by Eric Jensen

A decade into the 21st Century, racism remains a fundamental socio-cultural issue in America and around the globe. So, the passing of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ”I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., and the coming of his 85th birthday, have inspired me to ponder the subject of inequality further and to “wash [my own] windows,” as Thoreau has directed, in an effort to elucidate the perspective herein (Thoreau, 1993b, p. 83). To be sure, I have long needed to dust off and re-hang my own poorly neglected dream catcher behind the stained glass, yet this is precisely why anniversaries are so important: they remind us of what should have been unforgettable in the first place. Perhaps by joining my wobbly glider of complacency to the luminous tail-feathers of King’s soaring spirit, I can gain some sense of reconciliation as we descend through the grand cumulus clouds of contemplation he has left in his wake.

Inequality bears a complex relationship between race and class that is tightly interwoven with economics into the fabric of society. Therefore, any effort at unraveling this intricate web of topics must be painstaking if we are to shed light on a universal cause for the gross disparities inherent to our culture. Classism is the basis of virtually all inequality and the quintessential principle behind social predetermination, while racism, in turn, reinforces it. Consequently, they are two sides of the same coin, unified by monetary policy. So, if we can imagine what a classless society might look like, it allows us to see that racism would have no further use or application in this world and that economics, instead, is what truly divides us as a people. Hence, it is a valuable exercise to contemplate, however unrealistic it may seem.

Let us put racism in juxtaposition with classism in order to consider what role they play in modern society while viewing both through the looking glass of economics. First, classism precedes racism necessarily. That is, a system of social stratification must exist prior to racism; racism would serve no purpose without it. Second, racism—or the belief that one’s own ethnic group is superior to another—is a rationalization used to substantiate a classist ideal for the purpose of subjugating the perceived inferior ethnicity. Therefore, when classism is abolished, racism too will vanish, as it would no longer be viable for one social group to dehumanize another with the aim of economic exploitation. Third, racism will continue to exist as long as there is classism in our society because the two are interdependent. Finally, in the absence of classism, human trafficking in all its forms will cease to occur because it would be impossible, as well as unnecessary, to impoverish and subsequently exploit the lower classes.

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, prejudice between the classes is an integral part of social design. An attitude of superiority and contempt for anyone outside one’s own set serves to reinforce social-stratification and is critical in maintaining cultural boundaries. Each person from every other segment of society feels superior to the former, which results in a self-perpetuating classist system. In this way, it is easy to preserve a proud working class that will toil unquestioningly to support an enlightened upper class without even recognizing their subservient role—all the while believing in their own superiority.

Slavery—first seen in ancient Sumerian culture 5,000 years ago (Franklin, 2013)—has always been about the separation of the rich from the poor into socio-economic classes so that the few may stand on the shoulders of the many. Similarly, racism is the philosophy which supports the practice; religion, too, is often used for this purpose. Scientists and scholars as recent as the 20th Century have argued that Africans are of an inferior race and therefore less than human, so in hindsight, it is not surprising that, following the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a variety of evolutionary theories were proposed as a means to support the assertion that Europeans did in fact emerge from a superior lineage of Homo sapiens.

The pseudo-science of phrenology is one such example of how racist propaganda was used to this end. Phrenologists asserted that through “physiognomy”—or the mere examination of physical features in the human skull—one could make accurate inferences about intelligence. The film Django Unchained, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, featured a character named Calvin Candie who used this quackery as a means to vindicate the ownership of African-Americans by demonstrating their inferiority based simply on the anatomy of a deceased slave’s skull. “Scientific racism” (Richards, 1997, p. 15) was thus used to legitimize the slave master’s right to debase blacks in order to justify using them like animals. A human being is thereby reduced to a simple beast of burden, for profit. This science was, of course, later debunked, although it was a pivotal argument at the time because it justified the continued oppression of all peoples of African descent.

Eugenics—employed by Hitler to reconcile his Final Solution within the German political establishment and an entire nation of peoples—is another striking example of how bad science was used to institutionalize racism in government as well as rationalize the Holocaust in his horrific campaign of man against humanity.

All racist belief systems essentially beg the same question: were they ever more than dead-end theories to begin with, or rather, do they serve some Machiavellian purpose for the ruling class? According to acclaimed writer and psychologist Graham Richards, author of Race, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflective History: “whites’ attitudes to Africans were primarily a function of their view of slavery, which, as such things usually are, were, in turn, a function of economic and cultural circumstance” (p. 4). As one might expect, revenue often stands out as our ancestors’ primary motivation for supporting racist ideologies.

