In a lot of ways, 2020 has felt like a giant shift in the world. It’s not just our COVID-19 quarantine and masking, during which a a lot of (mostly small) businesses closed, more (often large) businesses declared bankruptcy and suicide rates rose.
Sports schedules changed, with the NBA and NHL taking off months between not-quite-finishing their regular seasons and coming up with a modified ployoff. MLB shortened its season and modified its travel schedule.
Riots and demonstrations took place all over the U.S. for months in many cities in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and later the shooting of Jacob Blake.
California burned. Oregon burned. So did New Mexico. Louisiana flooded (again).
The world learned about a bat with an almost human-sized wingspan.
And about the murder hornet, which invades beehives and cuts the heads off a bunch of bees.
And about mutant ticks that took over Siberia.
A dust storm from the Sahara crossed the Atlantic and affected U.S. skies.
For those who didn’t want to leave their houses, they could just sit on Twitter and battle like unreasonable people fighting wars not worth fighting.
I’ve always known there’s hope, but I’ve never quite been sure where to look. So many “solutions” seem like they’re meant to move individuals or very small groups of people off the grid entirely, rather than create a blueprint for society.
Even what I consider realistic blueprints cover only pieces of what needs to change. I wrote a little while ago about Bret Weinstein’s Articles of Unity, which is a sound enough plan to appeal to the mainstream, though they hit some hiccups when Twitter decided disrupting the status quo was bad.
But then I heard Jim Rutt talk about Game B on Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human podcast. Rutt describes himself as something like a prepper, not for himself and family, but for a community.
He figures if it comes down to something like a zombie apocalypse, you don’t need a bunch of people hunkering down in their own bunkers with enough food and toilet paper for themselves, you need a community that can farm and build and trade.
But more than that, he figures there’s no reason to wait for an apocalypse. The system we’re living — which he calls “Game A” — isn’t sustainable. Even if you believe consumption rates, fossil fuels, climate change, etc. aren’t existential problems, isolation, tribal behavior, zero-sum lives and the effects of busyness certainly are, whether it comes to chronic individual illness or growth into full-fledged war.
Rutt has a long piece on Medium outlining the path to Game B. It’s a very detailed read, so I won’t try to either summarize it or pull out the dozen or so big points, but note that Rutt considers Game B a “civilization-level operating system,” which will require people to have skills and a bias toward action, and it will require many small groups transitioning from Game A to Game B in parallel, independently of each other, with or without each other’s knowledge.
More: Facebook group | Library (including a glossary of terms) | Wiki
There are, of course, other groups doing Game B work, whether they call it that or not. The Liminal Learning Portal is attempting to bring together many of the writings and much of the content and personalities in one place for easy discovery.
Articles of Unity is working on helping the U.S. exit the two-party system.
Steward Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog was an early aid for the urban permaculture movement and really targeted people who wanted to take responsibility for much of their lives, including growing their own food and building their own homes. He more recently started the Long Now Foundation, a group aiming to make sure we’re still here for thousands of years. If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, consider that their publications mark the date with a five-digit year — currently 02020 — so that the digit jumps in almost 98,000 years instead of only 8,000.
There are lots of local groups — and this seems right on with Rutt’s vision — like Central New York’s Alchemical Nursery, which has a focus on urban farming, but also gives workshops in things like rehabbing homes and that sort of thing.
Personal responsibility is an important takeaway here. While I believe I have the work ethic and community ethos it takes to make it in a Game B world, my skill set is sadly lacking. I take instruction well, which, combined with work ethic, may make me a desirable member of a Game B society, but the bias toward action Rutt values takes a back seat when you’re waiting for people to show you what to do.
I suppose I should develop a better understanding of how things work, and how to actually do things.
Josh Shear - Final Archive 
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