Even if becoming aware of making these gestures consciously is not supported within your particular subculture, it can be supported within some culture. Other cultures support other awarenesses.

CREATING NEW CULTURE
Your culture is the context for your awareness, meaning that what you can be aware of is what is permitted or ordained by your culture. This amazingly also works in reverse. If you establish new awareness you establish new culture. The moment you learn something not taught by your present culture, you are in that moment creating new culture. This is the purpose of an ark: to be a laboratory to experiment in creating new culture.

Creating new culture puts you outside the grips of your old culture into a parallel culture. I call it a parallel culture because even if the surroundings and circumstances are identical, the cultural awarenesses can be substantially different.

A term has been invented for individuals who invent new parallel cultures, popularized by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson in a book of the same name: The Cultural Creatives.

A certain percentage of any given population are cultural creatives. I suggest that in these days of rapid change, the percentage who are cultural creatives is far larger than is actually recognized by that population.

CHILD LEVEL RESPONSIBILITY CULTURE
If we drew a graph of the number of people compared to the level of responsibility they take we would find a typical bell curve with the vast majority of people centered in the middle of their cultural norm as cultural sustainives. These people are most ecstatic when reproducing cultural attitudes, awarenesses, traditions and rituals exactly as they learned them from their parents and teachers before them.

We could then locate this bell curve on responsibility gradient that starts on the low end at irresponsibility, and increases up through child level, adult level, high level, and peaks at a radical level of responsibility. Where does Western consumer culture fall on this graph?

Let’s look at it this way. When a child makes a mess, who cleans it up?

The adults clean it up.

A culture making messes that it does not clean up is a culture of child level responsibility. Western consumer culture makes messes that it does not clean up (e.g. nuclear waste, DU weapons, greenhouse gases, air water and soil pollution, national debts, children on Ritalin, disposable products filling the dumps, the massive eddy of decomposing plastics floating in the North Pacific ocean, consuming nonrenewable resources). Western consumerism is a culture of child level responsibility.

That means the Western culture’s leaders in government, military, education, health, religion, technology, science, are centered around child level responsibility. If you have children, you know what child level behavior looks like. If you then look at Western culture’s government, military, etc. this explains a lot about their decisions, words and actions.

Making decisions, words and actions at a responsibility level that is significantly different from your surrounding culture places you outside of that culture. Yet you are still in the same physical circumstances of the surrounding culture. Maintaining the integrity of your decisions, words and actions to the new responsibility level of your context creates a new culture that is parallel to the surrounding culture. With this clarity about how to create parallel cultures, you can proceed to create cultural experiments contexted in higher and higher levels of responsibility.

Parallel culture experiments are of extreme benefit to the surrounding culture in the times – such as these – when the surrounding culture proves to be unsustainable. The new culture is already thriving in situ, so to speak, and provides viable shoots and seeds that take over as the old culture dies off.

A parallel culture is for a surrounding culture that could fail like a life boat, or an ark. It would be wise for cultures to learn from incidents such as the sunken HMS Titanic, a ship that did not provide enough life boats for even half of its passengers. Supporting a healthy and diverse ecology of parallel microculture arks could be the smartest insurance that any predominant culture could carry.

WINNING THE LOSING GAME OF MONOCULTURE
A characteristic pattern of Western consumerism during the last two centuries has been the systematic extermination of tens of thousands of microcultures around the world, many of which were sustainable and could well prove it, some having already lasted for more than 30,000 years.

Corporocratic decisions to promote planet-wide monoculturing have a clear motivation: profit. It is far more profitable to design the tastes and needs of sheep-like consumers to desire mass produced products when the population can be manipulated as one culture. Coca Cola, Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, Wal-Mart, to name a few, are world brands, methodically invading and destroying memetic habitats that supported a wide diversity of cultures. Without a memetic habitat, a culture goes extinct. Exterminating cultural diversity is good for corporate quarterly reports, and bad for the sustainable future of humanity.

