Engineering on Sand: The Deadly Illusion Beneath the US Constitution and the UN Charter.

Last month an extraordinary military rescue operation to recover one surviving U.S. pilot deep inside Iran cost Americans hundreds of millions of dollars in aircraft, logistics, and intelligence systems.  It also risked the lives of hundreds of soldiers in that vital heroic effort. It depended on some unknowns. One, was the sand they built an emergency landing strip on that was needed to recover the injured pilot plus the elite ground forces who made it possible.  Unfortunately, two aircraft to bring them all home got stuck in desert sand and had to be destroyed. Additional helicopters and other expensive equipment were also lost in this otherwise successful rescue operation.

Normally, military planners understand physics.  And if the foundation beneath any operation is unstable, even the most advanced technology in the world with precision weapons, elite training, satellite intelligence, stealth aircraft, and overwhelming force can fail.  The reality of physics always wins and it's certain they won’t make that mistake again.

And fundamental principle applies far beyond the battlefield.  Every aspect of national security depends on getting the science right.  This is were both the U.S. Constitution and the U.N. Charter will continue to fail in persistently making lethal decisions over and over again, hoping for a better outcome.  Policy makers and democratic institutions governing us all continue ignoring the hard reality these vital systems were engineered on.  The delusion of independence on a foundation of sand.  And this applies to every civilization.  

The most disastrous act in American history is this: the word independence doesn’t appear in the body of the world’s most profound document.  We call it the Declaration of Independence.  But the real title is “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”   Not “Independent States.” And not “Sovereign Nations” is in the UN.  Nor the 1776 “freedom” American patriots fought and died for. Their emphasis was on declaration, union, and “liberty” for all humankind!

 The founders were announcing separation, a legal divorce from a monarchy.  While simultaneously recognizing their interdependence with all humanity and a collective responsibility for this global transformation. They understood — far better than many modern political movements — that liberty and survival itself depended upon cooperation of other nationalities, religions, and indigenous tribes.  The Revolutionary War was actually the first World War involving multiple nations (global and indigenous) and multiple faiths.  It was even America’s first civil war, with people in the same family and the same tribes fighting each other.  If you doubt this, watch the 12-hour, six-part PBS series “The American Revolution”. 

 

Warning!  Watching it is profoundly dispiriting thinking about all the death and suffering in the American Revolution, and for what?  What we have today?  An ununited US population and increasingly violent and even lethal political polarization, a masochistic, lying, unpredictable, and immoral President who believes he’s the best we’ve ever had...starting wars and enabling another nation to conduct genocide with US weapons and funding – believing he is making America Great Again. 

The only thing Great about America is the promise of the 1776 Declaration.  The U.S. Constitution had some great ideas but founding them on the delusion of independent states led to the second civil war in the mid 1860s that killed more Americans than all the wars our nation has fought in since then – combined.  And now going forth globally with fewer allies and making more enemies by a war of choice against Iran that is definitely GWAT 2.0 (Global War Against Terrorism).  While tempting fate with yet another World War...against China, Russia, N. Korea, Iran...and other’s who want a global system where US power is limited...and it will no longer be used to dominate other nations whenever its leadership likes.  

 

The good news?  This insanity may lead to a new world order based on “Liberty and Justice for All’ what American have been pledging for decades. 

Because the world order we have now has been cemented into international law and our minds for generations with the word Independence.  A psychological illusion.  A delusion that we are free to do what we want, without consequences.  

The title we keep using “Declaration of Independence” transformed our public consciousness into a near-religious celebration each 4^th of July.  The word evolved from a supposedly legal and historical circumstance into an ideological identity that is second only to smallpox for the number of people this delusion has killed.

 

And thus, the greatest engineering errors in modern civilization were codifying the Delusion of Independence Eternally (DIE) in both the US Constitution and the UN Charter.

But in reality, no person, no state, no nation, no civilization, and no other living thing has ever survived independently.

All life depends upon healthy air, water, food systems, energy systems, ecological systems, and the fundamental Truth’s that lead to social trust. Free trade routes, climate stability, alliances, scientific exchange, financial systems, and increasingly reliable global supply chains.

 

The very smartphone in a person’s pocket uses minerals from Africa, designs from California, manufacturing in Asia, software coded across multiple continents, shipping through international waters, and energy supplied by a global market.  Independence is not reality.

It is mythology. And when governments are engineered on quicksand mythology rather than fundamental principles, instability becomes inevitable.

Every successful engineering project must use first principles thinking, not slogans.

A bridge engineer doesn’t say, “I believe this bridge should stand because freedom demands it.” A military engineer doesn’t say: “This temporary runway should work because we are patriotic.”  An aerospace engineer doesn’t ignore gravity because gravity feels inconvenient.

Reality does not negotiate.

The universe rewards alignment with fundamental principles and will forever punish delusion.  Thus, catastrophic failures occur not from lack of intelligence, but from false assumptions built into the design itself.

History is filled with examples:

• Financial systems built on unsustainable debt
• Cities built in flood zones
• Agricultural systems that destroy topsoil
• Industrial systems that poison water supplies
• Political systems dependent upon endless growth
• Security systems built on permanent militarization
• Information systems optimized for outrage rather than truth

Eventually, the costs arrive.

Sometimes gradually.  Sometimes suddenly.

Even the founders themselves warned against this delusional mentality. Thomas Jefferson argued that societies must evolve with changing conditions. James Madison warned repeatedly about factionalism and concentrated power. George Washington warned against extreme partisanship and entangling divisions.

