The 8 Billion Club (8BC)

It's safe to say that the past 2,5 years have destroyed everything that we have considered business as usual. From the way how we interact with each other in public places, to the way we work and to the impact inflation has on our daily lives and the anxiety the first big war in Europe in the 21st century creates for us. We are at a crossroads where we have to reflect what we need in order to tackle these fundamental challenges to our lives, how we cope and ultimately adopt. I am also sure that many of us got frustrated over this time period seeing how evidently there are many people out there who are not standing for the values needed to actually solve these issues successfully. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that appeals to emotion instead of facts, to animosity towards other people instead of empathy, or to the adoration of authoritarian leaders (whether through material, political or religious power or combination thereof) instead of the development of democratic values won't help in this matter. 

A good example is the war in Ukraine, where we can see Russian authoritarianism lose in slow motion. It's being showcased on the world stage that authoritarian regimes are significantly inferior compared to western democracies. Let's leave out all the cruelty, stupidity and ignorance and just look at it from a result driven perspective. Humans have invented governments because organization between us is necessary to ensure we can all live a dignified life together and that no one is left behind. While we came to be through survival of the fittest, this is not how we decided to structure our society. That's what it means to be human. The promise is an increasing quality of live, the ability for self fulfillment and peace. Now let's look how Authoritarian regimes are performing. Government overreach, corruption, the isolation of the population from free access to information and an economic system increasing the inequality gap is simply not the right petri dish to nurture a technological and socially advanced society where everyone can enjoy a fulfilling life. Empowering every citizen through social support is always the better solution as more people can participate in the economy and contribute to innovation and the prosperity of a nation, this includes the empowerment of women and minorities. Dividing up the cake between a few privileged oligarchs at the top so they can afford an extra yacht is simply not going to cut it. Giving money to someone who already has a lot is simply not making the same impact as giving the same amount to people who need it to pay for their basic expenses like food, rent, transportation etc. It's simply a numbers game, you help more people to help themselves and the money flows directly back into the economy. This only works if we can eradicate the stigma of poor people and the assumption that they are not able to improve their own situation and can live on equal footing like the rest of us. 

We also need to stop thinking that we are living at the end of something doomed to fail but rather at the beginning of something that can secure the livelihood for billions of future humans. We just need to get our act together, now. And the first step for this is to organize, because if there's one thing that educated people haven't successfully managed to do is create a joint cause that will finally give non-believer, non-populist, non-authoritarian, non-violent, non-climate-change-denier and non-pessimists a home. At the moment, the wrong people are making most of the noise and we have lumped people into categories like left and right and also threw a couple of ideologies into the mix to create a poisonous environment that makes an open minded and constructive conversation almost impossible. We need a vision what we can create as a joint species of smart apes if we just work together and share values that reflect the current Zeitgeist and not something people believed years, decades or even centuries ago. Politicians, Companies and Religions often abuse the label of "traditional values" as a chain to keep society shackled in the past, not being able to move forward. People respond to that, because if you are living in a society with a lot of inequality, chance are your trajectory in life will be downwards and not upwards, making you crave the "good old days". People will stop being concerned about the future if they don't believe that something good lays ahead or that they at least have influence of the course where their life is heading. A vicious cycle. We somehow haven't managed to take a bottom up approach to redefine how we actually want to live together, not from a legal standpoint (we have laws for that) but from the perspective of the values which we want to adhere to and organize our lives around. Something that works for everyone and can lead to a higher quality of life for everyone. 

This is it. It's an genuine effort of one person to create something which in my opinion is desperately needed. First of all to have a joint cause people can identify with and give scientifically literate people (or those who want to be) a platform to make their voices heard.  This project is not associated with anyone and doesn't cost anything to anybody who wants to participate. Realizing that business as usual is over also means that the time of inaction is over. I am sure there are millions of people who share this worldview, who want to put science and fact first and who are willing to take action. Who want to feel like they are represented in everyday society, including political representation. We are the ones who give our lives purpose. Let's define which values we want to represent. Let's define which values we do not want to represent. Let's put outdated and useless views on the shelve together with all the other ones we had in the past and decided to retire. And let's change if necessary, because embracing change is not a matter of personal opinion but of collective survival.