Ideas

Introduction

Throughout history, the manifesto has illuminated the path in the darkness, leading us to the peak. In the handbook, you have encountered the manifesto firsthand and perhaps noticed some initial changes. Our grand vision is our summit, that is, the collective experience of the manifesto. We have pointed out one or two examples along the way to make the manifesto more tangible. However, our goal was to avoid inappropriate concretizations as much as possible. How could we possibly advise the world's best expert on you specifically? A map cannot replace the experience of a walk nor fulfill its function. A map is merely a model of reality.

Life and our impact can be described as a process of continuous change and repetition. Our manifesto has an effect and it can generate new ideas. You will scrutinize these ideas, weigh them, and you will try out the good ones. Ideas that you find valuable and share with others become even more valuable. Others can then try out your ideas, build on them, and enhance your ideas. So, we have created a structure where changes can develop and flourish. Now we could sit back and watch as your ideas grow on this framework in the future. However, we believe that ideas are fertile. Therefore, we want to take a big run-up as good role models and make a big leap across the river. We now want to share ideas with you. Ideas that have been born in our alliance, that we have found good, and we believe that these ideas want to grow.

Before we make this leap, we want to prepare something necessary. Let's direct our attention to the evaluation of ideas, i.e., to the "… finding ideas good". An evaluation is always determined by an underlying value. The value weight determines the judgment of whether something is heavy. Suppose we follow the same route everyday, passing the same alleys and houses. Just like the raindrops taking the same paths on a windowpane. But one morning, we stop at an intersection and take a different route than usual, only to find ourselves back on our familiar path after a short while. Once we have reached the old path again, we can recognize that the new path was good. The old path was good, too, but at that moment, the new path was better. Let's now unfold our wings and look at this scenery from an even greater distance. We can now describe all actions in our life as a game in progress. Surprise surprise, since humans created games. In our life game, one move follows the other with the aim of collecting as much reward as possible in total. This is something we are familiar with from many board games. Moves can be the same, like the same route, or they can be different, like the new route. When a move is the same, we are moving within the existing culture. We follow the established, the experienced, the known. However, if a move now differs from the others, we move beyond culture. This beyond culture can also be described as the idea. Ideas can be small and personal in nature. A new route, a new lunch dish, a new ritual. Ideas can be good or not. Good ideas are the reward. Ideas can be big: an insight that connects a handful of areas of knowledge, like a bridge, and that serves as a foundation for further discoveries. We are aware that we have created new values. These new values now mean that future actions and ideas must be evaluated anew. Our ideas are not just permeated and interwoven with these new values; they also all have a certain new flavor, a certain new style. Of course, you can now think in analogies and start sorting: this idea seems conservative, this idea is rather progressive. This idea is shaped by techno-optimism, this idea originates from a libertarian school of thought, and so on. Consider the American lifestyle, which has spread over the past hundred years. Today - in retrospect - we can all too well summarize this lifestyle succinctly in the motto - from dishwasher to millionaire. But when it was still emerging a few decades ago, this was not possible. Only the practice of many has made this style and this phenomenon describable. Only the long practice of many - be it through movies, texts or direct experience - has made it possible to condense the style into its essence in a few words. So it is also with the Ultanio way of life. When we speak of adventure beyond culture, it is a description. Any analogy would be wrong. Adventure beyond culture is our current and therefore our best possible description to condense our lifestyle into its essence. Our ideas should now - and this is the real risk of this idea book - reverse this process. Our ideas should hand you the fragrant flowers so that your delicate nose can discern their essence.

Before we hand you our colorful bouquet for you to throw it with great joy like a proud bride, let's summarize.

Behind every idea lies life, that is, your life. So behind every idea lies an invitation to try it out, to look at yourself in the mirror with it, and to let this new impression affect you. We want to encourage you not to see our ideas as truths, but rather to question, test, understand and above all improve our ideas.

