28th September 2009 | Draft
Global Strategic Alternatives for the 21st Century?
Contrasting visual caricatures
-- / --
Framed by what the children wanted
 |
 |
| What the employment experts and agencies
proposed (influenced by conventional multi-tier considerations) |
What the food experts and agencies
proposed (failing to take count of expanding nutrition needs) |
 |
 |
| What the climate change experts and
agencies proposed (ignoring possibilities for effective implementation) |
What the energy
experts and agencies proposed (failing to take account of the nature of demand) |
 |
 |
| What the governance
experts and agencies proposed (in an effort to achieve a mutually satisfactory compromise between incompatible perspectives) |
What people wanted
and Gaia really needed (combining operational efficacy, environmental protection, recycling opportunities, and valuable symbolism) |
In addition to its obvious practical advantages, as noted, the final image offers a mnemonic composite as:
- a measure of size constraint in a population at risk of obesity, and a reminder of any constraining personal spare tire in a society challenged by excessive consumption
- a valuable reminder of the many empty stomachs in the world population (World Food Programme, Number Of World's Hungry Tops A Billion, 19 June 2009).
- a reminder of the fundamental importance of the invention of the wheel in enabling the industrial revolution -- in contrast to the constraining linearity characteristic of more traditional technologies and associated modes of governance, as caricatured by the other images (Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Circlets, 2009)
- a reminder of the toroidal containment required for the potential nuclear fusion -- and its cognitive analogue (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor, 2006)
- a reminder of the case for "hanging up" conventional modes of transportation in favour of alternatives
- a reminder of the fundamental cognitive challenge in the attraction of exploring holes -- "down the rabbit hole" (Engaging with Globality through Knowing Thyself, 2009)
- a reminder of the mysteriously attractive reproductive process through which people are engendered and babies emerge -- in a world challenged by overpopulation (Institutionalized Shunning of Overpopulation Challenge: incommunicability of fundamentally inconvenient truth, 2008; Begetting: challenges and responsibilities of overpopulation, 2007)
- a reminder of the cognitive challenge of "emptiness" for governance, as notably symbolized by the flat jade disk with a circular hole -- the bi -- dating from ancient China and still held in the highest esteem (to the point of inspiring the design of the Olympic and Paralympic awards of 2008).
- a possible reminder of a funerary wreath -- once flowers are no longer available for commemoration
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