Take Charleston, South Carolina, for example—once the richest city in the new world owing largely to the pure profits of slavery. A major port city in both the past and the present, it served as the central hub of the North American slave trade for centuries. According to the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, The Old Slave Mart Museum in historic Charleston sits at the very location where over two million African-American slaves were sold in local, interstate and state-ordered sales combined after 1808. This market alone led to unrivaled prosperity in the region—not to mention the centuries-old trans-Atlantic importation of Africans that went on for hundreds of years before it was banned in 1808. Suffice to say, immense wealth and innumerable family estates were established in this area between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Today, class stratification—the haves and the have nots—still breaks down along similar socio-cultural-economic lines in Charleston and throughout America, while racism still serves to reinforce those inequities. Once a justification for slavery, racism has now become the excuse for indifference to the poverty and poor educational system which continues to undermine the African-American community today. This seems to be the challenge which African American leaders are now facing: finding a means of upward mobility from within a classist system, while hoping to transcend the stark legacy of slavery and segregation. King hoped that “we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” Our fates are intertwined because “there is no going back” (King, 1963), so it is important that we recognize how the interface between race and class has become blurred behind the smoky machinations of economic policy, commercialism and human history. Still, it is not difficult to see how they are related. Ultimately, the imbalanced distribution of wealth becomes the systematic allocation of poverty.

Following desegregation in 1964, the fall of Apartheid was the next act of its kind to unfold on the world stage. Apartheid, like segregation, was a racist system of government whereby ethnicity determined class in the social hierarchy. It was used by European colonists—Afrikaners—to alienate, impoverish and exploit millions of South Africans in their homeland. Nelson Mandela—recently deceased champion of the South African civil-rights movement who was born of African royalty—took up the sword as freedom fighter against his violent oppressor. By 1950, he was the most wanted “terrorist” in South Africa and underground leader for the militant faction of the African National Conference before being incarcerated in 1962 for treason. However, over the next 27 years, Mandela underwent a profound transformation. Even before his release from prison in 1989, he had adopted a heroic new stance of “reconciliation” in hopes of establishing his dream of a “nonracial South Africa.” He subsequently helped prevent a destructive race war through diplomacy, and ultimately united black and white under the same banner of freedom as South Africa’s first democratically elected president (Stengel, 2013).

In comparison, King believed unwaveringly in the principal of peaceful protest. Civil Disobedience, penned by Henry David Thoreau in 1849, greatly influenced his political philosophy, as it had for Mahatma Gandhi decades earlier. By participating in nonviolence, he cleared the fog of war, exposing the blatant contradictions inherent to American government during the period of Jim Crow—egregious human-rights violations in a so-called “free” society. He put his faith in what was held to be self-evident: equality and justice for all. And he was victorious. Yet, more and more, class continues to divide us. While the era of overt institutionalization of racism in Western Civilization appears to be over, economic exploitation is very real and remains a looming challenge for future generations to overcome.

For instance, advertisements targeting the African-American community have risen dramatically since Barack Obama took over the White House—a both revealing and disturbing trend. In a largely materialistic society such as ours, this is a sure sign of progress. Sadly, it is more indicative of the shameless commercialization of an emerging culture than our progress with racism. Still, the unspoken quality which President Obama brings to the political process is contrast. His success in the 2008 presidential election captivated the nation—and the world—as it became painfully obvious how much cultural distance existed between himself and the other candidates; between rational debate and political rhetoric; between the African-American community and mainstream society at large. As a result, we have witnessed first-hand the angered and bewildered reactions of many Americans in the public forum, as their conflicting concepts of democracy and racism collided in this new political paradigm. This moment of cognitive dissonance in the American mind ignited a firestorm of heated debate as the issue of race held center stage throughout the election. Meanwhile, opportunistic marketers swiftly moved in to capture this relatively new demographic of consumers, scrambling to make up for lost time due to the clear marginalization of the African-American community—as defined by the prejudices inherent to our popular culture.