In the Western culture’s game of profit vs. humanity, profit wins. The horror of this madness is so intense that another characteristic product of modern Western culture is numbness. Westerners must be able to live without feeling the immense pain of paving paradise with a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Then since people still have an urge to feel alive, they demand more and more intense experiences so they can at least sense something – faster cars, more horrible disaster news, reality TV, xxx films, more gruesome violence, harder music, stronger drugs, chemically enhanced sex, more war, and the continuously escalating technologies for blowing things up.

THE GAME IS UP
The point is this: the monoculturing experiment is over. The successful bacteria-like growth of modern military-industrial-consumerism is annihilating oxygen breathing life on planet earth. The heart of modern Western culture has already stopped. A lifeless monster stands ready to crash down.

The idea is to create a way to stay out of the way, so when the monster collapses you are not crushed by the impact.

The way to stay out of the way is to build an ark.

Through a loosely affiliated network of wildly diverse, widespread, and self-sustaining arks, the humanity that is being betrayed by the failure of its recently glorious modern civilization will have a cushion into which it can fall. Myriads of new-culture seeds will already be flourishing around the globe in a diverse ecology of cultures, neither controlled nor manufactured by the previous culture. The new cultures are home grown.

DIVERSITY LEADS TO STABILITY
What was tried in Western monoculturism was to ignore the natural principle that diversity leads to stability – the more diverse an ecosystem is, for example, the more healthy is its response to changing conditions. A company with a single client is far more precarious than a company with a diverse portfolio of clients, and so on.

Mother Nature does not like to be ignored. The laws of physics are hard and persistent, and will kick you in the ass every time! The principle of diversity is as unavoidable as the principle that what goes up must come down.

Western monoculture was determined to trample diversity into the ground through the likes of cloning, genetically modified organisms, international branding campaigns, mass marketing, mass production and mass media.

The new generation of cultures embraces diversity as a distinguishing characteristic. If a culture respects individual human beings as unique, and through the structure and traditions of the culture encouraged individuals to explore and unfold their individuality, mass marketing could not function anymore. New and unknown ways of living would arise.

Imagine an unimaginably huge variety of tiny arks, each one registered with the UN like an international NGO, committed to the Ark Code of Behavior, and having the self-respect, autonomy, and responsibility of a micronation.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR NATIONALITY
In addition to the above listed gestures that you use, either consciously or unconsciously, to create what exists for you, there is one more. This additional gesture is the often ignored but profoundly powerful gesture of removing something that already exists. The act of removing something that already exists fits into a trilogy of forces. In a system of creating, sustaining and destroying forces, I am speaking about conscious destruction.

I have a very specific example in mind. I have come to understand that the choices I would make and the actions I would take in a certain set of circumstances are not the same choices and actions that another person would make in the exact same circumstances. This is because each person lives in their own self-generated unique context. Because another person’s context, purpose and perspective are different from mine they cannot represent me. They cannot speak for me, make decisions for me, or take actions in my name. In other words, a representative government does not work for me. It actually does not work for anybody. I cannot speak for another person, and no one else can speak for me.

A government takes actions in the name of the people it represents. When my government takes actions in my name and under my authority and I no longer agree with the actions being taken in my name, then if I am to have integrity I withdraw the representative authority that I assigned to the government. If I am not being truly represented then I rescind the agreement of representation.

I withdraw that power of representation in the same way in which I established it. The way I established the government’s power to represent me was by signing an agreement of citizenship. In my case, I signed a passport that identifies my nationality.

For example, if I sign my name in a passport issued by the nation of Ireland, I agree to be bound by the laws of that land. I agree to be represented in the choices and actions of the people serving in the Irish government. I have enfranchised these people with the power to vote in my name about which laws are accepted or rejected, about how financial and material resources are used, about how my government interacts with the governments of other nations, when where and how aid is given, when where and how the military is deployed, what services are provided to the other citizens of my nation, how we are taxed, and so on.

If these people cannot accurately represent me because we live in different contexts, then I end their power of representation in the same way that I started it in the first place. I sign my name to a letter of withdrawal of enfranchisement.

