Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Super late one.....


I had to reformat some posts on the IAIJ website to work with the new colors.



I am seriously working on the VIP letters.



Then just general packing and preparing for the trip




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

We have received our final instructions on the ITU event next Monday.



Do not expect anything big to happen. However, the planning up to that event has given me a true direction and "end game" that makes my life work having a real purpose or impact.



Anyway, we are on the verge of redefining what a social contract is. It is exciting stuff for me, boring stuff for you and maybe frightening stuff for some at the United Nations.



Just don't be surprised if things are quiet on this trip - stuff is happening regardless.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

The print material is all done now!



I also decided against bringing my 80 dollar cross pen (and losing it again) and instead bought a 20 dollar stainless steel Parker Jotter instead to take down there.



I'm basically ready to go. Just select the street clothing for this time of the year and go!



It looks like in addition to the Secretary General of the ITU, H.M. the Queen of the Belgians (United Nations SDG Advocate) will be there along with the Director General of UNESCO. Remember that IAIJ started with membership with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, then UNESCO in Paris (France) and then to the United Nations. I could be wrong but if anything happens to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Director General of UNESCO takes over.



Anyway the big thing now is to just get down there and go to the event.




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Do I have a social contact with humanity?



I actually did ask the world at large if they wanted the Worldwide Vote at places like the United Nations. The vote results were just under 3/4 in favor back in like 2012 with physical and online voting and almost the same results with the apps on Android and iOS recently.



So, if I ask humanity if they want something and they say yes - and I have already embraced a moral imperative to do what I can to improve humanity - do I have an actual social contract with humanity that gives me the right to act on their behalf? I would say yes!



So when I'm at UNESCO or the United Nations advocating and making speeches - I can be bold and be "pushy" getting the word out about concepts like the Worldwide Vote and happiness being the ultimate payoff for entering into a Global Social Contract. I am humanity's emissary to places where they cannot go. I have been there for 10 years and keep to myself. I do not want to get comfortable there, and I certainly don't want to become aloof or feel entitled as I am the common person, there to allow all common persons a voice where presently they have none. I intend to change that and give humanity a voice and vote.....



That speech I made this past July about that Worldwide Vote - was I the first to make this speech at a high level event? Was I the first to ask for this ability back in 2017 at my side event? I made the quip that this was probably the first time that ever happened and I was probably right. So I may have been the first to pick up online participation and voting of the general public at the United Nations. The push for that third house back in the 90s focused on NGOs as the technology didn't really exist back then - it exists now!



For me personally, I gave decades of my life, tons of money and all kinds of aggravation to push what was a "pipe dream" everyone thought had no chance. Things are different now and I actually have a chance of changing things. From probabilities of one out of several billions - to one out of three as of today. Those odds truly make it all worth it! If things get traction those concepts will be taken over by others and my contributions will start to fade away. But it was all worth it in the end.....



Some would say - given my horrible past - why I would do these humanitarian things. I do it because doing it made me happy - just as the Positive Mandate for Humanity said it would. Before all this I was an angry Black Man - you know "White Man this and Black Man that" was non-stop, and I was miserable. Then as I got back to my background in philosophy, I embraced a moral imperative with the promise to never leave that moral imperative and to do good for all. As for how I could emotionally reconcile doing good for people that treated me so badly? I'll be honest and tell you that I'm doing this, not for my contemporaries but for the young people - why - because they never did anything to me! Apart from some friends my age who are mostly directors at our organizations, the rest of the folk are mostly or were mostly kids in their teens and twenties. So the moral imperative worked out and going international finally made everything start happening.....



Anyway, I have been in the same room with the Secretary General of the United Nations - like maybe 15-20 feet away. In the same way I met the Secretary General of the ITU a few times. And hopefully tomorrow I get to be in the presence of the new Director General of UNESCO. Seeing him in person makes that person a real person and not some icon that is unattainable to meet. This empowers you to act and advocate and be brave about it. But enough of this.....



Just finish packing and get your ass to New York.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

I'm at the airport waiting to board.....


