What we value is wrong
If we used a Synergistic Accounting lens to look at the progress of humans in the last 100 years, the story about our brilliance and the glory of Silicon Valley would be very different.
For all the technology, what do we have? Bloody wars, ethnic cleansing, the terrifying re-rise of white supremacy, cutting off aid while the military-industrial complex bloats more, corruption on steroids, mental health crisis amplified, a gaping hole between obscene wealth and everyone else, increasing by the second, microplastics in every single brain on Earth, the consequences of this yet to be determined. And the gobsmacking hubris of the tech bros who are currently twiddling with the knobs of the biggest government in the world, their brains siloed from any connection to humanity.
Let us put the following on the progress narrative balance sheet, alongside any tech development.
Human connection, care, love and compassion. Genuine connection, not some shallow social media ghost. All the warm data in the world, missing in entirety from any measure that determines success.
Care for those less able. Any and all less able. Civil societies are civil to all their citizens. (Do I even have to write these words!)
Reverence for our creatures. No factory farms. Cruelty in any form is not progress, unless the desired progress is self-termination.
Investment in the love, care and protection of our land, water, air, soils, forests…
Back in 1927, Bucky Fuller calculated the all-in-accounting cost of a barrel of oil, determining that if we account for the production costs of Mother Nature, as well as the post-use cost (pollution), then not a single human on the planet could afford a single barrel of oil.
Fancy that? Giving Mother Nature’s production costs a seat at the accounting table as if Mother Nature has some worth and value?
Even writing the words, I am heartbroken that Western Civilisation, today, in all of our arrogance, insists on ignoring our life partner.
But here we are.
The measuring tool is wrong. What we value is wrong.
At the end of our days, there is no escaping the truth of this. When we reach for a hand to cross the ultimate threshold, we want a living hand.
Photo February 8th 2025, Article written February 8th 2025.