RESPONSIBLE DISENFRANCHISEMENT
To reject representation, to disenfranchise my representatives, to take back my vote from being used by others, is inalienable. My vote is inalienable because I have a unique constitution. The combined intelligence, wisdom, intuition, feelings and practical experience of my unique constitution is my vote. The act of contributing my vote is inalienable. I cannot give it away. The idea is as absurd as trying to give away my responsibility for being.

It is astonishing to realize that a culture supposedly based on the principles of freedom and liberty for all taught me that I could give my voice away! Most of us were not conscious of the swindle at all. We were taught it was a good thing to have someone else try to represent us. Perhaps we imagined we could hand over the burden of having to speak our own voice in exchange for the comforts of security. As shocking as it is to realize that I have spent my life trying to give away an inalienable capacity, it is even more astounding to retrieve that capacity and start using it consciously. But I can do exactly that. I can take back the power of my own voice from those who have been misrepresenting me.

Please remember that this is not about accusing the representatives of intentional misrepresentation. They misrepresent me because my capacity to represent myself is as nontransferable as breathing. It is false to assume that another person with their complex of overt, covert and inadvertent agendas can represent me in anything.

When governments with budgets (and debts) in the zillions decide to build and use weapons of mass (and in the case of DU Depleted Uranium, nuclear and biological weapons, permanent) destruction, taking back your franchise is of the utmost urgency. Such regimes have no interest in changing policy. They have no more capacity to end war than teenagers could end playing chicken in their hotrods. It is time to take away the car keys.

Taking back responsibility to represent yourself requires no power and no struggle. This is because you never did not have the responsibility to represent yourself, although you may have been trying to avoid recognizing it. The action of taking back your own vote is an internal distinction that you make for yourself. There is no else to get permission from, no one to argue with. People may be surprised, uncomfortable or afraid when you start acting from your new distinction, but their reaction is not your problem. There is nothing for them to do about it. Representing yourself is inalienable.

REPAIR THE SHIP, GO DOWN WITH THE SHIP, OR GET IN A LIFEBOAT
Taking back your voice, choice and vote is the same as taking back responsibility for the culture you live in. But the culture you live in has just collided with a triple whammy of self-generated consequences:
• Siberian methane hydrates global warming tipping point
• Reaching Peak Everything (explained in an eye opening book by Richard Heinberg)
• Psychopathic genocidal use of DU weapons

Western civilization has hit the iceberg. The hull is breached. She’s going down.

You now choose whether you build a lifeboat, try to repair the ship, or keep playing your fiddle. Your actions determine your choice. Your actions do not lie.

No one can make this choice for you. If you do not follow through with a decision to build a lifeboat (because, like the builders of HMS Titanic, our culture was too cocky to supply enough lifeboats), then you are either trying to mend the ship, or trying to ignore the tilting deck until it is too late. The choices are neither good nor bad. Not choosing equates to the choice of going down with the ship.

The tendency is to wait around hoping that one or another repair team will figure out how to keep the ship floating. You could be betting your life on it. What you choose is completely up to you.

This choice is inalienable. This choice is also unavoidable. Meaning, you will make the choice consciously or unconsciously, but the choice will be made. Whether you choose to stay on the ship or get into a lifeboat, we will all be hoping for the best. This information is dedicated to serving the lifeboat people. Here we go.

BEING EXPELLED
Choosing the lifeboat rather than the ship changes the game that you are playing. Suddenly there is no more buffer zone between you and the natural elements. The crew of the ship is no longer a set of unknown bureaucrats whose assistants you can sometimes reach by telephone. The crew is you and the few people around you not knowing what to do next.

The oars for rowing the lifeboat away from the suction of the sinking ship won’t move by themselves. They row the boat only when you pick them up with both hands and heave to with all your might.

And if it is raining, you get wet. If you are hungry there is no five-star chef to bring you fillet mignon and a red wine. And if your neighbor has bad breath or takes up too much room, it is in your face to deal with. This is what it’s like in the life boat. Make your decision wisely.

