On the state of our planet

From this vantage point, we’re almost identical and all our conflicts are insignificant. 

Each of us is conscious, sentient and sapient. We’re all on the same planet, subject to the same laws of the same universe. We have different origin stories, different mythologies, creeds and credences, but each consciousness is an instance of the universe observing itself. That’s the ultimate source of sovereignty in my view.   

Isn't it depressing how at a global level we consistently fail to agree on anything and coexist with mutual respect, without encircling or dominating those we’ve ‘othered’? 

Many of our high-level political disagreements today relate to conflicting definitions of sovereignty, the right to rule, and the struggle for control of territory and the future.

We’ve reached a point where there’s no more physical territory for us to expand to, and we’re still stuck in the nation-state system that emerged from the growth of our civilization and is no longer fit for purpose to manage our planet. The arrow of time has forced us into a position where the struggle for control, and the resulting competition has superheated our atmosphere, hydrosphere and noosphere, and is becoming increasingly more destructive to ourselves and our planet.

This is indeed the highest point of existential risk according to the Kardashev scale, before we’ve learned how to coexist with each other, cooperate, sustainably exercise our custodianship of the planet and become spacefaring. Until we can collectively and collaboratively establish the guard rails for competition, we are doomed to continue exponentially increasing existential risk. 

When I was little, I remember watching the Flight of Dragons - it was one of the first cartoons that I learned English from, and I’m saddened to inform you that it feels like Ommadon is winning at the moment. He exists in every society in the form of military-industrial complexes, corrupt consultants, monopolized financial systems, unaccountable and empathy-devoid bureaucratic systems obsessed with suppression, encirclement, salami shaving, corporate executive bonuses, bribery, super profits, inhumane punishment, violence, genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, totalitarian dogmatism at the expense of the average person. Ommadon is the state of mind when powerful people who care too much about losing something and refuse to let it go, whether it's losing control, money, power or face, and he is the representation of the domination of ‘the other’ and extreme xenophobia. Ommadon is the definition of defection in a collective action problem, and the rejection of cooperation in favor of coercion and the use of force for oppression and the preservation of plutocracy.  

After WWII Eleanor Roosevelt drove the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While the purpose and intent of this document is clear, the Soviet Union and other countries abstained in the vote to adopt it. It was also criticized by the Muslim world for not being coherent with Sharia law, and the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples came years later, challenging some premises of UDHR with the indigenous people’s right to self-determination which can act as an opt-out provision from elements of the UDHR for indigenous groups. 

We live in the ‘Anthropocene’ era, where plastic can now be found in our geological record, fish, water and air adversely affecting our health, and the health of our planet and all other species and ecosystems. Great power competition has reached virtually all of the territory on our planet, but now extends into all areas that could be controlled and competed in, including space, media and consciousness, in the battle to forge narratives about what is right and that serve their national interest. Great powers and multinational corporations now also use quantum logic, ensuring all possible worlds and contingencies are considered before any decision takes place in a quest to ensure their own supremacy regardless of what eventuates. 

This unrestrained competition has resulted in the depth and extent of state and market failure around the world. It seems that everyone has forgotten about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that briefly united the world once upon a time. I deeply wish that these publications can keep that shred of hope alive and reverse the current trajectory of our planet towards peace and non-violence, social and environmental justice, participatory grassroots democracy with prosperity, empathy and kindness for all.