E-Books

A selection of books we have written: 

 

The Alternate - Every day that passes the need to move over to a sustainable society grow even more urgent. But what does a sustainable society look like? How will it work? Andrew Wallace present an introduction to ideas that could for forming a new sustainable society. One that give us more time to be human but still balances our needs with those of the planet.

The Design - As every day passes, the need to move to a sustainable society becomes even more urgent. But what is a sustainable society? How would it function? EOS is an organisation dedicated to building a sustainable society with the highest standard of living for the longest time possible. This book present s the design for a substantial society and shows how it could work. A society where our needs balance with those of the planet. A society where we have more time to be human.

  The Future Civilization -

In an era of unprecedented environmental and societal challenges, The Future Civilization: Building a Sustainable World for the Third Millennium by the Earth Organisation for Sustainability presents a revolutionary path forward. This groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive critique of exponential growth, fractional reserve banking, and the unsustainable practices that define our current global economy. Instead, it proposes a society governed by the immutable laws of Thermodynamics, where resources are managed sustainably and equitably for the benefit of all life on Earth.

Drawing on the Ideology of the Third Millennium (I3M) framework, this book redefines our relationship with the planet, advocating for a civilization that views rights as relational rather than property-based. It emphasizes the importance of empathy, cooperation, and the intrinsic rights of all living beings, fostering a world where every human can truly experience life without exploitation or ecological destruction.

Explore the urgent realities of our environmental crisis, where species extinction rates are alarmingly high, soil fertility is declining, and climate change is reshaping the planet. Discover innovative solutions through the proposed energy credit system, a visionary alternative to capitalism that ensures equitable distribution and sustainable resource management.

The Future Civilization is not just a critique but a call to action, providing a detailed roadmap for a sustainable, post-monetary civilization. Whether you are an environmentalist, economist, policy-maker, or concerned global citizen, this book offers the insights and inspiration needed to envision and build a future where humanity thrives in harmony with the Earth.

 Technocracy : Building a new sustainable society for a post carbon World - What of tomorrow? As our oil resources decline? What would a sustainable society look like? In this book Dr. Wallace presents one possible future, a sustainable future. One where we apply science to society.

More Time To be Human

I made a video about the futuer ...

Failed

Introduction

We hit another heat record this year. According to NASA, July was the hottest month on record. Heat record we recorded all around the planet. And the heat records continued on in to the second half of 2023. This all shouldn’t come as a surprise as we haven't really done anything about global climate change. We have done “something”, make it look like we have tried but I would argue that all that we have done is try to solve the problem using the same thinking that caused the problem in the first place, not really dealing with the problem itself. Effectively, we just green wash things. If we actually wanted to get to grips with the climate change problem and really deal with global warming then we would have to look at the root causes of the problem; the free market, capitalist based socioeconomic system we have. We would need to look at alternatives.

Where to go?

The current socioeconomic system we have has created a lot of benefits for people over time but in doing so it has also set us on a path of self destruction. We would like to maintain as many of the benefits as we can but avoid the more negative aspects of our current system.

EOS proposes a system that aims to maintain as high a standard of living for as long as possible. A high standard of living for everyone, not just a select few, and for as long as possible means sustainability is built in at the core of the system. The system starts with seeing society as highly complex. So complex it will take many years to study and understand just a part of it. This means that to manage a future society we would need teams of experts taking a scientific and engineering approach. So we start there, dividing society into a technical side and a people side with teams of experts managing the technical side. Scientists and engineers but also accountancy, medical personnel, cleaners, farmers and so on. Each with their own specialisation, each contributing to managing a society to achieve the overall goal.

The system proposed by EOS is also a moneyless system. One of the major problems with our current system is the drive for profit. Profit seeking behaviour pushes infinite growth with finite resources at the expense of the very planet we depend on. Removing money would remove this destructive behaviour. But we will still have resources that need to be allocated to talks. The way EOS proposes to do that is to use a system of energy accounting. We need energy to do anything and we have a certain amount of energy every year that we can allocate to doing things, like producing things. So, we allocate the energy we have available to people and let them allocate the energy to production of items they want. Those items available will be produced in a system managed by skilled experts so as the items are produced in a sustainable way. Thus, we can balance our needs with those of the planet.