Taking back your enfranchisement, your vote, puts you into the lifeboat. It also instantly creates another interesting and quite enlivening situation. If you sign and send your letter of disenfranchisement to the leader of your government and hand in the passport you have been carrying, then you are no longer bound to the laws and jurisdictions of that nation. You are also no longer entitled to the benefits and services being provided by that nation. In fact, if you no longer bear the passport and have no visa, the nation can require you to leave.

Why should a nation tolerate your presence if you do not agree to abide by the rules of their gameworld? By disenfranchising yourself you become a loose cannon on the deck, no longer counted upon to be under your own recognizance, not trustworthy of behaving within the restrictions set by that organization. You would be perceived as a foreigner, a ronin, a masterless samurai, armed with dangerous ideas and bent on accomplishing your own agenda. You would be best expelled.

YOUR PASSPORT AND YOUR NATIONALITY
If you annul the passport you’ve been carrying, you are no longer a member of the nation who issued the passport. The question is then, what nationality are you?

Ordinarily when a person changes nationality he or she obtains their new passport first, before handing in their old passport.

Spies, secret agents, mercenaries, and other persons playing out their underworld characters are known to carry multiple passports, perhaps each with a different name. By keeping your identity in question, you can slip from one identity to the next, avoiding responsibilities for the actions of one identity while deceiving anyone not suspecting your true motives. This is not the route I am suggesting that you take. I am suggesting that you take a route of integrity. Integrity means maintaing one identity, and being responsible in that identity.

We are still left with the question of, if you have severed your connection with your old nationality, what is your new nationality? This brings up an even more interesting question: What is a nation?

WHAT IS A NATION?
At the moment there are plus or minus 192 nations recognized by the United Nations. What is a nation? Wikipedia defines a nation as a self-defined culture and social community, an ethical and philosophical doctrine.

Only later is there any association drawn between the definition of a nation and a particular piece of land. As soon as a nation associates itself with land the definition of a nation gets shaky. Wikipedia says, “Where territory is disputed between nations, the claims may be based on which nation lived there first.”

Using the argument that original settlers on a piece of land are the owners of that land makes every nation on earth’s claims to land illegitimate, because present nations are not the original nations. How have people come to associate nations with land? Where did people get the ideas that human beings can actually take ownership of land and resources of the earth? These fundamental questions take precedence now because the concepts of land and natural resource ownership were central to modern culture. Seeing as how modern culture has failed the test of sustain ability, the possibility arises that its central assumptions were false.

THE INVALIDATION OF A MYTH
Just because the human mind can conceive a concept does not make that concept true. For example, the concept that a person or an organization can own land or can own the rights to consume the land’s resources could be as false of a concept as thinking that the sun goes around the earth.

Historians report that for many centuries human cultures and religions shaped themselves around the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. It was quite heretical for Galileo to claim that not only was the earth not the center of the universe, it was not even the center of the solar system.

Many people for many years conceiving that the sun orbits the earth did not make that concept true. The sun may appear to go around the earth, but that is only because the earth spins on its own axis. Even school children today know that the earth goes around the sun.

But shifting from the viewpoint that the sun goes around the earth to the viewpoint that the earth goes around the sun shattered the entire basis of many traditional belief systems.

Today we look back on that historical change and cannot imagine how dramatic it must have been, how cataclysmic to the old order of things. To have one’s place in the universe downgraded from pilot to mere passenger – what a blow to ego that would be!

It is important to realize that we do not regard a myth as myth until its mythological nature has been revealed. Before a myth is recognized as myth it is defended with tooth and nail as if it is the truth. When what we regarded as truth suddenly degenerates into the status of myth, the roots of our identity are shaken to their very tips deep in our unconscious mind.

Modern Western culture now faces the exact same cataclysm as the world of Galileo. The drastic consequences of acting from our undeveloped perspectives force us to continue our growth in awareness. It is in our face that what we have held to be true about our place in the order of the world is only a myth, and that myth no longer finds a valid basis in our experience. We will either die like Easter Islanders or we will finally take the next step after realizing that the sun does not go around the earth.

