Our ancestors have made decisions that have put us into a very dangerous path.

It leads to violence, destruction, and ultimate extinction for our race.

We do not have to go down this path.

There are other paths we can take into the future.

This book is about these other paths.

 

Possible Societies

You didn’t choose the conditions of our birth.

You didn’t pick your sex.

You weren’t given a chance to choose your skin color, before you were born.

You didn’t choose your parents.

You didn’t even choose the planet of your birth.

You didn’t decide what kind of society would be in place when you came into this world. 

There are many kinds of societies that intelligent beings with physical needs—the category that includes humans—can build.  Some are incredibly violent and destructive.   Some split the population into divisions that act like teams in a kind of barbaric sport.  The individuals in these divisions (called ‘countries’ on Earth) act like packs of wild animals in many ways:  They fight with great brutality over what they consider to be their home turf and fight just as hard to try and take away turf from other groups.  Killing and destruction are commonplace in these societies; millions can die in violent conflict within a generation. 

These societies have no general structure that would make one think they were created intentionally and designed to meet the needs of the beings in them.  In fact, not only do they ‘not meet the needs of the beings in them,’ they have so much violence, and so much destruction, that the growing intelligence of any beings that inherit this society threatens the very existence of their race:  They will be able to build more and more destructive weapons as their intellect evolves.  Eventually, they will be able to  build weapons that can wipe out their entire race.  Since these societies don’t place any restrictions on the use of these weapons, and have no authority that has to be consulted, and they don’t have any provisions to get permission of the human race before they take steps that affect all, these societies don’t have any safeguards to prevent the people who act under the animalistic impulses of these societies from using these weapons.  If they have them, eventually they will use them. 

You didn’t choose the type of society that would be in place when you were born. 

This is the one you got. 

Thinking Beings Living In Societies Designed For Animals Without The Power of Conscious Thought

Where did this system come from? 

You didn’t create it. 

I didn’t create it. 

It goes back to before anyone now alive was born.  The society built on the idea of teams/countries that fight over turf, with the winner getting all rights to (sovereignty over) the land, already existed when this century began.  It already existed when the century before it began, and the century before that began.  It already existed when Columbus traveled east across the Atlantic Ocean to try to find new land for the team/country that sponsored him to conquer.  It was already in place when the people who created the calendar now in use everywhere on Earth started counting years with the year ‘1.’ 

It had been around for thousands of years before year 1 on this calendar, when the parent religion of the religion that created this calendar, Christianity, was built on the foundation of books written by a man named ‘Moses.’  These books give long descriptions of countries and wars.  These descriptions are so similar to accounts of current events that you can find in your news feeds right now that, if you change a few of the place names, you can’t tell that they weren’t written yesterday.  The basic foundational principles of human societies are the same as they were thousands of years ago. 

This kind of system goes back long before Moses was born.  It was already in place when the first city states were founded in Europe tens of thousands of years ago.  (Artifacts have been found, analyzed, and dated that make this indisputable).  It was already in place when the subspecies ‘homo sapiens sapiens’ (our subspecies) diverged from the subspecies ‘homo sapiens neanderthalis’ to form the subspecies anthropologists now call ‘modern man.’  It already existed when homo sapiens neanderthalis evolved from that species’ ancestors, homo habilis, to form the first proto-humans.  (Anthropological evidence makes it clear that the Neanderthals were fanatically warlike and had territories with borders.)  This ‘mode of existence’ clearly goes back to long before proto-humans existed; many animals that have been around for millions of years had and still have societies that are built on the same foundation:   Wolves, hyenas, gorillas, chimpanzees, all live the same way, dividing themselves into groups with members that fight side by side with other members of their group to get territory for their group.  

This type of society existed on Earth long before the kinds of beings we now call ‘humans’ existed.

This tells us something very important:  This society was not the result of human design and analysis. 

No group of higher thinking beings sat down, went over the different ways thinking beings could organize their existence, and decided on the ‘divide into groups to fight over territory for that group’ model. 

The type of system we have on Earth was not built by intelligent beings to meet the needs of needs of intelligent beings. 

It was designed, by nature, to meet the needs of an evolving species of barbaric and savage beasts. 

Please take a few seconds to think about this. 

It is very important to understand that we didn’t intentionally create the systems that are now in place on Earth.  If they seem like they are insane systems, that the people who created them must have been either idiots or crazy, that they are savage and barbaric, that they operate in ways that turn brother against brother in violent conflict and encourage destruction of fantastic magnitude, this is not because there is some detail of what would otherwise be perfectly functioning systems that needs adjustment, or because the system would work well if people weren’t affected by evil spirits or dangerous hormones to do things that are irrational and therefore prevent the otherwise rational system from functioning. 

It is because the system itself is unsound. 

It was not designed for technologically sophisticated intelligent beings with physical needs. 