In such a system we can automate as much work as we can, minimising the need for work and giving people more time to be human as people don’t need to work to make a living. We can minimise production by making items last longer. We can minimise the amount of items produced by planning and sharing resources (think about cars; what do cars do most of the time and how can we better utilise cars?). Minimising in such a way will allow us to still maintain a high standard of living but lessen our impact on the planet making the system sustainable. The system is also rooted in the application of science and is holonic in nature. So, it’s an open and free society that uses technology to benefit everyone but still maintains a balance with nature. “Balance” is a keyword.

Examples of a future sustainable society

We have not built such a moneyless system managed by skilled experts before so we can’t really point to an example of this type of system today. But fiction does provide us with some examples of societies that have some characteristics of the future World we would like to build. Here is a quick look at a couple; Space 1999 For those of us who were lucky enough to have our childhood in the 1970, we might remember a fascinating sci-fi series called

Space 1999.

Moonbase Alpha, Space 1999

Set on a moon that has been blown out of Earth’s orbit and set a drift in space. The inhabitants of moonbase Alpha have to survive in a hostile universe as the moon is transported from one star system to another via a network of space warps. 

The society on moonbase Alpha is very technical and run by technical experts. Dr. Hellen Russell, in charge of the medical section, Tony Anholt, in charge of security, David Kano, responsible for the computer systems, and Alan Carter, pilot to name but a few. They are all under the command of John Koening with Paul Morrow as second in command. The society is open and decisions are made are decisions where each expert can put forward their opinion. The society is hierarchical, rather than holonic as EOS’ system, but divided into technical domains, like the system proposed by EOS. The economy of moonbase Alpha is not really explained but doesn’t appear to be money based. Production is limited but meets the needs of the inhabitants. The base is also physically limited as everything on the moon outside the base is uninhabitable. Everything produced is maintained within the base which means everything must be recycled and with no waste.

Star Trek

Star Trek TNG

The Federation in Star Trek is another example of a technological organised society. The society is also moneyless. The exact workings of the economy is not fully explained but given the technological nature and the importance of science one can imagine it would be some form of energy accounting. If we look at the starship Enterprise, we again see a society that is organised around technical areas run by technical experts. Mr. Spock as science office, Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, responsible for engineering, Nyota Uhura, in charge of communications, and Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy as chief medical office, for example. All under the command of Captain James T. Kirk. The society is still hierarchical but discussions are still held and the opinion of the experts taken into account.

Do you want this kind of future?

If so, then we need to start building it. It won't happen by itself and given the failure we have seen regarding climate change, we need to be more proactive. We would need people who agree with and understand what is proposed. Scientists and engineers but also experts in other fields need to form groups and clubs to start building in the real world. Join up with like minded people. We would need funding, even if we want to build a moneyless society we are not there yet.

We need to start acting. Start doing. If we don’t, then we wont get this king of future. Fiction also provides us with plenty of examples of other types of societies. In the end the choice is ours. Build a better society or settle with what is coming.

EOS is one example of people working together to try and build a better future. Want to join us? Why not start your own group and form a network with us? Much of the ideas are explained in the Design but we are open to discussion if you want to learn more.

More time to be human

 

 

To be human in the modern world

Foreword

At the moment we live in an unsustainable socioeconomic system that requires infinite exponential growth with finite resources. To be able to live in such a system we require money and for most of us the primary way to obtain the money we need to live is working. We end up spending most of our lives working. A lot of the work we do is demoralising, dehumanising, and, could be argued, unnecessary. From when we leave the education system until we retire and the retirement age is getting higher and higher in many countries. Many people work two jobs to make ends meet. 

Imagine the future

Instead of that, imagine a world where you didn’t need to work, or at least, you didn’t need to work as much as we do today. Those jobs that are needed to be done would be interesting, meaningful, and people who work at those jobs do so because they want to not because they need the money. Working less would mean more time to be human.