THE EARTH IS TERRACENTRIC
We have fervently believed that human beings are the highest order on the earth, and that the earth and its riches are ours to plunder. Our myth of human dominion over the creatures of the earth is so far wrong that its naïveté is as laughable as a child’s belief in the tooth fairy.

The earth is not homocentric.

The earth is terracentric.

Human beings are not the owners of planet earth, its lands, its waters, or its plant, mineral or animal resources. Never have been, never will be. Quite the opposite is true. The earth owns human beings.

We have lived in the myth that it is possible for a human being to own land.

How silly.

The concept of land or resource ownership is a childish selfish egoic illusion, as ridiculous as the concept of the church being able to sell the blessings of God.

Trying to own the earth is a joke – a joke made by us and played out by us, on ourselves, for thousands of years.

You better start laughing now about how stupid we’ve been, because otherwise you might get seriously outraged and disturbed about what you have wasted your life trying to accumulate.

Whole books have been and will continue to be written about these ideas (for example, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn). But the central realizations are utterly simple:

The sun does not go around the earth; the earth goes around the sun.

Human beings do not own the earth; the earth owns human beings. It is understandable how we made the mistake: it does look like the sun goes around the earth, and it does look like human beings are sovereign over all we see and touch. But sorry, it is not that way. We have been completely wrong about this.

These few paragraphs must deliver an impact profound enough to pull the rug out from under all of the local, national and international agreements, legal structures and courts of law based on the mythological belief that a person or an organization can buy, sell or own land or the rights to consume resources on planet earth. Human beings are not the king of the mountain. The universe is not homocentric.

It is time to get down off the highchair and clean up the mess we have made on the floor.

MIGHT IS NOT RIGHT IN A CLOSED SYSTEM
Throughout history the question of who owns the land has been settled through force. Whoever has a bigger army or superior weapons takes the land from weaker less defended people. This is like saying whoever has the bigger SUV on the highway can run the others off the road.

Such childishness is and has always been beneath human dignity. The truth of the situation may have been avoidable through self-deception forever, but in a closed system with 6.5 billion people the consequences of our ignorant actions are not.

The chapter in human history where we thought that economic or military might gave us the right to do as we pleased comes now to an end. Neither weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) nor profit-driven consumerism function in a closed system (a planet). (By the way, we live on a planet.) If our consuming warmongering culture does not immediately shift to the next level of organizational game rules, we won’t produce any further chapters in history because we will have exterminated ourselves.

Since Western consumer corporocracy has failed to deliver to humanity what it ostensibly promises, namely to be a model that can be sustainably duplicated, alternative cultures need to be quickly developed and adopted by large groups of people around the world. This imperative has been obvious for decades, but has produced few results. That is because in a culture that has dedicated itself to monoculturing the rest of the planet we have no idea what it could mean to shift culture. In our view there is no other culture than Western culture. Beyond our narcissistic preoccupations we see nothing. We have no vision to attract us to Just Stopping. We have no ready answers to the question: After I stop, then what? What are our alternatives?

GOVERNMENTS, CORPORATIONS, NGOs, and ARKS
We can classify three formats that human beings have used to organize themselves. These three are: governments, corporations, and NGOs. To these three I wish to add a fourth classification, arks. A

rks are the experimental research labs developing and testing alternative culture. In fact arks already exist in the world by the thousands. They always have. Arks provide sustainable options for humanity to consider after being forced to stop the gluttony of modern consumerism. There will hopefully never be a final answer to the question of what is right culture? Endlessly developing a profuse multiplicity of cultures is the rich result of respecting the dignity of human diversity and our natural entrepreneurship.

To better understand what an ark is we can analyze its function in comparison to the other three structures. There are interesting similarities and differences between governments, corporations, NGOs and arks. In the comparison of the four structures, you will see that arks complete the symmetry where there was previously a hole in our model.