As a chief result of this socio-political sea change, racism has risen buoyantly to the surface through centuries-old hereditary cracks in our multicultural “melting pot.” Although the vitriol and spite with which many politicians and commentators have reacted to President Obama are disheartening, it is not altogether surprising that he has been met with such fervent resistance, as racism has become a subtle yet powerful propaganda tool for many who oppose him. This is evident in the often irrational and emotional opposition to his policies that seems to taint most issues during his administration.

What’s more, congressional leaders have proven that they are poised to sink the entire ship with everyone on board in order to achieve precisely nothing but defiance of his policies. Our nation’s AAA credit rating was sacrificed in this way, an event never before seen in American politics—so why now? Obstinance is not a solution to our social problems, so for what other reason than the guile of racism would reason and hope and statesmanship—right or wrong—be met with such hatred and contempt? Nonetheless, neither side of the aisle seems to offer any real solutions to the plethora of social problems we are facing: poverty, hunger, mass shootings, enormous prison populations, the corporate dominance of our political process, and, perhaps, the most absurd injustice of all—a system of higher education that leads to indentured servitude through debt rather than freedom through attainment of knowledge.

Although commercialism is the norm in our society, it is also the greatest threat to liberty—specifically, the ongoing economic enslavement of all vulnerable Americans through indebtedness, regardless of race. Personal debt is the antithesis of freedom, and, ironically, the primary objective of money lenders, contrary to the “hand-up” they make their loans out to be in advertisements. If one lacks the means for an education or a home or a car, they must borrow—with interest—as a down payment on the American dream. Yet how does one afford to raise a family in a household overwhelmed with debt and inflation in this paradox of freedom? As a result, many Americans spend their entire lives working for banks and credit-card companies rather than their own self-determination. For some, there is dignity and good fortune to be found in the ever-dwindling middle classes, but for most, finding success and security in our society is an ongoing struggle, so buyers beware and good luck.

Economic disaster was just narrowly avoided in recent years, but how long will that last? Bankers and corporations—under the guise of “too big to fail“—hold our nation hostage while they dole out millions in bonuses to self-serving executives and CEOs who have infamously failed the American public. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—the Supreme Court case which established corporations as individuals, thereby absolving them of the requirement to disclose political campaign contributions—represents yet another ominous sign of an ailing democracy. This court decision allows vast sums of money to be anonymously donated, thus concealing the origins of these funds. This is the exact opposite of transparency, which is essential to the preservation of any remaining integrity in the “democratic” process.

Progress is absolutely necessary if we are to keep up with population growth, improve quality of life and meet humanity’s growing demand for resources at a global level. The problem is that we have allowed profit motives and politics to distort the purposefulness of human innovation that ought to empower all of humanity, rather than a privileged few. Fortunately, a practicable alternative to our current economic model exists that could transition humanity away from the classist ideals of the present towards an egalitarian society of the future, making inequality a thing of the past. Jacque Fresco, futurist, human-factors engineer, industrial designer and co-founder of The Venus Project: Beyond Poverty, Politics and War—with his long-time colleague Roxanne Meadows—describes how science and technology applied in a “resource-based economy” —or RBE—could successfully redefine and reorganize society by placing human needs ahead of commercial profits, while simultaneously ensuring long-term global sustainability. “Simply stated, a resource-based economy uses existing resources rather than money, and provides an equitable distribution of goods and services in a humane and efficient manner for the entire population (Fresco, 2002, location 931, Kindle version).”

According to Fresco, technology could be used to solve virtually every human problem. Most notably, our compulsory requirement to work as wage-earners will be completely outmoded in an RBE. In other words, the need for millions of people to work at repetitive non-essential jobs for mere survival will become less and less important in a technologically-advanced civilization. Although certain fields of study such as cybernetics, bio-engineering and the behavioral sciences offer future utility, many other careers such as banking, advertising, the services industries and all those “concerned primarily with the use of money, property and debt” will dissolve completely (location 2297-2301). Furthermore, advanced cybernation systems utilizing nanotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) will have become so innovative in the future that even the most skilled professions of today would be unrecognizable by the cutting-edge standards and practices of tomorrow.

