Short Update on the Problems - Practicality vs Profitability

At first, we thought it was about being practical in technology (referring to the many applied science cases, such as that of DC/AC battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and applications pesticides and herbicides in agriculture).

However, after so many of these cases with so many points of suspicion, we've come to consider the possibility of money being the culprit. People want to be right because they have a monetary stake in it.

The latest news on GMO seem to prove the case. Being truly right about practicality and safety doesn't seem to be the prime concern but profit...

PS: Edison strongly defended DC because he patented his designs and wanted to cash in on these "assets", while Tesla gave out his AC design to public domain, basically destroying Edison's profitability. And it is sad that people remember Edison much more than Tesla.

We Deserve Paradise!

Since I was a little kid, I kept telling myself, "this isn't the way the world is supposed to be!" I've always believed that this version of reality I am living in is an inferior one. It was like I have seen or been to paradise before, and hence I have a comparison.

I could never understand how people accept the inferior reality as it is. In fact, some found ways to exploit the inferiority to their own advantages! I still cannot understand.

People tell me that it was my lack of ability to cope, to adapt to the surrounding. I can't help it but to see the adaptation as the assassination of empathy, sense of guilt and morality.

Why do we need to perpetuate a situation whereby one or the other has to suffer? Why can't we create a situation without suffering?

I refuse all the advice given to me. I refuse to listen to the "experienced", "learned" or "wise". All of them stemmed from the acceptance of status quo, the inferior reality.

We deserve Paradise! I will not settle for anything less. Until all suffering is gone, until we have brought Paradise down to Earth, I cannot rest.

I will not bow down to the selfish or ignorant humans who have no idea what greatness we are all missing out on!

I don't want to wait for my death to find out if there is a Paradise, if there is a world to come. I want to change this world into the world to come!

Look around you, if you say to yourself, "this isn't the way the world is supposed to be!", then come and let us join hands. Together, we can create Paradise and make Paradise exist here on Earth.

To the people who say it is impossible, I will ask, "Have you tried? Have you tried all the available methods?"

We deserve Paradise! Let us create Paradise!

-- by Fun, Initiator of AVOFT

Intelligence - by Nature or by Nurture?

It does seem like the general perception is that intelligence is by nature, i.e. one is either born with the "intelligent genes" or not. However, things can hardly be further from the truth. This perception is actually quite a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who believe they have the "intelligent genes" will go on learning more, expanding their brains and become better while those who don't, will tend to stay stagnated, unwilling to make a move since nothing seem to be able to change their predicament.

Apart from that, education has gotten quite formalised in many places, whereby students rarely read topics outside of the syllabus given in school. Adults also do not read as much as they should to expand their horizon. This general lack of reading means that the brain lacks stimulation to continue growing and hence limit the development of intelligence.

At this point, it should be obvious that we believe nurture plays a greater role in deciding people's intelligence. There are scientific evidences suggesting that children growing up in a more stimulating environments develop better mental ability. These children can do better in tests and are more creative in finding solutions.

In addition to that, the mind is very much malleable. So, by feeding the mind with information and questions to process, the mind will then develop accordingly to cope with the work load. This is like how we build our muscles in gyms. When we exercise our brain cells, they develop further, allowing for more complicated thinking and information storage.

These are some of the activities that we can adopt to increase our intelligence:

• Reading, especially read from different fields
• Exercise, allowing for better blood circulation, bringing oxygen, water and nutrient up to your brain
• Engage in enriching discussions, stimulating your brain cells
• Get enough and proper sleep to allow your brain to repair the "damages" done during waking hours
• Avoid brain cell killing activities such as smoking and binge drinking

As a conclusion, intelligence is strongly influenced by nurture and hence one should maintain a healthy lifestyle to avoid becoming less gifted.

Energy in Change and Progress

Whenever change or improvement is mentioned, some people seem to have a default expectation. To make it easy, let us take a look at this graph:

This expectation is that change is direct and easy. If it is not easy, it is not a progress. However, this cannot be further from the truth. If you have studied chemistry before, the following graph may be very familiar:

Change and progress will always come with an increase in energy exertion, before a "chemical reaction" can happen and change the fundamental structure necessary for true progress to happen.

We believe it will be the same of AVOFT System. There will be various challenges and problems along the way. People may not believe that AVOFT System is a solution to the world's problems, which is a good thing to us if they are thinking of other alternatives. Whether AVOFT System is a solution or not, we need to change our course before the damage is too deep and too bad for any reparation.

A Hypothesis on the Origin of Modern Civilisation

This is a hypothesis contributed by a friend.

There are several ways early humans obtain food, in no particular order, they are:

• gather
• hunt
• nomadic
• agriculture

Based on agricultural model, does it make sense to build permanent buildings, create sustainable cycles in various aspects? It doesn't make much sense for a agricultural society to keep moving around, so usually agricultural societies tend to focus on making good use of local resources and settling down on a specific location. Now, let us change our focus to the nomads.

