditions under the guiding philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Rampant destruction of the environment has been avoided. The government takes great measures to preserve the nation’s traditional culture, identity and the environment. In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, citing a global survey conducted by the University of Leicester in 2006 called the “World Map of Happiness”.

Inside Bhutan, officials are already warming up to the practicality of collecting funds from end users of environment resources like hydropower projects. The ultimate plan is to plough back the funds into the source of these resources, like watershed and bio-diversity, so that they become sustainable in the long run.

Under past policies, it was only through the clean development mechanism, which was essentially employment of clean technology to restrict emissions, under which countries could earn carbon points and thus the funding for its conservation efforts.  Carbon points were not given for preservation of environment or forests under the Kyoto protocol, said a food and agricultural organization (FAO) official, who is in Bhutan to study ‘payment for environment services’ (PES) with the ministry of agriculture’s watershed division. But that could very well change in the coming months.

“Bhutan’s strongest potential in getting carbon points is its existing forests because, in the upcoming climate change talks in Copenhagen, there will definitely be an international agreement to reward countries for protecting existing forests,” said FAO consultant and environmental scientist, Bernardete Vitorino Das Neves. This, she added, will be possible under REDD or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation framework supported by UNDP and UNEP.

The Copenhagen climate change meeting from December 6-18 will decide on the next set of targets for countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Kyoto protocol, which set the first emission reduction targets, will end shortly.

“The storage of carbon by the forests is a service in itself since, by not cutting down the trees, the country or the local farmers are losing out on timber and food crops,” said Bernardete Vitorino Das Neves.

Under the PES system, Bhutan could get funds from carbon trading for watershed management, conserving Bhutan’s forest and biodiversity and improving food security. PES views environment as provider of services like clean water, air, food, fuel, recreation, natural disaster protection, and hydropower. It is also of the opinion that there has to be some kind of voluntary payment made for environmental protection so that these services remain sustainable.

For instance, under PES, Tala and Chukha hydro projects can pay to protect their watershed areas so that there is less sedimentation, or people of Thimphu can pay to conserve their drinking water sources so that taps don’t run dry. However, the plan is that the entire PES plan be voluntary.

“Environmental services like fresh water are not free and also depend on watershed conservation of water sources by farmers living upstream and so, if the end users like hydro-projects and people can pay, then the farmers will get benefits and have an incentive to protect the source,” said chief forest officer, Karma Tshering. He added that donors funded most of Bhutan’s environmental programs, which was not sustainable in the long run.

Eco-tourism is another area whereby tourists can pay more for new trekking routes and improved services and infrastructure, and the money would go to preserving the environment under PES.

“An important component of eco tourism will be where local communities will be able to benefit for the eco services in ensuring better protection of the environment and also equitable distribution of the benefits of eco-tourism,” said FAO’s Bernardete Vitorino Das Neves.

Another area is biodiversity conservation, she said: “An example here is human-wildlife conflict whereby payments could be sued to compensate farmers or help them to come up with defenses so that wildlife remain protected and farmers can have a good income.”

–Robert L. Miller

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Facebook has started publishing a Gross National Happiness index based on the content of status updates.

The happiest time of year?

Thanksgiving.

If you like this sort of thing, in a similar manner, Google is trying to determine financial trends from their search data.

People leave Pittsburgh. They always have, although out here, in the Sunday Los Angeles Times, Andrew Bender tells us it’s a wonderful place:

Nonstop canapés on gold-rimmed porcelain cocktail plates at diplomatic soirees. After a while, they get to be just a bit of a yawn, don’t you find?

So I cheered at the announcement that the G-20 summit would take place this week in Pittsburgh. Anyone puzzled about why it was selected hasn’t been here recently. President Obama noted that Pittsburgh has “transformed itself from the city of steel to a center for high-tech innovation – including green technology, education and training, and research and development.”

But the rest of the item is about food – like those huge Italian sausage or pastrami sandwiches stuffed with a half a pound of sweet-and-sour coleslaw and then several layers of thick-cut French fries. It’s a Pittsburgh thing, but you know what they say – never eat anything bigger than your head. And such food might be an indication of widespread and quite deep existential despair. One of those sandwiches with an Iron City Beer, or three or four, indicates you believe there is no tomorrow, at least for you. There’s a fine line between good times and screw-it-all utter hopelessness. Such food can kill you. But you give the Gene Wilder response. When?

One alternative to screw-it-all utter hopelessness is, of course, to leave – in this case to leave the city that was once a hard-working steel town, the center of what built America in the early and middle twentieth century, but is now one third the size it once was, and filled with the old, the remains of those times, and some yuppies doing high-tech in the corners. Go some place where people are neither walking around emptied of everything nor driven to make something, anything, of what’s left, and where one can savor life, tastefully of course.

Paris will do nicely – Gertrude Stein was born in Pittsburgh, grew up in Oakland, but ended up in Paris. Andy Warhol grew up in Pittsburgh, did his best work in the Village, but had his fancy flat on the Left Bank, on rue du Cherche-Midi. Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant got out too – ending up out here pretending a sound stage in Culver City was Paris. At least it wasn’t Pittsburgh.

Place matters. As a general rule it’s best to end up where things feel right, where you feel happy. It’s not the weather or the food or the view from your window, or the traffic. It’s just the feel of the place. Thoreau had his pond. Doctor Johnson had his London. Hemingway had his Paris, his moveable feast. No one thinks of Pittsburgh like that.

The question is where to go. Where can you be happy?

Well, in July 2006, the University of Leicester produced the first-ever World Map of Happiness – no kidding.

That was discussed in these pages at the time, and of course the issue was how you measure happiness, as the study was rather conventional:

Further analysis showed that a nation’s level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).

The three predictor variables of health, wealth and education were also very closely associated with each other, illustrating the interdependence of these factors.

And there was this curious tidbit:

There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.

