The Overview Project is underpinned by the following key principles:
- Humanity is at a Critical Juncture
Within 200 years it is possible that either one of the following statements could be true about our society, in that humanity could be:
- an interstellar species with a quality of life and contentment hitherto unknown; or
- extinct.
Both are possible. There has never been such a divergent range of potential outcomes for humans. So now is a critical time to be thinking straight, and straight thinking is what the Overview Project intends to promote.
- Happiness and Contribution are a Virtuous Circle
People are happier when they contribute to something to something larger than themselves – this could be local community or global society
Happier people can contribute more to society
By freeing people from anxiety, self-judgement or indeed anger / hatred of others, you are creating people who can contribute more.
- Marathon, not Sprint
Managing the transition to a sustainable system will take many, many decades. Concurrently life expectancy continues to rise. A 40 year old today may have the capacity to contribute 50 years or more of productive input into the sustainability challenge. A person’s contribution should be measured over a lifetime therefore, and individuals motivated to act owe it to themselves and to society to steward their own personal sustainability.
If you want to make a difference you need to keep going. This means investing in mental and physical health. It means cultivating an enriching social network. It means actively projecting kindness onto yourself. To create deep sustainability impact you need to operate at a deep level. To achieve these levels of performance you need to think like an elite endurance athlete and understand that performance is only build incrementally, over long time periods, and with intense training but set in the context of a balanced routine also including sleep, nutrition, mindset, recovery.
- Pursuit of the Truth is Paramount; Identity Can be a Huge Inhibitor
Seeking truth is more important than your identity (eg. are you left wing, are you right wing – are you a vegan are you a brexiteer…whatever). Our perceptions of our own identities are too narrow and create huge problems. We should view ourselves as people, whose identities are principles such as “I contribute to local / global society; I seek the truth; I am open minded, I actively learn from my mistakes, I have a growth mindset etc”. A self identity – even if it is relatively broad – holds us back.
Wizards vs prophets is a key identity conflict I keep coming back to in environmental issues.
It is not about winning the argument. It is about finding truth. The stakes are too high for us to bicker / be tribal etc.
Overview is about rising above our identities, and making truth pre-eminent.
- Overview is about Seeing the Whole Picture
Perhaps this is the core of it: the “Overview Approach”. Don’t just see a problem (eg. climate change) but see how you see it. See how other people see it. Understand the mental models you try to fit data / information / knowledge into. See how you interact with others. Perceive how systems work.
See the world, yourself and humans, as they are.
- We Face Huge Challenges but we have all the Tools to Fix them
We are genuinely, really, in a difficult / dangerous position. And as humans we have huge flaws (short sited; cant act collectively etc). But we have the “hard” technology (eg clean energy, new forms of food production) and the “soft” (the understanding of ourselves, our limitations and how to over come them) to fix it all.
Overview is actually maybe mostly about giving people access to the “soft” technology so we can promote better forms of living our lives and organising our societies. Then the hard technology will get put to work.
- Protect our Institutions. Global Action.
Our institutions (governmental, international) are critical; we need to act globally. This applies to getting out of the COVID crisis, as well as the climate crisis.
- Promote Learning People and Learning Organisations. Embrace Mistakes.
We must learn to learn from our mistakes; to not hide them. At an individual level as well as a national and global level.