How do nomads generally sustain their lives?

1. Herd and control livestock, bring them to places with grass to graze.
2. When grazing land ran out of grass and filled with manure, move on to a new pasture.
3. Repeat step 2.

It is an acceptable theory that civilisation correlates with agriculture. However, if we take a careful look at the above two paragraphs and compare with our modern day civilisation, there is an anomaly.

Look at how we are utilising the world and her resources and you can see that we are basically running the nomad model instead of the agricultural model. We are stripping mother earth of natural resources, using them wantonly and leaving behind them wastelands!

And this talk about finding another habitable planet out there, isn't this like the nomad who has stripped the land of grass and is looking for another pasture?

Well, sadly, as of now, we only have this planet. Do we want to keep stripping this planet of all the natural resources? Or do we want to slow down and turn into a more agricultural model, building something more sustainable?

We need to start making the change now, before it is too late to halt the downward spiral to destruction of the habitability of this planet.

Life is unfair, just accept it?

There seem to be an obsession to look at the world as being unfair.

Men don't get to suffer the pain of birth, that's unfair.

Larry has a pretty girlfriend, I am still alone, life's unfair.

Fred is born in a rich family, life's unfair.

Michael is successful in his business, life's unfair.

"Life is unfair, just accept it" is one common advice given to people. However, this advice is a trap. This statement causes myopia, commonly known as shortsightedness. By saying life is unfair, one focuses on a particular event and judge the rest based on it.

Yes, men don't get to suffer the pain of birth. Neither do men enjoy the close bonds with babies. Neither do men get several months of pampering love from all members of family during the months of pregnancy. It is only unfair when you focus solely on the pain of birth. Once you pull yourself away and look at the whole picture, the truth is we don't know if it is fair or unfair. There are too many factors and things to consider.

Instead of focusing on fairness of life, why not focus on how to make life happier and better? Women can focus on the plus points of birth to make the pain worth it. The men can acknowledge the pain women went through and refrain from commenting negatively if the women refuse to have more babies.

The same sort of analysis can be used for all cases of "life is unfair". The focus will always be focused on a minor part and the whole picture is lost. By looking at the whole picture, one can easily acknowledge that one doesn't know for sure and deal with it as such.

Blaming life or the other party on unfairness is just not helpful. But we can find ways to deal with these feelings and balance out the challenges that nature or chance throws at us.

The Solutions - An Illustration on Food

In order for AVOFT system to be implemented, abundance is a very important aspect. So, this is an illustration of how we can create abundance and bring forth the transition into the AVOFT system.

We will want to see leaderships in the opening of the floodgates of knowledge. There are many farming and gardening methods, suitable for different situation and temperaments of the growers. So, there will be groups working on creating wiki pages on these techniques, outlining their details as well as their pros and cons. This will allow for the general public to easily gain access to this pool of knowledge and making their farm/garden productive.

There will also be pages on the uses of the plants, common and less known ones. By listing out these plants, we will be able to popularise some less popular plants and hence creating more options to grow and eat.

Alongside with these, there will be people working on the hands on of growing food. We have people who are truly into farming to get a plot of land in the country and do larger scale farming. People can then, either travel to the farm to obtain the produce, or to have the farmers ship out to distribution centres in town.

Then there will be a category of people who loves to grow things but are unwilling to travel too far out of the urban setting. These people can work with urban farming, growing larger scale production in the city. Aeroponic, hydroponic and various techniques can be used to make use of space, especially vertical space of high rise buildings.

In addition to that, individuals who are not interested in large scale farming can have their own private home gardens, growing food they like and want, at their own pace and rate. These are more like hobby growers.

Then there will also be people who are more people oriented, working into community farming, bringing people together, doing various farming tasks together. There can be various activities like weed blitzing, whereby the people congregate at an agreed time and day to do weeding in a particular plot. This will make weeding fun and social, instead of mundane and hard.

Before the implementation of AVOFT system in a full sense, most likely these groups will have to operate commercially, as social enterprise or as vehicles for charity bodies. All these groups will be totally autonomy groups, operating with their own leaderships. They can, of course, be affiliate with AVOFT System by holding our values and goals in mind. But AVOFT will not dictate how they choose to operate.

With the springing up of more food growers around us, we will get more reassurance that we don't really have food crisis and we don't have to put a price tag to our food anymore.

Imagine if the same effort is done in various areas. This is a possibility. There will be areas we have overlooked here but we are sure if we all keep on working on it, we will realise the flaws and work our way to solve them.

We hope this provide a clearer illustration of how AVOFT system is a possibility. Remember that AVOFT system is not a utopian system. People are still expected to "work", albeit in their passion and based to a certain degree on necessity.