General - Towards real democracy and better global governance

BAU Business as usual. A phrase in such common use that it appears uncontroversial.

A system for converting natural and human resources into products and services that we all need is, of course, essential. We could not survive without the skills and dedication of people who work to these ends. However the primary aim of this website is to expose how this harmless sounding concept masks an evolving dark governance mechanism which is literally destroying the habitability of our planet.

Four website aims

What an acceptable form of business activity might look like [Power structure]

BRI Belt-and-Road Initiative

The original BRIC countries were Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Later, South Africa joined, forming the acronym BRICS. Recently, the group has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.

Massive infrastructure investment in Serbia by China [Power structure]

BEPS Base erosion and profit shifting.

CBA Cost-benefit analyis.

CIPS Cross-border Interbank Payment System. Not to be confused with the Chartered Institue of Procurement and Supply.

COP Conference of the Parties. For example COP21: The 21st Conference of the Parties (to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - UNFCCC).

CSR Corporate social responsibility. See Voluntary self-regulation [Power structure]

EMF Electromagnetic field.

FCI Full cost internalisation (so-called).

GDP Gross Domestic Product.

The value of all goods and services produced within a country in a particular year. GDP differs from GNP (see below) in that it does not deduct the depreciation of captal produced in previous years.

GDP [Big 3 reform].

GHG Greenhouse gas.

GM Genetically modified.

GNP Gross National Product.

GRI Global Reporting Initiative.

IMF International Monetary Fund.

IPBES Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

A key source of scientific information and technical guidance to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement (see COP above).

ISDS Investor-State Dispute Settlement. Also referred to as Corporate Courts [Power structure]

IT Information technology.

MAD Mutual Assured Destruction.

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

NDC Nationally Determined Contributions. Linked to the Paris Agreement of COP21.

NGO Non governmental organisation.

PFI Private Finance Initiative.

PR Public relations. On this website, where proportional representation is referred to, it is written in full.

QE Quantitative-easing. See QE

SDR Special drawing rights.

SWIFT Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.

TBL Triple bottom line.

WEF World Economic Forum.

WHO World Health Organisation.

WTO World Trade Organisation.

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction.

WRI War Resisters' International.

XR Extinction Rebellion [Citizen action] campaign network.

Other terms and acronyms

'amoral'
See Amorality [The Case: Issues]

'Artworks'
Images, slow-videos, and audio recordings exhibited on the website in the chronological collection . The selection criteria are outlined in Art categorisation [Insights]. All the items displayed on this website are intended to be non-commercial art (definition below).

C&C
This acronym refers to the policy framework known as Contraction & Convergence [Artworks]. It was proposed by Aubrey Meyer as a pragmatic and fair way to tackle climate change (Meyer, 2000).

A graphic showing the characteristic shape of C&C curves. Also see the website favicon!

cfq Chaoyi Fanhuan Qigong, a spiritual healing practice founded by Master Yap Soon-Yeong.

f, 1/f
In the context of sound/music/audio, frequency (f) can be regarded as pitch. Most people will be less familiar with 1/f. This concept is useful when characterising the spectrum of sound, for example as 'pink' or 'white' noise.

ECO Essential consumption only

MBI Mass-burn incineration [Power structure: Notes]

MHCPs, MHCP, HCP Major human-caused predicament(s)/problem(s).

MIAC Mandatory internalisation of all costs.

Non-commercial Art
'Purposeful' art, audio, and video items are displayed on this website for the non-commercial purpose of raising of awareness about MHCPs/ Anthropogenic consequences and externalised costs caused by commercial activities conducted within the prevailing dark governance (BAU) system. In contrast, purposeful art, audio, and video techniques are also routinely used in the marketing [Purposeful art] of business products and services.

ppb Personal psychological baggage.
Explained in Notes [Being] Non-dual meditation practice.

privileged consumers, privileged citizens
Global citizens who are fortunate enough to be able to afford to consume, and/or overconsume. 'Privileged consumers' are therefore targeted by those with vested interests (TwVI) in order to make their profits, for example see Targeting those who can afford to pay [Power structure].

pw&c Power, wealth, and control.

Rogue Operator Behaviour
See BAU behaviours [The Case: Power structure],
Rogue operator behaviour [Power structure]

reducer, citizen-reducer
Refers to an overconsuming individual who seriously commits to reducing their consumption to essentials only by 2030.

'the authorities'
Underpinned by such enormous wealth, those with vested interests (TwVI) can play, or lean on, virtually anyone they choose, including those we think of as 'the authorities'. It is important to be aware of the revolving door [Issues] between government and corporates. See also The balance of power [Power structure] for more on the revolving door, including the experience of military élites.

Those we think of as 'the authorities', and indeed all of us, are in effect puppets of the TwVI, whether knowingly or otherwise. See Held to ransom [The Case: Power structure].

TwVI Those with vested interests.

In addition, throughout the website, miscellaneous acronyms are used as unique labels for superscripts. These are shown in italics.

Conventions

The date of the most recent revision of a webpage is shown at the foot of that page.

A log of the overall website updates is provided in Website history

The core thesis of the website is expected to remain valid without the need to continually review the detailed impact of unfolding global news events on the website content, even where these are relevant to existing website themes. The overall narrative could be viewed rather like a book which may need a new edition in due course.

Use of emphasised text boxes [Inference] - colour coding scheme

The address of a currently displayed page is given at the top of the browser screen.