We have summarized our ideas in fields. The order of the ideas fields starts with you, then goes into your immediate sphere of influence, i.e., your family and your organizations, in order to finally go beyond that and focus globally and intergalactically. Some ideas have a political dimension and can inspire work in existing parties, impel the founding of one's own party, or inspire other social engagements for change and mobilization.

We wish you much joy with our ideas.

For your family

Our parents raised us and were thus the first instance that gave us values. We also pass on values in this role. This process repeats itself from generation to generation.

But the family is not a picture and therefore, the family is also not an ideal. The family is a system and the family is a process in which everyone learns, all on an equal footing.

A family is an interplay and the better the individual players complement each other, the more families can grow.

For your friendships

If we raise our gaze, we find people outside our family whom we learn to call our friends. We learn to categorize these people. Recategorizations of existing friends always take place. As the intensity of the friendship increases, so does the trust in the respective friend and thus the openness to exchange information.

Our first idea for you is to do an inventory. Just as the careful merchant goes to his warehouse at the end of the business year and weighs, measures, and counts all the goods he finds there, you can conduct an inventory of your circle of friends. You can ask questions at your discretion and put on different glasses: From 'How much was I able to help friend A recently?' to 'How much has friend B brought to me recently?'

Perhaps there is already an existing motive for you, like in a good opera, after which you have evaluated your entire circle of friends to date. So your view of the whole circle might be that you see it as too large, too small, too strenuous, or too distracting. This motive also offers many possibilities to question.

Once you have warmed up here, you can delve deeper: What exactly does 'good' mean to you? Why? Well, the question of the model behind a rating can also lead to interesting results. Or the question of differences: What distinguishes your family from friends?

Once you have completed your research, it is time to look at the results, to understand them, and to finally review and improve. Your ideas then come into play. One of the ideas can be to first record in writing your research results and what you want to improve. This way, you can check yourself at a later date and see what has changed.

Another idea could be that you not only evaluate individual meetings with your friends, but above all record their content. What insights did this meeting lead to? What ideas did it lead to? Afterwards, the genealogy of ideas can be helpful in reflecting on your own development.

By paying more attention to your friends, your friendships can bloom anew and change fundamentally.

You can do this!

For your suppliers

We are all customers. At our baker's or at our search engine. In these relationships, we can discover a lot of potential for improvement through open questioning. We also experience that ideas on how service could be improved do not always immediately find a receptive ear.

So share your ideas, not only directly with the supplier, but also with other customers and with your friends. A small note in a suitable place can make a lot of difference.

Transform your suppliers into the best in the world.

You can do this!

For your technology

As with your circle of friends, a basic inventory can be a first step to create clarity. An inventory can help to recognise which technologies you use, what benefits they bring you, and which topics concern you in this context.

We believe that in recent generations, the activity of understanding technology has become increasingly important. It goes without saying that a farmer who tended his land a few thousand years ago attached far less importance to understanding what he was doing than a contemporary knowledge worker who uses a variety of technologies.

At this point, we would like to remind you again that, in our view, technology encompasses far more than is generally subsumed under technology.

Understanding technology is thus initially a major investment, which wants to be paid with time. But if you look far ahead at this point, you can recognise that this investment pays a profitable interest and thus - in the long run - through the compound interest effect, can create a large treasure.

The first result of the inventory may be to recognise technologies as such anew.

Now our actual work can begin, i.e., to question technology - as a whole - and ourselves. You already know the procedure from the previous idea fields, so it could also be interesting here to put on different glasses, i.e., to use different filters.

What dangers arise from your current behaviour? What benefit has this or that technology brought you? Which technology could easily bring more benefit to you if you understood it better? What business models are inherent to the companies whose technology you use? What opportunities present to you when you use a new technology for a certain goal?

Our understanding of technology also includes psychology, language, nutrition, sleep and social. Technology as an interplay of various aspects of us.

