Vision: The human race successfully solving the problems that threaten its long-term well-being and continuing to expand its list of achievements.Why do we need to be a team?Mission: TeamHuman.org aims to help humanity identify and address the things that thwart its ability to prosper and which are largely under its control.
Goals:
- Spread the idea that every member of the human race is a part of the same worldwide, species-wide team.
- Promote shared understanding of scientific knowledge, human history, and cultural values.
- Foster a sense of collective pride in humanity's accomplishments.
- Focus on the threats to our collective well-being that are most readily under our control as individuals.
Human history has demonstrated that we can achieve far more when working collectively than when working in relative isolation. The increasingly global nature of human activity brings greater potential for our collaborative efforts and makes it more imperative to address the important problems that cut across national, geopolitical, racial, ethnic, and other boundaries.Why does humanity need any help? With 6 billion of us and counting, it's not like we will become extinct any time soon, is there?The team metaphor promotes the message that "we are all in it together," reinforcing the shared nature of humanity's problems and aspirations. Widespread adoption of a team mentality may lead to more effective global-scale human activities with less likelihood of adverse interactions.
99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct. If I were a betting man, I wouldn't be thrilled about these odds for the long-term survival of any given species. However, I have tremendous faith in the ability of our species to survive any challenge to our survival. The focus of TeamHuman.org is on helping humans operate more effectively collectively in solving the problems that threaten our long-term survival and well-being. We may never actually go extinct, but we don't need another Dark Age either.Is TeamHuman.org just another "why can't we all just get along" site?
Getting along is a good thing, when it happens naturally. However, TeamHuman's mission is not about forcing or encouraging everyone get along with everyone else. People, organizations, and nations will always have differences of opinion, preferences, priorities, goals, and ways of living. This diversity makes our world a more interesting place and adds essential spice to life. You can't agree with everyone, but you can respectfully agree to disagree and approach people/ideas outside of your purview with tolerance. TeamHuman.org is all for healthy competition, but draws the line at the sort of in-fighting that can stifle progress of our species as a whole. Both individually and culturally, humans tend to have more fundamental similarities than differences, though we often over-emphasize our differences. TeamHuman.org seeks to instill more unity by drawing attention to our similarities.Is the "team" mentality advocated by TeamHuman.org just another form of socialism/communism?
No, this is not an attempt to push socialism or any other kind of political or socioeconomic agenda. TeamHuman.org hopes to aid humanity in reaping the benefits of the type of collective mindset that characterizes a successful team, and aims to counteract the forces that prevent optimal team operation in the face of important challenges to our well being.What are these long-term threats to humanity's well being of which you speak?Humanity does not need to operate as a team in all aspects of life. Just as members of an amateur sports team come together to focus on the common goal of a competition and then are free to go their separate ways after the game, TeamHuman.org hopes to encourage a similar spirit of teamwork in solving the problems that threaten our long-term well being as a society, and also may threaten our ability to pursue our own personal goals and desires.
What counts as a threat to humanity is somewhat a moving target and will also depend on who you ask. Part of the purpose of TeamHuman.org is to solicit feedback from the community to help identify and describe the most salient threats and then raise awareness about them with the goal of diminishing their impact before they get out of control.But my life is pretty good. I am not affected by any particular "threat to humanity." Why should I care?The highest priority threats are those that we can all participate in fixing through our individual actions. Even large, intractable problems that seem out of our individual reach may profit from the sort of grass-roots, one-person-at-a-time approach that TeamHuman.org hopes to inspire.
The problem at the top of TeamHuman.org's list is the decline of health and physical fitness, because improving the world must start with improving and maintaining yourself. Poor health and a weak body will not only compromise your ability to contribute, it will also exacerbate certain other threats to humanity (e.g. the burden of rising healthcare needs and costs).
TeamLaLanne.org is TeamHuman.org's first effort towards inspiring people to make a committment to better health and fitness. Sign up with TeamHuman.org and join the Team LaLanne tribe to get involved.
