How Democratizing Space Can Democratize Earth
Space Travel Requires More than Technology.
Become a Multi-Planetary species, they said. Establish off-world settlements.
Well if only they knew that we’d be living in a fascist-totalitarian state with Elon Musk as the Grand-Overseer of our Mars colony.
Okay, so that might be a little hyperbolic…Or not, we just don’t know yet. But there is still one glaring question that burns through all the glossy pictures of what will take us to becoming spacefaring; Who decides?
Let’s say we’re not so careless as to succumb to the said totalitarian scenario; that we don’t limit our focus to establishing survival in space and end up neglecting the task of establishing actual rights and freedoms for the inhabitants of some not-so-distant future Moon settlement.
It still begs the question, will democracy in space just be an extension of its current mainstream form on Earth? With political power in the hands of policymakers vulnerable to corporate interests, who thus capture legislative control? Amidst the aspirational technological leaps, that model seems more than outdated.
Whoever those pioneers are who take those first steps toward becoming multi-planetary, they will require more than just the basics; they will require a way to make complex decisions together in an equitable way.
Their settlements will call for a more effective form of horizontal decision-making than currently exists here on Earth.
But maybe, solving this challenge for democracy in space solves the most important global challenge here on Earth: political power for the 99%; the ability for the majority to have creative access to their own communities.
Maybe, figuring out democracy in space is the how we accomplish the greatest political achievement of humanity — Universal Sovereignty.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— Buckminster Fuller
It is solving this challenge that will allow us to solve every other contemporary global crisis— economic inequity, climate change, authoritarianism — as well as the ability to answer possible future species-defining questions, from how we decide to integrate Artificial Intelligence, to gene-editing, and bio-tech.
So, let’s back-engineer this invention: imagine you wake up on said off-world settlement sometime in the future. You look around and witness all the technology that helps these pioneers (and now you) survive and build the foundations of a new society on Mars.
But how do these newly minted Martians run their settlements? How do they make decisions? What stops them from seceding from Earth entirely and declaring their own separate patch of sovereignty? In your investigation you find this clearly hasn’t happened, so what made this possible?
Here’s what you might discover:
5 Universals to Achieve Universal Sovereignty
- Universal Citizenship —With the advent of mainstream space-tourism and new bases on both Mars and the Moon, a Universal Passport was created for space travel. This created the basis for Universal Citizenship — afforded to each participant using blockchain verification — a status that superseded the jurisdiction of any one country on Earth for legal consistency in space.
- Universal Constitution — In order to establish rights and freedoms for those no longer bound by the particular laws of their nations, as well as the legal framework for democratizing space, a Universal Constitution was crafted that included all humanity.
- Universal Budgeting — A participatory-budgeting model was created using blockchain technology that allowed humanity to manage investments for itself collaboratively, based on collective priorities.
- Universal Legislation — A new form of horizontal decision-making was innovated that disseminated sovereignty equitably to all individuals; thus, empowering humanity with the capability to make complex decisions together on a multi-planetary scope and scale.
- Universal Basic Dividend — As A.I. and automation undertook the physical and intellectual burdens of society, a simple policy came to the fore: a portion of any profits made by large corporations through publicly subsidized innovations, would go into a public fund for all humanity; shared through a common dividend. Democracy could now be achieved, through creating an equitable economy as well as politics.
Soon after these ‘universals’ were created to meet the needs of humanity in space, they made obsolete all related conventions on Earth. Outdated policies could no longer be justified in the face of Universal Sovereignty. The nation-state became an outdated technology to manage the affairs of society; the world mundialized and joined together with the rest of the off-planet settlements into a universal social organization of the People.
Just as many of us today are hard at work at finding the technical solutions to achieve space-travel, should not the rest of us work to find solutions for its emerging politics and economy?
Could reorienting civilization toward space provide the basis for global transformation here on Earth?
Could we find a way for all of us to decide the path for our species together?