Yet modern politics has persistently ignored these foundational warnings while worshipping simplistic interpretations of liberty disconnected from responsibility and virtue.

The result?  Governance systems and structures increasingly unable to solve global-scale problems because its operating assumptions were designed during a vastly simpler time.

And now, climate change does not respect national borders.  Pandemics do not stop at customs checkpoints. Cyber warfare ignores geography.  Artificial intelligence development is global.

Financial contagion spreads instantly. Nuclear weapons make absolute national sovereignty logically obsolete.  And one nation’s decisions can threaten planetary survival itself.

Yet humanity continues attempting to solve interconnected global problems through fragmented competitive nationalism.  Its like trying to coordinate an aircraft carrier battle group where every sailor insists on steering independently. 

The successful rescue mission in Iran demonstrated both extraordinary courage and extraordinary cost.  Why?  Because operating in unstable terrain multiplies risk exponentially.

Every additional complication creates cascading vulnerability.  A plane stuck in sand becomes a strategic liability.  A delayed extraction becomes a larger military exposure.  A rescue mission becomes a geopolitical crisis.  The same dynamic applies to governance.

When societies are built upon distorted and delusional assumptions about nature, human nature, and our collective survival, enormous resources must be constantly spent managing crises created by the design flaw itself.

Consider the staggering costs of modern dysfunction:

• Trillions spent on military systems
• Exploding healthcare costs
• Mental health epidemics
• Mass incarceration
• Political polarization
• Environmental degradation
• Refugee crises
• Disinformation warfare
• Extreme inequality
• Declining trust in institutions

These are not isolated failures.  They are systems-level symptoms.  Just as cracks in a bridge reveal structural stress, societal crises often reveal deeper engineering flaws in the underlying assumptions of governance itself.

 

Freedom Without Interdependence Becomes Chaos:   A mature civilization must balance two truths simultaneously: Individual freedom is real and it matters.  Human interdependence is unavoidable.  Ignoring freedom creates tyranny.  Ignoring interdependence creates collapse.

The genius of sustainable systems — whether ecological, biological, or political — lies in balance.

The human body itself is not “independent.” Trillions of cells cooperate continuously through astonishing coordination. Ecosystems survive through networks of interdependence. Forests communicate chemically underground. Coral reefs depend upon symbiosis. Even galaxies exist within relational systems governed by physical laws.  Nature does not reward isolated supremacy.  Nature rewards adaptive cooperation and collaboration.  Human civilization is not exempt from these principles. We are a social species.  Not a species of individual ignoring the health of others and nature.

 

The Press, Truth, and Structural sustainable Stability:   A free press is often called the fourth branch of government because accurate information is essential to system stability.  Engineers require accurate measurements. Pilots require accurate instrumentation.  Doctors require accurate diagnostics.  Democracies require accurate information.  Without truthful reporting, societies lose the ability to self-correct. Delusion expands. Propaganda replaces analysis. Emotional manipulation replaces evidence-based policy.  As Thomas Jefferson once suggested, informed citizens are essential to liberty. Madison said the Constitution was not made for a non-virtuous people.  And as Jesus said:  “The truth shall set you free.”  Not comforting illusions.  Not tribal myths.  Not ideological absolutism.

Truth!  Because systems disconnected from reality eventually fail.  Always.

 

The Meta-Crisis of Civilization:  What deep thinkers now call the “meta-crisis” is not merely a collection of separate global problems. It is the convergence of multiple systemic failures emerging from outdated assumptions about economics, governance, identity, competition, biology, and human purpose.

We are attempting to operate a globally interconnected civilization with political and psychological software largely designed for tribal survival thousands of years ago.

That mismatch is becoming increasingly dangerous.  Our technologies have become planetary.

Our ethics remain fragmented.  Our weapons have become civilization-ending.  Our governance remains nationally competitive.  Our economies are globally integrated. Yet, our politics remain psychologically tribal.  This is not stable engineering.  It is geopolitical quicksand.

 

A Different Foundation:  The future may depend upon rediscovering a principle hidden in plain sight in 1776.   Humanity survives together or not at all.  This doesn’t mean eliminating nations, cultures, freedoms, or local identities. Diversity is strength. But diversity without coordination becomes fragmentation.  A healthy society — like a healthy ecosystem — requires both individuality and cooperation.  The founders understood pieces of this Truth, even if history later simplified their message into slogans about rugged independence.

Perhaps the deeper lesson of the Declaration was never absolute independence at all. But responsibility.  A shared and united destiny. Mutual accountability.  And the recognition that legitimate government derives not from domination, but from the consent and welfare of interconnected human beings dependent on each other and nature.

 

The rescue mission in the desert reminds us that even the world’s most advanced military cannot escape the consequences of unstable foundations. Neither can civilization.

If we continue engineering governments, economies, and international systems upon the delusion of separateness rather than the reality of our interdependence, the costs will continue escalating — in bodies, financially, politically, psychologically, and environmentally.

And like aircraft trapped in sand, even great powers can become immobilized by the very terrain they failed to understand.

The most important governance word never used.

As the U.S. approaches the 250th anniversary of “Declaration of Independence” only 61 days away, it's past time we consider the most damaging word in American history. It has led to more deaths, environmental destuction, and hate than any other. The word is independence.