We're all in this together. The burden created by vast numbers of people falling victim to these threats will make life increasingly uncomfortable for all of us and the generations to come.Why the focus on physical fitness with Team LaLanne? Is TeamHuman.org hoping to be like "Team In Training"?In his interview with Stephen Colbert, Geoffrey Canada, speaking for the Harlem Children's Zone project he heads, gave a nice justification that fits here. In response to the question, "Why should I care about the success of underprivileged children?" he replies (paraphrasing):
We all have a vested interest in the success of at-risk kids because it's much better to have them as productive members of society paying their taxes and contributing in other positive ways rather than having them become a burden on society (pulling welfare/unemployment benefits, gang-banging, etc.). When these children do better, everyone's children do better. Giving these at-risk kids a strong support base and good education greatly increases the odds they will grow up and have good jobs, pay taxes, and help support our country instead of costing us.A similar rationale can be applied to other threats that have wide-ranging impact on societal well-being. For example, we all have a vested interest in the rising numbers of overweight, out-of-shape adults because of their increasing impact on our healthcare system. Increased fitness means more of us have more time to spend doing productive things rather than hanging out in doctor's offices and requiring medical care.
There are certainly more areas besides physical fitness and nutrition where humanity could use some help to save itself. As explained in detail on the About page, TeamHuman.org has decided to initially focus on improving our physical health and fitness with the Team LaLanne effort. There are some other areas of interest identified by TeamHuman.org that may help further its mission.Are you affiliated with Jack LaLanne? Does Mr. LaLanne condone the Team LaLanne effort?As for the Team In Training similarity: being an independent entity, TeamHuman.org has no affiliation with any particular charity. But the support system aspect of TNT is something that TeamHuman.org does hope to provide, assisted by the power of the internet-based social network at hub.teamhuman.org.
TeamHuman.org and TeamLaLanne.org are unaffiliated with Jack LaLanne and jacklalanne.com. There are no marketing or other business arrangements with Jack LaLanne's organization and there is no for-profit business behind TeamHuman.org. I have been in contact with Chris LaLanne, Jack's great-nephew, and he has communicated with his relatives about the Team LaLanne project and they have expressed their approval. Chris has even agreed to personally help out with Team LaLanne as needed. (Here is some historic information of possible interest).How is Team LaLanne different from what Jack LaLanne does?
For Jack LaLanne, health is both his mission and his business. This means that his mission is conflated with a profit-making venture, thereby creating a vested interest. This might raise suspicion about the authenticity of his motivation ("he's just trying to sell me something!"). But this arrangement does not necessarily invalidate his mission, which TeamHuman.org holds in high regard.Do you really think TeamHuman.org will have an impact on "saving" humanity?You can think of Team LaLanne as embodying Jack LaLanne's mission without his profit motive: To encourage people to improve their own health through exercise and nutrition. Period. TeamHuman.org does not endeavor to make anything from it (other than making all of us healthier and reduce the impact poor health has on humanity as a whole). Pure and simple. That's the honest truth.
Doesn't hurt to try. It's like Mahatma Gandhi said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it's very important that you do it." Actually, that quote always struck me as implying that we've all been assigned busy work to keep us out of trouble, (probably true to a certain degree). A better interpretation is that the state of the world is like a chaotic system, in the sense of being very sensitive to minor perturbations. TeamHuman.org is just perturbing it a bit, hopefully for the better.Why should I sign up?
Signing up with TeamHuman.org enlists you in a higher cause for the greater good. It connects you with other like-minded individuals who also believe in the TeamHuman.org mission. This website has social networking features that foster personal connections and enable the sharing of ideas, opinions, and planning of group projects and activities. So give it a try. Humanity needs all the help it can get! Signing up does not obligate you to make a donation and you can get involved as much or little as you want.Why do you want donations?
TeamHuman.org is an independent non-profit public service for the benefit of all. Donations will be used to defray the cost of running this site (<$100/year). If and when the amount of donations exceeds these expenses, they will be put to use for funding any projects sponsored by TeamHuman.org. These projects are undertaken to advance the TeamHuman.org mission and all members who sign up with this site are invited to participate in these projects. Currently, the main area of focus for TeamHuman.org is Team LaLanne.What's the history of TeamHuman.org?TeamHuman.org does not have non-profit certification (501(c)(3)) but would like to obtain it one day. Proceeds from donations will also be put towards retaining any outside assistance needed to achieve this certification. If there are any lawyers out there willing to do some pro bono work towards this end, contact me.
Here is some historical information about how this project got started.Who is behind TeamHuman.org?
Currently TeamHuman.org is a one-man show, conceived, implemented, and operated solely by Steve Chervitz Trutane. Anyone interested in this effort is welcome to sign up and join the TeamHuman.org community. If you want to get more involved in managing this effort, join the TeamHuman tribe after you sign up.Why are you putting your energy into this? Don't you have better things to do?
Hey, what could be more important than saving the human race? ;-) One tangible way it does benefit me is that it gives me a chance to explore internet technologies and take on new computer programming challenges, one of my passions. And it's not a big time sink for me (yet).
