Tag Archives: Memenomics

Emergence: From a Momentous Day to a Momentous Leap

With the presumed success of the Paris COP21 Climate Accord, are we beginning to see the socio-cultural dawn of the Turquoise value system? This is a level of human existence that recognizes the finite resources of our planet and looks to restore the damage we’ve done over the last 500 years to our only home.

There is no doubt that the deal reached in Paris by 200 nations represents the dawn of a new level of global cooperation. Many participants dubbed the last day of talks as a “Momentous Day.” In the Graves-Beck-MEMEnomics model, humanity needs many of these momentous days to create what Dr. Graves called a “Momentous Leap”; a sustained level of human development from which there is no return to the lower levels of existence that we’re experiencing today.

MOMENTOUS LEAP QUOTE

This entry and the Paris COP21 serve as a confirmation of Dr. Graves’s research on how cultures evolve. It is also a validation of his Level of Existence Theory (ECLET), which proves its superiority to other models on issues that deal with the dynamic relationship between human and cultural emergence.

Unlike many models that believe that the primary driver of change is the evolution of human consciousness, the Graves model places change in the hands of  Existential Reality as the triggering mechanism for higher levels of psychological development. Sadly, in developmental psychology today, there’s little attention paid to the study of systems and cultures, which, in my opinion is a disservice to humanity.

So, what does that have to do with this unprecedented Paris deal that has the potential to define the future of global governance? Most psycho-spiritual models on the evolution of consciousness are absent the implications of the social psychology aspect of Graves’ model. Graves believes that in most cases, we ascend to higher levels of sustained bio-psycho-social development when  solutions to our Existential problems can no longer come from the current system. As a result, we propel ourselves into the next system out of necessity. Conscious evolution rarely influences the political class that runs the world. As proof, Paris COP21 came out of overwhelming evidence that the planet is in trouble. It came out of “survival needs” and the necessity to resolve that, not out of “voluntary evolution of consciousness” of a few highly evolved people who rarely influence the political process.

Paris was about survival of the human species in a complex world.  Much like the first level of human existence, the Beige/Caveman system that seeks the survival of the individual, this time around, evidence is pointing to survival values in the much higher Second Tier of the Graves model. Challenges from our current Existential Reality have triggered the intelligence needed  to solve problems of existence. This time around, the problems are of exponentially higher complexity. The A-N Beige-Survival of the Individual values, repeats in Second Tier as A1-N1-Yellow, but this time around it’s the Survival of the Planet values. And, if humanity doesn’t become extinct, Third Tier A2-N2 might be the fight for the Survival of our Solar System values. Of course, any talk beyond the Yellow value system at this point, is pure speculation. We will never fully know the content of what evolves that far ahead while we’re still fighting the subsistence values of the lower six levels.

To the point on whether cultural emergence happens out of evolution of consciousness or necessity, if the top 3 polluters, the US, Europe, and China could sell their products on another planet they will have no incentive to evolve their views on economics, capitalism and endless growth. They would very likely continue to separate their actions from any sense of responsibility towards restoring the damage done to the planet. Thankfully, there are no extraterrestrial markets, nor is there another planet we can pick up and move to. Because of these facts we are forced to evolve our ways, not voluntarily, but out of the necessity to survive and adapt to new realities.

Based on the Graves model, I contend that if Paris COP21 laid out the potential road map for a Turquoise level of human existence, then it is the hard work of the Yellow system (The Gravesian Platform for Functional Capitalism), to build a road map from that blueprint. This is what lies ahead for the foreseeable few decades.

THE GRAVESIAN BASED PLATFORM FOR FUNCTIONAL CAPITALISM
THE GRAVESIAN-BASED PLATFORM FOR FUNCTIONAL CAPITALISM

The fact that the developed world has taken responsibility for our current carbon footprint is a good start. Inward reflection and holding ourselves accountable to our past actions is the first step towards healing a broken planet. This realization however, cannot be punitive towards the emerging world. Advanced countries cannot shut the door to modernity on their younger siblings.  First world economies have the responsibility to provide the rest of the world  with tools and methods learned from the lessons of their own journey.

To help the world meet the targets of Paris COP21, Western nations need to engage more in creating disruptive technologies that will hasten the end of our carbon-heavy Industrial Age values. That disruption must be brought to an all-systems application, from the way we govern to the way we run global finance, and to how we design new management systems, harness energy  and reinvent  manufacturing processes.

The challenges to our survival today are far more complex than those we faced when the first coal-fired factory started belching black smoke over London 350 years ago. The trials and tribulations that brought us to Paris since, may never be repeated again in history.