A careful reading of the 1776 Declaration reveals something transformative. The noun “independence” appears nowhere in its text or original title “The unanimous Declaration of thirteen united States of America”, the world’s most profound document.  It rightfully and justly declared the colonies desire to be “Free and Independent States,” and used the adjective “independent”, not the noun “independence” a thing.  A thing that Albert Einstein later called a “delusion”.

This distinction is the difference between true freedom (the Declaration’s original intent) and the mass murdering chaos that both the U.S. Constitution and the U.N. Charter unleashed globally.  

An independent state (or states) can possess political autonomy existing within a web of relationships, responsibilities, and be mutual dependent on other states (or nations).  Unfortunately, the word “Independence” has evolved in our mind’s imagination as something absolute: self-sufficiency, exceptionalism, immunity from consequences beyond our borders, and worth mass killing and dying for, as well as ignoring nature, the basis of all human health, wealth, and other life on earth.

This could have - should have stopped immediately after the invention and use of nuclear weapons. Einstein warned about it, yet the UN Charter was founded on the same delusional concept as the U.S. Constitution. Both ignored the wisdoms offered in the 1776 Declaration based on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” (in common speak, ‘take care of nature and each other’ because everything is interdependent and vulnerable).  

Ironically, we annually celebrate our illusion of independence every July 4^th using explosives and eating nitrate loaded meats that cause cancer.  Then over 250 years of repetition, celebration, and civic mythology, that single word blunder has hardened into our minds a global worldview that has shaped our perception of reality and killed hundreds of millions of people.  Because independence exists nowhere in known universe except as a word on paper, in sound, or as a delusional concept in our mind.

No human being is independent of oxygen, food systems, ecosystems, microbes, gravity, family, trade, or civilization itself. No nation is independent of climate systems, oceans, pandemics, financial networks, or global stability. Even stars depend upon relationships with gravity and matter. Interdependence is not a political opinion; it is the architecture of reality.

And yet our governing systems still behave as if independence were achievable. Ironically, both the U.S. constitutional framework and the United Nations Charter are rooted in sovereign independence as their organizing principle. We continue attempting to solve planetary-scale crises — climate disruption, pandemics, cyberwarfare, nuclear risks, migration, and ecological collapse — with governance structures designed around fragmented and delusional sovereignty.

Then wonder why the systems fail and things are getting worse.

Perhaps the deepest challenge of our species is to accept our irreversible interconnectedness and interdependence.  And learn to govern everyone and nature wisely, fairly, and ethically.  Thus, the most important word in America’s founding document may be the one that was never actually written into law.

World Press Freedom Day - May 3

World Press Freedom Day: Truth, Freedom, and Survival.

Annually on May 3, it's worth pausing to recognize World Press Freedom Day.  Especially in 2026 given our meta crisis, this is not ceremonial.  It's existentially urgent.

This week's 5th edition of TIME100 Companies (with it's cover story title "Before the Fall: Cuba Awaits Trump's Endgame") also offers essays by three to company leaders. Sam Jacobs, Editor in Chief end's his page 4 "From the Editor" column "Telling the right story"- which focuses on these companies saying "we keep returning to company leaders because, increasingly, they are the ones shaping the world." 

No doubt AI will shape our world as much as "fire" has.  But in what direction?  The more important question is where they take us now in our world shaped by a lack of wisdom in spending trillions of dollars seeking more intelligence.  And zero mention of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needed for addressing the root causes of most of the disruptive forces now in play.   There is no rational plan to fund and achieve the SDGs ASAP.  Only a vague hope AI might - before it gains the power and capacity to do whatever it wants. 

A free press is not free.  It needs financing to perform.  Most importantly as a means of sustaining a viable global governing system.  Not just another democratic institution influenced more by money that wisdom.  A free press is the circulatory system of self-government. If you haven't noticed our US and UN systems are failing.   And without accurate contextual and detailed information  -our lives, society, democracy, and any chance to achieve then sustain the global Rule of Law protecting our vulnerable lives and planetary systems - they will continue to suffocate - as justice weakens, corruption metastasizes. Public health deteriorates, and fear replaces reason. Nature gets raped, while propaganda fills the vacuum, leaving us without the "Truths" that we should all hold "to be self-evident".

A sustainable government cannot exist without a sustainable relationship to reality.

One of America’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, reportedly wrote that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government,” he would prefer the latter. Whether quoted perfectly or not, the principle remains profoundly relevant: freedom of the press is not a luxury of democracy; it is its immune system.

As a biologist I was hired in 1988 to come to Washington DC from the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkely CA, as the first Media Director for RESULTS, a tiny but powerful Grassroots lobby doing transformational advance (developing direct relationships with our own elected US elected officials) vs transactional advocacy (pestering them with protests or petitions).  Not good at writing, a Bay area newspaper printed my first Letter to the Editor. It was addicting. Over the next few years other people I'd worked with had generated more media in our region than the other regions combined. My new job in DC didn't work out because I had no experience in generating key national TV news and didn't even have access to software to send mass faxes...instead of punching in the phone numbers of each targeted desk of multiple news sources.  But my skills were recognized by a Board member who used them to organize US based health and medical professionals committed to funding global maternal and child health projects. Politics were not as polarized back then and successes happened. Eventually I wrote Congressional testimony (perhaps the best writing I've ever done) two years in a row to the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations regarding global bio-security issues linked to US National Security.  Today such wise policies obvious to US intelligence agencies and the military are simply ignored...if offered at all.  

