A Framework for Equipping
"We the People" to Co-Craft
Humanity's Best Future

Throughout the history of civilization, a small group of powerful people have made decisions about how to structure their societies and manage governance. At this time, a small group of powerful people are now attempting to determine the future of all of humanity.

There appear to be two groups with high power who are in a war to determine which of their versions of the future of humanity will prevail:

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) is presuming to decide and dictate the future of humanity for us all. Putin and China appear to have competing versions of humanity’s future that they are trying to implement in place of the WEF's version.
• None of these versions is acceptable.
• What all of these versions have in common is that their agenda seems to be about turning human beings into the 21st century version of partly biological & partly cybernetic slaves — commodities who serve a version of the “common good” that instead serves the powerful few more than the highest good of humanity. Their transhumanistic visions of the future are based on Yuval Noah Harari’s (Sapiens author) notion of Homo Deus (Latin for “Human God”).

Might there be a better way to create the future?

• Exploring that question is the purpose of this document.

The prototype of free societies can be found in the United States Declaration of Independence, and its Constitution, which was significantly influenced by the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Founders crafted the future of the United States around building a country that was by the people, of the people, and for the people.

Today we no longer have consensus about what “by the people, of the people, and for the people“ means. For humanity to craft its best possible future, that consensus must be illuminated and re-established.

When the unethical among big money businesses and special interests compete against each other to manipulate government decisions, the media, the educational system, science, and public opinion, to serve their own purposes, the inevitable result is minimally functional, lowest-common-denominator governance that leaves society maximally susceptible to takeover by a small group of powerful self-serving individuals and organizations.

A non-politicized way of understanding the polarization is through these two groups:

• Regressionists: These folks advocate attempting to return to the “good old days.”
• Futurists: Some warn against dystopian futures and others advocate one version or another of a utopian future they envision.

Both polarized groups have significant wisdom and big blindspots:

• The Regressionist Solution's Gold and Blindspots 
  • Gold: Living a simpler, or more natural, or more moral life
  • Blindspot: The way to get back to this is to restore “the good old days,” which is a romanticized utopian view of the past
• The Futurist Solution's Gold and Blindspots 
  • Gold: Humanity is constantly innovating, and this won't be stopped
  • Blindspot: Innovation without ethics leads people to try outsmarting the Source of Life and universal principles/perennial wisdom
• Integrating the Gold in Both Perspectives 
  • There is everything right about wanting to live a simpler, more natural, more moral life.
  • Nothing is inherently wrong with — and everything is inherently inevitable about — innovation.
  • Those who operate as though we are smarter than Source — instead of using innovation to more fully manifest Source — are heading humanity in a devolutionary direction, NOT an evolutionary one.

Bestselling author Yuval Harari has become a spokesperson for the World Economic Forum. The version of Homo Deus he is advocating is more aptly called “Homo Machina” — A self-appointed group of influencers who believe they are smarter than God are turning humans into commoditized part-cybernetic machines.

• The future Homo Machina will create: Manipulated Masses Serving the Self-Interested Few

Another version of Homo Deus is more promising. In contrast to the Homo Machina version, it might aptly be called  “Homo Spiritus” — humans becoming conduits who transmute higher love and wisdom into worldly expression.

• The future Homo Spiritus will create: Self-Sovereigns who co-create Heaven on Earth as conduits who transduce higher love and wisdom into worldly form, based in perennial wisdom/philosophy/ethics, blending the gold of the regressionists and the futurists, and leaving each group's blindspots behind.
• As "we the people" embrace Homo Spiritus, this will mark the first time in recorded human history when we collectively determine the future of self-sovereignty, civilization, and governance… instead of leaving it to a small group to decide this for us. Consider how much of a leap forward this is. Can this actually happen? Yes, and far more easily than some might think, because technological advancements we have made can help this happen.

These two vastly different versions of Homo Deus are discussed in depth in several episodes of The One Thing podcast, hosted by David Gruder and Laurie Morse: www.DrGruder.com/TOT

Growing numbers of people, on both the political right and the political left, are sensing that a shift toward the Homo Machina version of Homo Deus is under way and are recoiling against it. This can be a source of deep-level unification that transcends surface-level polarization.

