The Republic of Planet Earth
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice…
…A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
- Rev. Martin Luther King, 1967
Look, I’m going to try and start breaking down the vast walls we’ve put up between each other in terms of race, sexuality, gender and age here because I’m beginning to get a bit concerned about the speed at which we seem to all be degenerating into raving lunatics. (perhaps not with the same verbosity and skill of the men above whom I am still to this day humbled by.)
I come from a position of privilege, this is important to understand to grasp my frame of reference; I’m not even well off, but I am the effigy of a formerly middle class cis-white male. So there be dragons ahead, prepare to be triggered. However I’m coming to you from an egalitarian perspective and I’ll try to sympathise and respect your views wherever possible with my ultimately doomed-to-be-naive view of the world. I hope you will afford me those same courtesies.
I’ve been working with an idea for ‘Planet Earth’ as a nation based on building on what was great about America in its prime (at least in image and values) for 4 years now.
As a result I’ve covered as much material as I can in terms of political and economic theory which has led me to believe Constitutional Republics show the best signs of being the most effective and well received form of governance both from a Democratic Perspective and notably from a perspective of getting things done quickly. But the world has changed since the formation of this concept so as an update I’ll be putting forward a few ideas about a blockchain based virtual nation that exists on our smartphones in due course. Now it would necessarily not supersede national law and I’d hope that such a tool would be complimentary to it both in terms of anonymous data collection and in terms of low friction engagement with a direct democracy framework similar to that trialed by Flux.
Now its important to make a distinction between the blockchain I’m proposing and Bitcoin/Ethereum etc. I’ve been working on a design that mimics the fundamental physics of the world and would have hardcoded into it limits and restrictions but also flexibility in how it can grow and develop. Who knows what the future may bring. Few predicted the internet and I’m sure blockchain may enable something as liberating as the mostly free and open internet we were blessed to grow up with, so ensuring The Republic of Planet Earth, as a system, has the flexibility to adapt and evolve to compliment our needs is vital. This would mean instead of tax bands and arbitrary structure, it would need to have equations and physics at its base. Yes that means we’re going to need a little mathematics, but if implemented correctly; it should be simple enough for your dog to understand.
I feel like if we generate a structure onto which we can all map our culture and lives around such that in return theres a dividend for every human regardless of input (even those not on the system, how this could be implemented is still unclear) we’d be able to build up an enormous anonymous dataset to start getting visibility of operations at a global scale. Also this generates a Universal Basic Income but instead of giving people a set amount, it would be entirely dependent on what we put into the system. That means the value of the minimum wage in this system would become the measure of our collective prosperity instead of arbitrary GDP. By placing trust in code that is totally open source and human readable, we can have an effective and auditable security net for those who have been systematically maligned by a pretty cruel analogue monetary system. Why do we have to choose between survival and actualising the best versions of ourselves?
This is what I’m trying to get across though as a secondary point. We need to begin coming at each other not as sparring partners, but from a position of empathy (and sympathy where understanding cannot be afforded), unfortunately that even means the worst of us. I believe you can only understand how to tackle social issues by understanding the context and the others frame of reference.
To the majority that aren’t visit white males, it really upsets me that the world still is set up in a way that does you injustice and can’t see that ultimately we are all just human beings and part of a physical system that connects us all. I’m not going to try and empathise with you or even begin to understand what you’ve endured in your life as a result of people treating you this way; like you are anything other than a human being with the right to live a full, happy life and achieve your dreams. I believe we can all build something that will work better for everyone without even having to label anyone. It really disappoints me that this is the world we live in but I’ll try to work with what I’ve got.
I guess all that really matters is; can we do better? That should be an easy one to answer with the current state of affairs (I’m purposely not discussing the issues but you should know what they are) and I’d like you to accept this proposal for a codified way of making that happen with the best technology we have available today to connect the world in a free, fair way that benefits us all. How Utopic, but aspirations are what all great movements are built on. Let freedom ring.
In maths theres a symbol called Delta and it stands for Change. Now I know people have been sold false hope about change for too long, including myself, so I know the only way we’ll get there is to build it ourselves. Next time you see something that moves the world forward in a direction that benefits everyone, put your index fingers together and thumbs together too. It should form a triangle like this;
I’d like to use this as an open source meme of our age; we are all connected and I reckon sometime soon we’ll be able to prove that physically but until then, I love you and I’m happy you exist; regardless of your views, socio-economic background, race, gender or sexuality. You make the Planet what it is, even in this rocky patch. Now, just breathe… let’s all chill out and find a better way :)
P.S. We’re also going to ban war and borders once and for all, in time.
