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According to Daniel Schmachtenberger, we are at the end of one kind of civilization and must transition to another. If we don't transition—if we stick with our current civilizational operating system—then we won't survive an interlocking set of global crises. In Daniel's terminology, our current civilization ("game A") will "self-terminate". The new civilizational setup ("game B") is yet to be invented. He suggests we invent it by starting from a series of requirements (he calls them "generator functions") which he has derived from the threats to our survival.

I pretty much agree with this assessment! I love Daniel's emphasis on redesigning society, rather than on power struggles or mindset shifts. And we both put special emphasis on redesigning institutions like voting and markets (“collective intelligence” is the lingo for this in Daniel’s scene).

But I would amend Daniel's account in one place: Game B is already here, operating, on Earth. His requirements are already met. We needn't reinvent civilization from whole cloth—instead, we can study what is already happening.

<aside> ☝ You should be familiar with Daniel Schmachtenberger's "Generator Functions" before you read the rest of this. Follow the link above!

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The Left and Right Arm of Civilization

To tell this story, I have to start from a very basic idea about human beings—about how we make plans and search for fulfilment. I will say that we have two distinct kinds of problem solving abilities.

We solve achievement-problems. There are things that we want to accomplish and "check off". With these, we solve problems about how to achieve them efficiently. We want them to be over as quickly as possible. I want to pay my taxes, and I want to do it as quickly as possible. I may need to fly to another country, which I want to do in the least time possible, etc. We can call those goals, although there's lots of other names you could use, like obligations or outcomes or whatever.
We also solve practice-problems. Second, there are things that we want to make into ongoing practices and parts of our lives. For instance, I want to practice playing music. I want to practice loving people in a way that really embraces our development together, and how we change over time. Here, I am not trying to achieve something and check it off. Rather, I am solving problems about making my life into a practice space for what's important to me in an ongoing way. Neither of these—the practicing of music or the practicing of loving people—are things I want to do efficiently or in the least time possible. With the things that we practice, generally we are not about efficiency. We care about "the process".

Each kind of problem-solving takes a kind of intelligence. We are highly intelligent arrangers of life, both with regard to finding venues for practice and tools for accomplishing our goals. So, when I need to fly to a different country or file my taxes, I can also say "I can do that with this tool" or "this person could help me". That's an example of me having agency and intelligence in achievement-problems. And when I'm looking for people to love, I can kind of figure out where I can do that in my life and where I can't, and how to bring new people into my life that I can do that with. That's an example of me having agency and intelligence in practice-problems.

These two skills are like our left and right arms. And what I want to say here is that—as a civilization—one arm has been developed much more than the other.

Strong Right Arm

In particular, we have very sophisticated mechanisms which amplify our powers regarding achievement.

We have vast systems for matchmaking to solve them: We find strangers to solve problems for us and with us, using everything from linkedin to classified listings to a variety of professions and professional trainings. Strangers can even form organizations and companies to help people with specific kinds of achievement-problems.
We also have scalable structures for collaboration and incentives around them: We set up contracts, and we have all sorts of infrastructure—courts of law, small claims, billing, etc—to make sure people deliver on their contracts. We have offices and specialized workplaces of all sorts, project management software, and various pay-for-work schemes.
Finally, we have knowledge related to achievement-problems: this includes much of science and engineering, vocational schools, textbooks, how-to guides, repair manuals, etc.

Developing in parallel with this social capacity for matchmaking, collaboration, incentives, and knowledge around achievement, we have also gotten better at expressing our achievement-problems and at refining them:

We have clarity and specificity in naming them: We can list our goals, obligations, desires, impulses, etc. We can type them into google, select them using amazon checkboxes, assign them to others in task lists, and so on.