Part of the problem is that many don’t yet know how to accurately articulate what they are sensing about this.

Another part of the problem is that many people who sense that this shift is underway are angry and scared about the polarization, corruption, and upheaval after upheaval. Some react by rebelling, and some react by  dropping out. What is generally unrecognized is that both rebelling and dropping out actively enable the agenda of the powerful minority to dictate humanity’s future instead of “We the People.”

[For United States Citizens:] In the United States, we have collectively lost touch with — and thereby abandoned — our experiment as a nation and our mission as a beacon to the world. It is time for the people of the United States to remember our country’s purpose and reclaim our role as beacons.

[For Citizens of All Free Countries:] It is time for the people of all free countries to reclaim the enlightened experiment of free societies: To function at the intersection of preserving individual freedom AND promoting our common good. Not one at the expense of the other.

Those in power today who are attempting to dictate a Homo Machina future of humanity are counting on the masses to not recognize the self-serving agenda for humanity’s future that they are implementing until after it can no longer be undone.

We will not avert a Homo Machina future of humanity by protesting or rebelling against it, or by sticking our heads in the ground like ostriches, hoping it will go away.

We can overcome this sinister version of the future of humanity only by birthing a different version of the future. One that enough of humanity embraces so the power of the highest wisdom of the many drowns out the power of the self-serving agenda of the few.

The turning point for when the sinister could prevail is just around the corner. Likely by the end of this decade, if not sooner. Now is therefore the time to prevent this from taking hold — and to create a framework for "We the People” that supports us in crafting an Elevated Future that revisions humanity.

What is the best possible future for individuals, society and governance?

Because we do not yet have clear consensus about the answers to these questions, humanity is in a collective state of chronic and deepening confusion and fear.

The chaos this continues to create leaves a wide-open door for ideologues and narcissists to take control of humanity.

Now is the time to replace megalomania and tyranny in our country and on our planet once and for all.

The need for this has never been more important and urgent.

Short of revolution, humanity is demanding this. This is fully clear to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

A purpose of this document is to propose a starting point for accomplishing this intention, so the bloodshed of revolution need not occur.

For the first time in history, thanks to technological advancements, we the people can collectively midwife our birth into the future instead of allowing an inordinately powerful few to dictate our future. (Midwifing is facilitating the transitional stage of labor and delivery in the process of giving birth).

The means are available for people of every country wanting to do this to join together to access what their deepest spirits know about the highest purposes and future of humanity, individuals, society, and governance.

Humanity can now establish once and for all that we have the combined love, wisdom and power to craft humanity’s future. We now have the means to stop allowing the few and influential —whether well-intended or ill-intended, wise or foolish — to make decisions for humanity.

Even though this has never before been tried, it’s in every one of us who are interested to participate, to join together in doing this. It simply needs to be asked of us. Those who are ready will step forward if the means to do so are made easy.

We now have the means to do this. Just as companies only succeed to the extent that their personnel are fully on board with its vision, mission, guiding principles, and procedures, so too with citizens and countries.

Assertion: Until we undertake this process within our own communities and all the way up to our own countries, coming together in good ways as a planet is likely to remain out of reach.

1. Awaken the Demand that's waiting to be activated, via an "I Have a Dream" media campaign that promotes the above vision, and polling that is described in the "I Have a Plan" section below.
2. Mobilize that Demand by providing a roadmap for proceeding that people who want to participate can get behind, along with a practical plan for implementing focus groups (along the lines of what is described the "I Have a Plan" section below)
3. Empower that Demand by providing the resources that enable people to turn love and wisdom into positive impact. This step would be implemented once the plan described in the next section below has been ratified (examples of existing resources for this are in the "Resources" section further below).

