Hearthstone
ModelEarth.Org
P.O.B. 2182
Sebastopol
CA 95473

modelearth@gmail.com

12.30.2008

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Obama,

I wish that you are well!

If we, the people, were really interested in establishing a lasting peace in the world, we would spend more on ways that would achieve peace by non-violent ways than what we spend on the military!

To achieve peace in the Middle East, or anywhere in the world―ultimately in the whole world―all the people from all the sides of any conflict should be allowed to coherently consolidate their ideas about what “peace” should look like, since going to war is only a way of achieving a peace―albeit only a “peace” as the individual parties in any conflict understand it. This is because their ideas of what “peace” should look like are usually quite divergent, and because the usual diplomatic ways of achieving peace are so cumbersome and ineffective, that there seems no other way of realizing peace but by going to war.

Today we have all the knowledge, means, and resources to make armed conflicts wholly unnecessary. All that is needed is to allow every individual on all sides of any conflict in the world to reconcile their ideas of what peace should look like with all the ideas of everybody else who are either directly, or even indirectly involved in a conflict in models where their differences would be harmonized with each other on the basis of all pertinent facts till a portrayal of a peaceful co-existence would be achieved.

Modeling of whole world systems involving a multitude of people is already being done in the various online games; why not using the basically same processes for serious purposes? The software is available (free source, at that); so are data banks (normally used for research and commercial purposes) that hold data of what we know about availability of resources, about Earth ecological processes, and of what we know about human behavior. Access to the computers could be enabled to people even in the less developed parts of the world―it would not be required that everybody has a PC, only that people's input reaches the model where all the individual ideas are compared and vetted for viability.

The whole political process would be augmented with this kind of modeling by making it possible for every individual from every level of the society to take a part in shaping of their future―something that rarely is possible today; politicians would have to be mindful of the opinion of even the very common people expressed by the modeling process, since everybody interested in the political process could readily see how much the politicians are veering off the course to the ideal that is being depicted by the modeling process.

This modeling process would invite anyone to challenge the resulting picture of reality as it ideally should be by making it possible to improve on the picture, providing that any improvements would be well backed by what is known about all the aspects of any situation in question.

Last, but not least―the whole process could be entirely anonymous, since not personalities, but ideas would “compete”; it would not matter at all who puts the ideas forth. What would matter would be how beneficial to the common weal the ideas would be! This would be quite different from the practice today where, not infrequently, it is personalities that compete in the political arena, while important issues are being neglected.

I am aware that I am not explaining the concept quite well enough, but, perhaps, perusing the www. ModelEarth.Org website would further elucidate the idea that I am trying to express.

Thank you very much for your consideration -

sincerely -

Mr. Jan Hearthstone.