And with Truth decay and a lack of reliable contextual reporting, citizens cannot make informed decisions, and policy makers literally get away with mass murder.  Without investigative journalism, concentrations of power grow unchecked. Without facts, elections become emotional tribal contests detached from reality itself, and the health of people (especially our mental health) declines with catastrophic life, death, and debt consequences. Consequences are not theoretical.

A free press exposes corruption before corruption becomes collapse. It identifies disease outbreaks before pandemics spread globally. It reveals environmental destruction before ecosystems fail. It documents human rights abuses before atrocities multiply. It can even warn of economic instability and insanity before global financial systems unravel.

Truth is not merely moral.  It must be objective Truths! Not the personal or political truths that vary as diverse as our mind's can imagination .  Objective Truths like the Laws of Nature and Nature's God are profoundly functional. 

And as Jesus Christ has offered “The truth will set you free.”  Those words are often treated spiritually, but they also contain a profound civic and biological insight. Accurate perception increases survival. Delusion increases vulnerability and chaos.

Nature itself operates on this principle of freedom.  People are always free to do what they want. But they, their loved ones, the rest of humanity, and nature...are never free of the consequences.  Act virtuously, or pay the price.  

Any species that fails to accurately perceive their environment and adapt accordingly eventually disappear.  In reality species don't negotiate with adapting. The just encounter extinction.

The founders of the American republic understood another dimension of this challenge and repeatedly warned that freedom could not survive without virtue. In their language, virtue did not mean perfection. It meant civic responsibility, restraint, accountability, and recognition that liberty collapses when citizens abandon ethical obligations toward one another and mama nature. 

Any society that glorifies unlimited freedom without responsibility eventually consumes itself from within.

The Golden Rule — treating others as we wish to be treated — was not merely religious advice. It remains a practical design in all social species. And modern civilization will not be an exception. The erosion of empathy eventually destabilizes every institution built upon trust.

Yet modern political systems increasingly struggle with a deeper contradiction.  The U.S. Constitution, like many governing systems built during the age of nation-states, was constructed around the principle of sovereign independence (National Sovereignty).  This framework made historical sense in a world where threats were largely territorial and communication and other technologies moved at the speed of horses and ships. But today humanity lives inside systems of unescapable interdependence.

Climate systems ignore borders. Viruses don't carry passports. Cyberwarfare is blind to geography. Financial contagion spreads globally within seconds. Ecological collapse in one region destabilizes migration, food systems, and political order elsewhere. Nuclear conflict anywhere threatens life everywhere.  Yet governments still classify, suppress, distort, or strategically manipulate information under the broad umbrella of “national security”/"national sovereignty" often without recognizing that global freedom/security and national freedom/security are no longer separable concepts.

This is the central paradox of the twenty-first century: Humanity has become globally interconnected with everything else, while remaining politically fragmented.  And we persist over and over again in attempting to manage planetary-scale interdependence using governance systems psychologically rooted in independence.  This is the insanity of humanity I will consistently reference. And this now defines our increasing instability.

A free press therefore carries responsibilities far beyond domestic politics. Journalism today is part of humanity’s early warning system. Reporters, scientists, whistleblowers, investigators, and truth-tellers collectively form the nervous system of a sustainable interconnected civilization. Without them, societies will continue to drift blindly into preventable disasters and unsustainable budget deficits. 

This doesn't mean the press is infallible. Journalism can become sensationalized, polarized, corporate-controlled, ideological, or irresponsible in hopes of selling enough to keep spreading the news. Freedom of the press is not freedom from error or financing.  They profit from what we want to hear.  Not from what we need to hear.  That is our civic mental healthy problem. 

Do we want to feel good by avoiding bad news?  Or hear news that needs our attention - to solve problems that borders, wealth, and military power cannot solve.  The answer to flawed speech is rarely enforced silence. Its a truly 'woke' people knowing what needs to be done to keep people and nature healthy.    Healthy societies require more transparency, more evidence, more accountability, more independent inquiry, and more civic curiosity about reality with some responsibility to unite in solving problems. 

The deeper challenge is learning how to balance our freedoms, security, and responsibility simultaneously.  Simply because humanity now exists within what could be called an “iron triangle”: Freedom. Security. And Interdependence.   None can be maximized independently of the others.  Freedom without accountability produces chaos. Security without Truth produces authoritarianism. And, independence without recognition of humankind's interdependence produces delusional actions.

Every nation, regardless of military power, wealth, ideology, or geography, remains accountable to ecological systems, economic systems, biological systems, and ultimately to one another.

Political lines on maps cannot repeal atmospheric chemistry. Aircraft carriers cannot defeat pandemics.
Prosperity cannot permanently insulate societies from global instability. Reality eventually penetrates every border. 

World Press Freedom Day therefore should not simply celebrate journalists. It should remind humanity of a deeper principle: Freedom depends upon our willingness to confront reality honestly, and take the actions needed. 

Democracy requires justice, protection of human rights, transparency, and global health. 

And these require informed citizens, evidence, and objective Truths to sustainably maximize freedoms and security.

And truth itself requires courage.

Especially when it is inconvenient, it challenges power, and especially when it forces us to recognize that survival in the twenty-first century depends less on defending absolute independence and more on learning how to govern our shared interdependence wisely, ethically, and globally.

A free press is not the enemy of national security.  Ultimately, it may be one of the last remaining means to human survival itself.

We must achieve the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals ASAP...or pay the consequences. 

Deep thinking: Avoiding the insanity of western civilization.

