Introduction

Last update: 2024-08-04

Here is Our Plan. It has the form of a webbook that we have used since November 2023 to identify and coordinate what we do together. We are partners in Systemic Actions for the Alleviation of Suffering, an association we created to carry out our work.

Our mission is to optimally minimize, on a global scale, the occurrences of suffering that we consider too unpleasant, particularly by developing a new specialized field of theoretical and practical knowledge.

In the expression “Systemic Actions for the Alleviation of Suffering”:

• We say “Systemic” because our approach is global and comprehensive: we strive to bring about a theoretical as well as practical discipline devoted to the phenomenon of suffering itself.
• We say “Actions” to emphasize the practical side of our initiative: we strive to act, to do things systematically, directly, by ourselves, in order to actually, concretely achieve the systemic alleviation of suffering that we want.
• We say “Alleviation” to convey the meaning that we strive to reduce, prevent, or abolish suffering that is too heavy according to us, but we only do this minimization in an optimal way, i.e. to the extent that it does not make things worse.
• We say “Suffering” to refer to any occurrence of consciousness that is felt as unpleasant.

Our book attempts to summarize a wide variety of information from a wide range of sources:

Part 1: Contributions from a Discipline Specialized in the Study of Suffering deals with what we take for our systemic actions from a new discipline devoted to understanding and controlling the phenomenon of suffering.

Part 2: Contributions from Various Disciplinary Fields examines what several areas of human activity provide to realize the alleviation we envisage.

Part 3: Contributions from Suffering-Focused Initiatives looks at what we borrow for our actions from some contemporary endeavors dealing with suffering as a specialty.

Overall, this book’s role is to set out in detail the measures that we are putting into practice to systemically alleviate excessive suffering in the world. The first thing we are doing is operating our partnership initiative Systemic Actions for the Alleviation of Suffering. The second is keeping Our Plan up to date. Everything else we do is a continuation of these two actions. See, for example, Conclusion: What We Are Doing, in Brief.

If you and/or your organization would like to take part in our enterprise, let us see together in what capacity you could be listed as a partner.

For more information,  see our Google document Administration Notebook, or write to admin@aboutsuffering.org.