So cut-throat winner-take-all screw-everyone-else capitalism was pretty good – it led to fine healthcare and high productivity and lots of schools for everyone. But oddly, Americans weren’t the happiest folks, nor America the Happiest Place on Earth, save for Disney’s few acres in Anaheim. Denmark was, followed, in order, by Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, The Bahamas, Finland, Sweden, Bhutan, Brunei and Canada. That was the top ten. The United States came in at 23 on the list, Germany at 35, the UK at 41, France at 62, and Russia at 167 – so the economic system, and its cultural and religious underpinnings, didn’t seem to matter that much. Bhutan – at the eastern end of the Himalayas between India and China and next to Nepal, and rather obscure – made the top ten. Would you be happy there?

No, you’re an American. And you don’t believe that our form of capitalism leads to unhappy people, in spite of that low happiness ranking and Michael Moore’s new movie. You believe in rugged individualism and personal responsibility – you make on your own and get to keep what you made by your own efforts. That’s freedom in America – you can be just what you want to be, and no one can take your stuff. And you’re one of those neo-Calvinist evangelical Christians – having lots of stuff is a sign that God likes you, and those who have little are those God finds tiresome. That’s a moral law. And that’s where real happiness is – total self-sufficiency.

If so, it would be wise to ignore the latest paper of the Netherlands, in NRC Handelsblad International:

Moral laws were not invented by religions but taken over by them, after they had evolved for social animals, including man. These rules promote teamwork and mutual support within a social group. They act as a social contract imposing many restrictions on the individual.

Darwin’s moral psychology (1859), consequently, was not based on an egotistical competition between individuals but on social involvement within the group. During the course of evolution, the benefit of helping each other developed from the loving care exhibited by parents towards their offspring. This was then expanded to apply to others of their kind according to the principle: do unto others, as you would have others do unto you. At a certain moment sympathizing with the other became a goal in itself. Finally, this product of millions of years of evolution turned into a cornerstone of human morality that was recently, a couple of thousand years ago, incorporated in religions. It is thus rather cynical to ascertain that having a common enemy is the strongest stimulus for community spirit, a mechanism that many world leaders have exploited.

Okay, you simply won’t believe that teamwork and mutual support define who we are, and predate religion. If you believed any such thing you’d be in favor of a single-payer healthcare system, one that got rid of our for-profit insurance system and replaced it with something where everyone chipped in and everyone got medical care, with the government paying the private providers, or taking things one step beyond that, socialized medicine, where the government of the people operated clinics and hospitals and pharmacies for and by the people. Nope, you’re happy with a system where you get what you pay for, even if you have to fight your insurance company for every little thing, or you do without. The survey said the Danes were the happiest folks. What do they know?

Such questions will of course make the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh interesting. In the last two year the world’s economy has come close to collapse and the question now is how to manage some sort of recovery, and how to do what can be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Do we all agree to unleash totally unregulated free-market capitalism and have Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand do its thing, with pure, individual greed and no rules weeding things out and providing the greatest good for the greatest number at the lowest cost, due to competitive forces? That might mean explosive growth, and certainly another big crash. Would that be worth it? Or do we develop lots of new rules to keep things from spinning out of control, and international rules at that? That might mean little or no growth, but would provide some safety.

And underlying it all is an even more basic question. Is it true that having lots of stuff really makes people happy? Should we rethink this? If we get each nation’s GDP goosed up to some incredibly high level, and everyone can afford an SUV and a second home, what have we accomplished? Governments exist to provide for the security and well-being of their people. But what would provide something like happiness? And how do we arrange things so some level of happiness is possible? That’s pretty basic.

So, Pittsburgh is getting ready for the summit:

In addition to many businesses, the city’s public and Catholic schools will be closed along with most city, state and federal offices, cultural centers like the Carnegie museums, many bank branches, and most colleges and universities in the area.

But if President Barack Obama spills food on his tie, Macy’s says its downtown department store will be open to sell him a new one.

Amtrak trains will pass through Pittsburgh, but passengers will be allowed only transfer to other trains; no boarding or disembarking here. Greyhound, the bus company, is temporarily moving its city operations to McKeesport, about 10 miles away.

Commuting uncertainty, fear of protests like those that rocked April’s G-20 in London and fear of the unknown are all fueling the momentum to stay away, said Robert Arnoni, president and CEO of Specialized Security Response Inc., based in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

At the meeting in London, anti-capitalist demonstrators tried to storm a bank; one man died from internal bleeding after he was pushed to the ground by an officer when he was caught up in demonstrations near another bank.

It’s odd. People take these questions very seriously. And, thinking of Stein and Warhol and the rest, this is amusing – Sarkozy Wants Happiness Used as Economic Indicator.

No, he’s not kidding:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked world leaders to join a “revolution” in the measurement of economic progress by dropping their obsession with gross domestic product to account for factors such as health-care availability and leisure time.

In a speech on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Sarkozy said the financial crisis has shown the need for a better way of calculating a country’s economic health.

His own country, known for its leisurely meals, long vacations and labor protections, could outshine more profit-focused economies if nations act on new recommendations in a report headed by two Nobel economists commissioned 18 months ago.

Sarkozy will bring up that report in unhappy Pittsburgh – there are all sorts of things you can look at when making policy. It’s time to think about that. Henri Guaino, a special advisor to Sarkozy, gave the Associated Press a heads-up. It’s on the agenda.

But of course no economist wants to rethink GDP and come up with a new statistical index, and such talk makes other world leaders queasy. Things are dicey enough as they are, without this nonsense.

But Sarkozy is up for it:

“A great revolution is waiting for us,” Sarkozy said. “For years, people said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth, only to discover one day that it accumulated so many risks that the world almost plunged into chaos.”

“The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future – another world. It obliges us to do so,” he said.

So he has his report from the two Nobel economists – look at household income, consumption and wealth, not national production. You want to track actual material living standards, and even non-market activities like house-cleaning. And pay attention to the distribution of income and wealth, and access to education and health. And you might want to track whether countries are over-consuming their economic wealth and damaging the environment and so on. This GDP thing is useless.