Here are examples of potential polling questions about the percentage of the public who:

• Do and don’t want leaders to determine the future of humanity for us
• Do and don’t want a future in which humans become commoditized biological-cybernetic hybrids who are the 21st century version of serfs
• Fear there are powerful groups who are attempting to bring about 21st Century serfdom.

Purpose: Identify humanity’s version of “first principles” about the highest purpose of individuals, society, and governance. Specifically, the version of Focus Groups known as Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) would be repurposed as Citizen Advisory Boards. (A Customer Advisory Board is a small group of influential customers who have a vested interest in helping to shape the host company’s strategy. Citizen Advisory Boards would be small groups of collaborative citizens who are committed to help shape their community’s, state’s or country’s purpose.)

Participant Training for Serving on CABs

• Training About the Choice Humanity Faces About Its Future:
  • We are faced with two alternate versions of Homo Deus — Homo Machina and Homo Spiritus.
  • Which do you want?
•  MindSets Training
  • Gruder’s Collaboration Jigsaw Puzzle MindSet: Click here to view video (opens new window)
  • Read https://fs.blog/first-principles (opens new window) or more likely, a summary of this article that is customized for this project (to be developed)

  • Training in spotting the dynamics of Mass Formation per the work of Dr. Mattias Desmet

• SkillSets Training
  • How to access higher love and wisdom via connection with The One Thing (being developed)
  • How to collaborate instead of polarize: the SUSS Method: Click here to view the video (opens new window)

6 Phases After Preparatory Training (I am not attached to this structure — I am merely proposing it as a starting point for brainstorming that would ultimately yield a consensus decision about how to proceed)

• Phase 1: Each CAB focus group is facilitated in generating their first draft of the highest purpose of individuals, society, and governance.
• Phase 2: Consistently recurring themes, and outlier themes, are identified across focus groups, and made transparently available to all CAB focus groups.
• Phase 3: Each CAB focus group re-convenes to review the composite input and generate their draft refinements.
• Phase 4: CAB focus group refinements are compiled into a first draft of a Declaration of Dignity (or whatever more useful title emerges).
• Phase 5: A broad cross-section of people are elected to refine the Declaration draft and integrate into that document statements about the fundamental purposes of education (schooling, media, religion), healthcare, business, and an economy, in implementing that Declaration.
• Phase 6: This Declaration is put to a nationwide (or community-wide or state/province-wide?) vote, with the elected group being required to continue refining it until 2/3 of voters approve it.

Funding is coming from philanthropists who support Homo Spiritus as the desired version of the future of humanity.

There are more than enough such philanthropists to make this initiative among the largest philanthropic initiatives the world has seen to date. Some funding sources are already on board. Details will be provided at an appropriate time.

If you are connected with a funding source that has interest in this initiative, I encourage you to contact me by clicking the button toward the bottom of this page.

Government officials will:

• Want to become properly equipped to lead and collaborate (i.e., govern) in service of the vision for humanity’s future.
• Understand that today's fundamental issue is about whether the Homo Machina or Homo Spiritus version of Homo Deus prevails, and that their responsibility is to act on behalf of Homo Spiritus.
• Ensure that legislation and governance mechanisms support the successful emergence of Homo Spiritus.
• Develop better ways to collaborate with the media and social networks on behalf of Homo Spiritus.

Citizens will recognize that they are in the midst of a battle for their brains.

• They will therefore want to become more propaganda-proof: To become more sophisticated at spotting (in the media, in politicians, and in their spokespeople) image magicians, narrative crafting spin doctors, crafty media managers, and sophisticated propaganda speech writers, all of whose roles are to make impaired or self-serving leaders appear to be unimpaired or selfless.
• Examples of propaganda-proofing education include:
  • The Battle For Your Brain (Click here to listen -- opens a new window)
    • Societal Spells are created when upheavals are misused to escalate fear and confusion
    • The Father of Modern Public Relations, Edward Bernays, and his published works on covert Manufactured Consent (manipulating people into supporting products, services, causes, and candidates, while thinking they’re doing this from their own free will)
    • The former KGB’s Four Stages of Ideological Subversion for Co-Opting Societies that Yuri Bezmenov revealed during the Cold War and that continues to be used
    • PsyOps: Psychological Special Operations for the purpose of mind control
  • The Hijacking Formula That Fuels and Feeds On Unjust-World Attitudes
    • Ensure that people have critical thinking deficits. Then orchestrate upheavals to fuel fear and magnify confusion by disseminating alternate facts and constantly changing messages. This reinforces Learned Helplessness and belief in Conspiracy Theories. This leads to some people caving in and some rebelling. Those who rebel get quashed.  
  • The Results of The Battle for Your Brain and The Hijacking Formula