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Sustainability Practices and the MEMEnomics Framework

I was invited as a keynote speaker to the 2014 annual Sustainability Reporting Conference in Berlin Germany. This was a gathering of leading edge thinkers from all over the world representing corporations who are keen on advancing the values of a green and inclusive economy, and the agencies who report on such practices. Most of the focus was on how to define the “reporting” function on sustainability just as credit agencies focus on their credit reporting function. The difference is that credit reporting and other corporate reporting functions have been quantified and standardized for decades with clear and measurable consequences for failing to follow the standards. On the other hand, the sustainability reporting function remains in its infancy stages requiring further debate and a globally unified measure of consequences for failure to meet standards.

In the MEMEnomics Framework, the reporting function – whether it relates to credit, sustainability, or the thousands of indexes that are calculated every day – remains a value of the 4th level BLUE system. Absolutist and standardized. It is a glorified form of accounting. It matters not what you’re reporting on, unless there are real quantifiable consequences for failing to meet the standards, the endeavor will not have universal acceptance. Since most of these standards are designed to give a client a competitive edge, they have the reporting of financial capital as their primary objective, and human and natural capital a distant second. Sustainability reporting is looking to change those metrics and herein lays the challenge.

Slide2The concept of sustainability itself is a Second Tier notion, needing everyone who is contributing to the carbon footprint to raise their level of consciousness to the Planetary 7th and 8th level systems. At the corporate level, this is easier said than done, especially when 90-95% of corporate values remain in the First Tier (Levels1-6). As my friend Ralph Thurm of BSD Consulting/Germany, who organized the conference kept reminding us, we are only doing “less bad” and still have a long way to go.

Slide1After presenting the MEMEnomics Platform for Functional Capitalism in my keynote, I proposed that not all political and corporate leaders have the conscious awareness needed to voluntarily adopt sustainability measures, which meant they have to be “disrupted into adopting them”. The title of my talk was “Innovate, Disrupt, and Align”. The West must lead on the first two, forcing the rest of the planet to automatically align through sustainable means of production with greater economic benefit than the traditional conventional means.

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In Search of New Alpha

 

For a book that is highly critical of the latest incarnation of capitalism that is financial innovation, I was surprised to see it reviewed by the website Seeking Alpha. Two million people subscribe to the site’s financial news and many more visit it to gain better understanding of financial markets.  In layman’s terms, Alpha is a measure of how well a certain stock, bond, or sector performs against expectations set for it by analysts. So when I read the title of the review “Seeking Alpha with Memenomics”, I had an inclination that the reviewer has a good grasp on the macro memetics of capitalism. Here the review in full:

SA_logo_Red

Seeking Alpha With Memenomics                                                                       By Range Chiever

Feb 11, 2014 10:06 PM

I just finished reading Said Dawlabani’s “Memenomics- The Next Generation Economic System”, and I am still buzzing. Or maybe that is my first cup of Death Wish coffee. In my investing lifetime there has been a handful of works that greatly advanced my investing intellect. Books and articles from Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger come to mind. This book may top them all. You see, investing is all about seeing value where others don’t. If one sentence could articulate what seeking alpha is about, that would be it.

However, I would recommend this book to only a small subset of souls who happen to mix economics with their psychology. This is not exactly peanut butter and chocolate. To really understand the message it requires a basic understanding of the works of Clare Grave’s Spiral Dynamics or at least a decent understanding of the study of human development.

The book reframes the economic history of the United States as a process of developmental growth from the early 20th century up through the financial disaster of 2008 and then to today.

His assessment of the crash in 2008 through a cultural development lens is something that has been swirling in my head for half a decade. He integrated and articulated many key points into a beautiful story that resolved many conflicts I was struggling with. I’ve always scoffed at folks who said that the Government bailout was not the best course of action during the crisis. He has changed my mind.

So, how can an economics book about personal and cultural development possibly help your investing prowess? Well, once you understand that the US economy is evolving and developing along a path of greater development, it is easier to see the general direction of the economy and maybe more importantly, spot those companies which are poised to benefit from this development.

Said used two companies to illustrate highly evolved corporations of the future. They are Google and Whole Foods Market. Much to my delight, these were two companies that I added to my portfolio in early 2009.

It’s impossible to explain the context in the book required to understand the praise for these two companies. In his terms, it is the appreciation of People, Profit and Planet as opposed to almost all other companies where Money Only Matters. It’s like the friend who calls only when he needs something compared to the friend who calls because he genuinely likes you.

Google-Moves-Into

He does differentiate between the two as well. Google is a disrupter in the evolving technology field and Whole Foods while steeped in an age old industry is finding ways to differentiate itself. He outlines characteristics, from WF’s restriction on executive pay and team based culture to Google’s democratization of knowledge and their unique venture finance arm. There is so, so much more and if this interests you at all, you must read the book.

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I have renewed vigor today in my search for alpha. It reminds me of the time I first read Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street or the several hour binge session of Warren Buffet’s annual letters to shareholders. I am posting today looking for a few souls out there that might have a similar view or plowed into this untouched jungle with machete in hand.

Disclosure: I am long WFM, GOOG.

 

 

 

 

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