But you need to consider the source:

U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel economics prize and a critic of free-market economists, co-authored the report. “GDP is an attempt to measure one part of what is going on in our society which is market production. It is what I call GDP fetishism to think success in that part is success for the economy and for society,” he said.

Advising Stiglitz was Armatya Sen of India, who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for work on developing countries, and helped create the U.N. Human Development Index, a yearly welfare indicator designed to gear international policy decisions to take account of health and living standards.

Stiglitz said France’s ranking would rise in comparison to the U.S. because of better access to health care and because it has a lower percentage of people in jail. Active prison business boosts GDP figures but isn’t a sign of economic health, he said.

The new system would also credit leisure time – which France has a lot of, he said.

The item goes on to cite other economists saying they get the point, but it’s hard to see how they could replace GDP – governments need to make decisions on how to allocate resources, and the GDP index has worked well enough.

But this is nothing new. From the New York Times, October 2005, there’s this:

What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money.

Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or GDP, is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation.

But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea.

In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan’s newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation’s priority not its GDP but its GNH, or gross national happiness.

Bhutan, the king said, needed to ensure that prosperity was shared across society and that it was balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment and maintaining a responsive government. The king, now 49, has been instituting policies aimed at accomplishing these goals.

Now Bhutan’s example, while still a work in progress, is serving as a catalyst for far broader discussions of national well-being.

And there were discussions:

The founding fathers, said John Ralston Saul, a Canadian political philosopher, defined happiness as a balance of individual and community interests. “The Enlightenment theory of happiness was an expression of public good or the public welfare, of the contentment of the people,” Mr. Saul said. And, he added, this could not be further from “the 20th-century idea that you should smile because you’re at Disneyland.”

For more of the discussions, read on. There’s lots of fascinating detail. And now Sarkozy will bring Bhutan to Pittsburgh, so to speak.

Joshua Keating comments:

Skeptics can (and will) look at this new innovation as a ploy for France to “juke the stats,” since its short workweek and social benefits look a lot more impressive than its GDP growth. That aside, the transformation of Sarkozy’s economic message has been pretty astounding. The president came to power promising privatization and economic modernization and was lambasted by French left-wingers for his attachment to “Anglo-Saxon” economic models. But since the economic crisis (and his own popularity crisis) he’s made a habit of attacking the Anglo-Saxons for their free-market orthodoxy and consulting with market-skeptics Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz on new economic indicators.

Where have you gone, Sarko l’Américain?

Ah, he rejoined the human race. But we’ll fed him one of those one of those four-pound killer sandwiches, and have him down a few Iron City beers, and he’ll get back in touch with his innate existential despair. We are talking Pittsburgh here.

What is more important, being wealth or being happy?

Some people who think that happiness really matters break the future through by proposing indicator measuring national prosperity, namely Gross National Happiness.

The idea is very interesting.

Conventionally, nations throughout the world measure their prosperity by using Gross National Product. This indicator use input and output of the national product to generate the index. However, the approach used sometimes does not represent the distribution of prosperity among their people. Moreover, GNP merely take insight of the real conditions partially.

GNH, on the other hand, measure the conditions of the nations from 9 perspectives:
1. Time use
2. Living standards
3. Good governance
4. Psychological Wellbeing
5. Community Vitality
6. Culture
7. Health
8. Education
9. Ecology

It is expected that by using more holistic approaches, the index represents the real conditions.

What about the distribution of prosperity?

It turns out that policies are oriented to the indicator.*Just know this one. It can be concluded that policies are made to raise the index. According to Pareto, 80% of economy is determined by 20% population. Thus, sometimes policies focus to facilitate this 20% population. The big deal is the 20% population has a different, even antagonistic, needs with the rest of population. For example, monetary policies are often made to stabilize stock market or hold exchange rate which do not give a direct impact to, says, farmers.

By deploying GNH, happiness for all is guaranteed since the policies are designed to raise the quality of life from 9 approaches. In this state, everybody is taken care of. There is no Pareto Laws exist here because everybody has mutual contribution to the index.

What about Indonesia? Government says that they are doing their best yet lots of people are still frustrated here. Perhaps we have chosen the wrong indicator?

I don't want to be a flag , damn you!

OK , here’s a predicament from hell, the Bhutan government want their citizens to stop cutting down the friggin trees to make their prayer flags, but the Buddhists say no, because if they do, the dearly departed could be in all sorts of trouble in the afterlife. Evidently the prayer flags are designed to catch the wind and then carry positive vibrations, along with the dead spirit, to the afterlife (or something along that lines!). Each dead person requires about 108 flags. Anywho, the Bhutan government’s constitution emphasizes that “Gross National Happiness” is more important then “Gross domestic Product” so they are desperately trying to find an acceptable alternative because, if the Himalayan Buddhist continue their traditional ways, there will be no friggin forests for anyone’s life here or over there.  Steel substitute poles were given the big flick, as was the recycling of prayer flags. Seems re-used poles can be seen as a lazy assed effort by the living and thus could compromise the dead person’s journey! The government have their fingers crossed that the monks will be happy with a bamboo substitute.

Psst Between 2007 and 2008 over 60,000 trees were felled in Bhutan to make the poles.

illustration: Harry Campbell/NYT

On the occasion of the Labor Day break here in the U.S. (and, with apologies, a week late for the Bank Holidays elsewhere), a golden oldie:  Andrew Revkin’s 2005 New York Times article on the difference between GNP, Gross National Product, and “GNH”– Gross National Happiness.

We might recall that the vantage from which he was reporting was the climb to the market peak in late 07– indices at record highs and rising; GNP/GDP growing at at roughly twice the rate they had in the mid-90s– an intoxicating ascent that carried Consumer Confidence up with it.   Since then, of course, what turned out to be a bubble has burst.  So we might wonder what the chart that Revkin included with his piece (below) might look like if it were brought current to today.

It’s become a cliche to observe that “you get what you measure.”  But surely the more appropriate construction is “what you measure is all that you get– if that.”  And we were paying attention to too narrow a set of indicators, Revkin suggested (even in the halcyon days of 2005).

