 Thank you for tuning in. It's said in the Tibetan worldview that it takes crazy kind courage to be born on this planet in a human form because there's so much so little certainty except for as I said taxes and debt. It is very easy to be fearful and anxious and takes courage to smile at fear and even to make use of it. Today again I have such a person with me. She is in traditional shamanic cultures known as a dreamer. Someone who imagine and provide vision for a better future. She is in fact a futurist. Her working title for her PhD thesis at UH Manila is futures of our genetic biocommens, synthetic biology and biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Ms Yee is a wee bit of a renaissance woman combining her brainiac qualities with being a noted artist in acclaimed business woman. The project design coached to the form of Midyar Fellows and last and for sure not least a mother of two beautiful children. Thank you Ms. Yee for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. Okay by Aubrey. Yes. Okay so after I read your three three page resume all the things you read. Academic resume is longer than most. Right and I had to look up so many things to know what you had written about. I said to myself I want to ask her what does she do with all her free time. Yeah all that free time I wish there was. This is when you strangled me. Yes exactly. Okay let's jump right in. Sure. What is a futurist and I'm kind of curious just explain that but also do you see in pictures or do you think in conceptual how does that work upstairs upstairs between those two years. Gosh I don't know if yeah maybe in pictures I have to think about that a little bit more probably conceptually. Uh-huh. But a futurist really is someone who thinks about the futures and we always say futures within s because the idea is that there are like limitless possibilities of alternative futures and also prefer futures. So it's really the study of the future. You know we all take a history class at some point in our life or many points in our life we don't study the future as rigorously as we study the past and I think futurists believe that that's a mistake that we can learn a lot by studying the future and actually be able to create the futures that we want more readily if we're actually focused on them. Why were you drawn to this I mean what your little kid you go mommy I'm going to be a futurist and she says don't let this happen girl. I've always been into science fiction for sure but it was sort of a series of events I was running my business Pacific Home at the time and just had a gnawing feeling in my gut I'd been doing the business for a while really learned a ton but just wasn't feeling fulfilled. Right. Wanted to do something more that was giving back and sort of helping to shape what I saw as a lot of issues that are affecting our planet. So I started thinking I'd go back to school because I've always loved school looked at UH enrolled as an unclassified graduate student and started just checking out classes took a few different courses that were interesting stumbled upon this class called politics of the future and I was like what is that that's bizarre looked at the syllabus and half the books were ones that either I'd read or really wanted to read and just all the ideas sounded pretty amazing so I went to the class and within even before the class started just the pre-reading for the first day of class Jim Dator had a what wasn't even a book it's just a short piece that he wrote called I think it's called the 10 qualities that a futurist needs something like that but it's basically just very briefly you know the ability to think about a lot of different things the ability to think creatively an open mind all these different qualities of the futurist that just really spoke to me so what I found in in the future studies center was activism meets intellectualism and that really spoke to me because I didn't want to just be in the ivory tower right I want to actually do something you want your some hands you want some dirty fingernails so yeah so and and the hopefulness of futures is that we have the capacity to shift to shift and ultimately create preferred futures so that also spoke to me because as you said I'm a dreamer I'm definitely an idealist struggling these days but really yes that's the problem I don't know I can't imagine okay it's 1778 yeah I want to say it's Sir James Kurt Starship Enterprise it's actually Sir James Cook uh-huh horizon Hawaiian islands oh it's uh at that time they said there's somewhere between 150,000 to estimates up to a million Hawaiians living here sustainably obviously in the most isolated islands on the planet they had a system of land sharing called and somehow they had made this thing work that kind of division of from upper valleys all the way to the ocean and everybody's sharing in between a sustainable life that still gave them time to surf doesn't that sound great now we're close to the same level of population and it said that our food stores would last us exactly six days if we're lucky I think six days if we're lucky okay but so speak to us a little bit about sustainability in Hawaii and what you see coming down the pike yeah I think what's your dreams what's your hopes yeah hopes are that we become more self-sustaining and more less consumptive in general my big hope is that we move away from extractive industries I think that's a huge issue is that we we think of things in terms of single use so how do we extract use it once and then throw it away and that's just not going to last we live on the most isolated islands on the planet so importing everything is not sustainable either and we've reached