Sounds like fantasy? Maybe, but maybe not. EOS proposes a sustainable, moneyless, socioeconomic system that aims to balance our needs with those of nature. In doing so, we could have a system that requires much less work yet still offer a good standard of living for everyone. The system has its roots in the application of science and engineering. How would that work?

The Alternative

To start with, the system that EOS proposes would see society organised in to a people side and a technical side. The people side is all about community, family, and culture. The technical side deals with all the technical aspects of society. From the means of production like farms and factories to transport systems and on to the science and research needed to develop the society. The people side is run by the people through a process of direct democracy and the technical side is managed by interdisciplinary teams of people, each of whom is an expert in their relevant field.

The system EOS proposes is also moneyless. So there is no profit searching behaviours that drive our current destructive system. Instead, the production capacity of a society is divided equally between the people so everyone has an opportunity to gain what they want and what they need. We can do that if we have an accounting system and the one that EOS proposes is based on the physical capacity of society to produce. We can measure that using energy (or to be more exact the usable energy which is called exergy). We can then allocate a set number of energy credits (that represent the production capacity) to individuals who then decide on what gets produced by allocating energy credits (and, therefore, production) to produce items that they want produced. Thus, the system is demand driven and not centrally planed. The teams of experts then manage the system.

As the system is not money based and we are not seeking profit we don’t have a system that needs to continually grow exponentially in the self destructive way of today system. Instead, we have the opportunity to build sustainable products. Built to be recycled or reuse. We can also reduce what we produce. For example, instead of building car after car and then have them spend most of their time standing still in a garage or car park doing nothing. We could rethink our whole transport system and have a system where each car is used for, say, 80% of the time. That means we could reduce the amount of cars we need to produce.

In the system EOS proposes, as much as possible is automated. Robots in factories run by Artificial Intelligence (AI). With the teams of experts running the overall system. With AI and robots doing much of the work, we would have much less work to be done. And what work there is to do would be more interesting to do. 

 

Building a better world

Conclusion

Less work to do in a sustainable socioeconomic system where everyone has equal access to the means of production would mean more time to be human.

Do you want this kind of “Star Trek” like future? If you want to make this kind of future possible then we need to work together to achieve it. If it is possible to achieve then we can achieve it. 

Links

EOS

The Design

To Heed No Warning

 

Use Case

I’ve been reading “A Vertical Empire” by C. N. Hill. It’s a rather interesting account of the British Rocketry programme from the 1950s until the cancellation of the satellite launch vehicle Black Arrow in 1971. The rocketry programme was technically excellent. There was an agreement between the UK and the US to share information on rocketry and they did. For the UK part, there was innovative work of interest to the US in silo research, solid rocket development, and research into re-entry. The last one was of such interest that US got involved with the experiments and worked on the Dazzle project using the Black Knight launch vehicles. 

 

Black Arrow

Blue Streak

 

However, the programme was plagued by internal fighting within the government and between the RAF and the Royal Navy, bureaucrats with little understanding of the technical aspects and business opportunities, and politicians that waxed and waned in their support that led to sabotaging the programme and its eventual cancellation, although some rocketry did continue with Skylark until 2005 but that was a shadow of what was dome before Black Arrow was cancelled. 

 

Black Knight

In amongst all the internal fighting and irrational arguments against the programme there were some good objections; after the ballistic missile project using Blue Streak was cancelled there was no real use case for the rocketry programme. But what interested me about why the programme was cancelled was the point that the book made about the Zeitgeist of the time. There just was no popular support for the project at a time when the UK was facing severe financial and economic problems and the empire was in decline. The media mocked the programme and even the government ministries that did support the programme eventually gave up with it.

But there was an interest in space exploration. As has been pointed out in "A Vertical Empire", the Dan Dare stories in the Eagle comic "gave a whole generation of British boys... a totally false impression that Britain was going to dominate the space race". Doctor Who began in 1961, Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet come out in the 1960s, all popular shows. Maybe this interest was not enough to boost national interest in a real British space programme but I do wonder; could the UK have entertained itself into inaction? People who were interested in space and space exploration where too busy with watching fantasy on TV to actually be active in supporting a real space programme?