 

I never thought deeply about the 1776 Declaration until the year 1976 when our nation widely celebrated it's 200 anniversary. I'd just started dating the young lady of my dreams.  Our first official date was 100 mile bike ride to Tie Siding Wyoming and back from the campus of Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, CO.

I'd always wondered what the future would bring forth. Then in 1980 I got a glimpse after reading the unanimous bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger.  President Jimmy Carter released it then with a stark warning.  Paraphrased:  'unless we end the worst aspects of widespread, hunger, and poverty by the year 2000 humanity will see more wars, revolutions, genocides, pandemics, environmental destruction, terrorism, and refugee problems...'

Now, preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of (delusional) Independence, Laura and I are still married with two children in their 40s.  Unfortunately, our legacy doesn't appear to include grandchildren.   So my intention is to turn my passion for nature and a sane future - into action by exposing the genius fundamental principles within the Declaration of Independence. Too bad, more so called 'patriotic' Americans miss these profound details while celebrating with fireworks under our nations illusion of independence.  I just learned last month that word Independence was never mentioned in its original printing.   This, I believe all started with the catastrophic failure of not codifying the Declaration's wise principles into the U.S. Constitution that engineered 11 years later by a larger group of wealthy white men, most of whom never signed the Declaration.  

This historic document was the universal recognition of freedom as a natural right for everyone born, everywhere, for all time.  An "unalienable" right among others.  With all rights dictated by "the Laws of Nature and of Nature‘s God."  So simple and profound!  Yet so much ignored to this day by powerful leaders, and the rest of us go along believing we will be OK.  Meanwhile, things are getting worse. Much worse. 

Since President Trump’s first election our nation has been going backwards on Constitutional principles. Even before him, its principles could not achieve any of the seven intentions listed in its preamble. Read them. Just failing on the first two makes the others impossible to achieve.  Some progress was made in previous decades....but now, the accelerating decline has been favored by nearly half of all US voters.  Add Trump's recent war of choice - inspired by Israel's leader with the support of a majority of American Christian Zionists, he has unleased the worst foreign policy decision ever. Greater than Vietnam and the 2003 Bush invasion/occupation of Iraq - combined. With unintended but predicable consequences extending into the potential for a global economic meltdown or hybrid world war.

The world will never be the same. Which is good in once sense, but we are unlikely to learn from it given past forgetfulness, lack of caring, or lack of wisdom. 

Trump's bombing Iran for the protection of Israel (now a genocidal theocracy), has torn the bandage off of the Global War Against Terrorism (GWAT) sparked by 9-11 in 2001.  GWAT only accelerated the growth of violent extremism and the numbers of individuals willing to commit suicide in defense of their flawed religious/political beliefs.  Or, their understandable act of vengeance given all the death and destruction US military and foreign policy has perpetrated on Muslims over the previous decades.  

Now even some domestics are motived within a globally context of Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, Christian Nationalism, Zionism, and even fears of AI dominance....just to name a few aberrations of the American ideal of 'liberty and justice for all'.  A rise in lethal righteousness that exist in minds, that turn human bodies into bombs that are nearly impossible to detected pre-boom, without a loss of human privacy at every level.  

And now with increasing affordable access to multiple dual-use technologies (bio, chem, cyber, drones, cars, trucks, even disinformation...) no one is safe, ever. 

I’ve been harping on these threats for decades. And our constant vulnerability to nearly everything, given almost anything can be weaponized.  All on top of the acceleration of Truth decay, security is increasingly a delusion. And mass chaos appears unstoppable.    

This is a self-evident truth to more and more people. And the only thing I can do is try to inform more people to understand this insanity of humanity- and maybe motivate them into action.  It simple, but complicated. When we act on our mental illusion of independence -- a delusion according to Albert Einstein, yet our minds don't like hearing that its thinking is the problem. Yet both the US Constitution and the UN charter, are founded on it.  Thus, we all face a trilemma, wanting freedom, security, and independence.  In reality, we can only have two.  And we must now choose rapidly and wisely.  This primary source of chaos will continue happening, due to our belief that we are independent.  And unconsciously assuming that the protection of national sovereignty with our military power will keep us safe. Unfortunately, it is only be understanding that acting on our interdependence is the protection of all humankind's rights, plus the environment that must be our highest priority. 

There doesn't appear to be a chance of this changing anytime soon.  Humanity failed in 1948 by not protecting the 30 human rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  A complete list that all nations agreed to at that time. 

Now humankind's best possibility of protecting most of those rights is investing in the only plan that already exists.  Unfortunately, most Americans are unaware of it - the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And within these are 169 affordable and achievable sub-goals that are now our only chance (short of the second coming of Christ) of making measurable progress on the vitality of every local community within the US - and globally.  Plus the protection of nature that all life depends on. 

Internationally, thousands of globally minded organizations, all working on vital issues have so far refused to endorse the concept of uniting in simply endorsing Project 250 -as an idea whose time is about 300 years past due.  It's not another organization. Just an opportunity to unite local efforts at working together, many for the first time, in achieving progress on each community's most basic needs.  Unfortunately, the mission ego of most major organizations, fail to grasp the power they would have in uniting into a progressive Movement of Movements (Peace, Environment, and economic/social Justice) into one unstoppable advocacy effort.  Instead, they continue competing against each other, each day and year, for money, active members, media, attention, and spending time with key policy makers.  And expecting a different result.  We all know this is the definition of insanity. Yet they persist.  

Meanwhile, the MAGA minions unite and cleverly divide us further with campaigns they know will distract us.   