a point where we import almost everything so I've been thinking about that issue for quite some time and food security that's why I got involved with Kanu Hawaii the organization that I've been involved with for a while is just thinking about those things how do we create more resilient communities right that can withstand the shocks of uncertainty that we know are coming we don't know what they're going to look like but we know they're coming so what are we doing to create a fabric that's going to hold us together rather than terrace apart you know you put out a little video you have some fun stuff on if you search your name and one of them I told you I kind of was kidding with you that it kind of had a mad max feel to it I mean there's some dire kind of predictions or outcomes that weren't very comfortable to look at I want you to talk a little bit about that and again both hopes and fears on that one sure yeah so it's funny we um in the future studies sort of the minoa futures method there's lots of different methods but uh the one that's been pioneered by the minoa school at UH it's four different archetypes of the future one of which is collapse and for whatever reason I've always been very like drawn to collapse which seems strange but I think what draws me to it is well for one thing it feels somewhat imminent in certain ways things are unraveling whether they fully collapse or not is a question but there is definitely change of foot you know the guy that did germs guns and steel yeah yeah guns and steel Jared diamond diamond he did the one on collapse and why society's collapse remember reading that one for sure yeah so go ahead so but the other pieces the other side of collapse is a new beginning right so if you have something that falls apart there's a vacuum created which means that there's space to create something anew so I actually see hope in that so while the collapse is frightening and there's some fear around like what that would be like and what it would look like what I'm interested in is how do we start to create the things that would fill the vacuum in the void because if we're not actively constructing those potentialities then when the space is there something will fill it and it might not be the most positive thing give some concrete examples here in Hawaii for example if we were to stop having ships come and bring food what would fill that vacuum how would we you know how are we going to create a resilient economy around food security and those sorts of energy do you see people with vision approaching these kind of questions definitely yeah definitely I think in Hawaii there's a whole Hawaii sustainability forum and there's a lot of farms what they're doing out there right amazing what they're doing out there totally fun stuff really incredible so those kind of visionary people that we really have I think in abundance is a huge blessing and a lot of that goes back to what you were saying about sort of ancient Hawaiian or you know traditional Hawaiian ways of land management and producing food and finding ways to bring those into the 21st century and really put productive and positive ways because I feel like those systems build community rather than divide us because of the way they're constructed the way the way that you grow food say like motto farms and what they've done with their internship program you're not just growing food you're growing kids and you're growing community so there's multiple levels that it's it's working on versus say an industrial agricultural system which is really just about profit and being efficient so there's there's not there's something missing there that I think we really need to rethink as we think about rebuilding different structures in society back in the day I don't want to say what the day was well it was 1972 there was a book that was circulating it wasn't a real comfortable book limits to grow right yes a club of Rome yes and as a hippie back in those not that I would have joined that club stretch of the imagination but back in the day there was some really hard hard facts circulating particularly about peak oil consumption food consumption food food sustainability etc etc there's different miles have been projected on that some saying that it was not so not so accurate because certain things came along one being the computer kind of kind of nobody saw that I'm really coming yeah fracking for instance we didn't see this coming there's certain things that but really the question is is the glass half full in your world or is the glass half empty in your world but talk about gosh I would say the glass is always half full but I'm definitely struggling lately with I think just the trends I'm seeing in terms of the political divisiveness and sort of the rush towards greater environmental destruction that's happening in this particular moment is just disheartening in terms of its lack of compassion and lack of empathy for not only the human world but also the non-human other so that that's a struggle for me lately that I don't think I felt as much or as keenly until you know about the last year you know that that shifts into something I'm very much looking forward to speaking about which is values it seems that if you value the next color TV or back in the day and I was in here at the new car etc etc that you aren't going to have a sustainable long-term change in growth until you have a change of value yeah so for instance you have the brilliance of the king of butan saying I don't measure gross national product I measure gross national happiness so let's go into what is success and what is happiness what do you what do you see that's going to cause a shift because