Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness By William Shanley and Timothy Wilken

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

By William Shanley and Timothy Wilken

June 27, 2006

Greetings from New Haven --

My friends, in the last 230 years, enormous amounts of human and material treasure have been expended by the United States to uphold these fundamental human values at home and extend them abroad.

But lately we’ve come to find that when we thought we were doing just that, our nation’s foreign policies were actually doing precisely the opposite and undermining the very values we hold most dear.

And here at home, we’ve also been awakening to the idea that the human economic order we’re created is no longer manifesting the society of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” we’d hoped for.

I believe that it is our age-old belief in scarcity is what physicist-philosopher David Bohm would call the “hidden operator” in the thought system that is the source of our problems. If we look closely, we can see that this fundamental belief in scarcity leads to human behavior that actually creates scarcity: economic systems run on it -- “the less there is of something, the more its worth”; businesses seek to maintain demand by restricting supply, otherwise their prices would fall, and there would be no profit; and, when you believe in scarcity, a simple, fair profit is rarely enough. Greed enters the picture, and even in a world of abundance, life becomes a struggle for survival. (The cost of AIDS drugs is but one example.)

This belief in scarcity has created a world of fearful egos and immeasurable suffering; it the source of most wars (“not enough”) and individual and mass psychological dysfunction (“not good enough”).

The good news is science now tells us that this belief in scarcity is obsolete, an inauthentic idea, almost like a genetic thought defect, that is incoherent with the nature of nature. Abundance, harmony, unbounded potential and infinite power are the fundamental attributes of nature, the universe and humanity that we must now awaken to.

Yet, thus far, this new future that awaits us has eluded our grasp. We are trapped in a trance, caught in a vicious circle of self-fulfilling fear and punishment. Wherever we look we can see that this most deeply held belief in scarcity has created a world of war and suffering: we have put a price on everything, imprisoned ourselves with money, financial products and conceptual tools like corporations, denigrated qualitative aspects of life, and incubated a culture of “every man for himself” that is racing the planet to a certain death.

That is why my partner, Timothy Wilken, MD, and I came together to combine synergy science and human values and economic habitats research in an Internet application that would circulate unused human and material abundance to help foster “a world that works for everyone.”

The result is GiveGet Nation, the world's first free, post-scarcity, values-based, person-to-person surplus product, labor, intelligence and spirit economy. We organize the world's surplus capacity and make it accessible to everyone via the Internet.

First there was the Internet, connecting people everywhere; then came eBay, creating more than 700,000 independent entrepreneurs; next, Amazon, cut out the middle man; and more recently, the Google Boys got very busy organizing the world's information.

Now GiveGet Nation is here. We do all of the above, all together, all at once, in one place. And more. We circulate the abundance that’s within and without us and make it available to everyone -- for free.

GiveGet Nation is our answer to the humanity’s belief in scarcity, and we hope you’ll experience our synergic human values dynamo as a way to make life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness more tangible for all.

So this letter is both an announcement and an invitation.

On the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, Timothy and I are declaring Interdependence Day and the founding GiveGet Nation, “the human values economy where gifts and wishes meet love and gratitude.”

Join the movement. On July 4th, visit us at www.givegetnation.net “where your gifts and wishes are the capital for creation.” Register. Take a tour. Post your gifts and wishes. No matter how rich or poor, we believe everyone has gifts and wishes and genius to share.

Between today and July 4th, we’ll be sending you a series of short films under 3 minutes in length designed to help reframe subjects ranging from war and money to human values and harmony and life and conscious evolution. Please circulate them to your friends and family.

In the first film, "For the Love of Abraham,” descendents of Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, face the devastation of wars and conflicts in the 21st century. The human costs of aggression are juxtaposed with the US dollar investment and raise the possibility of more constructive forms of investment to secure our future.

To see the film, click here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4328232943940671473 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECyW1M4lN5w

It’s been said that all wars are economic, and today, as US deaths in the Iraq War reached 2,500, it is appropriate that we pause and reflect upon the human cost which is beyond quantification and raise questions. Are our actions instilling the values we claim to hold so dear? Are these choices representative of your ideals… of your ideal self? Is this the legacy by which you and your family want to be known?

“We the People… do ordain…”

We’ve heard the words. They’re our own. It is our choice. We have the power. Our destiny – and the world’s -- is in our own hands.

We thank you for these moments of your time, and ask that if you believe our work has value, to please forward this email and movie to five of those people closest to you.

Until we meet again…

Life, Joy & Abundance to All People, In All Places, For All Time,

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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