Look on the dollar bill for the Latin phrases most relevant to our human nature and survival.

• Top of pyramid:  Annuit Coeptis   Believed to be under divine guidance
• Bottom of pyramid:   Novus Ordo Seclorum   Creating a new historical era
• Eagle side:  E Pluribus Unum      From many into one
• Foundation date:  MDCCLXXVI   A nation founded in 1776

Yet we honor the value of a paper bill more than these Wisdoms of the ages. Then wonder why things are so bad, and only getting worse.   Basically, the systems we have sworn to protect with our lives and lack of honor, the US Constitution, is flawed. And our allegiance to a flag, promising liberty and justice for all, has never happened. A phrase we’ve repeated thousands of times without really grasping what we were committing ourselves to accomplish.

The mind has a genius means of avoiding doing the things that it knows needs to be done. Those Truths that we should all "hold to be self-evident".  Plus the foundational concepts.

This future reality was clearly explained near the end of the second paragraph of the Declaration "...all experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to write themselves and abolish the forms to which they have become accustomed."  This will likely be our nation’s epitaph.  

May future generations, forgive us for our sins that originated as excuses in our mind, instead abiding they meaning of "Happiness" mentioned earlier, that back then meant the longer term bliss when we use our talents to serve others in our community.   How un-American that is today...except for the soldiers, nurses, teachers, fireman, even most police, but not by most elected officials, who serve their political party more than our nation's founding principles. 

United we stand a chance.  Divided? Expect an acceleration of chaos...and now with Mythos (AI) lose in the world...its time to start preparing for the worse we can imagine. 

Beyond the Moon, and within Ourselves

The recent advances in spaceflight—driven in part by companies like SpaceX—mark a turning point in human history of financial investment. For the first time since the Apollo 11 Moon landing, we are seriously contemplating sustained travel beyond the Moon.

When John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to go to the Moon, he said we choose to do these things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” That spirit still resonates. But today, the rationale goes deeper. Space exploration is not only difficult—it is increasingly strategic and even existential. 

There is, undeniably, a new space race. An intense competition for unique resources, geopolitical positioning, and technological dominance. The Moon and beyond are no longer aspirational and distant symbols of curiosity; they are emerging arenas of vital competition. Nations and corporations are investing unprecedented resources to solve one of the hardest problems imaginable—how to keep human beings alive in the most hostile environments in the universe.

And yet, a troubling contrast remains.

We have not applied that same level of commitment, ingenuity, or investments to designing systems that allow humanity to thrive here on Earth. Instead, we continue spends tens of trillions defending abstract constructs—national rivalries, ideological divisions, and economic competitions—that often have little to do with our shared biological reality as one human family.

If space is the “final frontier,”  then the most important frontier becomes the space between our ears.  Our collective mental health based on wisdom, not just maximizing every aspect of intelligence. 

The technologies enabling human or automated space travel are grounded in physics, biology, and engineering—disciplines that demand alignment with the laws of nature. Rockets don't launch on ideology. Life-support systems don't function on beliefs.  Progress in space requires coordination, cooperation, precision, and a respect for reality and Truths that transcend partisan politics.

Imagine if we applied this same rigor to political governance systems as Thomas Paine had suggested in his popular pampeht 'Common Sense' printed 6 months before the Declaration of Independence (officially titled "The unanimous Declaration of thirteen united States of America" which never mentioned the delusional word Independence - only a mental construct that according to Albert Einstein, that exists nowhere in the known universe).   

The principles articulated in the 1776 American Declaration —that all people are created equal and possess inherent rights—point toward a universal framework. But those principles have yet to be codified in the U.S. Constitution or the UN Charter.  They have been subordinated to polarizing definition of national sovereignty that puts the protection of governments and corporations over that of human rights and nature.

The success of modern space exploration did not emerge from rhetoric, ritual, or competition alone. It required coordinated effort, long-term thinking, and a willingness to align human ambition with scientific truth. Without that, even the most powerful rockets would never escape Earth’s gravity.

Today, humanity faces a different kind of gravity—the weight of outdated assumptions, fragmented identities, and short-term interests. These abstract mental forces hold us down just as surely as physics once did.

The wisest question.  'Can We the People generate a clarity of purpose to overcome them. 

We already possess the knowledge, technology, and resources to address many of our most pressing global challenges—from climate instability to systemic inequality. What's been missing is not capacity, but alignment: a shared understanding of who we really are - a human with a unique spirit in our 'being' (with a voice in our head as a tool for solving problems and sustaining our species -- instead of a creative defense system for protecting the identities it has created to divide us as a species - which is simply unsustainable).  

Space exploration reveals something fundamental. Strip away borders, and Earth is a tiny single, fragile system, in an immense and hostile universe.  Strip away ideology, and human survival depends on cooperation with each other and within nature’s limits.

If we carry our mental identity divisions into space—prioritizing dominance over stewardship—we risk exporting the very problems that threaten us here and now.

But if we evolve—grounding our systems in human dignity and ecological reality—then space exploration could become not just an voyage outward, but a transformation inward. 

To achieve our next giant leap in reaching Mars, we must first learn to live together as Martin Luther King stated, or remain on earth and die together as fools.

Iran Weaponized Interdependence. Mental health actions are urgently needed.

But this still won't wake up most Americans regarding the reality of our existence.   This is our insanity. Believing a delusional concept like Independence can protect our freedom and security. 

Every technology can be weaponized. When the mind overrides our human spirit we can weaponize almost anything.  And with AI the weaponization things will accelerate.  Few people consider the reality that there are two types of weapons.  