Global Warming

When I first moved to the north of Europe the typical January and February temperature was about -10^o C during the day. Temperatures would, however, go down to -20^o C quite often and there would be a handful of days where the temperature would drop to -30^o C during the day. We haven't had a day time temperature of -30^o C for years now. Seldom does the temperature go down -20^o C and this year we have had quite a few days where the temperature oscillates around freezing. We have even had rain. Although weather is not climate and one year’s weather is not a good indicator of climate change there is a large body of evidence to say the planet we inhabit and keeps us alive is getting warmer due to human activity and the temperature patten I observe would fit into the idea of global warming.

Global warming is something we have known about for over a century but it was in the 1980s that it became more well established with scientific evidence. So, we can say that we have had since the 1980s to do something about it? And have we? Well, yes we have. Nothing effective as the planet is still warming. Basically we painted the façade green of a rotting house. The house is still rotting but it looks pretty and at least we did something.

One thing we have done is made the climate crisis in to entertainment. From “Soylent Green” in 1973, to “Don’t LookUp” in 2021. There’s “Day After Tomorrow”, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, and “Avatar” to name but a few. We could even throw in “An Inconvenient Truth”. As for TV, I remember the climate crisis coming up in the first Doctor Who programme I watched; “Robot”. But there were other shows that the climate crisis came up in. I remember Tomorrow People but in more recent times we have shows like “Cowspiracy”. But even so, films and TV shows that includes global warming or climate change are still a very small part of an industry that has increased exponentially since the 1980s.

TV and films are not the only form of entertainment that has consumed more of our time since the 1980s. We have computer games taking off in the 1980s and today we can spend nearly eight hours a day engrossed in some form of digital entertainment whether it be games, TV, or on line content such a social media platforms. All this reminds me of “Tomorrowland” and a quote from Hugh Laurie’s character, Nix;

“To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But, how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up like a chocolate éclair! They didn't fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies, the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon.”

Question

We never had so much entertainment available to us in the history of out little planet. Yet, access to such entertainment has come at a time when we face potentially the most serious threat to our survival. One we are failing to deal with. So, are we entertaining ourselves into inaction?

Again from Hugh Laurie’s character in Tomorrowland;

“In every moment there's the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality.”

Technocracy vs Communism

 

Overview

The article looks at technocracy in comparison with communism. The article results from a discussion at I had the Thermodynamics 2.0Conference. First, I will give a bit of background then I will briefly look at the centralised planned economy of the Soviet Union. They I will give a very short overview of the decentralised, demand drive, moneyless system proposed by EOS. Finally I will give a quick comparison between the two, highlighting a few differences.

Introduction

I was invited to present a paper and to take part of a panel at the Thermodynamics 2.0 Conference. The conference was a place for both natural scientists and social scientists that looks at the emergence of cooperation. What is life as well as money and poverty. My paper was about a moneyless sustainable socioeconomic system and my presentation went well but it was the panel discussion that was the most interesting. During the discussion there was a lively debate comparing the ideas presented in my paper and at the panel with communism. The thing with presenting a paper and giving a presentation at a panel is you don’t really have that much time to fully explain all the ideas. It’s a big complex subject after all. I was only really able to give an overview of technocracy, as advocated by EOS, and couldn’t really go into all the details in the time we had. So, I though I would write up a bit about Technocracy and Communism and go through how they differ or are similar.

Communism

Communism is a bit of a complex ideology so I am going to focus on one aspect of communism that was of reliance for the discussion at the Thermodynamics 2.0 Conference; the centralised planned economy of the Soviet Union.

