title: Preparing for a World that Doesn't Exist - Yet: Framing a Second Enlightenment to Create Communities of the Future
author: Rick Smyre
description: <span><span>Rick Smyre is an internationally recognized futurist specializing in the area he helped originate called community transformation. </span></span><br /><br /><span><span>Neil Richardson is a strategist and a public servant who specializes in smart government advocacy and integral thinking.</span></span>
zlib_text: # The Ecolog
  
  
  ### Faraday Nelson
  
  
    
    
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INTRODUCTION
  
  
  In my previous book, _Then Beggars Could Ride_ ,
  
  
  I proposed a certain kind of Utopia, one that could be accomplished
  
  
  on a limited energy budget, one that avoided the boredom of most
  
  
  "perfect societies" by decentralization and
  
  
  diversification, by making room for many different ways of life
  
  
  rather than attempting to impose a single lifestyle on everyone.
  
  
  Some of the helpful souls who hear my novels read
  
  
  out loud, chapter by chapter, before publication pointed out that my
  
  
  planet wasn't very "far out." It was still the planet
  
  
  Earth, even if an Earth set in the future. They wondered if such a
  
  
  society would be possible on another planet.
  
  
  This was an embarrassing question, since it
  
  
  exposed one of my worst blind spots. I knew something about history,
  
  
  the arts, mythology and other such "humanities," as one
  
  
  might expect from a graduate of the Hutchins' Era University of
  
  
  Chicago, but unfortunately I kn