4. Preface
4.2 Requirements for Futurities
Now let's talk about the requirements that futurities must meet, which make them more than mere unrealistic utopias.
It’s easy to say: “Let’s live in a word where everyone is kind to each other and we solve problems through cooperation!”
That’s a utopia. But it’s not a futurity. It’s not the kind of concept I want to present in this book. Why? Because it assumes that all humans suddenly develop a better character and work towards a common goal. Which means there is no way to implement this—it's merely wishful thinking.
Low demands on people’s character: People have a very wide range of personality traits. Some humans are very altruistic, some extremely selfish. Most people fall somewhere in between. Sometimes they look out for their own advantage, sometimes they just stare at an accident, and sometimes they help someone in need. Futurities must work with the people we have, exactly as they are. They will of course work better if people have a better character. But this mustn’t be a prerequisite for them to be possible at all.
“Let us abolish all armies, that way we have much more money for the important things!”
This utopia would presuppose that the entire world has a single government. Which in turn would require convincing all existing governments to abolish themselves. So, this too is merely wishful thinking.
No world government: In this book, I always limit myself to one country or society. Utopias that would have to be accepted by the entire world at once in order to function are not examined here. Futurities should always aim to be achievable, provided that a sufficiently large group agrees to try.
The barriers to implementing one of the futurities presented in this book are already high enough when a single country or society must agree to them. Bringing the entire world under one government would, in itself, already be a utopia, before we even begin to talk about better societal systems.
“Everything would be much better if we didn't have to pay taxes!”
What this utopia lacks is an examination of the overall system: If no one pays taxes anymore, where would the government get its money from? Or, if it's simply not supposed to receive any money—what would happen to the state's responsibilities? What kind of society results (anarchy)?
Costs considered: Each futurity will be self-contained enough that we have considered the additional impacts and costs to society arising from each respective futurity.
So let's compile our list of requirements:
• Low demands on people’s character: Futurities must not assume that all members of society suddenly develop a different (better) character than they had before.
• No world government: Futurities must not presuppose a global government in order to be implemented.
• Costs considered: Every futurity must function as a self-contained system. It must not merely eliminate something seemingly negative (such as taxes), without addressing the impacts and costs associated with that elimination on the rest of society (such as the state budget).
In addition, we identified further requirements in the last two chapters that futurities must meet:
• Automatic adaptation to a changing world: Futurities must work in an ever faster changing world, and automatically adapt to changes in their environment.
• Help citizens keep up with change: Futurities should assist people in coping with an ever faster changing world.
• Promote technological development: Futurities must promote technological development and utilize it to shape our environment and the Earth. Only then can we effectively address the problems caused by resource exploitation.
• Resilience to withstand adversity: Futurities must be capable of withstanding adversity—whether changing climatic conditions, hostile propaganda, or armed attack.
Many of the ideas I will propose in the following chapters work independently of each other. If one of the ideas turns out to be impractical, this does not mean that others might not still be good and functional.
The various futurities certainly can and will reinforce each other, though.
Something I do not wish to list as an independent requirement, because it is a central characteristic of each futurity I will present, is higher efficiency: We will achieve the same goal with far fewer resources than before, or with the same resources attain a much better outcome. Such a more efficient use of resources helps us win the race described in Chapter 3.2, between humanity’s expansion into space and resource scarcity.
In my view, the best path to greater efficiency of societal systems is through the communities I present in Chapter 10, “State”.
It is also sensible to avoid unnecessary complexity wherever possible. In science, one basic principle calls for the simplest model explaining all phenomena to be preferred (Occam's Razor). This also applies here: We should prefer the simplest societal system that possesses all desired characteristics. Because more complexity will always mean higher costs, less flexibility, and poorer understandability.18