THE HUMANIST CHESS PLAYER

Many Western countries are now confronting a “generational” problem. The population index is stable, if not declining (when slightly positive, this is only due to immigration). Governments then invent policies to help offset decreasing birth rates. They are doing this not because of “humanist” considerations, but rather as a decreasing birth rate will negatively impact national economies, e.g. the retirement system will face collapse, as the number of active workers is going to be insufficient to address monthly expenses. An elderly society weighs more on the state’s resources, due to increasing public expenses on health systems, in addition to all the negative effects an aging society has on innovation, education, culture, and shrinking markets.

Yet, politicians shouldn’t be surprised. There are many socio-anthropological reasons for the decline in birth rates. In a random listing, the women’s emancipation, the difficulties for the young generations to find jobs, the decline of the rural civilization, in which sons were a resource, the transformation of the traditional large family (which included grandparents, and relatives, and provided assistance for the babies) into the nuclear, and even the mono-parent, model. Also to be considered is the progressive impoverishment of the middle class in the so-called advanced world, i.e. less means to raise children. However, another cultural factor was added to the above. For the past 50 years at least, people have been “educated” regarding the unsustainable human ecological footprint on the natural environment of planet Earth. Currently, 8 billion humans inhabit Earth, and we don’t have a “planet B” (yet, we would say). So, people were induced to feel, by many concurrent factors, that we shall decrease.Now, what is happening? Heavens – we have started decreasing! Therefore, we must revert and start growing again! But didn’t we just state we should decrease? OK – globally we must decrease, but our own country should start growing again, as soon as possible, or it will disappear. What a brilliant discovery: at the end of a decreasing path there is death! And of course, we cannot allow our own country to die! But what is the point here? Of course, our own nation must grow, while other countries will have to decrease. It is their problem, not ours! (LOL).

This “logic” leads to belligerent confrontation, not collaboration. Should we be surprised if wars are igniting everywhere, including in the so-called developed world? That’s where the logic of sustainability in a closed system leads: to a global war, and likely to a civilization implosion.

When we think about our next moves – talking about big policies – we should think as chess players do. Who will win the game? The player who’s able to think several moves in advance, predicting the different scenarios that will be played out on the chessboard, following different first moves. We should also base these moves on a humanist general philosophy, i.e. in the interests of humanity as a whole, not of single countries, or classes. In contemplating civilization’s future, we should think like a “humanist chess player”.

Any politician thinking like a one-move chess player, and not considering how their decisions will impact human lives in the middle and long term, should be discarded as soon as possible. One-move players will not have any chance of winning a chess tournament, so why should they win elections? But, sadly, they keep on winning! Unfortunately, all of the politicians only think in terms of emergencies, reacting to the last emerged problem, based on doing the opposite. Even worse, most policies are designed just upon the electors’ perception of true or claimed problems, and not on real facts. We may observe that politics is at least two layers detached from the real world: incapacity of planning several moves in advance, and incapacity to analyze the real problems, instead of the perceived (or inducted) ones.

People are also surprised because the old “ideological setups” (very popular during the 20th Century), don’t work anymore to produce solutions for current local and global nightmares. Both the 900’s “ideological engines” – collectivism and liberalism – have been working to boost progress for a few centuries, but ultimately have failed to provide a viable future for humanity, as both have been operating inside of closed systems, with significantly limited resources. Historic “pacifist movements” are not rising to help offset the very dangerous wars currently unfolding in Ukraine and Palestine. Pacifism during the Vietnam War was just a pretext for manifestations against imperialism, in support of an acclaimed alternative social model. Their goals were never humanistic, but classist, in support of a naive revolution, another one-move in the geopolitical arena. Today, “astropolitics” is on the rise, not only complicating possible scenarios but also encompassing an out-of-the-box variant: space value.

Given this situation, what should be the priority for space humanists? Our first recommendation – trying to think like a “humanist chess player” – is definitely to disregard any political biases (no such prejudices could help). To help clarify what we are talking about, “left wings” (in the very broad sense, from radical left to social-democratic currents) are unfortunately basing their strategies on “closed-world sustainability concepts”, and are therefore subscribed to “degrowth” tendencies. They play a major role in the current situation and are unable to propose useful solutions to help restart civilization’s progress. The “right wings” (from post-fascist parties to extreme libertarians) are supporting hard nationalist, sovereigntist, white supremacist, and populist concepts, discouraging cooperation and promoting belligerent attitudes worldwide. Both their flag ideologies – the so-called free market, and the so-called socialist classless society – are simply unfeasible utopias, in the context of the closed world. The market is not “free”, because it is owned by monopolies, cartels, and mafias. The “socialist” societies are exploited by the dictatorial bureaucracies in power. Freedom, in the closed world, doesn’t exist at all, and in the impending conjuncture will be even less able to exist.

