Key concepts:
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Why are governments useful in times of big crisis? Because they can recover the economy, printing currency, supporting stock markets after catastrophic events, such as pandemics.
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The extraordinary growth of our civilization in this closed world has reached the limit.
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The closed world syndrome puts civilization at risk, with many threats such as pandemics, climate changes, big migrations.
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Expanding civilization into outer space is even more urgent in the new context determined by the above threats.
In these days, in which the worst dystopian science fiction seems to have invaded reality, many are led to reflect, in particular, on the fact that the extraordinary growth of our civilization in a closed world has reached a limit. Some practical philosophical reflection may therefore be welcome. Different futures await us, depending on the choices we will make.
As a first consideration, it is no longer time to discuss whether climate change is real or not, and whether it is mainly caused by us. COVID19 has brutally transported us into another context, characterized by real and tangible threats, which require us to go beyond big words, and instead understand what we can and must do. I would add that this epidemic is not even the only catastrophic event that occurred in the first two months of 2020. In fact, vast regions in the Middle East are experiencing the scourge of locusts, in proportions that have few, if any, precedents. It is all too easy, for supporters of the anthropogenic origin of climate change, to attribute such catastrophic events to our greed, pointing at profit as the supreme evil, the generator of all misfortunes.
But any attempt to replace the free market and democracy with something else – theoretically more socially correct – has so far floundered in the misery of dictatorial bureaucracies, levelling at the lowest level, annihilating quality and excellence. Ultimately, anti-evolutionary processes have led to authoritarianism and suppression of freedom. We must therefore get over it: we cannot get rid of the free market, at least not until we have learned the superiority of the selfless gift as a social model. I am sure that there will be no lack, as always happens in times of crisis, of support for authoritarian and repressive social models, in the crazy hope that any oligarchy can be a “fair administrator of scarce resources”. But history has always shown, except for very rare cases of enlightened dictators, that the more centralized the power, the greater the predation of the people’s resources and the suppression of freedom.
Let’s not fool ourselves. Not only Armageddon puts many of our lives at risk, but it also questions democracy and the possibility of continuing the growth and development of civilization.
What, then, should we do to combat Armageddon? The main objective should be to provide us with abundant resources, aiming at an economy of abundance.
The first hoax to be debunked is that the crisis really destroys resources. This is not the case: the stock exchanges burn thousands of billions in a few days, on the wave of the fear of the new virus. But what do they actually burn? Bits in bank servers. The only real loss, which must really scare us and which we must limit as much as possible, is the loss of people, of their know-how, of their ability to work. Today, medical doctors are adopting a daily routine of heroic behaviors, to cope with their insufficient number. This is the real wealth of humanity, which cannot be taken away from us by economic crises: the people, the human heritage and resources.
That said, we must get to work: there are almost eight billion of us, nothing and no one can stop us.
The second fake news is that the crisis is due to our “wrong” and backward social models. As we have seen, the method of competition is the only one that allows us to reach the levels of excellence that we need to overcome whatever crisis. The crisis is solely due to our extraordinary growth in a closed world. It is a crisis of growth: we need more resources and more energy, otherwise we will not be able to put our immense human heritage to good use. Resources and energy are now scarce here, at the bottom of the Earth’s gravity well. In the solar system, however, starting with the geo-lunar region, resources and energy are abundant, virtually infinite, and can sustain the development of trillions of humans over the next millennia.
The New Space sector is growing strongly in the United States and other countries, in different forms. In the USA, by entrepreneurs endowed with strong humanist ideals, such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others. In the cases of China and India, on the other hand, there are government programmes, which see lunar colonization as a fundamental step towards ensuring the growth of their economy.
The governments of the countries that have a space program should immediately allocate a good slice of public money to civilian space development. Why states, and not just private industry? It’s simple: states can easily print currency, and fix damages to the market. Private individuals do not have this ability, and therefore the new space industries could be endangered by stock market crashes and by restrictive policies that governments could adopt in response.
When we look at the quality of public money expenditure, we are shocked by the persistent high military spending: almost two trillion a year, to further increase the power of our states to give death, against a paltry budget of 30 billion for space.
But today humanity should instead unite to fight an enemy far more dangerous than terrorism and “rogue states”: the catastrophic eventsto which a closed world is vulnerable. Therefore, several space advocacy organizations gave birth to the Civilian Space Protocol, an initiative that will recommend all the Governments of Planet Erath’s nations to allocate at least 20% of military spending to the development of technologies enabling the transport and housing of untrained civilians for long stays in space. Low cost fully reusable orbital vehicles, low acceleration, safe re-entry into atmosphere, protection from cosmic radiation, artificial gravity and green environments in space habitats, recovery and reuse of orbital wreckages and debris. If we are scared by sudden changes in planetary temperature, we can reconsider projects already designed in the second half of the past century, which could allow to regulate the temperature on the surface, by orbiting large screens to make shade, or reflective screens to increase light. On the ground, in addition to trying to reduce CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, it is necessary to counteract the rise in sea level by building dams around coastal cities, and use the surplus water coming from melting glaciers to “terraform” deserts, increasing the green, oxygen-generating and CO2-consuming surface on land.
Space Renaissance International (SRI) is a proud co-host, together with other Space Advocacy organizations, in a worldwide campaign, named “The Civilian Space Protocol” (CSP). Please check it here: https://civilianspaceprotocol.space/
A letter, including the text of the Civilian Space Protocol, will be sent to all of the Planet Earth’s Governments, and to the United Nations, recommending a better expenditure of the public money, to support civilian space development.
Every space advocacy organization of Planet Earth is invited to co-host – inter pares – this important initiative, that could represent an epochal event in the history, allowing the whole space community to speak with one voice, about the very urgent need to support the expansion of civilization in the outer space.
Here it is possible to subscribe as a co-host of the Civilian Space Protocol:
https://civilianspaceprotocol.space/join-the-civilian-space-protocol/
Are you a space enthusiast? Are you willing to help Space Renaissance in our outreach continuous action and to develop our next programs?
Join us as a member:
https://spacerenaissance.space/membership/international-membership-registration/
or make a donation to SRI:
https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/donate-to-space-renaissance-international/
Also, you might be interested to my last book “A greater world is possible: The expansion of civilization beyond the limits of our home planet is the moral issue of our time”, available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/greater-world-possible-expansion-civilization/dp/1727889924
Visit the Space Renaissance websites:
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