    • Massive Distrust + Massive Blind Support of Perceived Saviors (mainstream or dissenters) lead to...

    • Divisiveness and Polarization, which escalate into...

    • Societal Deterioration fueling Mass Formation, which leads to Free Society Crumbling Into Totalitarianism or Anarchy

Citizens will recognize the impacts of impaired leaders (and the spin doctors who surround them), and as a result will want to become far more able to spot and elect Spiritus-inspired psychologically mature leaders who, regardless of political party, are insulated from manipulation by special interests and support governance that upholds Homo Spiritus.  

• Citizens will understand what happens to government trust when a leader does not have high noble intentions, wise maturity, and well-developed systems skills. They will recognize that “leaders lead at the level of their self-development limitations despite their highest intentions” — David Gruder.
• Citizens will become more able to spot Ignorant Leaders who have forgotten (or never knew) the fundamental mandate of government officials in a free society: To be a servant to citizens rather than to self or special interests, and to govern at the intersection of preserving individual freedom and promoting the common good.
• They become more able to spot Unskilled Leaders who lack psychological maturity, have an under-developed understanding of systems theory, over-rely on coercion or compromise, and have an underdeveloped ability to facilitate or participate in collaboration.
• They become more able to spot "Useful Idiot" Leaders (a term from propaganda theory) who have been co-opted by propaganda but don’t know it... or have allowed themselves to be consciously blackmailed due to skeletons in their closet or fear for their family’s life (or their own). This results in them being susceptible to special interest and ideological manipulation. This applies as much to scientists and the media as to elected and appointed government officials.
• They become more able to spot Toxically Dangerous Leaders: Severe narcissists, sociopaths, and other power/money-obsessed autocrats...  especially those who are well-versed in how to use propaganda and covert psychological operations tactics (PsyOps) to achieve their agenda.

Citizens will realize that they are not really electing candidates: They are electing their future; a Homo Machina or Homo Spiritus future. A future focused on self-sovereignty that serves us all (instead of a future of  narcissism, either in the form of serfdom that serves the few, or dog-eat-dog anarchy. “In essence we are electing the future. It’s about choosing what we want for ourselves and as a society.” [From “In the Wake of Chaos” by Delaina Layne]

Citizens will want to become effective in requiring authentic journalism and education, government honesty and transparency, authentic healthcare, and social networks that support Homo Spiritus instead of manipulating the masses.

Citizens will realize that they have far more power than they ever realized, and they will choose to use that power on behalf of Homo Spiritus, FREEsponsibility, and self-sovereignty that serves us all. In short, they will become far more responsible citizens than ever before in the history of the world. (Click here for more about FREEsponsibility and the 5 Great Truths of Thriving Societies — opens new window)

Leaders and others in positions of power or influence will come to recognize that the public are far wiser, and far more powerful, than they ever wanted to admit… and as a result they will become devoted to serving the public instead of special interests.