All of the existing political propositions are incredibly poor in terms of their vision for the future and ideas to restart progress. Leftist programs appear to be bound inside passive environmentalist strategies, which are destroying industries, hanging agriculture, and hindering technological advancements. While the industrial world is progressively trashed, self-targeted financial capitalism is ramping up, undermining the basis of human society’s survival in itself. The “right wings” are not proposing any serious industrial programs, yet they criticize the Green doctrine and speak an iconoclastic and politically incorrect language. People sense the “social degrowth” implied by passive environmentalist policies. As such, populism is currently experiencing an age of glory.

From a positive perspective, we may observe that, despite their poor ideologies, both Western and Eastern worlds allowed evolutionary vectors to rise and provide hope to humanity. The Western liberalist democracy (namely, the United States of America) allowed a few pioneering entrepreneurs to “break the wall” of the traditional aerospace monopoly and open markets to enable low-cost access to space. The Eastern collectivist governance (namely China) is pursuing, with great determination, a plan to settle on the Moon and expand into space. As a general comment, we note that the technologies related to rockets’ reusability (which are now also adopted by Chinese rocketry) evolved in the “free-market area”, in which there we observe nominal freedoms (monopolies notwithstanding), and nobody can prevent anybody (having both essential funds and contracts) to undertake innovative developments.

With one point gained for the Western player, the other player responds with political determination, and the result is a fertile competition – a vector in the right direction: high.

In both worlds, international collaboration agreements are undertaken, allowing more countries to collaborate after shared goals: the Artemis Accords initiated by the U.S., and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), initiated by China. Will the Moon be a place where the two coalitions will find ways to enable peaceful collaboration? We space humanists are optimists. Space is large, and the resources of the solar system are enormous, thus competition doesn’t need to be as ferocious as it currently is for Earth’s limited resources. Terrestrials will observe their birth planet as very small (in the middle of the black sky from the Moon – a multiplied overview effect, as Frank White observed). As the ISS is a place where American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts collaborate in peace (terrestrial wars notwithstanding), the Moon might present a similar opportunity and even more.

Let’s now address Space X and its CEO and Founder, Elon Musk, as promised. There are a lot of reasons why we wholeheartedly support him, and his incredible Space X team. The same may be noted regarding Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. Both Musk and Bezos are champions of humankind, determinants of evolution into a spacefaring species and civilization. That could be sufficient to explain our support. We understand that many people are not enamored of very opulent individuals, but that’s not our case. We believe these pioneering individuals well deserve their fortunes. And, thank God — and thank their courage, vision, and determination — they have such a big wealth, that can be directly invested in the most inspiring enterprise of our time: civilian space development. These 2 entrepreneurs are criticized because they are not “soft” on their employees. But it seems this does not concern their employees. They tolerate backbreaking shifts to meet deadlines because they feel they are part of the ideal space mission. Elon Musk himself spends a lot of his time engaging in the hard work with them.

So, our overall recommendation: let’s not concern ourselves about political views (which are obsolete and highly volatile), or trade-unions issues, to be better solved within the normal negotiation between workers and entrepreneurs. Rather let’s focus on space policies, which are truly much more important. In addition, there is something in Musk’s methodology, that is very worthy of appreciation and dissemination. As we already have noted in recent articles, Space X operates on the basis of a reiterative project life cycle, different from the standards followed by traditional aerospace entrepreneurs. Space X’s methodology is more aligned with the experimental scientific method: to identify essential requirements, build and test prototypes, learn from successes and failures, then build a new improved prototype and test again. From an anthropological point of view, we may observe that such a methodology doesn’t fear failures, but rather recognizes failure as a necessary part of the development process, when pursuing something never done before, like a 100% reusable space vehicle!

This methodology^[1] – prototyping-test-fail-improve-retest – is also a great inspiration and encouragement for young generations: not to be depressed by failures, because failures are essential for evolution. This feeling may multiply many fold the next generations of space entrepreneurs!

[English language edit by Jim Crisafulli]

 

^[1] Also, see the SRI Position Paper on the Key Critical Issues before 2030.  https://www.amazon.com/position-paper-critical-issues-toward/dp/B0CVVP6NKT/

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