I booked an appointment with Beck taxi - yes I'm old school that way - and got the oldest taxi driver on the planet. He drives past my house with me waving at him and keeps driving up the street. Then he stops at the end of the street honking his horn! I catch up to him and we drive back to my place and I tossed in the backpack and away we went! I never thought about it - but how can I still run flat out at my age? Anyway we get to the airport and the security and boarder guards checks points had no lineups! I fact the border patrol agent had me out of there in less than 10 seconds! This was as fast or faster than any trip in the past.



So now I wait.



And remember not to expect much from today. Whatever happens will happen. You go through the motions because you never know. You have a reason to get up in the morning - be thankful for that.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

I guess I left you with me running up the block trying to catch the oldest cab driver in the world.....


It did not end there:



Got to the airport and flew through customs. Get in the airplane and we are all boarded and then there is a "maintenance issue" so the flight is cancelled. I am still in terminal - I get rebooked to a 6:45 flight and ran down to the gate with two others only to find the plane left the gate. Options were now 1:30 which is cutting it close to the event and a six hour wait!


I started checking Delta flights. Then at a customer desk Air Canada had a spot at 12:00. Then at 10:30 and then at 7:55 and they printed the boarding pass! We went to the gate and it was too late to check in. So this Japanese representative took pity on my situation and spent some time forcing my check in and I was on the plane! What a nightmare!



I'll tell you more that the hotel would not give me early access to a room after kicking me out three days before my trip in July where I had to get an expensive hotel at 30 Rock! They gave me early access at 30 Rock - but they always give that to first time customers - the tell is when you go there often. The hotel did let me in an hour earlier so I went to my usual spots near Central Park and Tuesday it's the other side where you find Guitar Center and B&H Photo and my office on Broadway.



The ITU event went as expected. I handed out my envelopes to three VIPs there hoping one gets read as those are the probabilities from my salesman days. The big deal was - finally - real advocacy for the Positive Mandate for Humanity through a new Global Social Contract at the SDGs. This is closer to me than you think and I will talk about it more when I get back. And: I will let you in on a tiny secret - I did a proof of concept test in 2024-2025 that essentially created that third house at the United Nations for the first time allowing the general public a say at the United Nations actually delivering the vote whether they wanted it or not - a moment that flew under the radar. It was "a moment" to how it actually works now with a NGO in consultative status to deliver the vote as IAIJ did! However we want that "Third House" to be permanent and that is the task now.



So all that stuff about the Human Assembly website and the FOF Advocacy had a reason based on that third house moment of creation at the 63rd Session of the Commission for Social Development. To those retired folk of the commission - see - I did it!



Then there was all the talk at the event about AI and the destruction of the human race. I am older than almost everyone here and there is blood on my hands not found in almost everyone there. I inherited it from my father who is still alive but with Dementia but it was he and his pioneering contemporaries that sold the question to the public that AI or computers would never be a threat or take over humanity in the late 60s and 70s. Me in my pjs around 9 years old and my mom sat around the TV and watched my dad get interviewed about the new computers back in the day and the interviewer seriously and frankly asked my dear old dad about the chance of computers taking over and he just laughed it off and said we had nothing to worry about.


Fast forward 58 years and we have something to worry about. All those pioneers are dead or too senile to care so the sins of the father are visited upon his son as has happened here. So I'm at this event after the more formal one held by Bob Ray with nations formally speaking one after another. This thing has followed me most of my life and now it's in the forefront. We used to talk about quantum computers and Qubits at the Thanksgiving dinner table back in the 1980s for goodness’ sake! I even rejected computers
literally for the longest while and then used them for the experiment and so I am more guilty than most. Basically I'm a repentant Judas hiding among the collective sitting on the floor filming some K-Pop band from South Korea (I am a musician and run a record label and all that) sitting on the floor in front of the stage in a suit! Little do they know.....



Anyway, the event was a success for me - not as dramatic as the speech two months ago - but successful nevertheless.....



I'll say more but I'm almost at Guitar Centre!



A voice of reason just texted me: "Get your ass home now!". I'll shop a bit more and do the evasive stuff I now do - Ha! I'm in Greenwich Village now - come get me.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Home.....







Back home and finally a few needed hours of sleep. I did get some sleep in New York but the police sirens went off all the time at night! And I'm paying through the nose for this. Even checking out the diplomat beside me was agast at the 2,700 dollar bill for a couple of days during General Assembly - welcome to my world!