This ongoing process of modernization has been in motion since the dawn of humanity’s industrial revolution. More and more, workers have been superseded by the astonishing developments in technology and automation occurring in virtually every field, but in an RBE, the “problem” of rising unemployment is actually a move in the right direction. In his book The Best That Money Can’t Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, and War, Fresco relates how a liberated society of the future might live, work and play. He writes:

The advent of cybernation can be regarded as the real emancipation proclamation for humankind if used humanely and intelligently. It could permit one to actually live the Greek concept of leisure, where slaves did the work and citizens cultivated their minds. The difference is that in the future, each of us will command more than a million slaves, but they will be mechanical and electric slaves. That will forever end the degrading use of one human being to do, against their will, the work of another (location 1207).

Science will pave the way to a future where artificial intelligence, mechanization and cybernation will usurp labor and transform our world of nations into a wholly-integrated human society (location 1582). Then, humanity will finally be liberated from the economic limitations of our times to solve the truly paramount societal issues we are facing: putting an end to war, curing cancer and other diseases, developing clean-fuel technologies, protecting our environment, and even unraveling the great mysteries of our universe.

Food, shelter, education and health care will become inalienable rights in the future by necessity, according to Fresco, as it is the only logical conclusion for a sustainable society. This giant leap for mankind will usher in a new era of human civilization in which true liberty and freedom could be realized. In the above-mentioned book, he contrasts the RBE philosophy with modern society and addresses the perceived barriers to that end. The author reveals a future of limitless possibilities by “humanizing social and technological development” and applying the concepts of “sociocyberneering” to problem-solving so that we can appreciate what a truly egalitarian society might look like (location 181). This brilliant illustration brings the RBE concept within the mind’s reach, reminding humankind what it is capable of.

The Venus Project strives to promote a singular humanitarian ideal: that the proper application of science and technology is the key to unlocking our true human potential through global cooperation and the equal distribution and conservation of our planet’s natural resources. It shows how our reliance on money to facilitate exchange is an outdated convention in modern times, when technology “intelligently applied” would guarantee that everyone has access to the abundance of resources available in our world today (location 992). With money, we attribute artificial value to basic human necessities such as food and medicine, and then deny people access to these means simply to further line the pockets of the wealthy. It is this perpetual state of man-made “scarcity”—inherent to all monetary-based systems including capitalism, socialism and communism—that results in social stratification, poverty and war. So, in order to “sustain our civilization,” as Fresco explains, “we must coordinate advanced technology and available resources with a humane systems approach (location 741-765).” This is the essence of an RBE.

It is important to note that people of all nations would readily volunteer to participate in this mutually advantageous alternative to the competitive struggle for “success” we are presently engaged in. According to Fresco, “incentives” change dramatically once the individual’s basic needs are being met without exception. Humans have an intrinsic desire to participate in some meaningful way, and this instinctive drive is much more consistent with our true human nature as industrious social beings, in contrast to the work-a-day consumers humanity has become. Many of history’s greatest contributors were wealthy to begin with, so what motivated them to further advance themselves and civilization if not their own personal ambition? If we were to nurture the individuals’ higher nature in an even-handed society, our better qualities would naturally come forth. Then, people would have real freedom to commit their time and energy to whatever vocation or creative endeavors they chose to pursue—to the betterment of all.

Renowned author and pioneer in the field of humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow, provides us with a comprehensive archetype of human behavior that identifies, essentially, what makes us tick. Maslow’s conceptual Hierarchy of Needs, published in his widely influential book Motivation and Personality, gives us a clear understanding of what drives us as sentient beings. Maslow asserts that these universal “needs” are fundamental to personality and character development as they gradually emerge throughout our lifetimes, from our most basic “physiologic” ones upwards to our highest needs for creativity, knowledge and ultimately “self-actualization.” He identifies an unquenchable “curiosity” as mankind’s true motivation to understand reality, to create and to achieve the next impossible goal (Maslow, 1970, pp. 35-48). Therefore, monetary gain is more so a secondary incentive to ingenuity—or any other human drive for that matter—and in reality, puts limitations on more people than it incentivizes.

Our current economic model actually distorts humanity’s ambition for knowledge and discovery by placing monetary gain ahead of creativity and innovation, so that it has become more profitable for corporations to inhibit modernization rather than develop advanced technologies. “Planned obsolescence,” a corporate strategy of dependency which guarantees the need for machinery and electronics to be continuously repaired or replaced, is a prime example of the inefficiency and waste inherent to monetary-based systems (location 875-881). If our priorities were suited to actually solve the problems we face rather than perpetuate them, we could improve our quality of life immeasurably, as well as preserve and protect our environment. For example, automobiles still burn fossil fuels because alternative energies are a threat to Big Oil profits, yet in 2010 the worst oil spill in history was unleashed like a plague beneath the waves in the Gulf of Mexico, jeopardizing invaluable marine resources.