The work on defining “Gross National Happiness” continues:  you can see the proceedings of the Fourth (2008) GNH Conference, or attend the Ninth Conference this October.  And you can contemplate other efforts to “internalize externalities,” like the Genuine Progress Index.

But whatever our feelings about one set of metrics or another, it might be useful to ponder, on our extra day of rest, just what it is that we want to work for when we head back to the trenches on Tuesday…

Suzanna Shubeck took a leap and volunteered for an organization in Bhutan. That experience inspired her to start an art program called Brushes for Bhutan. I am lucky to have a transcript of our conversation. Check out our interview on Energy Talk Radio to hear the field recordings she made on her trip.

Introduction:

Today we’ll be speaking with Suzanna Shubeck, artist, designer and volunteer who recently traveled to Bhutan. This trip inspired her to found an organization, called Brushes for Bhutan, whose mission is to develop a program that brings arts education to high school students in this remote Himalayan kingdom.

FD: Bhutan is a country that few people have even heard of. How did you end up visiting Bhutan in the first place?

SS: I traveled to Bhutan as a volunteer with the Youth Development Fund, a non-governmental organization that provides financial support for development activities like vocational training, advocacy, research and education for young people. Over the course of a year, I worked with YDF to develop their marketing and outreach materials, to put a more professional polish on their existing collateral. We’re currently still working together to add more features to their web site and implement an online donation function, which isn’t as easy at it sounds given Bhutan’s very provincial banking system. Most of the work I was able to do remotely from my home in San Francisco. But ultimately, they asked me to come for a couple of weeks and train their staff in desktop publishing and design. The timing of my visit was actually very fortuitous, as it coincided with the Coronation of the 5^th King. It was a historic, once-in-a-lifetime event.

FD: What kind of tourist visits Bhutan? What’s the draw?

SS: Mostly people – people of some means — who have an affinity for Buddhism. Bhutan is a very expensive destination because there are few flights into the country (there’s only one airport), and the government sets a tourism tariff for all visitors. This practically eliminates a tier of travelers who mostly backpack or look for budget accommodations.

Click here to see more of Suzanna Shubeck’s Travel Photos

But I think the draw is this pristine location with breathtaking scenery in the eastern Himalayas. There are hundreds of monasteries dotting the country, and most cultural tourism centers around their religious festivals, or tsechus, to witness the masked dances. These aren’t cultural shows put on for tourists; they are very ancient rituals that go back centuries. Because of its location in the eastern Himalayas, Bhutan also appeals to people who enjoy trekking. Despite it being a mountainous country, there’s almost no mountaineering that I know of. The Bhutanese regard their mountains as sacred, the abode of gods and goddesses. Some peaks have never been surveyed and some are yet unnamed.

FD: How did your path toward philanthropy begin?

SS: About 8 years ago, I got involved in a competition to build a web site for a non-profit organization. I was tasked to assemble a team that would build a site – in one day – for an organization in need. The event, Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR), is sponsored by TechSoup, an organization that helps non-profits with their technology needs.  To be honest, my motive wasn’t 100% altruistic. I had just started a small design company and I was looking for ways to get my company name out there. Our team was paired with AXIS Dance Company, an integrated dance company based in Oakland, California, whose dancers are in wheelchairs, or use prosthetic limbs.  It was a very rewarding experience for me to know our team helped this organization establish a better online presence and reach more donors and audience members. It meant so much to them, and yet it was such a simple thing to do  — for us, because we do this for a living — that I realized I didn’t have to donate big bucks to make a difference. I had other ways to contribute to my community.

But the real motivator happened when my husband and I took a trip to Cambodia not too long ago. I had this lifelong dream of wanting to see Angkor Wat, which is one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences like going to Macchu Picchu or The Great Wall. One one hand, I was finally getting to see the world’s largest religious monument, and on the other for the life-affirming experience of knowing the Cambodian people. Despite the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in the 70s, when thousands & thousands of people were massacred, the Cambodian people were so warm and open to foreign travelers and showed a tremendous resilience in the face of such unrelenting poverty.

Click here to see more of travel pictures of Bhutan.

We found a guide for a few days, and one day he took us to the Killing Fields in Siem Reap. On the grounds is a school, Wat Thmei, which takes in HIV positive children, either orphaned or abandoned by their parents, and provides them with food, housing, and an education. I was so moved by their energy that I really wanted to go back and get involved. When I returned to the States, I was looking for a Cambodian NGO to volunteer with, but most of the organizations I encountered offered tourism mixed with a little charitable work, or else they needed someone with more desirable skills, like nurses or doctors. I’m a graphic designer. What could I possibly have to offer? So I gave up. I remember looking up the heavens and saying to no one in particular, “Well, I’m here. If you need me for anything, let me know.”  Then, exactly one week to the day, I found a post on an online networking group I belong to looking for a graphic designer to travel to Bhutan and help this youth organization develop their marketing materials.

FD: What was your first impression of Bhutan?

SS: Bhutan is a very small county about the size or Indiana, or Switzerland, and wedged between Tibet and India. It has a population under 700,000, just slightly less than San Francisco. Bhutan is almost completely mountainous, and as a result, only has one valley large enough to land an airplane. It still remains unspoiled. You won’t find MacDonald’s there. Or Starbucks. There aren’t even any traffic lights in the capital of Thimphu. They still use a white-gloved police officer to direct cars on the main street. I believe they did install one traffic signal in the recent past, but people complained it was too impersonal so they reinstated the traffic cop. Bhutan, as a travel destination, receives very few visitors. The Royal Government of Bhutan keeps tourism very controlled. You cannot travel freely but only as part of a package tour with an approved tour operator.  Bhutan had only recently (and by “recently” I mean the 20^th century) introduced the trappings of the modern world. The first roads were built in the 1960s. Formerly all travel was on foot or on horseback. And television was introduced in 1999.

FD: It seems very isolated from the rest of the world.