Listen to The One Thing podcast episodes: www.DrGruder.com/TOT (opens new window)

View the website: www.HijackingOfHappiness.com (opens new window)

• First Principles Training: https://fs.blog/first-principles or a derivative

• Self-Responsibility, Self-Management and Personal Power Training: https://www.DrGruder.com/powercourse

• Critical Thinking Training: Resources in development

• FREEsponsibility Training — 5 Great Truths of Thriving Societies: https://www.DrGruder.com/freesponsibility

• How to Evaluate Candidates

  • The Leadership Maturity/Capacity Continuum (available upon request)

  • The Politician Integrity Rating Scale (available upon request)

For Business Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Helping Pros/Trusted Advisors/Integritists, Educators, Clergy, and Societal Influencers

Training in Psychospiritual Savvy and in Facilitating the Emergence of Homo Spiritus

For information about becoming a SuperChange Catalyst, CLICK HERE (opens new window)

Coercion and compromise are unsustainable problem-solving tactics. Elected and appointed officials know that the United States is in the grip of a level of divisiveness and polarization that has made public respect for elected and appointed officials all-but-extinct, and sensible integrative problem-solving nearly impossible. The same is true in many other countries as well.

A climate of coercion and compromise has poisoned citizen trust in national, state, and local governments. This translates into elected officials getting caught up in perpetual power struggles, hair pulling, time wasting, gridlock, and constituent rage, no matter what position they take on an issue.

The gulf between intention and skills: Although most public servants have honorable intentions, few have the skills needed to successfully restore trust in government. Citizens don’t trust governance that operates by coercion, compromise and opacity. Yet, those are the tactics at which most elected officials excel. As long as the capacity for collaborative problem-solving lags far behind the honorable intentions that most public servants have, trust in government will remain at an all-time low.

It's time to bridge that gulf: The time has come to equip elected and appointed officials, and their senior staff, with missing mindsets and skills for catalyzing sensible integrative problem-solving to craft meaningful legislation that a broader cross-section of citizens are aching to support. Those citizens are today’s Silent Majority who are aching to trust government again, and they are waiting for you to hold them accountable for making government trustworthy again.

Bridging the gulf requires eradicating the last “Ism” that is still widely endorsed. During the past 50-75 years we have made progress in reducing various "isms," such as racism, sexism, ageism, and so forth. We might have different perspectives about how much progress has been made with each and how much is left to do, but it seems that very few people believe that no progress has been made with each of the isms... except for one: Politicism, or as it is increasingly called, political sectarianism.

Politicism is a significant factor in fueling citizen distrust in government. Politicism continues to rage in national, state and local governments. Because executive and legislative bodies persist in practicing this “last of the socially accepted isms,” it should be no surprise that their role modeling is fueling the continuation of other isms that continue to perpetuate divisiveness and polarization around our country, including among their constituents. Politicism is:

• Directly or indirectly asserting that one's group's political orientation is the only one that's wise, whole, and complete
• Downplaying the gold in the “other” group's perspectives and ignoring the wisest most collaborative individuals who are part of that group
• Negatively stereotyping, demeaning, and dismissing a political orientation based on the most ideologically extreme or ill-intended people in the “other” group
• The final form of socially accepted bigotry that vast numbers of people continue to publicly promote.

No one wins politicism wars. Charles Eisenstein says it well:

• "I won’t take sides in the culture war, not because I think both sides are equal or that all viewpoints are equally true, but because…
  1. I believe that the blind spots both sides share are more significant, and more dangerous, than their disagreements, and
  2. Beneath the conflict is a hidden unity that will emerge when all parties humbly try to understand the other."

Holders of elected office are role models...

• …Whether or not they want to be — similar to celebrities and famous athletes.
• Gang warfare makes communities dangerous and dysfunctional. Legislative bodies practice their own version of gang warfare by pursuing bad blood vendetta agendas against “opposing” political factions.
• This is the governmental version of the classic American musical, West Side Story: It’s the legislative branch equivalent of the Jets vs the Sharks.

Government brand slaughter:

• It's no wonder that Congressional approval ratings range from 31% at best to 11% at worst. A business with customer satisfaction ratings this low would be out of business in a very short time.
• High levels of Politicism, the governmental version of West Side Story, and low levels of legislative body approval, have combined to create Governmental Brand Slaughter.

Re-establishing governmental brand humility

• If you serve in government and you're still reading this, it’s likely that you’re among those public servants who recognize the vast damage that Politicism creates, and the damage of continuing the counterproductive melodrama of the governmental version of West Side Story.
• You likely therefore also know that government is overdue in restoring Brand Integrity in the eyes of the American public… since today’s Silent Majority oppose divisiveness and hyper-polarization.