Then, there is the equally irresponsible contamination of Earth’s atmosphere with excessive greenhouse gasses—a primary cause of global warming and direct consequence of fossil fuel consumption. This ongoing defilement of Mother Nature for private profit is a disservice to all of humanity and the planet it inhabits. Wars are waged for this dubious commodity, and with money to be made hand-over-fist, this goliath seems unstoppable. An RBE would steer humanity away from its own self-destruction. Unfortunately, there exists a resistance to change, and since aristocracy will do all they can to maintain the status quo, these vastly liberating technologies remain undeveloped.

In his insightful examination of the RBE concept The First Civilization v2, Jas Garcha examines the theory behind the RBE and painstakingly examines its practical application as an alternative to our current socio-economic model. Here he describes its basic tenets, as originally conceived by Jacque Fresco:

Despite the fact that virtually all major advances throughout human history have been made via some form of scientific testing, this concept has never really been applied to the running of society. That is essentially what the entire RBE concept is: We identify a problem, scientifically determine the cause, come up with a hypothesis that addresses the problem, test said hypothesis, and then adjust the experiment repeatedly until we have found the parameters that result in a society that functions in the best way possible. And by ‘best way possible’ I mean a system that results in health, happiness, and freedom for the entire human race, and efficiency and sustainability in our usage of the Earth’s resources (Garcha, 2012, p. 62).

Garcha goes on to discuss the goal of sponsoring his own experiment in order to test the RBE model in a working environment (p. 60). Efficacy will be based on whether the RBE theory can support the hypothesis and serve as a practicable alternative to a monetary-based system. Neither profit nor politics influence true scientific method, therefore it is a trustworthy process of discovery and innovation. Once the first “experimental city” is established—by a nation audacious enough to embrace this hopeful future—a process of “societal evolution” will ensue, leading to successive cities and, ultimately, a new era of human civilization (location 3092-3152). Decision-making thereafter would be based on observable scientific facts rather than ambiguous religious doctrines or the political machinations of a ruling class.

There are vast technologic innovations underway capable of enabling such a paradigm shift to take root. For example, vertical farming towers—known affectionately as “farm-scrapers”—could be used now to cultivate produce in terraced structures designed to reduce the use of space in urban environments, thereby revolutionizing agriculture through minimizing the use of land and soil in farming. In addition, due to the added advantage of elevation, crops would be raised high above the maximum altitude tolerance of most insects, dramatically decreasing the need for pesticides. Such a design practically guarantees an adequate supply of organically-grown produce for local populations. The Venus Project would reserve this technology strictly for their “cities at sea” in order to meet the agricultural demands of offshore populations (Gazecki, 2006).

Projects like this—some currently underway in China (Meinhold, 2013)—broaden our sense of what is possible through innovation. Yet this is just one small example. Fresco has completely re-imagined the engineering concepts of urban and environmental design in order to integrate efficiency, utility and aesthetics into his cities of the future—each with a university at its center. Ocean-based communities, for instance, would be designed to mine valuable ocean minerals, educate the populace and expand marine habitats and fisheries (location 2810-2841). Virtually every aspect of human life would be transformed if we were to exchange our current standard of living for an RBE.

Consider for a moment the wastefulness of our consumer culture as it stands. If half of the products and services advertised on television were really so important—or even healthy, for that matter—it would not be necessary to endlessly bombard the public’s subconscious with commercials to the point of brainwashing. Advertising has become a celebrated yet distorted art form that is continuously reshaping “reality” by influencing and informing the American persona. Duplicitous messages are repeated ad-infinitum like viruses of the mind. Stereotypes—similar to advertisements by their insidious nature—are the step-children of racism. Here, classism and racism intersect in our collective unconscious. According to best-selling author Richard Brodie, these “memes” overlap subliminally and “use the medium of our minds to replicate” (Brodie, 2009, p. 66). They are thereby perpetuated with each racial slur, and every inane and superfluous advert we are exposed to.