SS: Actually, it appears that way to an outsider looking in, but modern Bhutanese are quite connected to the world. Many have traveled or studied abroad, and they are quite topical and up-to-date. They know as much about western pop culture as we do. And they’re crazy about Oprah. However, that only represents a small percentage of the Bhutanese population. Much of the kingdom is very rural, practices subsistence farming, and has a per capita income of $2000/year. I believe it’s one of the higher per capita incomes of Southeast Asia, thanks in part to their philosophy of Gross National Happiness.

FD: Tell us about Gross National Happiness.

SS: Gross National Happiness, or GNH, is Bhutan’s attempt to define prosperity by measuring the actual well-being and quality of life of its people rather than their consumption. The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who was responsible for opening up Bhutan to modernization. The concept of GNH is based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual growth occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. This is an idea that is being noted in some policymaking circles. We’ve been misguided in assuming people are better off simply because they’re buying more cars and flat-panel TVs.

FD: Bhutan is a Buddhist country, correct?

SS: It is, and deeply so. Buddhism is a state-supported religion and it permeates every aspect of daily life. Religious monuments, prayer wheels, prayer flags, and sacred mantras carved in stone hillsides are prevalent. When I was there, I stayed with a Canadian social worker in her village, a place called Langjo Pakha about 2 km north of Thimphu.  Her neighbor’s wife had recently passed away, and every day, monks and lamas would come to the house in the morning and chant from the Tibetan Book of the Dead as part of the funeral puja, or ritual. A funeral puja lasts 49 days. So every day, I would wake up to the sounds of monks chanting from behind the shared wall between the flats. It was magical.

FD: I understand you recorded some of this?

SS: I did! We visited her neighbor to pay our respects, and I politely asked the attending lama if I could take a field recording. They were very happy to let me do so, and I felt tremendously honored to have the privilege.

FD: Let’s play a piece of this recording, a funeral chant from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

(Soundbite of music : puja.mp3)

FD: My guest is artist, designer and volunteer Suzanna Shubeck. Her project, Brushes for Bhutan, will establish a pilot program in Arts Education in this tiny Himalayan kingdom. We’ll talk more after our break.

(Soundbite of music)

FD: If you’re just joining up, my guest is artist, designer and volunteer Suzanna Shubeck. Her project, Brushes for Bhutan, will establish a pilot program in Arts Education in this tiny Himalayan kingdom. Suzanna, tell us about the program, Brushes for Bhutan. How did this project come about?

SS: After I left Bhutan, I stayed in contact with my social worker friend, who is now teaching for a year at a secondary school. I wanted to send her a care package, stuff you can’t easily find in Bhutan, like antibiotic ointment and peanut butter, and asked her if she needed anything for her classroom. When I asked what she needed, she wrote back: “Anything and everything.” Her classroom had two dried up markers. That was it! How sad is that? I remember being in school and thinking how going to the art room was a reward for good behavior and good grades and how important art was to my development. These kids have none of that. I have a lot of artist friends, and I thought we could pool together our unused art supplies and send them to her students. I couldn’t stop thinking about her students, and how could I affect some change and then it hit me: why not send them an art teacher.  So I wrote a proposal to the school principal at her school, the Yoezerling Higher Secondary School, and offered my services. He was thrilled, but regrettably, the Ministry of Education would not be able to fund my program in its entirety, so I started a website called BrushesforBhutan.org, that describes the program in greater depth and accepts Paypal donations. The goal is to make $15,000 by the beginning of the 2010 school term in March, which would cover a travel expenses to Bhutan, teacher salary for a year, and student supplies. We’ve met 10% of our goal thus far, so we still have quite a bit to go.

FD: Why is art education so important?

SS: Art helps students see better, learn from their mistakes, envision what’s possible, and make critical judgments. Students who participate in arts programs do better in other courses, and an art education provides a well-rounded, engaging learning environment that encourages creative thinking, visual and verbal communication skills, and problem solving.  These are all transferable skills that they will use in the future, as employable adults.

FD: Do schools in Bhutan offer arts education?

SS: Bhutan has a very rich tradition in the arts, but it’s not art as we perceive it in the western sense of the word, meaning observation of the world, or self-expression. Almost all art representation, be it in art, music or dance, is a dramatization of the Buddha’s teachings, of interpreting values. In Bhutan, art is religious, and it is anonymous. There are strict iconographic conventions that are scrupulously observed, but there’s still some room for individual style, be it in the way an artists shades his subject or illustrates a background.

Most young people who purse the arts seem to do so outside of school, as an apprentice to a master. There are 13 traditional arts & crafts, in Bhutan. They are carpentry, masonry, carving, painting, sculpture, casting, blacksmithing, gold & silversmithing, basketry, weaving, woodturning, and papermaking.

Not to disparage Eastern arts as whole, but it’s a tradition of accurately copying what came before, not of creative thinking. The goal of BrushesforBhutan, therefore, is not to impinge on their traditional arts or to produce artists in the Western sense, but to encourage and promote creative, critical thinkers through teaching creative arts.  In addition to classes and workshops art basics, students will explore more modern methods using computer technology in real-world examples. This creates a new sector of employable youth with hands-on computer skills.

I had a conversation with a visiting British sanitation engineer, and he told me of the challenges involved getting clean water to people and reducing disease, and what was lacking was not infrastructure, but communication. “We need more PSAs and posters,” he said.

Bhutan is a tabula rasa whose future is in the hands of their young people.  I’d like to see them get a chance to embrace technology in a positive, holistic way that preserves their unique country & culture.

FD: How can we find out more about Brushes for Bhutan?

SS: You can visit our web site, BrushesforBhutan, where you’ll find more information about the program, what our goals are, and of course, we hope your listeners appreciate the worth of this endeavor and want to make a donation.

The Sloth Club
established in 1999

6-15-2-912  Ojima, Koto-ku, Tokyo 136-0072
03-3638-0534(tel/fax)
info@sloth.gr.jp

There have been many global campaigns to ‘Save the Whales’ or ‘Save the Elephants’, but the core of the Sloth Club concept is to actually ‘become’ a sloth. The aim is to emulate some of the basic behaviors of the sloth in order to find a way to live in harmony with the earth.