It was designed (again, by nature) to pit savage beasts against each other in life and death battles.  This allows any advantages in intellect that helps them fight better get passed down to later generations and makes sure any intellectual disadvantages disappear when the groups with them lose the territory that they depend on for food. 

This system had its advantages in the past.  It helped to turn wild animals into ‘us’ over a period of millions of years.  But as soon as we got here—once we gained enough intellectual capabilities to build nuclear bombs and other weapons that can destroy the world, the ‘fight fanatically and without regard to the consequences to prevent loss of your territory’ model of society is no longer suitable.  Our human sides allow us to build nuclear bombs and our animalistic systems create forces that push us to use them.  We need to stop trying fighting ourselves.  We need to put our human sides and animal sides on the same page, by building a society that is capable of turning the immense intellect we have developed over millions of years of evolution to the advantage of our race, the human race. 

Possible Societies

Before we can do this, we need to assure ourselves that it is possible to do it. 

First, figure out of it is possible.  The best way to figure out if a specific society that may meet our needs is possible is to look at the big picture.  Figure out, first, what is possible in general.  What kinds of societies can intelligent beings with physical needs form?  If we had a chart or map of all possible societies, how would it look?  How would the type of society we inherited from our animal ancestors compare to the other options on the chart?  If we were to try to create a plan to move from ‘the societies we inherited from our animal ancestors’ to ‘sound and healthy societies that could meet the needs of intelligent beings with physical needs,’ how would we proceed?  What path would we take through the options to get from where we are now to where we want to go?

That is what this book is about. 

I think the best way to start on such a task is to find away to abandon our preconceptions about the issue, so we can get a fresh start.  Rather than starting our mental journey into the possibilities on earth, we can start it somewhere that allows us to see the big picture.  Then, once we have an understanding of the big picture, we can narrow it down to our situation on earth. 

We live in a vast universe.  There are an estimated 20 septillion ‘Class G’ worlds (those in the ‘Goldilocks zone,’ neither too hot nor too cold for the kinds of life we have on earth) in the part of the universe we can see from our position in space. 

 

Using data from the space-based Webb telescope, scientists have estimated that there are about a trillion galaxies in the part of the universe we can see from earth.  (They take a few representative squares of a certain size in arc seconds, and count the galaxies in these squares to determine the average density per arc second.  They then multiply by the number of arc seconds in a sphere the number is close to a trillion and they use this round number in discussions.  You can find the exact figures and calculations on the Webb website.)  The milky way that we live in is an average galaxy and has about 200 billion star systems.  That works out to 200 septillion star systems in the part of the universe we can see from earth.

On average, there appears to be about 1 class G world (in the Goldilocks zone) for each 10 star systems.  This means that there are about 20 septillion (20 followed by 21 zeros) such worlds in the part of the universe we can see. 

 

Some have life that evolves.  We don’t know how many, but we know it is some.  Eventually, some of the evolving beings will take the evolutionary path that was taken on earth.  Some beings will gain the ability to think and plan on a conscious level and to communicate abstract ideas to others.  They will become ‘intelligent beings.’ 

What kinds of societies might they build? 

What are their options?

We know of one kind of system that can work:   they can divide their world into territories, divide their population into groups, and assign a group to a territory to own that territory, and deprive any members of their species that are not members of a group with territory of food and other things they need from land so that they die.  This is one choice.  But it is not the only choice.  A great many other options are possible.

What are they? 

How do they work? 

Are any societies that are possible able to meet the long term needs of a species of intelligent beings with physical needs, without pushing them to rape their world and destroy each other?  If such systems are possible, how would they work if they existed?   What, specifically, is different about non-destructive and peaceful societies than the violent, dangerous, and destructive societies we have here on this world?  

This is critical information.

We, the members of the human race and inhabitants of the planet Earth, are in a very dangerous situation.  We are at the brink of our own extinction.  We can’t even start to figure out the steps we need to take to avoid this fate without knowing that there are other ways to live.  If we don’t know what is possible, we are stumbling around blind, not knowing what is in front of us, behind us, or on either side of ‘the societies we have inherited.’  All we know for sure is that there is a cliff around us somewhere and, if we take a wrong step, we will go over that cliff. 

How can we even hope to move in the right direction if we don’t know what is out there?  We need to know what is possible.  We need to understand that some social arrangements or ‘societies’ are healthy and some are not.  We need to know how the different societies go fit together and how changing one variable alters the big matters related to societies. 

Then and only then can we plan a route to get us from the societies we inherited to sound, sane, and healthy societies.  It would be nice if we had some magic entity we could call on or magic dust we could sprinkle around and have everything fixed without any effort on our part.  But we have been trying the ‘look for a magic solution’ route for thousands of years, and we have had no luck.  It is time to accept that, if change is to come, we will have to make it happen.  There is a ‘first step’ and a ‘second step’ and other steps.  We need to take the first step. We need to figure out what kinds of societies are possible societies, and exactly how the type of society we inherited fits into the mix. 

That is what this book is about.