Best chaos of the week: The Generation Ship
Some time ago, Victor and I watched a video that sparked a prolonged discussion. I want to capture it because I enjoyed every moment of it, and because of how rich it was with insights.
In the video, Spacetime explores the idea of a generation ship: a spaceship sent to reach a new habitable world, packed with highly skilled humans to build a home away from home, with a caveat that it would take multiple generations to actually arrive anywhere.
Spacetime discusses at length the conditions that need to be met to sustain such a voyage: artificial gravity, hydroponic farms, enormous water storage, recycling levels no less than 99.5%. These are, without a doubt, necessary things to take care of, but they will matter little if the mental health of the crew is compromised.
Spacetime touches on mental health, but their solution is an AI therapist for everyone. This won’t work. Humans need humans.
The solution is culture.
If we just select the necessary specialists without accounting for their cultural background and ethical stance, we’ll poison the ship from the get go. Within the first generation someone with capitalist values will grab control over the water storage, and become an overlord who controls the rest of the population. If the ship that arrives at the destination is a slave ship, what exactly have we achieved?
A lot of cultures on Earth are built on exploitation of vulnerability. Women are exploited because they are vulnerable during pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing years. Children are exploited because they are vulnerable due to having no rights. Refugees are exploited because they need their basic needs covered. Capitalism is based on finding a way to NOT pay for the goods and services that went into creation of the product, and thus cut a profit. Our culture is poisoned by the idea that it’s okay to leave millions of people in poverty so that select few could have all they like.
But the crew that sets off on the generation ship doesn’t have to share toxic values. We can pick the people who understand why equality is important. And it is not just important, it’s critical. Because THE ONLY GOAL of the generation ship should be the quality of life of all its inhabitants until they arrive to their destination.
Here, the limitations of the voyage turn into its salvation.
1) There will be no 9 to 5 routines with 2 hours of commute.
The inhabitants of the ship will all be highly-skilled specialists, they’ll have to be. But presumably none of them will need to do bullshit work. They will work when it is needed to maintain the ship and crew in good shape, and they’ll get together to solve unexpected issues, but there is no need for sitting at their desk twiddling their thumbs waiting for the end of shift to come.
2) The ship can only accommodate 500 people, tops.
This means there is no pressure to have babies. While sex for pleasure would be one of the pastimes, the default for pregnancy will be to abort it. It doesn’t mean people will be prohibited to have babies, it means people won’t be under pressure to have them.
When a woman decides to keep a baby, she chooses her ‘village’ - ten or twenty people among the volunteers who are interested in raising the baby. Never will the mother be left alone with childrearing. With no 9 to 5 routine, people from her ‘village’ will have more than enough time to provide for the child. And if so happens that the mother has a postpartum depression or other ailments from the childbirth, never will the child be abandoned or the woman left without help.
3) The ship is small in size, compare to Earth.
The Earth is big, and it’s easy to hide the unfair acquisition of resources by moving it to the other side of the world. People who drink Nestle bottled water don’t see the rivers overexhausted and villages dying out along the dried riverbeds. On Earth, it’s easy to take the resource that belongs to everybody and to claim ownership. It’s easy for the concept of ownership to self-perpetuate.
But the ship is small, compared to Earth. And it’s already forced to operate under 99.5% recycling rate. Accumulating things and keeping them without using them directly affects the well-being of entire crew. It is also much more noticeable. It’s much easier to track resources and their use, and to redistribute them to benefit the well-being of all. Gradually, the concept of ownership will become obsolete.
When the ship finally arrives on the new planet, there will be generations of people raised in the paradigm of quality of life and caring for each other and their surroundings. It gives them a decent chance to start with a culture that is not based on exploitation, and to preserve their new home instead of destroying it.
And here we arrive at the most unexpected projection. In order for the generation ship to function, it needs communism.
In the video, Spacetime explores the idea of a generation ship: a spaceship sent to reach a new habitable world, packed with highly skilled humans to build a home away from home, with a caveat that it would take multiple generations to actually arrive anywhere.
Spacetime discusses at length the conditions that need to be met to sustain such a voyage: artificial gravity, hydroponic farms, enormous water storage, recycling levels no less than 99.5%. These are, without a doubt, necessary things to take care of, but they will matter little if the mental health of the crew is compromised.
Spacetime touches on mental health, but their solution is an AI therapist for everyone. This won’t work. Humans need humans.
The solution is culture.
If we just select the necessary specialists without accounting for their cultural background and ethical stance, we’ll poison the ship from the get go. Within the first generation someone with capitalist values will grab control over the water storage, and become an overlord who controls the rest of the population. If the ship that arrives at the destination is a slave ship, what exactly have we achieved?
A lot of cultures on Earth are built on exploitation of vulnerability. Women are exploited because they are vulnerable during pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing years. Children are exploited because they are vulnerable due to having no rights. Refugees are exploited because they need their basic needs covered. Capitalism is based on finding a way to NOT pay for the goods and services that went into creation of the product, and thus cut a profit. Our culture is poisoned by the idea that it’s okay to leave millions of people in poverty so that select few could have all they like.
But the crew that sets off on the generation ship doesn’t have to share toxic values. We can pick the people who understand why equality is important. And it is not just important, it’s critical. Because THE ONLY GOAL of the generation ship should be the quality of life of all its inhabitants until they arrive to their destination.
Here, the limitations of the voyage turn into its salvation.
1) There will be no 9 to 5 routines with 2 hours of commute.
The inhabitants of the ship will all be highly-skilled specialists, they’ll have to be. But presumably none of them will need to do bullshit work. They will work when it is needed to maintain the ship and crew in good shape, and they’ll get together to solve unexpected issues, but there is no need for sitting at their desk twiddling their thumbs waiting for the end of shift to come.
2) The ship can only accommodate 500 people, tops.
This means there is no pressure to have babies. While sex for pleasure would be one of the pastimes, the default for pregnancy will be to abort it. It doesn’t mean people will be prohibited to have babies, it means people won’t be under pressure to have them.
When a woman decides to keep a baby, she chooses her ‘village’ - ten or twenty people among the volunteers who are interested in raising the baby. Never will the mother be left alone with childrearing. With no 9 to 5 routine, people from her ‘village’ will have more than enough time to provide for the child. And if so happens that the mother has a postpartum depression or other ailments from the childbirth, never will the child be abandoned or the woman left without help.
3) The ship is small in size, compare to Earth.
The Earth is big, and it’s easy to hide the unfair acquisition of resources by moving it to the other side of the world. People who drink Nestle bottled water don’t see the rivers overexhausted and villages dying out along the dried riverbeds. On Earth, it’s easy to take the resource that belongs to everybody and to claim ownership. It’s easy for the concept of ownership to self-perpetuate.
But the ship is small, compared to Earth. And it’s already forced to operate under 99.5% recycling rate. Accumulating things and keeping them without using them directly affects the well-being of entire crew. It is also much more noticeable. It’s much easier to track resources and their use, and to redistribute them to benefit the well-being of all. Gradually, the concept of ownership will become obsolete.
When the ship finally arrives on the new planet, there will be generations of people raised in the paradigm of quality of life and caring for each other and their surroundings. It gives them a decent chance to start with a culture that is not based on exploitation, and to preserve their new home instead of destroying it.
And here we arrive at the most unexpected projection. In order for the generation ship to function, it needs communism.
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