At this point, we would like to briefly illustrate with an example how a better understanding of technology makes change possible. Let's take the well-known Alice and let's take Bob. Alice now wants to send Bob a message. Alice can thus first, become aware that what she describes as "I want to send Bob a message," is nothing more than a thought. It may have been a voice she heard telling her in an emphatic tone, "Bob should buy milk, the old lazybones!" This gives Alice a variety of new possibilities. So, she can not only follow the thought, but she can also ignore it or she can change it. The same, of course, applies to the communication channel and to the message as such. To recognise that there are many channels, to understand how these channels work, and to have options to formulate the message, provides Alice with a lot of room for change. So, while it might have looked at first as if there was only one single possibility, she can now choose from a huge universe of options. This allows new possibilities that she has not seen before to be tried out.

Let's now look at two specific technologies that are on everyone's lips and illuminate them with new ideas. Both governments and companies see artificial intelligence as either a tool or a resource. Yet, artificial intelligence in its essence is neither a tool nor a resource. Both tool and resource would be means to an end. But artificial intelligence is an end, not a means. Intelligence is the ability to achieve one's goals in various environments. This is one of the distinguishing characteristics not only of our species, but of life.

Politicians pride themselves on investing billions in artificial intelligence. The money is flowing into new university research centres, thus into big bottomless barrels. But even today, we have algorithms and data to convert simple control loops like traffic light systems into cybernetic systems. This would bring real progress and not create more senseless and useless papers.

As in all areas, politics lives at least a decade in the past in relation to the technological status quo and maintains a dilettantish understanding of it. After having followed the Gandhi roadmap exactly in politics and first completely ignoring social media, then mocking it as "Who cares about what I had for breakfast today," 2016 came as a wake-up call. One morning, politics woke up and realized that someone seems to be sawing on the branch they are sitting on, and after rubbing their eyes in disbelief, they saw that it was social media. Our idea is simple: Politics is not supposed to regulate social media now, but politics needs to create better social media. That must be the benchmark.

Pars pro toto. Artificial intelligence and social media are just two technologies that we have pointed out as part of the problem. Our goal is to support ambitious and bold projects that create something genuinely new. We understand technology in its original meaning, as the connection of engineering and art. We also understand technology as an increasingly significant essence of our species.

We, therefore, want to become technology.

We will also achieve this!

For Fashion and Taste

Let's start our ideas for fashion and taste with a brief thought experiment. Look around in the room you're currently in. Consider the clothing you're wearing. Imagine the house you're in. Take another look back at the pictures hanging on the walls of your home, and re-listen to the music you last heard. Recall the last book you read before that and the last dialogue you had. One final view, please, from a bird's eye perspective of the city where you currently are.

We want to initially describe all these impressions as culture. Of course, these impressions will vary for every reader, but this experiment provides a great foundation for discussing the following categories that apply to all of us:

Interior design. Furniture. Design. Architecture. Fashion. Music. Literature. Painting. Art. Communication. Narrative. Urban design.

So it's time to turn on our stage lighting and ask the first questions:

What do the images that you just saw look like? In other words, do you like these images? What do you like particularly?

Now let us propose a new thought experiment: Imagine putting on a magical dreamer's hat. As soon as you wear this hat, the critic in you becomes completely silent and the doer, the one who wants to put everything into action right away, also remains in the background for now.

Now, in your new role as a dreamer, imagine how these pictures you've seen earlier could look in order to appeal to you even more.

Perhaps more color on the white door? A more colorful jacket? Maybe a new music direction with imaginative sounds? Perhaps more imposing Baroque?

After these two thought experiments, we deserve a small break.

Culture is like the air that surrounds us. We can now focus our attention on the breath, but usually, we are not aware of our breath. Not just momentarily perceiving the culture, but questioning it involves tremendous effort.

Psychology has discovered over a hundred cognitive biases that provide a further explanation for this phenomenon. Basically, it's an atavism that occasionally becomes more visible and which was the best behavior for us a few hundred thousand years ago in order not to be eaten and to have enough to eat.

However, since we are now capable of performing such effort and since we are capable of questioning our culture, a whole new door opens for us.

What could a culture look like that goes beyond our present culture? How could such a superior culture, which we call post-culture, look like?

Let's examine two of the categories we first shed light on, while still wearing our magical dreamer hat.