1. Conventional kinetic weapons that are used up when used, and need to be replaced. 

2. Replicable non-kinetic weapons that can multiply when they are used.  At no cost or further effort.  And if cleverly created, leave no return address.  Biological and cyber weapons fit this asymmetrical means of mass murder.  This makes deterrence nearly impossible. And AI makes this unique weapon system infinitely easer, faster, and cheaper as time goes on. 

Buckle up buttercup.  Hard times are coming.  Perhaps some day after the a major die off and human infrastructure destruction - humankind will learn to manage our mind's outdated concepts like nationalism, religious differences, and unregulated capitalism -  and accept that fact that we are one race.  The human race.  A global family will all the same vulnerabilities, and need to worships the Golden Rule while defending nature's systems that sustain all life.  

All technologies are neutral.  We can use them for good or harm, depending on what our hearts and minds has settled on.  That will only come from the sanity of humanity.  And it needs to happen soon. 

If you are committed to doing something in your own community to address this insanity,  Rotary International offers non-Rotarians an easy way to be involved.  Rotary Action Groups or RAGs -26 if them - are open to non-Rotarians at no cost.  Recently its Rotary Action Group for Mental Health Initiatives began a joint operation with its Rotary Action Group for Peace. These two RAGs recognize that Peace begins in the mind.  And recognizes that certain concepts that used to bond humans in tribes (religion, politics, economics) are now the root cause of endless conflicts.  Specifically, identity concepts that have nothing to do with our body's DNA - or our human spirit of coordination, cooperation, and compassion.  And now, with the evolution of weaponry combined with our mind's resistance to recognize humankind's urgent need for change (of context) has never been more important. The context being -we are one race.  And uniting to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may be our species last chance of avoiding the accelerating endless global chaos that we are now witnessing - and too many people experiencing. 

Rotary International’s primary goal annually is Polio Eradication.  But it also has Rotary Action Groups (RAGs).  These specialized, member-led community groups are advancing services worldwide.  When a Rotary Club (or District) has a member in one, special events can be created (and sometimes funded) to involve a local community.  RAGs are intentionally open to non-Rotarians at not cost.  This intends to enlarge global networks of expertise.  This openness is what helps make RAGs so powerful in providing global expertise and partnerships to any local community - to advance dedicated 'service above self' projects.   

RAG 'Categories/examples include:  

DISEASE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

MENTAL HEALTH related: 

1. Mental health initiatives (Without mental health there is no health or peace)

2. Health education and wellness

3. Basic education and literacy.

4. Girls empowerment

5. Family health and AIDS prevention

6. Addiction prevention

7. Alzheimer's and dementia

HEALTH:

1. Water, sanitation, and hygiene: (prevents ~50% of global infectious diseases)

2. Reproductive, maternal, and child health (Reducing IMR key to stability)

3. Menstrual health and hygiene

4. Blindness prevention

5. Blood and organ donation

6. Clubfoot treatment

7. Diabetes awareness

8. Hearing

9. Hepatitis eradication

10. Multiple sclerosis awareness

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH:

1. Endangered species protection (new drug discoveries or detection of zoonotic disease) 

2. Environmental sustainability (Vital for human health)

3. Food plant solutions (Healthy soil & food vital for health)

ECONOMIC NEEDS: Meeting community basic needs. 

1. Community economic development

EMERGENCY-related RAGs: Priority of keeping people healthy! 

1. Disaster assistance

PEACE & HUMAN RIGHTS: 

1. Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention (RAGFP)

2. Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Migration

3. Slavery Prevention / Child Slavery Prevention 

I have recently committed to starting a District 7620 (about 60 clubs in the DC/MD area) to forward this collaboration between Mental Health experts and Peace activists focused on community, national, and global peace efforts.  Please contact me for more information or involvement. chuck@igc.org

What will you say to someone in the future when they asked you what you did to make a difference?

Five Divine Words. Can solve most of humankinds problems. But we must become the land lord of our minds.

 

Freedom, truth, health, family, and love are the five divine unambiguous wise words that humankind possesses. They should never be outlawed, ignored, or taken for granted.   Our body and spirit embrace these.  Unfortunately, our mind now weaponizes concepts that divide us and yield hatred of others, justifying their mass murder, that is a jolts our soul.  

We are not our mind.  It is a voice in our head that can justify the most horrendous atrocities.  Then we lose our humanity when we become desensitized to this insanity.   And that reflects where too many of us are now.   This is an aberration of our true nature.  A self-inflicted mental illness that we must urgently correct if we are to root out the origins of the global evil we now see.  If we fail to return our mind to its original purpose of solving problems, its defense of identities inconsistent within our biology, it will take us into a hell scape of insecurity, pain, sorrow, loneliness, and deep regret for those who might survive.  

Concerns about AI are not overblown. From job disruption, to the expense of data centers and its growing number of dissenters, waste of water, and possibly humankinds overlord. Just remember that all technology and information is neutral. It is the hearts and minds of individuals that will determine how any technology and information will be used.  If we believe that national sovereignty and wealth is superior to unalienable human rights and the health of nature then abandon all hope. And if enough of us wake up to this insanity, and rediscover our natural 3C superpower of cooperation, coordination, and compassion, our species has everything it needs to flourish far into the future.  