The former HQ of Gosplan (Jorge Lascar)

The Soviet economy was a centralised planned economy. The state owned all the means of production, from the farms to the factories. The economic production and the distribution of goods was all controlled centrally by the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) and the State Commission for Material and Equipment Supply (Gossnab) together with the central State Bank (Gosbank). Planning was done in a series of five year plans from 1928 onwards. Data was fed to Gosplan from other administrative organisations around the country. Various government officials, committees, departments, and councils within Gosplan would then plan out what to do over the next five years. The plans consisted of plans within plans as various organisations such as government ministries drafted their own plans to met the demands of the plans from Gosplan. Gosplan would monitor the economic situation and plans could be modified as situation dictated.

The form of centralised planning of the Soviet Union eventually failed. Corruption within the system led to faulty decisions being made. Political dogma hindered any adaptions. But in the end, the overall complexity of managing a distributed non-linear, dynamic system was evidently too difficult and the system collapsed with the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Technocracy

Technocracy is a system of government where knowledgeable experts make the decisions. Within that vague definition there can be many forms of implementation. The system presented by EOS sees society as complex and makes the distinction between a “people side” and a “technology side”. The people side is run democratically and is community based. The technology side is managed by technical experts and includes the means of production such as farms and factories but also services such as medical care. The system proposed by EOS is also moneyless. Instead of money, EOS proposes a system of energy accounting, where the production capacity is measured in energy, or to be more exact “exergy”, and the energy is then distributed to managed production and individual demands. People then allocate energy to produce the items they want.

Technocracy vs Communism; A comparison

A fractal

There are a number of differences between the two ideologies. The first one is that the system of technocracy proposed by EOS is decentralised rather than a centralised system as used in the Soviet Union. EOS proposes an holonic system where each holon is a part-whole entity (it is both an independent entity in its own right and part of something else), like a fractal shown above. The system starts with individuals who then make up teams and communities. The teams and communities then work on projects at a local level. These teams and communities can then cooperate together to form high level holons that then work on larger scale projects. The holons work towards the own goals as they see fit but these goals are compatible with an overall goal of maintaining the highest standard of living for the longest time possible. It is this goal orientated aspect that enables the system to work as a whole. Such distributed systems tend to be robust when dealing with complex, dynamic, non-linear systems. So, no centralised Gosplan in the system proposed by EOS.

Teams are composed of experts in the plan proposed by EOS. Experts manage the systems and projects under their control. So, local teams would manage project dealing with the production of food for the community, or maintaining the buildings, or running a factory, for example. Higher level teams in higher level holons would then work on projects at their level, such as maintaining transport links between communities or producing a food item that requires a larger distribution.

Another difference is the moneyless nature of the system proposed by EOS. The communist system of the Soviet Union was still a money based system. EOS uses exergy as a representation of the production capacity of the system. People then place demands on the system to produce the items that the people want. So, the system proposed by EOS is a demand driven system where items are produced to met demand. That doesn’t mean that plans can’t be made. Some demands are predictable like the demand for strawberries and cream at Midsummer in Sweden or the demands for fireworks around Guy Fawkes’s night in the UK. Such demands can be anticipated but there is still no “five year planning” like in the Soviet Union.

Summary

Technocracy and Communism are significantly different from one another. One is centralised and the other is distributed. One is planned and the other is managed and demand driven. A technocratic system can be seen as half way between a free market, capitalist based system and a centralised planned communist system.

References

Economy of the Soviet Union

The Alternative

The Collapse

 The Collapse

by

Dr. Andrew Wallace PhD BEng(hons) EurIng

Introduction

Collapse is highly probable out come given our current socioeconomic system. If we want to avoid a collapse, or failing that, be able to rebuild after a collapse we need to be proactive in building an alternative, sustainable, socioeconomic system. 

The collapse.

 

The Collapse is Coming

It looks like we are heading for a collapse. Millions of species could go extinct [1, 2, 3] as global warming reeks havoc of our environment. Scientist have been warning of this for decades [4], yet we haven’t actually done anything about the problem [5, 6, 7]. Yes, we have made some token efforts but what we have done so far is like painting the façade of a rotting building green. Looks good but doesn't actually do anything about the problem.

This heading to collapse should make a lot of people who want an alternative, sustainable, moneyless, socioeconomic system happy. Shouldn’t it? After all, the argument goes that we will be unable to build such a sustainable, socioeconomic, system without a collapse as the current system will act in such a way as to prevent any other system from emerging. Jacque Fresco used to be quite fond of this argument [8].