We know from experience that learning works best when we perceive a stark contrast. We want to take advantage of this knowledge in our next thought experiment.

Let's shine our bright attention on fashion right away. Let's juxtapose today's fashion with the fashion of another culture and another time.

We believe that taste has not evolved for the better and the finer. This realization might surprise twice and hence it's quadruply valuable! Taste should actually improve over the centuries. Fashion should also improve due to the generally increasing prosperity. Let's take a short break and note: This realization alone is of immense value.

So, what could new fashion look like, which mirrors good taste on the mirror? Again, some effort is needed, so let's end this little break.

Looking at today's fashion worn in Western countries and comparing it to the fashion of other cultures and times, we find that the former fashion can be described with the two adjectives simpler and more functional in contrast to the latter fashion. A glance at the category of architecture confirms this. Yes, even furniture, design, and music have become simpler and more functional. What principle underlies this development? Why are no more works created today, which gloriously worship good taste?

The answer is right in front of us, and it's no small disgust that makes us look at it: works are created to please many and to be especially lucrative for the creator. The disgust lies in the fact that we - although we wanted to turn to ideas for a new culture - are now occupied with identifying our prevalent economic system as the culprit and are struggling to give a speech in defense.

But here we remember with pleasure our magical hat of dreams and postpone reflection, as well as a possible apology of the free markets, for later.

But now we see the next challenges coming up. We've created wonderful fashion that shines anew and is a top tribute to our good taste. We have created fashion that brings tears to everyone's eyes and that again deserves the name culture. Except for us, who else would have the courage to wear it?

Enough. So where are we now? Initially, we conducted an experiment to have this experience and to identify categories that are supposed to shed light on the term culture.

We have thus hung all sorts of different panels on our wall and written on them illustrious concepts like architecture, fashion, art, and communication. We then turned to fashion first and after initial insights, checked it in architecture and music.

We identified taste as the culprit and the market as its accomplice - more than that - as its patron. So before we put the prime offender on trial, we want to take a close look at taste.

Our society is essentially prescripted a culture that neither represents current societal conditions nor is a culture that would be forward-looking. Therefore, the state-imposed culture is largely a dictate, which by law forces us to live in the past.

The objection that the people vote and the representatives carry out the will, we do not accept. This is the insidious thing about what we understand by democracy today. It undermines everything new and all processes that could lead to something new. What we understand by democracy today first puts blinkers on everything, castrates everything that isn't common and ignores all that could provide feedback. But the new is never common at first. The new is always at first the property of the few. What we understand by democracy in Western countries today resembles an intellectual museum, even more, an intellectual crematorium - and can, by definition, consider nothing new as possible.

We understand that the subsequent descriptions may seem unfamiliar to all who have not paid any attention to these observations so far. Nothing is more difficult to recognize than what surrounds us every day. Just like we never notice our breathing, although we are constantly breathing.

Let's start with time. Every 7 days is Sunday, and all shops in Europe close. God, too, took a break from creating the world, so we should do the same. But is that good for us today? Is that good for our future?

Holidays. Please tell us now, what does Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi entail? Please also explain why Mother's Day, Women's Day, and Children's Day are not holidays. To sharpen our question: Why are nebulous fairy tales that never happened a few thousand years ago and have no social significance today, more important than our mothers and our children?

Church tower clocks. We have another question: How often is the phone battery dead today, no one else there, and so we need the unmelodic hourly clang from the towers of the churches?

Libraries. Why do our public libraries have opening hours that are even a cut above the opening hours of the Savings Bank in Smallcowsville? Then, please compare the range of your public library with that of a well-known online platform. Think not only of libraries, but also museums.

The aforementioned examples should convey an impression, in which dimension we question, have no claim to completeness and are not important in detail. We have mentioned that our goal is to create a culture that goes beyond our culture - a culture of the future, that deserves the name high culture again.

We believe that state artist, music, literature funding is first and foremost occupational therapy for art dilettantes while simultaneously employing an army of useless bureaucrats.