So what does it mean to be ’sloth’? Is a sloth lazy and dirty? Is a sloth stupid and slow? Ask yourself the question: Is a sloth really sloth-like? You may be truly surprised to find out how they live.

We now realize that most humans (especially in rich countries) are usually busy living in ways that destroy the planet – we want to promote the concept of ‘doing’ less, living simply, minimising our destructive impact and finding joy in our life without consuming an endless stream of meaningless things. The three-toed Sloth may be our greatest teacher in how to do this. It is also one of the animals that cannot live without the native forest. Maybe the best way to save the Sloth is to become sloth-like. Shift from the culture of ‘more, faster and tougher’ to that of ‘less, slower and non-violent’.

What are the goals of The Sloth Club?

- ENVIRONMENTAL: To help preserve the natural environment and prevent further destruction by changing our lifestyles.  To this end, we hold events, create original publications, and support campaigns.
- CULTURAL: Provide ways for Japanese and other people to lead a life of symbiosis with the natural environment.
-SLOW BUSINESS: Support local economies through fair trade, sustainable business practices, and eco-entrepreneurship in Japan.

Here are some of the concrete ways we are trying to achieve these goals:

1 Slow Lifestyle Movement

One of the examples of our lifestyle movement is Hachidori (Hummingbird) Campaign which was inspired by a story told to us by the mayor of Cotocachi, Ecuador.  A traditional tale of doing our best for the greater good, we disseminated this story throughout Japan with a bilingual book.  We’ve also established an educational website where people can learn about the environmental impacts of their everyday lives, and get motivated to make simple yet effective changes by signing the Hachidori Pledge.

We also believe ‘slow’ means reconnecting with each other. The Sloth Club creates various events and programs that enable people to “practice slowing-down” and in the process, discover a more enjoyable life.  For example, we began a “Voluntary Blackout” in 2001, which has since grown into a nationwide event called Candle Night Summer Solstice.  The slogan is “Turn off the Lights and Take it Slow.”   Worldwide Candle Night efforts are now coordinated on the bilingual website  HYPERLINK “http://www.candle-night.org” www.candle-night.org.

2  Slow is Peace

We consider the foundation of the slow life is war resistance, and therefore we often participate in movements for peace.  For example, we support Article 9, Japan’s Peace Constitution, and initiated “9 Lovers,” a support group for Article 9, which published “Sowing 9,” a book about Japan’s Article 9 youth activism.
We also believe that given Japan’s history and geography, nuclear power is not a slow energy solution.   We are active participants in the campaign against the nuclear reprocessing plant at Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture and other nuclear power plants in Japan such as Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in Shizuoka.

3  Establishment of Sloth Fund for Environmental Preservation

Dues from Sloth Club members go towards a Sloth Fund that supports forest preservation worldwide, with a special focus on sloth preserves and rainforest.  We also support movements by indigenous people to preserve their forests.  Since Japanese citizens are often not aware of the role of Japanese corporations in other countries, we support cultural interaction and events that link Japan with indigenous people from around the world.

(Inspired by agroforestry efforts in Ecuador, The Sloth Club participates in the Fair Trade of organic coffee and handicrafts (especially from Ecuador) as alternative to copper mining in those areas. One of the active members of the Sloth Club, Aya Wada, is the director of Kurikindi, an organic permaculture farm in Cotacachi, Ecuador.

4  Planning and support of Slow Business

Recently, public attention has focused on the possibility of business to contribute to solving environmental problems.  We are dedicated to nurturing those business, and promoting the principles of Slow Business, which include fair trade, zero waste,
Slow Business cares about land, people, and life, not just profits.  We also believe in the importance of creating jobs whose principles align with ourselves.  We are a partner with the Slow Business School, a conglomeration of Japanese entrepreneurs who are dedicated to increasing the number of Slow Businesses in Japan, and nurturing the next generation of slow businessmen and women.

Four companies have been formed so far by Sloth Club members, inspired by the ideals of Slow Business.  They now maintain a partnership relationship with the Sloth Club, and donate 1% of yearly profits to its activities.

5 Localism/Slow Places

Namake is an alternative currency created by the Sloth Club in autumn 2002.  The actual bills are made from recycled waste and sustainably harvested tagua nuts from Ecuador.  So as we use this alternative currency, we are simultaneously supporting Fair Trade.

The Sloth Club is also the organizer of Slow Tours to countries like Bhutan, Ecuador, and Australia.  Our tours include visits to indigenous communities to support reforestation projects, eco-village tours, and other places that ordinary tours do not go. Our goal is to encourage participants to bring what they have learned overseas, into their daily lives here in Japan.

©istockphoto.com —Christine Gehrig

Early in 2007, when I first started my business website, the name “happy tapping” popped into my mind upon waking one morning and I felt good about it immediately. Without analyzing it, I knew these two words went together and summarized what tapping does for me.

Recently I came across this quote by Beverly Hutchinson McNeff:
“A Course in Miracles says, “God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.”…. Evidently, the country of Bhutan in the Himalayas thinks it is, for they measure Gross National Happiness (GNH) instead of Gross National Product (GNP).”

Wow! Did I resonate with that! It’s exactly why I liked the name “Happy Tapping” for my website. Even though I may tap because I want to get rid of a pain, negative emotion or even change some aspect of my life, the real reason I tap is to feel good again from the inside out. My Gross National Happiness is definitely greater than before I started tapping!

Have you ever heard someone say after recovering from an injury, trauma or illness, “I’m feeling like myself again”? You know they mean they are experiencing a form of happiness or contentment with being themselves. The “suffering” part has dissolved or been greatly reduced. A healing has occurred.

Think about it. Isn’t that why you take an action to relieve physical pain, an emotional upset or a life problem? You are unhappy with the way you are feeling in some aspect of your life. Aren’t you trying to get back to feeling content and peaceful? You want to feel like “yourself” again and the sooner the better.