Some more.....



For once I decided to make Tuesday a proper vacation day before I went back.



First off was taking some time to properly go through the guitars at Guitar Centre. They had stuff I could not find in Canada - well one guitar. A Gibson Firebird selling used for like several thousands dollars but in like new condition. Then another that they called a Platapus but it's not made like a real Gibson Firebird. So the guitar shows up but expensive in USD - so no birthday present for Me!



I did get my birthday present at B&H Photo. It's just a phone case where you can attach different lenses but I just wanted the ND filter and I found one that just looks like a plateau protector which is great as it's pocketable and does not set off any "alarm bells". This is used to keep a 48 shutter speed as well as cutting down bright light outside. So that was expensive but at least it was a birthday present for a dude that basically has everything. The first time in five years the family can actually give me a real present that I actually want.....




Then I spent much of the afternoon at the Intrepid Museum that I passed by before but never went in. This time I went in and was amazed. Not only roaming around the aircraft carrier but also a real submarine and a real Space Shuttle and even a Concorde. I have all sorts of pictures including inside a Soyuz capsule!



Then it was mad dash to the airport which was complicated by the UN convoys but I got to the gate with 25 minutes to spare!



With a UN meeting on aging in October and my birthday today I am seriously thinking about being an "attack dog" for agism at the UN. Seniors are too nice and meek and polite there. It would help their agenda to have a rude and bombastic jerk like me to help out the cause! We shall see how this goes but I have the energy and attitude to turn my fellow old folks into a fighting force to be reckoned with!



Funny thing is the super old guys that sit in the displays at the Intrepid museum - I believe one old guy was an officer on the Intrepid. He kind of sits still like the displays (they even have a sign beside him telling you who he is) on the ship but when the kids showed up becomes animated and tells them stories and all that. Not a bad gig for a veteran. On the sub it was the same thing - I told the old man that this sub was built a year before I was born, so this ageing submarine is sort of like me inside and out. We both laughed and I asked him if he served on the sub as he was just old enough to sneak in. He said no, but we both realized that when we are gone all of this disappears from history. And a final telling glance between two old guys from before computers and TikTok.....



The real recap later today - I just need to relax for a few hours.




Later.....





(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/ePTpg_qJ5Gs?si=yRGVbGzjzrvYP66Y

[Maurice Ali]

Finally - a recap of the Digital UNGA event at the United Nations:

[Maurice Ali]

This week was productive.


It was productive even though the airlines worked to try to scuttle everything. Like that nightmare of trying to have a 6:00am flight cancell out and still try to get to New York is just crazy. Then the mad rush to get the last plane to Toronto coming home was also frightening.



A Concorde at the Intrepid Museum!



Now I had the time coming back but instead of taking an earlier flight I went to the Intrepid Museum instead but left with plenty of time - but - the UN caravans of VIP closing down streets was another thing! This was all in me but Indid make it on the flight with 25 minutes’ worth to spare. And that museum was awesome!




A Space Shuttle - you can't even make that up!



Back home the trip was successful! The Positive Mandate for Humanity was now officially on the table as part of the New Global Social Contract. Until recently both concepts were there but with no real plan as to what to do with them. Now we have a plan. It involves the next ten years of the SDGs with the Worldwide Vote. Then it's bringing in humanity as stakeholders and as 8 billion stakeholders, that current set up and the weight applied to humanity - will have the SDG model have to adjust to that reality and a new social contract will have to be struck. The buy in for all those people will have to be something non-contentious, free of cultures and religion and geo-politics - and for us the Positive Mandate (of happiness) works here will all the SDGs working together to reach that goal! It could work.....



I have a target - I have a location - and I have a time frame! I have all the necessary ingredients for a play to create a new Global Social Contract and finally have a permanent home for humanity as a collective of individuals - something thought of as impossible years ago!



It also does not all happen at the UN. One organization is at the UofT and a university in the UK planning for the next set of goals and deadlines. All sorts of options have opened up now that I have the plan for the new Global
Social Contract.....



Interesting times ahead. And to my gang - the road closures made my trip to La Guardia unknowable - keeping up protocol in New York - there is always - that.....



Goodnight.....