A higher future ↑

If you look at the current "cities of the future," they hardly mimic the cities of yore. They diminish much of the enriched nature of those idyllic places trapped in the past. As a result of the significant simplification of architecture and increased cost of goods, most cities look like shiny, glass forests with enormous metal trees. Most of humanity is shoved into these forests by profession, socioeconomic norms, and general necessity (closeness to food stores, medical centers, etc.).

What's more, the vision set forth by the powers that be aims to consolidate humanity into even smaller, more "convenient" bushels. While this might make economic sense on paper, it creates forced division, a class delineation, and a proverbial armistice line. We can't afford this future, as technology has driven us further apart even as we draw closer to one another in an increasingly small world.

A Higher Future presents a set of severe technology-based changes to governing infrastructure that effectively distributes power among people and eliminates so-called public servants from positions of authority. In doing so, a trickle-down effect occurs across all the elements that cause humanity's suffering.

My vision of a Higher Future starts in the past, harkening back to the Enlightenment era. This methodology emphasizes reason, liberty, democracy, and the scientific method. While futurists of the past may have feared a technocratic dystopia, they could not have foreseen the advent of the decentralized governance infrastructure that we have today.

We need not rely on petty politicians posturing and preying on the populace like predators while purporting to practice policy for the public good.

We will be governed by code and consensus, self-regulating based on social dynamics present within every sentient organism on the planet. Indeed, maximum and unadulterated freedom and liberty have downsides, but consider the alternative.

In a distributed system, all elements are auditable by the many. As such, educational mandates will be driven by peer-based consensus in the Higher Future. Education is at the heart of civilization and without the ability to communicate rational thought effectively, challenge critically, and share knowledge, a society crumbles. Hence, in many cases across humanity, those without access to the pillars of fundamental thinking create untoward outcomes for themselves and those around them. By no fault of their own, a systemic and well-known problem drives them and their counterparts deeper into the recesses of humanity.

The curriculum should be relatively the same across various beings, regardless of the geographic lottery ticket they pull at birth. Thus, in the Higher Future, systematic audits of curriculum and governance by peers shall be doctrine and mandated by code. This is but the beginning of what a distributed technocracy might accomplish.

Mancur Olsen wrote The Logic of Collective Action, a book that lays out a thesis driven primarily by economics but with applications to socioeconomic norms. The text illustrates how selective incentives propagate within a collective as it grows, creating adverse outcomes for the group.

In a society driven by engrained governance deeply inlaid within a distributed codebase, one's mind can drift from the complexities of particular political interests and focus inward. In the case of a vote, one need only read the proposal and vote with their heart via their mobile device. There is no lobbying, psyops, lies, or manipulation.

In this world, technical innovation ceases to be stifled. The military-industrial complex is unnecessary to drive economic growth and velocity. Humans can participate in vast and various economies of scale or work individually on smaller projects that benefit themselves, their family, or their immediate surroundings. Funds flow freely as interest and taxes are mandated by programmatic and infallible toolsets and only extracted as a result of comprehensive and equivalent benefits.

This decompression eliminates the necessity of consolidating humanity into microcosmic concrete jungles. People spread out, start communities, support each other, and build. Humanity flourishes without the need for excessive buildings that trap the gases and poisons of the machines that create them. Nature heals.

When one thinks of the future, one might get stuck in floating cities traversed by flying cars and shiny buildings adorned by holographic advertisements. But science fiction is just that. A Higher Future looks like an idyllic past—a place where medicine heals and food nourishes, economies are balanced and systematically incentivized, and consensus-based outcomes matter to the many rather than the few.

We have the technology; we must apply it for fear of ending up in a dystopia.