Mark Zuckerberg: Let’s build a new community mythology at Facebook! by Willi Paul, Planetshifter.com

"Mark Zuckerberg: Let's build a new community mythology at Facebook!"
by Willi Paul, Planetshifter.com

Mark, you posted this message last Thursday: "The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do -- whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent. My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues- I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics."
If you need a free book shelf, knock on Nextdoor. If you need a renter, try Craigslist. Silly porn? Click Twitter. Travel news? LinkedIn. But if you want to change the world, change Facebook!

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To me, your 2018 agenda can equally succeed through a re-evaluation of values, as a spiritual quest. The economic health of your enterprise is sound. The world around us also needs fixing. The CDC is holding a session January 16 to discuss personal safety measures and the training of response teams for a nuclear detonation. President Trump claims to have a bigger and better nuclear launch button on his desk than his counter-part in North Korea. Fires across California and another drought mean basic resources like housing and drinking water are at risk. Climate change will soon be washing ashore at Facebook with a community emergency.

GreenTech, not BombTech, holds high moral promise in the transition to a new sustainable, global entrepreneurial spirit. Lasting change will not come from the tech sector, but will come from the social sciences: psychology and mythology.

We need to understand and accelerate the best family and civic values that can bring us together and lessen the urge to just "surf, text and chronicle" our daily lives away. The new mythology is a community building crucible where old legends meet new journeys and where youthful wizards amaze us! The stories and songs - and new values - that we need most desperately need will be borne from the struggling permaculture and transition movements - not from the gadget clan or the Amazonians.

The Community Mythology Tool Kit

A. Permaculture is unique among alternative farming systems (e.g., organic, sustainable, eco-agriculture, biodynamic) in that it works with a set of ethics (below) that suggest we think and act responsibly in relation to each other and the earth. The ethics of permaculture provide a sense of place in the larger scheme of things, and serve as a guidepost to right livelihood in concert with the global community and the environment, rather than individualism and indifference.

1. Care of the Earth - including all living and non-living things- plants, animals, land, water and air
2. Care of People - promoting self-reliance and community responsibility and equal access to resources
3. Sharing the surplus

B. Transition is all about bringing back the neighborhood as the primary safety and sharing resource and increasing energy independence. [read more]

C. Sacred is what is holy to us? But is this place, experience or thing also sacred to your neighbor? Holding on to this Light or to the scared can get us through the Chaos Era. Sacred is first a seeking. Identifying a question or need then reflecting on illuminating resources - often with the support of others. [read more]

D. Spirit Nature is how you empower and protect Nature and is being lost as we kill off species and seal more and more land with asphalt. When Nature is a commodity or when our behavior is over-taken 18 hours per day by a machine, then Spirit Nature is dead, a land-fill. [read more]

E. Rewilding means to return to a more wild or natural state; it is the process of un-doing domestication. The term emerged from several political theories in which humans are believed to be "civilized" or "domesticated" by industrial and agricultural progress. Supporters of rewilding argue that through the process of domestication, human wildness has been altered by force. Others see rewilding has minimizing our footprint while maximizing our understanding and love of Nature. [read more]

F. Resilience is defined as an individual's ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity. It can be learned and developed by virtually anyone. Resilience should be considered a "learned behavior" and is the innovative community code that can create and disseminate new values and re-focus our views on Nature and consumerism. [read more]

G. Sacrifice is the practice of not having the same choices moving forward, where we must give-up certain lifestyle benefits and comforts. But ask this: Can giving up something actually be experienced as gaining something in return? Is sacrifice a negative at Facebook? [read more]

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One lesson from Joseph Campbell's work are his stages in the mythic journey: initiation, tradition and the (community) hero. Facebook can only benefit from new perspectives that offer self-introspection and healing versus a focus on outside actors. The voices of a community mythology at Facebook could include everyone, all families. You could create a new online collaborative space, a "Mythic Lab," to explore world values and traditions, promote story generation and story sharing across cultures that could lead to sustainable solutions and perhaps new universal myths - and more sensitive and involved Facebook members! My new myths are snap shots of a future after the Chaos Era.

We all need to push for solutions and not get depressed under a pile of problems! Problems don't get you visions; risk and love lead to great ideas and plans. We all can get there. Together, we are the Force, and I'm your bard!

In Community,

Willi Paul, Mythologist
facebook.com/OpenMythSource

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"A Dream Like Mine"

When you've got a dream like mine
Nobody can take you down
When you've got a dream like mine
Nobody can push you around

Today I dream of how it used to be
Things were different before
The picture shifts to how it's going to be
Balance restored
When you know even for a moment
That it's your time
Then you can walk with the power
Of a thousand generations

- Bruce Cockburn, "Nothing but a Burning Light"

URL -  http://www.planetshifter.com/myth/2510