Several previous posts have talked about how those who cling to old ideas, the steam age industrial ideas of the past couple of centuries, try to tart up those old ideas with new language to pass them off as new ideas. In a comment about a previous post, Modest Praise, which softly complimented Nicole-Ann Boyer for her recognition of the work of C.S. Holling, Nicole herself asks: "I'm curious, though, what you find wrong with the Worldchanging approach?"

Here is an example:

We are not a partisan site -- not because we don't have a variety of strongly held political views, but because we're trying here to be part of creating a different kind of conversation about the future: a conversation more about solutions than problems, more about collaboration than conflict, more about tools than talking points, more about the tomorrow's planet than today's politics...

A billion people now live in conditions of appalling poverty. What can we can do to help them? How can we make sure that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals are met quickly, fairly, effectively and with a minimum of corruption and waste?

They claim that they are not partisan but then proceed to advocate a partisan political position. They may be so biased that they can't see themselves, cocooned in a narrow intellectual and social environment that provides too little stimulation and contrary views to goad their minds into action, but even this is willful avoidance of necessary knowledge.

They continue:

Four billion people live in parts of the developing world which are neither wealthy nor in complete collapse. Most of them live in megacities, and are rapidly becoming part of the global economy. How can we help them find a model of development which leads them to sustainable prosperity by "leapfrogging" old, out-dated technologies? How can we make certain that the benefits of emerging technologies gain the widest, fairest distribution, while paying close attention to cultural difference and the voices of caution?

What arrogance! There is no talk of sharing information, trusting people to rule themselves, granting them full suffrage and respect. Instead the approach is "How can we make certain". This is the steam age approach of command and control tarted up with a little softer language but still refusing to enfranchise people to make their own decisions. It is merely a thinly veiled political program to dominate the planet and impose tired old ideas.

How can we create a new global trade and financial regime to replace the "Washington Consensus" which has become so objectionable to so many -- how can we create a system for fair trade and global stability which gets us leapfrogging towards the top rather than racing each other to the bottom?

You can't. No one wants anything you might create. You don't have a clue what you are talking about. You don't know how the existing system works, how it evolved, or how it will continue to evolve. Instead you trot out sophomoric nonsense about revolution, seeking to roll the dice betting on half baked ideas cooked up in a dorm room. The well being and even the lives of people are at stake but the fanatics won't have to bear the pain.

Billions of people live under oppressive regimes, or at the mercy of warlords, crime bosses and petty tyrants; tens of millions are driven from their homes each year; millions more experience the terrors of genocide and civil war; while the entire world is fears and despises the rise of terrorists and organized crime. How can we create realistic defense and foreign policies -- policies which will protect us here at home by both relentlessly pursuing criminals and constantly working to promote democracy, transparency and human rights? How can we become a country which is actively involved in improving, reforming and empowering needed international institutions from the United Nations and International Criminal Court to the Landmines Ban and Geneva Convention?

This is the problem laid bare. They haven't given any thought at all to the problems they cite. They are working backwards from the solutions of a previous era - central control by hegemonic elites - seeking to justify those tired old ideas. The UN isn't a government or even the seed of a government. It is a talking shop, a hole in the wall where all the desperadoes can come and have a drink with those they would fight to the death or rob blind if they met them on the highway. International institutions are not useful mechanisms for the types of problems cited. They never have been and never will be. That isn't how they work or how they can work.

All of the problems cited are local problems and require local solutions rather than an all powerful hegemon. People will not play nice because you insist, or even threaten them with punishment. They will play nice only when they want to do so and see that it is overwhelmingly in their interests, enough so that they can forgo the spiteful pleasure of harming their neighbors for the crime of being other. No nation or people has ever achieved this and no nation or people plays nice. Some are nicer than others, some are good to play with and bad to antagonize. Aiding those less well developed to become better developed serves their interests and can educate them in the only way that elicits a visceral response that playing nice is nicer, more pleasurable than punishing neighbors.

The World Changing team needs an education in human history, behavior and social organization. The world doesn't need to be changed, it is changing at a rapid and accelerating pace now. It always has been. A range of behaviors from harmful to helpful are possible but only at the margins. A useful analogy may be a woman in labor, the world is laboring to recreate itself yet again. You can comfort her or irritate her but she will proceed with her labors. You can rip the baby from her womb to shorten labor or even kill it, but you can't greatly change what she has created. The best you can do is to help her and her baby to be what they can be, what they wish to be.

The World Changing Team is caught in The Idea Trap; bad ideas have led to bad policy, bad policy has led to bad outcomes, and bad outcomes have whelped a litter of bad new ideas. When faced with failure they redouble their efforts rather than rethinking their situation. It is more accurate to say that they are seeking to prevent change than cause it, but will fail in any event since change is inevitable. The first step to rationality is to pause and study the existing system, learn how the agents behave and the problems they face. Wisdom is helping them to implement the choices they have made since they have intimate situational knowledge. It may be that a fire hose of information directed to them will bring a few bits that they recognize and are able to use, it is often so, but they are the very best ones to choose.