WORLD PRESS
RELEASE
FOR GENERAL RELEASE
12 p.m. est.
December 4, 1989
WORLD GOVERNMENT LINKS CYBERNETIC
PROCESS
FOR 1990 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
TORONTO CONFERENCE JOINS WORLD
CITIZENS WITH CYBERNETICIAN
WASHINGTON--A unique and perhaps historic gathering took place at Toronto's
Windsor Arms Hotel the weekend of November 25th. World Citizen Garry Davis arrived from a
nine-month trip to Tokyo where he established a 'Pacific Rim' branch of the World Service
Authority. He met with World Government pioneers Georgia Lloyd and Frank Bourne and
cybernetician Stafford Beer, President of the World Organization of General Systems and
Cybernetics. Their purpose was to inaugurate a new and revolutionary peace process
incorporating principles underlying the late Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. This
leads toward the World Government Constitutional Convention that convenes at the Town Hall
of Christchurch, New Zealand, on 18th September, 1990.
Beer, author of eleven books and consultant to national governments and corporations in
eighteen countries, joined the World Government of World Citizens in 1985 as Coordinator
of its World Cybernetic Commission. The global human rights government founded by Davis in
1953 was an outgrowth of the world citizenship movement launched during a United Nations'
General Assembly session in Paris in 1948. It now has a constituency of 350,000 registered
citizens. Its principal offices are in Washington, D.C. and Tokyo.
Beer's scientific approach to peacemaking is based on what he calls the
"Technosphere." The world of rock, the geosphere, he explains, is clothed in a
seamless robe called the biosphere - in which breathes life. By now, this is in turn
enrobed by the technosphere - a seamless robe of telecommunication. According to Beer,
this makes possible the "Infoset," which is a group of thirty people who share
information of a mutually interesting kind, share too a dedication to turning their
insights into active service in this world.
According to this theory there is no longer any need for members of any Infoset to be
physically, geographically or politically in any one place. They "meet" in the
Technosphere. They have no location; they represent no locality. The Infoset is unified by
its sharing of knowledge and purpose, and transcends the outmoded classifications of
country, economic bloc or race. Beer's idea is that once a small number of Infosets has
been inaugurated, this mode of human collaberation will breed. The technosphere will be
inhabited by self-organizing mini-parliaments of world citizens.
For years Beer has organized the 'Problem Jostle' by which the Infoset identifies and
selects the issues it wishes to address. He now adds a protocol called "Team
Tensegrity." This is a procedure that organizes the Infoset as a total democracy with
absolutely no hierarchy among the thirty members - and then moves on to the organization
of Infosets themselves, thirty at a time. This is a mathematical design that embodies the
structural strength (tensegrity) of the geodesic dome and translates it into human terms.
Adding to this intriguing new method is the potential linking of selected world citizens
in "mondialized" cities by satellite conferencing to address global concerns
such as war itself and environmental devastation.
"World citizenship is an idea whose time has come," Davis said today from the
WSA Washington, D.C. office. "People everywhere are rebelling against oppressive and
outdated political systems based on exclusive nationalism. They claim human rights in
terms of freedom of political choice, an end to poverty and war, a clean environment, and
a fulfilling life. Daily events from Beijing to Prague, Windhoek, Manila and San Salvador
reveal a vast global political vacuum which can only be filled by new and transcendent
institutions and new ways of doing things consistent with the new reality. Cybernetics,
which is the science of effective organization, has been drafted by our world citizen
government to develop the necessary new designs - and we have a world authority already on
the job since 1954 to coordinate them. By the year 2000, we must have a peaceful world
community. Otherwise, the so-called nuclear age may be humanity's last."
Asked whether his new terminology and the talk of mathematics was really necessary,
Stafford Beer pointed out that if the world stands in need of radical change to meet the
macro challenges of our times, then the old tools will not be of use. They limit rather
than facilitate what can be done. But operating manuals will be written, he added, so that
people may work the system without fuss. "It's easier done than said," smiled
Beer.
The Christchurch meeting will officially start the process which is expected to cover a
ten-year span and usher in the next millenium. The principal operational center for the
Convention is presently in Tokyo at the World Service Authority 's 'Pacific Rim' office at
Nakano-ku. World Coordinator Garry Davis, now in the U.S., will introduce the new
technique to the world citizen constitutency. Meanwhile he is raising funds for the
Convention itself from individuals - via the new organization, World Citizens For
Constitutional Law - from foundations and from certain large corporations which have
'gone global,' both conceptually and actually.
WORLD SERVICE AUTHORITY
SUITE 1101, 1012 14TH STREET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005
TEL: (202) 638-2662
FAX: (202 638-0638
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