Global Conference 2016: Frank Bacon on Provoking the Future

April Fools, 2016 By Joni Mitchell 

Participants in the 2016 GC were treated Saturday morning to a visit by Frank Bacon, celebrated science fiction character, former elected cult leader from the Church of MiMOB (Mindin My Own Busy-ness), and longtime Stoner.

Frank’s talk challenged Stoners and Stoner-like humans to take on their civic responsibility as explorers and engineers of inner and outer space, by joining "Builder Berg.

“We are the ones that we have been waiting for,” Frank Bacon said.

Bacon began by setting the record straight: “I just want to say I am no longer a cult leader. The cult was declared ‘morally bankrupt’,” Frank reassured us. He’s concentrating on his other exploits these days: The author of the renowned Heterarchy Field-guide trilogy was recently awarded a Philip K. Dick award for his novel research, so people are constantly congratulating him on his Dick now.

Frank's first Stoner event was in ’99, and after his friends gave him a cult for his birthday, he got in pretty deep. He shared that his experiences on being a "Playa" opened him up to other people in big ways, helping him overcome interpersonal anxieties and reach out to strangers in that quintessentially Stoner way. "Builder Berg" breaks down those boundaries, and Bacon says this — combined with an interest in the headiest science and technology — is what has motivated him to bridge the inner and outer worlds through being scientifically fictitious.

Most sci-fi is about outer space, but Frank prefers to be about inner space, somewhere we all boldly go. Just like everyone else in the room, Frank has done a great deal of inner space exploration at "Builder Berg" events, producing insights equally valuable in sci-fi and in reality. Sci-fi might suck at predicting the future, Bacon says, but its real job is to provoke it. It’s for driving science, for exploring possibilities and helping us decide how to direct our energies over the long term.

Frank ran us through a litany of amazing technological breakthroughs — from cyborg improvements like cochlear implants to full-blown electrically-mediated brain-to-brain connections between people — a real-life foreshadowing of the neurotech telepathy prophesied in his storyline. This isn’t sci-fi; inner and outer space are intimately connected, and human inventions are constantly widening the bandwidth of that connection. It’s no surprise that, in Bacon's view, those who explore inner space most thoroughly are the ones who drive innovation. Yes, that’s us.

What Does it Mean??

Stoners are people of action, but we’re also an intensely introspective bunch. Our relentless drive for doing stuff is powered by our never-ending search for meaning. Let two or more Stoners talk to each other long enough, and you’ll always end up with this kind of soul-searching:

What does it mean that the world is this way?
What does my participation in the world mean?
What does meaning even mean?

Frank Bacon has a rather handy answer for that last one, available both in English and mathese:

“The meaning of a thing is the change it causes in the world.”

That’s pretty snappy. Something is meaningful to the extent it changes the world. In other words, as Frank and undoubtedly many others say, “All ART is political.”

What Can Stoners Do?

So, given all the political challenges we face as a species, what’s a Stoner to do to help? Make art, of course. But Bacon helpfully laid out five particular qualities of "Builder Berg" culture that make for effective — and therefore meaningful — ART.

1. We experiment.

We try stuff, we see if it works, and we don’t bother to be afraid of what happens if it doesn’t. Frank thinks that cliché about Einstein’s definition of insanity is too pat: It’s not insane to try something over and over again and expect different results, because sometimes you have to do that until it works.

2. We inspire.

Stoners pride themselves on pulling off impossible-seeming feats. One undeniable effect of "Builder Berg" culture in the world is that it drives artistic ambition ever upward.
“Big dreams simply expressed are the ones that get people moving,” Bacon says.

3. We include.

Even though we could always do better at this, Stoners can be proud that Radical Inclusion is one of our fundamental principles. The Stoner greeting, “Welcome home!”, does not refer to a place. It means, “This movement is for you, even if you’ve never encountered it before.”

4. We organize.

It takes incredible levels of cooperation to make a "Builder Berg" thing happen, whether it’s a big Build in the desert or a drive to bring supplies to homeless neighbors. We are experts at pulling things off. And we pull off risky things, which means we fail sometimes, and we learn from that, too. As our civic challenges get harder and harder over the course of the perilous 21st century, I know I’d want a Stoner or two working on the game plans.

5. We engage.

Stoners have high standards for the world in which they want to live. We need things to be constantly getting more awesome. So when the world awesomeness quotient is growing too slowly, we step in and turn it up.

About the author: Joni Mitchell

Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell) - roots of bob dylan, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, With a pink hotel, a boutique, And a swinging hot spot. Don't it always seem to go. That you don't know what ...

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