In general links to webpages are shown in .

Links to pre-website background pages, and those describing the inner journey, are shown in white on grey.

Pale green link-boxes originally denoted links from [The Case] to supporting pages or references. They are now also sometimes used between supporting pages. For example:

We live in a biosphere^[I], where [I] denotes that the source page is [Issues]. [PS] would refer to [Power structure] etc.

Pale blue link-boxes denote links originating from or within the [The Case].

Some important coloured link-boxes are used several times.

This symbol ( § ) is usually located to the right of a main section title on a page top menu, which corrresponds to a section title in [The Case].

Page menu paragraph symbol

Clicking on the symbol will jump to the corresponding main section title on that page, which heads up the associated group of menu topics.

Page main section title

Notes associated with a webpage are usually appended to that page.

Occasionally notes from other pages are cross-linked.

Where a page has many notes, a menu of links to the notes is usually provided.

At the top of a note, or block of notes, a link back to the originating main section is usually provided. Sometimes a note is referred to from several places, in which case links to these are also usually provided.

'Start time' of an audio or videoclip is abbreviated to st. and is expressed in time units of hours [h] minutes ['] seconds ["].

'Duration' of an audio or videoclip is abbreviated to dur. and is expressed in time units of hours [h] minutes ['] seconds ["].

Website aims

The main narrative is particularly focused on Aims 1 and 2.

Website history

The website is revised periodically to reflect developments in an evolving personal quest, and in the evolving world situation.

The original version of the website (www.b4thetippingpoint.com) was launched in August 2015, as a basic platform to show the slow-video titled Impermanence. A complementary Twitter page was set up shortly afterwards.

In 2018 this very basic platform was extended to exhibit additional non-commercial artworks. A new domain (www.noncomart.org) was launched in March 2018, to reflect the proposed new content. Visitors to www.b4thetippingpoint.com were diverted to the noncomart.org for a transition period. The first domain was closed in August 2018.

It had been intended to include brief descriptions of the artworks. However only a small number of additional artworks were uploaded initially, because the development emphasis soon shifted to carrying out further analysis of the core business as usual problem; which had prompted the artworks in the first place. As the volume and complexity of material increased, delivery of the intended artworks exhibition was further delayed. With hindsight, reporting on the more detailed analysis would have been better suited to a book.

An interim version was released in January 2021. This included all the intended additional artworks, with short narrative extracts from the proposed analysis webpages. In April four website Aim(s) were formally defined which required some restructuring. This version was then frozen, with the intention to issue a more comprehensive version in time for COP26.

The planned more comprehensive version was not ready in time for COP26. It then became necessary to make extensive additions to reflect on the long awaited, but very disappointing COP26 outcome. Then the Russian invasion of Ukraine occurred. The deferred (October 2022) release represented my main overall conclusions at that time. I considered that it incorporated sufficient substantiation to provide clear answers to the four website Aims, and to the originally posed quest regarding the potential role of a private citizen.

However the domain name (noncomart.org) no longer reflected the main message and scope of the more comprehensive content. The navigation profile of the replacement domain name (hopeoroblivion.org) focused on the evolved main message and supporting content. The noncomart material was still incorporated, but was presented as earlier background work.

Following feedback a further attempt was made to streamline the site navigation page and fixed page menus.

The broad theme of the website remains raising awareness of the conclusion that business as usual is destroying the habitability of our planet, and to identify what citizens can actually do about this. However in this update the emphasis was shifted to the solution aspect. The main website title and guiding principle adopted for incorporating news updates were revised accordingly.

Therefore, for example, the Israel-Gaza war needed to be acknowledged, but not elaborated upon. The Russia-Ukraine war description already addressed many of the militaristic issues within dark governance. However the Israel-Gaza war further illustrates some of the inherent problems with a nation-state based governance system. These were outlined in a revised Home page which incorporated page navigation details and a new website preview section. The previous Home page content was moved to a new section within The Challenge.

The original website narrative was written in the third person. This was later modified to a first person style following some reader feedback. This update partially reverted to the original format.

The Home page introduces an Overview of the overall revised website content and conclusions. The Case is the main thesis, and now starts with the preview. The Case sections have been shortened, with links to supporting pages appended to each section. There have been several page name and content changes. In general the content is clearer and easier to navigate.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledging and referencing the influence of others is a form of verification that their being and doing contributions are valued.

Organising the material for the website has brought to mind a large number of people who have been particularly helpful along the way - you know who you are. Because this ongoing personal quest has covered such a long time period, it was decided that it would not be practical, or acceptable without their prior approval, to publicly name them. Many would now be difficult or impossible to contact.

Many of the books, videos and articles listed in the [Bibliography] are excellent, and deserve much closer study than has been managed so far. Inevitably with the evolutionary nature of the quest, information comes to light which should ideally have been discovered earlier. A number of reinvention of the wheel situations have occurred; some 'new' ideas turned out to have been discussed by the ancient Greeks. The most profound ideas were usually first articulated by spiritual gurus. Indeed it is difficult to contribute anything which hasn't already been done before, and better, by someone else. Nevertheless, it is hoped that it will be of use to some people.

With much humility, thanks to all.

CSS DEVELOPMENT [phr]

Last updated 25-04-25 [day-month-year] | ul 49 if.w3y [Revision code]

Terms and acronyms in general use

Other terms and acronyms

Conventions

Website aims

Website history

Acknowledgements