if I what I'm saying if you don't have a value shift yeah you're not going to be able to do this out of a should and could and would even right now we've got a pretty profound information system coming down that we've heated up our globe Chicago didn't Chicago didn't have any snow last year I mean this isn't they're about to have a blizzard in March right you think this is funny but here it is so you you may be a climate change denier I don't know if that works out no but some people may be some people maybe but but nonetheless until you value something different until society says wait a minute this next purchase really is not going to make me happy you still have what you call what you call it where you just take extractive extractive economies yeah so let's talk about values yeah it's interesting I'm thinking about happiness lately and what I what I feel um what I've noticed is that we've really lost any sort of discussion of ethics so especially like in schools we moved so far especially in America we said okay separation of church and state we're not going to teach religion in schools but we don't teach anything about ethics so there's no unless you're getting it from some other place in your life there's nothing that connects you to the fact of what we have in common as humans so all we're focused on is our differences what's our different culture how do we look different how do we dress different how do we push you on this one what what do you call an ethical education because I mean you know you go back to Confucius and said it was a pillar of any educated person yeah you can even trace that to Rome they're saying I don't think we have that anymore and what do you say so with a secular education but we don't okay so if you look at all the religious traditions they have certain things in common you know sort of compassion care for the others something beyond yourself do a bunch of others you know those sorts of bedrocks of sort of an ethical way of living and seeing beyond yourself that are pretty consistent no matter what background you come from but we don't teach any of that elucidate them again kindness kindness compassion empathy empathy yeah um doing that to others I think that's empathy too what else would there be I mean it's you know sort of but but really a vision of the world that's other than me and mine and me mine and what do I get out of this right yeah service I think is yeah an ethic that what's community yeah exactly what makes you happy yeah so there's absolutely exploring happiness totally yeah I just I just got turned on to this new movement that I hadn't heard about that um it's a whole group of people who are creating a secular version of church so it's community gatherings yeah yeah yeah I have in California I actually got sent over it's all over the place really really fun lot of you're watching Think Tech Hawaii citizen journalism for Hawaii finding the intersection of our sense of place and our place in the world right here at home great content for Hawaii from Think Tech Aloha Kako I'm Marcia Joyner inviting you to navigate the journey with us we are here every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m and we really want you to be with us where we look at the options and choices of end of life care Aloha Aloha my name is Richard Emory host of condo insider more than a third of Hawaii's population live in some form of association and our show is all about educating board members and owners about their responsibilities and obligations and providing solutions for a great association you can watch me live on Thursdays 3 p.m to 4 p.m each week Aloha thank you again all right we were just talking about values ethics small small kind stuff small kind stuff yeah so values so yeah I do think there needs to be a shift in values from valuing objects to valuing relationships yeah valuing people valuing you know connection all of those but we're talking about education no longer seeing that as part of their curriculum no longer seeing this is an important thing so people grow up with that means that the main influence is going to be consumerism and buying stuff consumption and happiness comes from bigger car bigger house I mean stuff that really once you get privileged in life you look back but there's a couple my mind goes in a couple places on that one one is is that your your boss mr. Midyar I mean he did a beautiful thing brought the Dalai Lama here the Dalai Lama said this has been saying that empathy has to be taught in every school it's the only chance we have and then I'm thinking oh empathetic civilization by Redkin about the development about empathy actually develops the culture etc etc so kind of going in a lot of different directions but now we do have three or four schools teaching the Dalai Lama's empathy classes yeah one of them in our kailua town oh I didn't know that which school is that the high school oh awesome yeah so I've seen more of it definitely which is great but I do think that's something that we sort of lost along the way so I've just been thinking about that a bit in terms of values and ethics and how do we find ways to see our commonalities because we spend so much time thinking about our differences and I think that's really sort of ripping apart the fabric of of our country at this point wow and then I'm thinking back of living abroad I've had the privilege and delight of living abroad and the first time in a world that lived in the third world country was 20 20 years old and I was a little bit escaping the country in terms of the political climate at that time was extraordinary uncomfortable I didn't know what was gonna come down we had a guy named Richard