The Dalai Lama says that it’s our nature to be happy.

As I began tapping in 2002, more and more of the negative remnants (aches and pains, anxieties and stresses) held in my body and mind (conscious and unconscious) dissolved. It wasn’t long before I was feeling a contentment that I could only describe as happiness.

I also noticed it had little to do with my outer world. In fact, much of it was the same. Something had shifted within me and that was affecting my relationship to the world around me.

It was only later that I realized that my outer world was slowly but surely changing also. It just took some time for this change to show up.

You and I have been taught to project the cause of our unhappiness outside of our selves. “If only, this (situation or problem) would change or go away, I would be happy.”

With the insights available for you and I, as quantum physics and spirituality merge, it’s getting easier to shift our focus to work on problem solving from the inside out, rather than the other way around.

I like to remind myself, “It’s all an inside job.”

So, when those physical or emotional symptoms start showing up and getting your attention, remind yourself that they are just the messengers come to show you that you are moving away from your true nature of being happy to be yourself. A few rounds of tapping can often bring relief and you soon forget that you even had a problem.

In this way, the second half of the setup phrase, “ I totally love and accept myself”, takes on new meaning. Loving and accepting ourselves is it’s own form of happiness. Tapping into it is a welcome experience.

I want to hear from you what you have noticed about how your life experience is different as a result of tapping. I love hearing the stories of success with specific problems and I’m also curious if you are noticing some beneficial “side effects” as well.

Happy Tapping,
Nancy
nancy@happytapping.net

In Nepal tutto fila come previsto e con grandi difficoltà. Il governo s’allarga a dismisura per accogliere membri dei diversi gruppi di potere, i partiti si sfaldano per accaparrarsi posti (specie il Madhesi Janadhikar Forum e l’UML), i maoisti bloccano la capitale con continui chakka jam. Qua mancano veline, cantanti e regali da nababbi ma i sudditi sono comunque dimenticati. Una decina di giorni ed è già marasma, come ai vecchi tempi. La gente inizia ad essere stanca di tutto questo casino, degli scioperi che bloccano movimenti, lavoro, commerci. A Banepa, pochi chilometri da Kathmandu, nel distretto di Kavre centinaia di persone hanno attaccato la sede dei maoisti, cercato i forzare i blocchi degli stessi, sono scoppiati disordini ed è stato imposto il coprifuoco. Lo stesso sembra avvenire in altri distretti.

Da Patan è partito l’immenso carro di Rato Machendranth, Controllore delle Acque e del Monsone (già arrivato). E’ una divinità Newari (gli originali abitanti della Valle) venerata sia dai fedeli del buddhismo che dell’hinduismo tantrico da loro sempre praticato. Una forma di Shiva e del Boddhisattva Avalokitesvara che deve essere propiziato per assicurare il regolare ciclo della natura.

Questo è quanto accade nella capitale; poi incontro Bernard, ormai un freakkettone sessantenne, che conobbi a Kathmandu all’inizio degli anni ’80. Lì viveva al mitico Kampo Hotel, una stamberga essenziale molto cool in quegli anni. Non c’era niente (servizi, acqua) ma era a pochi passi dalla Piazza in quella che un tempo era chiamata Cake Street, per i numerosi negozi di torte e costava quasi niente. Lì come tanti altri viveva da anni (arrivò in Nepal con le prime migrazioni di hippy nella metà degli anni ’70) trasferendosi durante il monsone a Goa, Cochin ed altri posti sull’oceano indiano. Aveva, come molti, una piccola rendita che arrotondava dipingendo belle cartoline. Per aumentare i guadagni (allora investiti in ganja), utilizzando le sue capacità artistiche, si specializzò nella falsificazione dei visti nepalesi, uno dei servizi più richiesti per il limite di 5 mesi da sempre posto ai turisti. Un bel giorno gli astuti nepalesi hanno cambiato, senza avvertirlo, il colore dello stick del visto che s’appone sul passaporto ed è finito in gattabuia, insieme a qualche cliente.I nepalesi gli apposero un bel timbro nero sul passaporto e per cinque anni dimenticò l’Himalaya nepalese e si spostò su quella indiana. Grande viaggiatore e coltivatore d’amicizie nel tempo divenne esperto di piante medicinali, riuscì a trovare un lavoro nel proibito Bhutan e da lì è oggi ritornato.

Porta sempre bei racconti; un tempo aiutato dai prodotti locali sparava frasi e pensieri che sembravano usciti da un libro di Buddha (eravamo giovani ed ingenui). Testa e cuore chi deve prevalere, si discuteva: la testa che deve servire per togliere blocchi, preconcetti, pensieri che, fissi, impediscono lo scorrere dei sentimenti, proclamava tanti anni fa. Tramite lui ci facciamo un viaggetto in quel simpatico e dimenticato paese, il Bhutan.

Nello scorso marzo vi furono le prime elezioni, il paese divenne una monarchia costituzionale. Ma con qualche problema, molta gente è stata esclusa. I monaci e i religiosi e, specialmente, i Lhotshampa (i bhutanesi d’origine nepalese che vivono nel sud del paese. Per lavorare, andare a scuola, aprire attività devono ricevere il No Objection Certificates (NOC) e pochi l’hanno ottenuto malgrado la democrazia. Bernard ricorda che centomila furono espulsi in 24 ore nel 1989, spediti nei campi profughi del Terai, in una delle più grandi (e non considerate) pulizie etniche dell’Asia.

Anche l’economia sembra peggiorare; resiste l’export d’energia idroelettrica verso l’India e aumentano gli aiuti internazionali, malgrado tutto. Il partito di governo Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) lanciò lo spettacolare Gross National Happiness (in sostituzione del più prosaico Gross National Product) con obiettivo, fra gli altri, di assicurare l’indipendenza economica del paese. Ma Thimbhu continua a chiedere soldi ai donatori internazionali che sono ben felici di darglieli, malgrado la debole difesa dei diritti dell’uomo. Il Bhutan è posto bello e remunerativo per gli espatriati.