An apocalyptic future AI is possible. If our minds continue globally to prioritize competition instead, God won't save us.  What's clear now with the evolution of AI, which ever nation achieves AI's highest productivity for what it is committed to, will dominate global policy on every issue, over every other nation. Then that supreme nation will need to quickly figure out, how to control its own super AI from becoming its overlord. 

In a dozen or maybe a hundred years, Ted Krasinski, the Unabomber's manifesto may be the new bible.  And his warnings replace the wisdoms of Jesus Christ and the golden rule, as a stupid rule. 

Technology has given humankind the greatest power to do good or do great harm. The greatest good it has done so far is the eradication and Small box. The greatest harm it has done is the perpetual evolution of weaponry.   Albert Einstein saw it coming.  He urged humanity to establish the global Rule of law through a United World Federation, instead of another World War with Genocides and the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction.   Unfortunately, humanities leaders chose protection of national sovereignty and corporations, instead of protecting unalienable human rights and the environment.

Wisdom does not automatically come with high intelligence. Mass volumes of information are not useful without knowledge and application of the "self evident" "Truths" offered in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Truths offered by religions and indigenous cultures before religions were created. 

Our intelligent minds ignored those fundamental principles and invented our own. Then used these to engineer our national and global governing systems, using powerful technologies to engineered a modern world around us that our human bodies and spirit were not engineered for.  We have prioritized comfort over compassion for others.  Partisan tribal politics over the fundamental purpose of politics (according to Thomas Payne), to protect people's "freedom and security".  Tribal party whims passed by majority vote ignored the fact that "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" always get the only objective vote. 

The result of both democracy and autocracy lacking justice and the protection of human rights has given us the deadly rise of obesity, depression, suicide, chronic diseases, wars, genocides, and perpetual accelerating global chaos.  And only weapons or energy producing corporations will profit.  Not the health and wealth of people in the environmental sustainability.  And our brains and bodies will still have micro plastics in hundreds of years after we’re buried or composted. Cremation will only pollute the air of our offspring. 

If humanity fails to urgently wakes up from this western 'progress' our science fiction movies and apocalyptic predictions and nightmares will become real.   We are a human family - but our mind prefers division, divorce from reality, and species assisted suicide.  And even knowing this won’t stop us.  Simply because our mind has at least 18, at last count, of ways to resisting and blot out our human spirit within us.

We now have less than 90 days to use AI to unite humankind and transform our world using the profound wisdom within that 1776 declaration.  That's what Abraham Lincoln intended to do when he first ran for President.  But another mind, decided to terminate Lincoln. 

And now, even more minds have adopted this insanity of killing our way to superiority.  The mis and dis information we are being fed and gobbling up fuels our mind rot and truth decay with delusions of grandeur-  that our culture, politics, economics, and religion are superior and independent of nature and the will of others.   Some are starting to wake up, but still resist being united in adapting to this insanity.   And willfully refuse to unit around the one thing, achieving, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, that could put the brakes on our self-destructive path.  Our confusion by our mind's delusions will not end well. .

Since the 2024 election the delusions have been picking up speed with a US foreign aid cuts, the soft power needed to make more friends and less enemies. Researchers at the Center for Global Development calculated 1.6 million excessive deaths in 2025 compared with the 2024 caused by cuts to US humanitarian and health assistance. Now, this may be getting worse.  A recent study in the Lancet, a highly respected medical journal, projected that 9,400,000 to 22,600,000 people could die by 2030. A quarter of them children under the age of five, due to the falling assistance levels from all donors. 

The success of any species is best measure by the protection of is offspring.  This is the highest priority of any mammal species.  Yet infant mortality rates are not as important as the most powerful nations GDP.  

Meanwhile, the 2026 World Happiness Report reveals that people who give and activate others are happier. Other key findings: freedom to make life choices matters more than GDP.  Social support, real-life connections, and a sense of belonging sustain wellbeing. Thus, the best measure of progress should be in the 169 subgoals within the UN 17 SDGs.

The Ashoka Fellow's network is expert at improving lives. It has been building these foundations for a long time and with some volunteers winning Nobel Prizes as leading social entrepreneurs globally. They champion innovative new ideas that transform minds and society’s systems, providing benefits for everyone and improving the lives of millions of people. This is the root of local, national, and global security. Examples:  In the UK, Mark Swift's Wellbeing Enterprises released an independent evaluation showing that social prescribing through community-rooted health and education generates up to £74 of social value for every £1 invested. In Kenya, Tom Osborn's Shamiri Institute scales care with a focus on gratitude to improve youth life satisfaction. In India, Sachin Chaudhry's TrustCircle brought school-based mental health for women and girls to last month's UN Commission on the Status of Women, while Rebekka Dober's YEP released a participatory study of over 5,500 youth bringing solutions directly into policy. And in Kenya, Jimmy Westerheim's The Human Aspect recently completed reporting-focused fieldwork to amplify South-led narratives about mental health.

What is wrong with western thinking?  We don't know we have a mental health problem. Our body feels it and senses it. But our mind gets in the way of acting on it.  And this flawed thinking is simply unsustainable by any standard of wisdom, compassion, or philosophical argument. The undiagnosed insanity of humanity is becoming a global self-evident Truth. Fortunately, our mind has this problem solving capacity if that is what our human spirit demands of it. 

William F Buckley Junior, a conservative, intellectual revered by most Republicans, was founder of the national review. In its mission statement, Buckley promised it would stand athwart history and yell “ st stop at the time when no one else is inclined to do so.”

It is now time for people of all political persuasions to demand. We stop this train of insanity of humanity before it’s too late.