• Governments are vertical, handling all services but tied to a particular territory; their purpose is regulation.
•  Corporations are horizontal, tied to particular product or service but crossing all territories; their purpose is profit.
• NGOs are horizontal, tied to a particular service or issue but able to cross territories; their purpose is relief, development or advocacy.
• Arks are vertical, handling all services but tied to a particular cultural context; their purpose is exploration, development or preservation.

An ark is the equivalent of a government by also being vertical and handling all services. The difference between an ark and a government is that a government claims exclusive ownership of a territory, and an ark claims nonexclusive ownership of a context.

Realizing that the earth is not homocentric but terracentric forces government to redefine itself. If it is ludicrous for an organization to claim ownership of land, then there is no exclusivity of the 192 governments registered with the United Nations. Without regency over a piece of land a government becomes merely one of the four ways that people organize themselves to accomplish what they wish to accomplish.

People working in the governmental bureaucracy then join corporations, NGOs and arks in fitting the definition of a nation, namely, a self-defined culture and social community, an ethical and philosophical doctrine. Then all four of these forms of organization could be seen as nations.

Two types of nations are horizontal, dealing with specific issues, products and services around the world. Two types of nations are vertical, dealing with all issues but centered on a specific cultural context.

From this view, a corporation, an NGO and an ark are equivalent of a government in being a nation. A small ark would then be a self-governing micronation. In terms of declaring the existence of a nation, Wikipedia says, “there may be violent disputes about their legitimacy.” Which means that the legitimacy of every so called nation is already disputable. Arks would be no different. All that is needed is the procedure to register arks in the United Nations as international NGOs are registered now, committed to abiding by the Ark Code of Conduct.

VIRTUAL, TEMPORARY AND COMMITTED ARKS
Thousands of thriving arks already exist. It is important to note that arks can be further classified into three subcategories: virtual, temporary, and committed. Virtual arks provide real or imaginary services through real or imaginary interactions in imaginary conditions. Examples of virtual arks would be online computer software development communities, online educational programs, and online gaming communities such as Santharia, Avalon, Second Life, or Warcraft, where people interact with each other online but often through fictitious online identities, and rarely, if ever, meet in person.

Temporary arks provide real services through real interactions in real conditions but only for a limited period of time. Examples would be technical or philosophical associations, schools, trainings, and organizations like the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA), who exist so as to meet with each other, but may take on fictitious identities in their interactions. Debating as to whether the interactions or conditions of a war between SCA kingdoms are imaginary or not would be a challenging endeavor that I leave to others to undertake.

Committed arks provide real services through real interactions in real conditions. Members are committed to the ark for an unspecified but ongoing and long-term period of time. Examples are ecovillages, alternative communities, some music or theater groups, monasteries, communes, and projects such as Twin Oaks, Damanhur, Arcosanti, ZEGG, Gaviotas, Findhorn, Peliti, Zen Mountain Monastery, Tennessee Farm, Ananda, and Dancing Rabbit, to name a few.

ARKBUILDER CODE OF CONDUCT
When it comes time for you to shift your Just Stop Team to an Arkbuilder Team, a general but considered suggestion is to adopt the same level of standards of care, transparency and accountability that are being self-established by NGOs around the world and outlined in their NGO Code of Conduct. For developments see: http://www.gdrc.org/ngo/codes-conduct.html

The Arkbuilder Code of Conduct (version 1.0 Revised 26 January 2008) is as follows: Arkbuilders

1. see their efforts as developing ways that enable people and communities to implement sustainable culture and solve their problems by themselves.
2. act in solidarity with the goals and priorities of their ark culture, and if they are neither learning nor contributing then use their two feet to go someplace productive.
3. respect the indigenous knowledge, the dignity and identity of individuals and their culture, faith and values.
4. exercise and promote fairness, impartiality and equity in all of their activities and in their dealings with interested parties, ark partners and the general public.
5. act truthfully and refrain from practices that undermine the moral and ethical integrity of their ark or arks in general, in particular distinguishing and avoiding irresponsible drama and accentuating responsible drama.
6. behave with transparency and accountability in their dealings with ark citizens, other arks, and interested parties.
7. conform to the constitution, law, bright principles, and rules and regulations of their ark and the Arkbuilder’s Code of Conduct.
8. strive towards including diversity while maintaining sustainable autonomy.
9. proactively resist and communicate about conditionalities that may compromise the ark’s culture and bright principles.
10. develop and promote clear and measurable impact indicators for their projects in order to gauge relevance and effectiveness.
11. pay attention, stay awake, take radical responsibility, and have fun.

