Rüdiger Lutz:

Future Lab paper, submitted to the WFSF XIXth World Conference 2005 in Budapest

Beyond Globalization: The (all)Secret TranCeformation to Planetary Integration

"The world is not enough", the global viewpoint has reached its limits and we are already in transition to get a planetary perspective of our small blue earth by exploring inner and outer space. SETI and ISS are some of the pioneers of the material worlds out there. But there is also an inner dimension of this research. A paradigm-shift occurs cross-cultural and border transcending by means of electronic media, human mental development and ecological design.

So global mind is not earthbound, but an universal detector and device for interplanetary intelligence. So we are not imprisoned in the momentarily visible world of todays reality and constrictions, we can go intellectually, mentally and emotionally further then we (can) think and feel at this point of space and time. Designing futures means to draw possible manifestations of thriving visions and utopias.

The limits to growth are restricted by the global system, which is an old-paradigm and creativity-block to thrival evolutions in an unlimited cosmos of possibilities and ideas. When living systems reach their limits, they selfdestruct or transmute to a new pattern or gestalt. As a negative example we face it today as the new quality of war. WW III is no longer a matter of two opposing forces as in the 20th century, but a never-ending drive-by terrorism of different parts of the global society for different causes. The enemy within is taking over and the general public is paralysed by its extreme forms and appearances (suicide-attacs and cultural antagonisms).

On the other hand we have billions of people realizing the coming distractions and trying to escape the global nightmares of overpopulation, ecozid, social disorder and physical and mental disease. But quantity can also switch from destructiveness to a new quality. "Information-Overload is pattern-recognition" said the late Mashal McLuhan, and today we see where the information wasteland ends. Internet may look like a data-junkyard for the uninspired observer or it can be a garden of serendipities for inspiration and insights into the gestalt of possible futures.

Science and technology are not the only wanderers in this serendipity path to planetary integration. Religion is also an ageold way to enlightenment. Science and technology are looking for answers, as well as religion and culture as a whole - so why making a difference when cooperation and convergence are needed. The really economical approach is fusing, not diffusing or confusing the powers we have.

That doesn't mean, that we should not make distinctions between the contrasting approaches to the overall system, however we can appreciate the similarities and intensions of all the endeavours, we find in present and history on earth to design a common and sustainable future, we all want to live in.

Designing freedom in a thriving environment of change is the primordial task of todays agents of the contemporary TranCeformation in the planetary integration process. The general futures designer is already awaking from a former trance of hierarchical power structures, linear problem solving procedures and finalistic utopias. The open society asks for nothing less than openness and acceptance of the unimaginable and never-seen-before Gestalt of things to come.