Memes are extremely influential thoughts—ideas or beliefs, good and bad—which are replicated through interpersonal communication, and even more so by our ubiquitous pop-culture machine. Without even realizing it, we blindly subscribe to cultural prejudices and a materialistic system of values which make every effort to convince us that having more than the Joneses means being better than the Joneses, thus engendering a classist mentality in each of us. They become our reality as social norms unless we question the veracity of our own belief systems (pp. 17-34).

The meme of the violent young African-American male is an especially potent example, as it is also the fundamental bias that lies behind racial profiling. Likewise, this stereotype “association-meme” is essentially what made it seem okay for Trayvon Martin to be accosted by George Zimmerman on that fateful night in February of 2010. It was presumed by many that the teenager must have been up to something, when his only real “crime” was being black while walking home at night armed with a bag of Skittles. Otherwise, there is no good explanation for the indifference of our justice system to Zimmerman’s aggressive actions. This disregard for the events leading up to Trayvon’s death is ultimately a function of how society views young African-American males: as perpetrators of violent crimes that are to be feared and watched.

This obvious truth is obscured by the stereotype-meme Americans are programmed to believe. Sadly, the fact that crimes had occurred in Trayvon’s neighborhood at some point in the recent past was enough to justify George Zimmerman’s irresponsible behavior and absolve him of any wrongdoing thereafter in the minds of the jury. This is by definition an injustice. Furthermore, the recent killing of Florida A&M football player Jonathan A. Ferrell by police is yet another example of America’s fear and intolerance of African-Americans. Shooting this innocent young man ten times, merely on suspicion, is unconscionable and will only serve to further alienate an already disillusioned generation of young Americans hopeful for a better future.

Although the socio-economic disparities we see in the African-American community today are the legacy of hundreds of years of oppression and exploitation, classism is the linchpin of the social stratification we see throughout modern civilization. Nonetheless, it is our charge to attain universal recognition and acknowledgement that societal preconditions have established African-Americans as an underclass; once this is achieved, the problem can be overcome. In a cultural vacuum, everyone is equal, as we all bring our own baggage to the table.

At bottom, racism—and all other forms of inequality—stem from the same classist ideal that perpetuates social injustice and unnecessary suffering. The dilemma is that every successive generation must become newly aware of the socio-politico-economic issues that undermine liberty, and each individual must then come to terms with this reality in a world in which nothing is what it seems. This is in the spirit of Dr. King’s own vision, and it is likely that he would have sanctioned these ideas—that wherever classism exists, racism is bound to thrive. Although he never lost sight of the immediate and immutable cause of desegregation—undaunted by the blistering cold-war climate of his times—King identified poverty as a key challenge to be met and overcome. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that he would have not found further fault with the ongoing economic-oppression of all Americans that would continue to follow his dream like a curse.

I am all-at-once amazed by the social advancements science and technology can afford us today and baffled by the immense power of corporations and politicians who surreptitiously dictate the course of humanity by inhibiting long-term progress for short-term gains, which are reaped primarily by those in the upper classes who own and operate this country. As such, I have hoped for a viable solution to this universal injustice. The Venus Project is a means to that end. Rather than a utopian fantasy, it represents the next logical step in social evolution: a truly egalitarian society operating within a technologically advanced civilization. Although progress continues to be made and no social arrangement will ever be perfect, improving the human condition and achieving sustainability are global imperatives—both attainable through one common solution. With eerie finality, renowned astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan puts our tenuous position as Earthlings in perspective. He states: “almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule, survival is the exception. And no species is guaranteed its tenure on this planet (Sagan, 2006, p. 196).” Monetary-based systems have proven to be inherently unjust, wasteful and almost certainly unsustainable moving forward. In contrast, the aforementioned solution would meet humanity’s needs absolutely, improve quality of life exponentially and leave our planet intact for future generations to come. Which would you choose?

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Mr. Jensen’s biography, in his own words: I have the restless spirit of a vagabond. I lived in Arkansas as a military brat and Italy as a young man in the US Air Force. Today I’m a reservist, and I currently work in behavioral health as a registered nurse in Greensboro, NC, my home away from home in Southern California. Yet I continue to travel and pursue my education regardless of where I “live.” Transience has become a lifestyle that revolves around seeing as much of the world as possible on my quest for meaning and joy. My goal is to further grow my personal and professional lives into a vocation which enables me to experience life at its fullest, expand my understanding of the human condition and then share that perspective with you.