You see, the Arkbuilder’s Code of Conduct is actually no different from the Pirate’s Code. You must be an arkbuilder for the Arkbuilder's Code to apply. And the Code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Guidelines are actually far stronger than rules. If you follow rules, the rules have the authority for your decisions and actions. But with guidelines, you are inarguably responsible for figuring out when and where and exactly how to apply them. There’s nothing to hide behind with guidelines. This be the Arkbuilder’s Code!

The Arkbuilder’s Code of Conduct Guardian Committee is empowered to maintain code observance, consider and assess complaints related to non-observance as well as hear and decide on all instances of breaches of the Code. It can advise or admonish guilty ones; or, in case of serious violation, recommend to the Arkbuilder General Assembly suspension or cancellation from membership.

By operating within the Arkbuilder Code, arks could naturally apply for being formally recognized as legitimate micronations under the auspices of the United Nations. Then the valuable discoveries and expertise gained in these experimental laboratories could become internationally shared resources for the benefit and welfare of all of humanity.

In the meantime, while the UN is managing to get itself together about these details, we will simply organize ourselves through websites such as this one. Official recognition of legitimacy will occur through the test of time. Arks that have proceeded continuously for three years will be granted Level One Legitimacy.

Whatever you can suggest or do to support network of collaborating new-culture experimenters, please do it or suggest it. Let your imagination run wild. We are already far outside the possibility limits set by ordinary Western civilization. New possibilities await exactly where they always have, just beyond your present ability to grasp them.

ARKBUILDER LEGALITY
International laws regarding the definition, creation and legitimization of arks is yet to be formalized. There is much to learn and to create here. Anyone interested in hacking reality in the area of establishing international laws for nanonation arks (population 12-100) and micronation arks (population 101-5,000) could establish a fine career for themselves. The legal precedent for the legitimacy of arks is already partially established in many cases. Here are a few.

An exemplary ark that has been in existence since 1975 is the Federation of Damanhur, describing itself as a centre for spiritual, artistic and social research. Its philosophy is based upon action, optimism and the idea that every human being lives to contribute towards the evolution of the whole of humanity. Damanhur is an eco-society, a federation of communities and eco-villages with a social and political structure in continual evolution. It was awarded by a department of the United Nations in 2005 as a model of a sustainable society. Since 1998 Damanhur is a member of GEN Europe. GEN (Global Eco-villages Network) is a Non Government Organisation (NGO) comprised of communities and research centres: its principal objective is to support and encourage the evolution of sustainable settlements throughout the world. GEN has been recognised by the United Nations as an advisory member within the ECOSOC Commission.

The Federation of Damanhur has its own schools from nursery school to Junior High, plus a Free University, offering courses and experiential platforms open to debating with researchers from all around the world. Damanhur has its own Constitution, an alternative currency, a daily newspaper, magazines, arts and craft workshops, a conference center and laboratories for applied medical and scientific research. www.damanhur.info

Another example is the Lakotah Sioux Indians who declared sovereign nation status on 19 December 2007 in Washington D.C. following their withdrawal on 17 December from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakotah Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months. Lakotah country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The new country will issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there will be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship. Although you will find no coverage of this event on corporocracy-controlled media channels, the four spokespeople say they have met with many people for years about all of this and foreign heads of state are taking it very seriously. One of the delegates, long-time Indian activist Russell Means went on to explain, "We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America. This is all completely legal," he said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution,'' which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land. “It is also within the laws of treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent,'' said Means. www.republicoflakotah.com