next yeah something might be a lot of things that were very mixed up in me as a human being sure but coming to the chase of this question I realized at that point there was no telling a poor Moroccan young lad that he didn't want a Honda that really wasn't going to happen nor that he didn't want a flat screen TV yeah so there was this kind of thing like wow okay how do you actually do that and I went back to America which as soon as you set foot on this country I'm just oh lucky live yeah lucky live America lucky live Hawaii yeah but these kind of different things kind of came together I mean right now we the average American probably there's a sense of entitlement I'm just afraid that you don't mean to be critical I love my country I love this experiment but we're using two times as much energy as a Japanese we're using 16 times or something like that as an Indian and 370 times more energy than the average Ethiopian we're using six times more water on average than anybody else in the world I'm not saying guilt but I'm also saying there's a bit of there's a bit of a density about our country we don't really realize totally how how extreme our energy and privilege is in this country yeah so what is again we're back to values what do you see changing there gosh I mean I wish it would change faster to be honest I think there's pockets of people who are definitely shifting you know and you so the way I try to stay up about it all is to focus on the pockets of people who are shifting because there really is still so much of a trend in the other direction and the level of entitlements and sense that we can just close off our borders and like you know wall ourselves in and that's going to make everything okay without realizing we're so interconnected that like we wouldn't even have all the material things we have without the interconnection but we want only those parts and we don't want any of the fallout so I just I can understand that everybody wants a job of course and everybody wants a good life I can understand that but I remember now we we come from that period where the first picture of the entire globe was put in front of us this beautiful ornament this extraordinary spaceship sitting there in space and I what I didn't see a boundary on the whole place you couldn't know when you were in Canada or the United States you couldn't know when you were in Mexico we've created that over okay so we created all these things and said this is me this is mindless protected this kind of a silly thing and now of course we don't have like pollution I don't know doesn't stop at boundaries yeah global warming doesn't stop at boundaries so we're being forced to look bigger than nationalistic and now we have this I hope I don't backlash I don't want to be too strong of a word but something about this yeah it's fear around like fear mind it's sort of a sense of um I've got to protect what I've got because other people are going to take it from me go on and I just I in my perfect world we'd have a collaborative form of governance like what if we thought of every country and we're like okay we know we're different and that's great like the difference is actually a beautiful thing so like what are we each good at passionate about as like identities like our culture and then how do we help each other rather than competing like what if we thought about the world that way you know if we think about the world in the competitive terms of I've got it our country has to make sure we get what we need for our people America first instead of thinking about it is like what what can we offer and what can we get back how can we have a reciprocal relationship but we've built all of our structures again upon the extractive economy that's based on making sure that you take whatever you need to get what you can for yourself yeah and whatever the fallout is for the other nation that's their problem to deal with I always told myself I said my job is to teach you how to be happy not promise you selfishness work I would really got it doesn't work you don't get happy that way my friend yeah it's definitely not half as fun as you get happy by helping but let's go on to that because that's it there's almost a spiral dynamics Stephen that's work is the nemes or whatever it calls them or he actually goes from tribal cultures up to more sophisticated cultures meaning that you start to learn about just what you spoke of that actually sharing is the way to go on this thing and thinking holistically is the way to go it doesn't put very many people at I think it's turquoise is the top thing but do you see that kind of trend of cultures getting more empathetic more kind I don't see that trend no unfortunately I see like I said I see pockets so it doesn't mean that it's not happening but I think and you see certain industries or certain yeah corporations doing that but I think even thinking along the lines of it being a nation is maybe part of the problem because I think the nation state as we know it is is again a structure that's collapsing it's one that we're holding on to really tightly this idea of borders and nation state but it's only been around for a few hundred years like there's a very good chance that the whole idea of the nation state could be gone in the near future you know I mean it's not to say that that's always going to be a static sort of entity in way of organizing ourselves on the planet right right again I'm thinking of in contrast and touching back into the ethical now we're seeing mindfulness in schools I mean actually teaching people how to be present teaching people how to be present they teach that in my son's preschool it's awesome they're quite sitting