One key focus of our mission is to explore how the innovations of Web3, Ai, and Quantum Computing can help sustain the natural world and build greater efficiencies to grow our shared prosperity. We believe in creating a collaborative, inclusive, and sustainable community to explore innovative solutions. Solutions that will contribute to achieving bioregional and global prosperity by intergrating our three interconnected worlds: the natural world, the human-made physical world, and emerging technologies.
We also believe that the direction we have been heading the last several decades has failed to address our devastating impact on natural systems, social cohesion, and psychological necessities. This impact needs to be clearly understood and alternatives pursued if we are to avert a worse-case outcome.
Better Worlds seeks to explore alternative viewpoints through media, international conferences, symposia, essays and hack-a-thons that encourage and support the development of innovative solutions to current failed approaches. We believe that converging Web3, Ai, and Quantum Computing Technologies are rapidly reaching a point where they will be a core determinant in shaping our culture and our tools. We need to deeply understand them and apply wisely if we are to achieve a sustainable future.
Better Worlds is a communication and community building platform that explores how the nexus of culture and technology impacts our ability to create a sustainable and equitable future.
Whole Earth Catalog
The Whole Earth Catalog was a hallmark intellectual viewpoint for an entire generation.
"When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation... It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic and overflowing with neat tools and great notions." — STEVE JOBS, Stanford University Commencement Speech, 2005
The Whole Earth Catalog conveyed hope, a vision based on ecological principles, and most importantly tools that supported that vision. It was a kaleidoscope roadmap for taking on the adventure of life. It didn’t sell anything – it simply informed.
Better Worlds is inspired by the same positive vision. There’s too much gloom and doom which doesn't inspire. It is only reactive to this crisis or that. To take on the challenges we face, we must, ourselves, represent the spirit of what we want to achieve.
The title Whole Earth Catalog came from a previous project of Stewart Brand’s. In 1966, he initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the then-rumored satellite photo of the sphere of Earth as seen from space, one of the first images of the "Whole Earth". He thought the image might be a powerful symbol, evoking a sense of shared destiny and adaptive strategies from people. Better Worlds represents that spirit in my mind – shared destiny and adaptive strategies. I’ve personally never been a localist. I believe that only by thinking globally and acting globally can we surmount the road ahead.
A new 'bible' of the digital generation is possible through decentralized, global, streaming platforms. The tools of Web3 and Ai allow us to deliver "Collective Reality" experiences that connect innovators and communities. That point of connection will primarily be on mobile screens. Through media aggregation, global correspondents, featured success stories, global conferences and events from every corner of the planet, we can realize a new Whole Earth vision.
For those not familiar with the Whole Earth Catalog, the following is a brief Wikipedia overview:
The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do it yourself" (DIY), and holism, and featured the slogan "access to tools". While WEC listed and reviewed a wide range of products (clothing, books, tools, machines, seeds, etc.), it did not sell any of the products directly. Instead, the vendor's contact information was listed alongside the item and its review. This is why, while not a regularly published periodical, numerous editions and updates were required to keep price and availability information up to date.
The Stanford-educated Brand, a biologist with strong artistic and social interests, believed that there was a groundswell of commitment to thoroughly renovate American industrial society along ecologically and socially just lines.
