Choosing a Positive Future

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Mike Nickerson

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May 10, 2025, 10:50:54 AMMay 10

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Choosing a Positive Future

Imagine what an awesome world we could build if our priority was to provide for the needs of people and the natural world rather than the expansion of monetary accounts. A tactic is introduced below to bring the choice between these to popular attention. The difference between them is critical:

Accounting for money in our Growth-focused world is easy. One need only add up the receipts from transactions and compare the total (the GDP) to previous tallies. A large portion of those transactions is from exploiting natural resources, turning them into stuff, which is used for a while, and then thrown away.

On the other hand, accounting for education, nutrition, ecosystem health, justice, happiness, and other indicators of well-being is harder to measure. Nevertheless, we can tell if they are getting better or worse. When these things are valued and steps taken to improve them we can all benefit. Unlike collecting money with its ever-present allure to gather more, life-based activities offer the likelihood of having enough, leading to genuine satisfaction.

A further problem with valuing the money goal is that it tends to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands. It has long been known that those with money can earn more money faster than those who have less. As the Global Monopoly Game plays out, the winners buy up housing and automate industries to further extract wealth from the rest of us through rents and product pricing.

A question about purpose:

For all the mystery surrounding “the economy”, it is simply the sum of all the work we do—our efforts. How might we choose to direct our efforts?

Are they best spent expanding monetary accounts—GDP ?

Might we better focus our efforts directly on securing the well-being of people and the living world?

The tactic for bringing this choice forward, along with its obvious answer, is to embody the question in a short, friendly and easily remembered reference—a meme: “More Fun, Less Stuff”. In four syllables it offers a recipe for sustainability.

Why “fun”?

Fun is anything that has an uplifting effect on a person, without causing harm. This can include: relationships, learning, appreciation, joy, and caring, as well as sport, music, dance, and other life-based activity. Justice and environmental health are necessarily included. Consider the uplift we would experience if the world adopted a just order, and was clearly working towards environmental restoration.

In addition to being unlimited, life-based activities are fulfilling to the point that feelings of emptiness and alienation tend to melt away. Advertising would then have much less leverage to stimulate unnecessary consumption.

Life-based activities were customary before we were compelled to become consumers to absorb the over-production of industrial machinery. More fun, less stuff addresses material waste by suggesting something more satisfying. We simply wouldn’t have as much time for or interest in material consumption. A positive light at a challenging time.

As the meme finds its way into people’s minds, it carries with it the essential choice:

Do we want our collective labour (the economy)

to aim for perpetual expansion, or for

the long-term well-being of people and Earth?

The answer is obvious. With four syllables, more fun, less stuff, we can identify our allies. There is nothing to lose and an entire life-focused culture to gain.

While shifting focus from resource-intensive consumption to a life-based approach, a look at what we still require from the material world is in order. The 8-minute video To Be Alive and Well; It’s Easier Than You Think outlines the foundation for such an order.

Help bring forth the question of which sort of economic goal we want. The trick is to get the meme: “more fun, less stuff” into people’s eyes and ears. With only four syllables, it is absorbed faster than thoughts can justify it away.

These 3” x 12” stickers are effective. On bumpers, street corners or other public places, they get seen by many. We’d be happy to send you one or more.

Donations to this project can be made directly by e-transfer to: MoreFunL...@web.net .

Contact sust...@web.ca for other donation options.

Please note: This plan is intended to complement other efforts toward a better world.