But this all could depend on what we mean with “collapse”. A collapse could just be an economic phenomena like the Great Depression in the 1930s. But it could also be more severe than that such as Easter Island, Mayan, or the collapse of Anasazin (Ancestral Puebloans) society [9]. These latter collapses are more of interest than a financial collapse like the Great Depression. The Great Depression resulted from one part of the system collapsing where as the collapse of the Mayan civilisation, Easter Island, and the Anasazin society all involved environmental factors; the inhabitants over expolited the environment. “Over exploiting” the environment is more like what we are doing today. So, any potential collapse will most likely be similar to the collapse of these societies.

That brings up a problem; the societies that collapsed with the environment as a contributing factor did not recover. Not in themselves. People from outside the areas moved into those areas, like Easter Island, or they remained abandoned, such as the towns of the Anasazi. And we, on our planet, do not have an “outside”, that can move in. So, if we actually achieve a collapse then we could be looking at the end. That is to say, a situation that we can not recover from. That would mean that in looking to build a moneyless, sustainable, society post-collapse we run the risk of ending up in a situation where we do not have the ability to build such a society. That means that we need to be a bit more proactive.

Building for the Future

Proactive in two ways; first in preventing a collapse as it does not really serve ours or anyone's best interest to wait for a collapse. Second, on failing the first, we need to sow seeds from which we can start building a better society.

What we can do is form groups to preserve what we can and build up communities that are sustainable as much as possible. I like to think of this as the “Alien Planet” idea. Imagine living on an alien planet, like Mars, where the environment is hostile. The type of community we would need is one that can manage its own resources within the bounds of the community; grow its own food, manage its own waist, for example. Like a space colony. As much as possible. This could be done on a small scale like grown your own food in your garden or having a small hydroponics set up. It could be also done on a larger scale, like building a community with its own land. Next we would have to network these groups together. The more we have, the more people, the more land, the more we can do and the more we could support each other. The idea is laid out in The Design [10] and is called stepping-stones. 

A colony on an alien planet.

 

Stepping-stones would set seeds if a collapse was to happen but, ideally, it will allow for the evolution towards a new sustainable, moneyless, society. It would allow us to test ideas out and to experiment. However, it still doesn’t deal with the problem that we could face of a system that would work against moving to a sustainable socioeconomic system. For that, I think, we need to be proactive in another way; politically.

We do not advocate a “revolution”, nor the over throw of any government but doesn’t mean we can’t participate in the political processes of a democracy. There are opportunities to form pressure groups and even political parties or just to be members of political parties to influence the debate and movement toward a sustainable society. In other words, take part in society. We could even participate more in social media with more videos, articles, or fund raisers but I think this is only worth while if it leads to action on the ground (all talk and no action!).

Conclusion

We are heading for disaster and if that was to occur we would find it difficult if not impossible to recover and to build a sustainable, moneyless, society. If we are to build such a society then we need to be proactive. At the end of the day, if we fail to achieve a sustainable society, we only have ourselves to blame.

About the Author

Andrew Wallace is a former director of EOS. He has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He is a former University lecturer and currently works as a consultant.

References

[1] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/report-million-extinctions-and-ecological-collapse-are-way

[2] https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042020/global-warming-ecosystem-biodiversity-rising-heat-species/

[3] https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/05/sixty-years-of-climate-change-warnings-the-signs-that-were-missed-and-ignored

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/climate/biodiversity-collapse-climate-change.html

[6] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-emissions-turning-point/

[7] https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/clobbered-by-climate-change-ipcc-report-warns-of-failure-to-adapt-to-global-warming/

[8] https://www.thevenusproject.com/multimedia/jacque-fresco-collapse-transition-politics-systems-approach/

[9] “Collapse”. Jared Diamond. Penguin Group. 2005.

[10] The Design. EOS. https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/eos-/the-design/ebook/product-1e8ew9y8.html?page=1&pageSize=4