On June 10th, I attended what I think of as a “Morning in
America” meditation by Lynne McTaggart, an American alternative medicine
activist, lecturer, journalist, author, and publisher who lives in London. “Our
intention,” she said, “is that all of the energy of the Black Lives Matter
protest be funneled into a positive and effective superordinate goal in
communities across America to create positive change and positive connection
between people of all ethnicities.”
This parallels a Discovery Channel presentation in the US
about the injustices visited on Black people at the hands of police (and
others), especially by the white Minneapolis cop who killed George Floyd (the
most recent example, and the trigger for the COVID-19 post-lockdown riots). In
response, Oprah Winfrey was sitting down with Black thought leaders, activists,
and artists, guiding them in conversation and creating plans for our future to
answer the question, "Where do we go from here?"
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| Biosphere 2 near Tucson, Arizona began as a project of Space Biospheres Ventures to engineer a closed ecosystem for eight human "Biospherians" in order to study the physical, biological, environmental, and behavioral problems of space colonization. At dusk, the view from inside actually has a Martian aspect. Presently in the custody of the University of Arizona, it has been divested of its first, best use and relegated to the status of an elaborate greenhouse harboring government-funded ecological science projects. Without exception, those would be better done in an ordinary greenhouse. Difficult and expensive to maintain and without benefit of a productive business model, Biosphere 2 has been falling into disrepair. Private ownership could reverse that if the stuffy academics were dropped. |
I noted the comparison of the Black economic experience to
the endgame of Monopoly, in which all resources are owned. After a certain
point, you can’t win. Monopoly, like Capitalism, is a fun game, but it is only
fun in the beginning, while there are still resources available. Now that we
have come to the point where Capitalism is not fun for too many of us, an
all-Black panel is trying to decide “Where do we go from here?” But “we” are
all of us. Black people are just people, and they are not alone in their
misery.
An entire generation, Generation Z, is faced with a similar
dilemma, and they, too, are considering a massive redistribution of wealth as a
possible solution. Probably, that would make matters worse. It is not possible
to win a revolution without replacing the existing regime with one that is
merely better at killing, unless you have a frontier. Frontiers offer both
refuge and help.
More than four centuries ago, when minority Europeans
experienced enclosure, which is what we are talking about here, they exercised
an opportunity they had to leave for destinations that offered resources
without proprietors. That saved Europe, especially England, from a bloodbath.
The equivalent of those locations, a new frontier, now exists only beyond
Earth. Accessing it will require a concerted global effort, and success will
turn Earth into our first solar system park. It will do that by relocating the
centers of industry and population off-world, solving yet another global
problem, climate change.
The “frontier formation solution” is scalable, something
that can be done locally as well as nationally and globally. It creates an
explosion of entrepreneurship that will provide local and renewable sources of
clean water, clean air, power, food, manufactured articles, housing, and it
will make landfills obsolete. It can educate and entertain, build consensus and
provide employment. These are the requirements of a colony in space, but they
are also the requirements of a sustainable existence here on Earth.
We can replace fragile and unsustainable electrical and
water infrastructures with microgrids that we build and maintain together. This
creates multi-use communities that co-locate work, education, and family life,
largely replacing transportation with communication. Local production and the
absence of a need to commute and gather in crowded settings will help prevent
future pandemics. Healthy communities also relieve the emotional stresses that
compromise relationships and immune systems.
This is not only a worthy superordinate goal for humanity.
It is also a means to bring us together in anticipation of a great adventure.
This superlative journey, preparing to build colonies in space, finding the
technology, building prototypes on Earth, creating the story, playing it out,
making it the subject of art and letters, all of that is a great investment for
people who make money by supporting startups focused on the future. Here is an
opportunity for people to become, not cogs in a someone else’s industrial
machine, but men and women of destiny.
We have already decided that the status quo will not do.
Whatever governance we adopt in the new place will represent a chance to start
something new, something from scratch, rather than rework something old against
vigorous resistance from existing authorities. Our new venture cannot be a
creature of government, but a commercial blend of entertainment, education, and
co-marketing that bridges the gap between research and commercialization,
provides startups with opportunities to prove value, and promotes market and
regulatory acceptance of new and repurposed sustainability products on the path
to space colonization. When we are done, governments will have little choice
but to get out of the way.