The Government Trust Restoration Project is for elected and appointed government officials and their chiefs of staff who...

• Want to catalyze the reunification of individual freedom and social responsibility in governance
• Recognize that our country, states, and communities are destroyed when these two foundational cornerstones of free societies (freedom and responsibility) are divided and polarized
• Retain good will, high intentions, and loving hearts
• Recognize that Politicism and Governmental Brand Slaughter are a toxic threat to our individual liberty and collective wellbeing
• Believe that now is the time to end Politicism and restore integrity to national, state and local government
• Want to foster legislation that integrates freedom and responsibility, and who want to replace...
  • Politicism with collaboration
  • Tyranny with freedom
  • Narcissism with responsibility... and
  • Government Brand Slaughter with Government Brand Integrity

See Addendums 1 and 2 below for sample training modules for government officials.

The Government Trust Restoration Project is looking for connections to state/provincial and federal elected officials who would be interested in participating in this training program. Click the help icon toward your lower right to get in touch with Dr. Gruder.

For Companies: Chief Integrity Officer in business that is detailed in The Nimble C-Suite by Dr. David Gruder and Mark Smith: manuscript available on request; public release in September, 2022).

For Government Officials: Integritist Advisor (an adaptation of the Chief Integrity Officer role). See Government Trust Restoration Project dropdown above.

We are in the process, in consultation with a small handful of collaborators, of fleshing out this initial draft into a more complete document for crafting an elevated future for humanity.

1. Reconnecting With America’s Purpose and Experiment (for USA Version of this training)

2. Exiting Dysfunctional Systems Dynamics (psychological systems dynamics intro and adapt business games people play to illuminating games politicians, parties and countries play)

3. Ingredients That Make Synergy Possible

4. Exiting From Reptile Brain Decision-Making

5. Elevating “Tensions Competence” and Impact Literacy

6. Stepping Into Ethical Personal Power

7. Synergy Leadership Guiding Principles

1. SUSS Process for Government, Level 1: Tactics for digging beneath surface positions, posturing, and solutions to identify deepest concerns and highest intentions of all involved

2. SUSS Process for Government, Level 2: Tactics for developing an integrated unified version of the range of deepest concerns and highest intentions that allows legislation to emerge that preserves individual freedom and promotes the common good

3. SUSS Process for Government, Level 3: Tactics for designing legislation that most fully addresses the integrated unified version of deepest concerns and highest intentions

4. Inviting Others Into the GTRP: Tactics to positively position the optics of being a Government Trust Restoration Catalyst so this project wins the support of the silent majority of your constituents.

* SUSS is a four-step collaborative problem-solving process for generating integrative solutions on divisive issues (Click for video — opens new window)

* GTRP is the Government Trust Restoration Project (see that dropdown further above)

• 1. Require Transparency: Stop tolerating opacity from elected officials and encourage them to become more fully transparent.

  2. Develop Tensions Competence and Seek Complete and Accurate Narratives: Stop settling for messages that less than "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Become more propaganda-proof against mainstream, alternative, and conspiracy narratives. Improve your ability to recognize and integrate grains of truth from multiple perspectives instead of being confused by conflicting claims that seem to be supported by “selective science” (Conflicting claims are created by selective science. Instead of fighting over whose version of selective science is right it’s time to insist on the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth.)

  3. Upgrade Impact Literacy: Help elected officials become more aware of unintended negative impacts of proposed or implemented legislation and encourage them to repair these when they occur.

  4. Elevate Collaboration Intelligence: Encourage elected officials to embrace collaboration and to refrain from participating in coercion or settling for compromise

  5. Embrace Self-Sovereignty That Serves Us All (a cornerstone of Homo Spiritus): This includes supporting businesses that promote this, requiring that the media and education system elevate this, and expecting elected and appointed officials to govern in ways that promote this by legislating at the intersection of preserving individual freedom and promoting the common good.