Racconta Bernard, che anche la gente comune (oltre gli sfigati Lhotshampa) iniziano a lamentarsi e cita un rapporto pubblicato lo scorso settembre dall’ Anti-Corruption Commission. Il 55% ha dichiarato che nepotismo e favoritismo limitano libertà economiche e opportunità e sono un freno allo sviluppo del paese. Il “misuse” dei fondi pubblici a favore dei gruppi legati alla monarchia e al partito di potere, le mazzette sono altri fenomeni indicati nel Rapporto. Più recentemente il 47% della popolazione non crede più alll’ideologia ufficiale del Gross National Happiness e nella gestione del potere da parte del nuovo governo.

In realtà Re Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck ha fatto un ‘opera di maquillage, conclude Bernard, primo perché si ètenuto il potere di rigettare le decisioni del Parlamento non gradite, secondo perché gran parte degli eletti sono legati da sempre, per ragioni famigliari o di potere, alla monarchia. Bernard, che ama il Bhutan, i bhutanesi, le montagne, i monasteri persi nel verde, le erbe medicinali e le gonne colorate che è il vestito nazio ale, si domanda, però, coma mai nessuno (e specie quei dormiglioni delle NU) non parlino dei problemini che, anche, qui affliggono i diritti dei meno ammanigliati.

We are always chasing something. Whether we are very clear about it from the onset or not, it is human nature to want, to need.

Our goals vary. It can be the simplest of things as possessing the latest gadget, or the most complex like ruling a country.  Our goals reflect our frame of mind — selfish or selfless.  Others may question what we have set our eyes on, yet there are others who will say “Go for it! I am right behind you” even when the goal at times seems unrealistic.

Pop icon Madonna once said it so succinctly: ” ‘Coz we are living in a material world…” And it is this realm that makes it harder for people to think of something far bigger than themselves.  Understandably so because the most basic of goals is survival.

When life was so much simpler, surviving required less; today it has become  a far more complex challenge.  Trade now involves money — tons of it — where once it was based on goodwill and trust. Leadership once meant setting direction towards achieving a goal. Today it is about power and wealth.

It seems that the more we have, the more we want. Insatiability is so very human.  And perhaps, it is our greatest weakness.

Happiness has become elusive for many. Could it be because it is no longer just a concept, but something equated with tangibles?  I will be happy if I have…

Yes, each person’s concept of happiness varies.  The more abstract the idea of happiness, the harder to attain.  So people stick to tangibles. Once you get it, tick the happiness box.

In Bhutan, they are refining the country’s guiding policy to shift people’s mindset from materialistic to holistic.  Since last year, government programs are not to be judged based on their economic benefits but on the level of happiness they produce.

No, Prime Minister Jigme Thinley was quick to stress the goal is not happiness per se,  precisely because individuals have their own concept of what that is, rather it is creating conditions in the pursuit of happiness.  Instead of measuring gross national product — the world’s standard for development –  Bhutan would much prefer to get a measure of gross national happiness.

At this time when the world is reeling from an economic crisis so severe it resonates from east to west and north to south, Bhutanese officials argue it is necessary to help people cope by making them realize that having material wealth is not the single biggest factor to achieving a state of contentment.  Or to being happy.

Survival is the name of the game. Says Kinley Dorji, Bhutan’s secretary of  information and communication, “Gross national happiness is survival; how to counter a threat to survival.”

It’s complicated how Bhutan hopes to implement their vision, but it is something worth pondering on. Perhaps now, more than any other time, we must set goals that veer away from the temporal and hew closer to something that would make our existence far more worthy.

After all, a life worth living is a life worth lived.

I introduced trans-societal Megatrend #1 in an earlier blog (“Q14- Naming Trans-Societal Megatrend #1: towards Yin?”). I summarized Megatrend #1 (see blog “KM and trans-societal megatrend #1″) as:

Trans-societal Megatrend #2 (introduced in blog Q26- Information: another Force for Democratization) can be summarized as:

If we combine these two megatrends and again use Ken Wilber’s framework, we have a new way of characterizing major societal innovations and anticipating where the next major societal innovations would be emerging:

Do you agree with the following observations?

1. The combined trend is towards the lower left or indigo-colored Quadrant 4 in the figure above. Using simplistic language, the trend is towards the democratization of religions (Quadrant 1 to 4) and the spiritualization of democracy, free markets and science (Quadrant 3 to 4).
2. There is a mega-tension between Quadrants 1 and 3 which can be seen in the conflict between Western democratic values versus Islamic fundamentalism and theocracy (which underlies the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Europe and North America, and tension between European cultures and cultures of Muslim immigrants in Europe), the conflict between scientific empiricism and religious faith (seen in Matthew Fox’s creation spirituality versus traditional Catholic doctrines, Darwinian evolution versus creationism from Genesis), and the conflict between laissez faire capitalism and various economic models that emphasize the humanistic, psychological and spiritual dimensions (such as “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered” by Schumacher, Bhutan King Jigme Singye Wangchuck’s “Gross National Happiness”).
3. Regressive forces are represented by those groups which aim to maintain or go back to communism, dictatorship, theocracy, monopolistic control of national economies, etc.
4. New practices are emerging in Quadrant 4, which I call “indigo practices.” I will write about this in another blog. The interactive practice in double-loop learning that I am proposing in the last blog (An Invitation to Interactive Practice of Double-Loop Learning) is an indigo practice.
5. A most interesting convergence between Quadrants 1 and 3 is happening between Tibetan Buddhism and modern science: the Mind and Life Institute. Tibetan Buddhism comes from centuries of learning, experiential studies and applying consensual corroboration in the inner worlds; while modern sciences comes from centuries of learning, empirical studies and applying consensual corroboration in the outer worlds.

I introduced the ideas in this blog in an earlier paper on “Information Technology and Security in the 21st Century” which I read at the Asia-Pacific Security Forum Conference in Taipei, Taiwan in December 1999.

Please tell us what you think about these.

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