and yoga and yeah I've taught that myself at school it's fantastic but there's this whole thing I think it's Steven Pickner Harvard Harvard pro saying that actually also if you look back on 40 years never have there been more people fed never have there been more people enjoying an extraordinary life on the on the planet yeah less crime less war less all kinds of things so there's also this thing of looking at the human trend and going whoa you know 200 years ago literally yeah 300 years ago there's no many places you could not have walked as a woman shouldn't couldn't have walked yeah definitely I forget that kind of stuff you what about the optimism of this thing that we're actually smart enough yeah I mean that's what I hope for you know now that we're able to use technology and be empathetic about how we create our society you know I mean that's the key we have to think beyond ourselves you know I have to put a plug in if if you have an 11 well spent minutes go look up empathetic civilization by rake in the little cartoon one it really is such a have you seen that one no I haven't empathetic civilization what an upbeat kind of vision where yeah okay so we need those visions I think for sure again we have to think of preferred futures if we ever want to get there yeah now you work for a pretty interesting individual pretty interesting man pretty interesting couple and they're doing fabulous work here in Hawaii absolutely all around the world stupendous you're gonna love it it's great it's gonna be huge all around the world beautiful yeah totally maybe a bit complicated yeah okay so you're with the Amid your fellows just talk about that yeah go ahead what are you doing there oh gosh it's such an amazing experiment so really the idea um the whole theory behind the Amid your fellows program is that if we were to get some of the best and brightest emerging leaders in Hawaii and empower them with as much learning as possible and a support network that's you know activated and collaborative that they'll do amazing things so there's really no other agenda than that whatever they choose to do is what they choose to do with it but it's um it's a pretty beautiful way of thinking about things so you're trying to cultivate new leaders yeah to support leaders that are you know people are already proven to be some leaders in some way um and one of our main criteria is again that they're leaders that think beyond themselves so they're not just in it you know to ride their own rung on the ladder but to actually help Hawaii for the future oh beautiful you know your bosses have the delight of actually giving a billion dollars I know it's amazing pretty incredible yeah and what a huge weight too at the same time to think about and so that's where the systems thinking um work that I do with the fellows came in was this yeah so it was basically you know looking at when you're giving out all this money are you really affecting change right so really thinking deeply and that's what's so amazing about the Amid your leaders is they take the time to think deeply it's what we're doing actually helping so it's not just about handing out the checks and hoping for the best yeah they're really done a lot of deep thought and that brought them to the systems thinking practice which is really just a way of trying to understand complex social systems and how you create transformational change and the communication itself forms a certain kind of outcome certain way of organizing communication serves a certain outcome definitely the guy at the top who rants and raves serves a certain kind of outcome in a government etc versus a guy who's collaborative and says listen this is going to be a messy deal but we have to hear from every month yes exactly it's going to be messier but it's important but it's important okay uh you have a magic wand you can cure one disease oh i have no idea one disease yeah one dis ease probably cancer cancer okay you're gonna go pick one kind of cancer no no no you can go with cancer you can go with cancer we've both been touched by that in our lives personally this last week right right okay so cancer would be yours yeah all right lucky live Hawaii favorite Hawaiian word my favorite Hawaiian word Juliana go ahead go for it um responsibility a sense of connectedness so it's that you're you part of your beingness on the planet is your gift of giving back you know i probably haven't touched on your after school kids program and you started with brady yeah i haven't touched on kanu the yeah head honcho with that is there you want to add yeah i'm on the board of kanu and i've helped to start after school all stars so yeah i mean kanua hawaii is is sort of going through a new renaissance right now too we have a new executive director kionika aloha who is awesome and really again trying to see like what this organization was started as a social movement by james koshiba and some 40 other amazing individuals in about 2004 and the vision then was like how do we get people to come together and start to build community that's what i really liked about the organization when i joined it so we're we're looking at how to do that again in new ways um and then after school all stars has been an incredible gift to see how that just the spark of an idea could become something that's now serving you know thousands of kids across the state and after school programs run by don dunbar she was amazing so thank you so much for coming aboard coming out and spending some time now usually sign off here i say hey be kind be courageous do some good and mostly have some fun that's the wrap for plan of the courageous this week aloha thank you so much for tuning in