We create an open post-culture that promotes and celebrates the future. We will set up laboratories in all communities and cities where young and old can gather and tinker and hack together with 3D printers, VR glasses and laser cutters.

This is just one idea how you can achieve a lot with minimal means.

We can do it!

For our markets

The market has become the sacred cow of our time. Reason enough to question the market and thereby create ideas for change.

The market touches everything and from the market's perspective, it shapes everything. Markets touch you, your family, your friends, your technology, your culture and your environment. There is a persistent urge to ask: "Why not?"

Only when the market fails, when it doesn't function well, do we allow intervention from the outside. Let's savour this word - outside. If this is not the case, then - according to popular opinion - there is no need to do anything, because the market takes care of everything perfectly.

Those who have read closely here will naturally have noticed the words "well" and "perfectly" in the last sentence. We now want to devote our full attention to these words.

When we discover monopolies, we know all too well that this leads to the market no longer steering well. In other words: The market likes competition and where it is lacking, it does not flow. But when it flows, it performs real miracles, the augurs of the market constantly tell us. Prosperity increases for everyone and we are always doing better.

We can now ask these augurs the following question: Is there a price to pay in any form for this miracle of the market? Of course, we only hear deafening silence and are therefore happy to provide the answers ourselves.

Our marketplace is not a place where the butcher hands over his meat to the farmer for a few eggs. We all know what supply and demand creates. They create the price. And contrary to our question to the augurs, asking for any form, the market price always has a specific form. The market price is measured in money.

We very much believe that we pay a price for the market. This price can't be measured in money, moreover, this price is not measurable at all.

Before we now look more closely at what this ominous price is that needs to be paid but is not measurable, let's pause for a moment and hold that thought. The market has a price not because it is a market, but because it denominates everything in a currency. The market has a price - to carefully choose sharper words - because it makes comparable what is not comparable.

Back then to the purchase price of the market: What does the market cost us?

We believe, the magic market costs us like a Magic Theatre our sanity, taste, courage, strength and also our outlook.

Of course, even when we have warned emphatically that this work is illogical, although a lot can be deduced from this book - when it comes to slaughtering such a sacred cow, a few words are needed to explain this action.

Before we begin with our apology, a foreword: We don't want to hold competition, or even the struggle, as the real villains behind the market responsible for the costs. Nothing could be further from us.

Our apology is virtuously brief, even the foreword was longer: Only what has no price has value!

If we make the mechanic the helmsman, who labels everything with price tags, then nothing has value anymore.

The question that arises now is: Who should steer instead of the market?

We have two ideas for this and we certainly invite you to carefully consider both.

Answer one - the answer for today: Each for themselves.

Answer two - the answer for tomorrow: Algorithms.

We understand that it's customary to outline plans in more than four words on how a future societal system could work and therefore find ourselves in your debt to play a few more bars of this melody, so that you understand us better.

Our pragmatic idea for you and our pragmatic idea for the markets, which can be implemented by everyone today, is simply to start not being a servant of the markets, but to promote yourself to the king of the markets. The market offers you everything and you can offer everything on the market. As soon as you decide for yourself what is important to you and as soon as you have the courage to do this, you become the king. You overcome the market perspective and to be more precise, you overcome the perspective of the market price. This makes you the helmsman and the commander of your resources. The market no longer dictates which occupation you should choose or which activity you should engage in. You can recognise yourself and your good taste and you can question what is really good for you.

Answer two to the question of who should steer instead of the market, i.e. the answer for tomorrow, is a big part of our grand vision and therefore also our big task. Today algorithms are general algorithms. Every platform has its algorithm, which is common for everyone except the platform: it deceives, seduces, misleads and does not advise in your favour. Furthermore, today's algorithms are still in their infancy in that they have capabilities that are just beginning. But the development and direction are clear to us and others. Just like the Jazz musician who was asked what the future of Jazz might sound like - we are allowed to answer briefly in this context: if we already knew exactly, we would have already programmed it. At this point, let's refer to later, especially to the protocol book.

Markets were an idea. But we can do better.

We will make it!