A though experiment in the impossible

Originally posted 15 February 2012

Background

In my work analysing and designing business solutions for clients I sometimes find that one useful line of questionining that gets people out of their “we could never do that” mode of thinking is to ask what the ideal solution would look like if you had no restrictions on money, time or political power. Usually this results in very different ideas that reveal what people are really looking for. It’s then up to me to work with delivery teams to see how close we can get to the ideal. Often we can find ways to get closer to the ideal than anyone thought possible – because we imagined without limit. In the same vein, I wonder what we could do to fix our world – its politics, poverty, violence and environmental destruction – if we had no limits. If we were a collective God Emperor of Earth.

The Problems

Before we can start defining the solution, however, we need to define the problem(s). What are the critical problems that have caused harm to the world over previous decades and/or are likely to cause harm into the foreseeable future?

• Excessive centralisation of power and wealth
• Damaging the planet we depend on
• Too many people living in extreme poverty
• Too many people are subject to gross injustices and other people’s wars.
• We keep ourselves on the verge of elimination and extinction through excessive and uncontrolled capabilities for war and destruction.
• The human race, and every other race around it, is dependent for its survival on this ever-more-threatened planet as a single-point of failure for its survival.
• Lack of a clear line for unethical behaviour the breaking for which anyone, no matter how powerful, must be brought swiftly and unambiguously to account (i.e.: Our allies can do no wrong, but we identify every misdeed of our opponents)

So:
Let us imagine that a small group of benevolent people found themselves with god-like powers and, through a series of unexplained events, in control of the whole of the planet Earth. To make this exploration in fantasy more useful, let us also imagine that we have no existing identity on Earth (with god-like powers we could be anyone or anything we wanted), so would not need to protect or benefit anyone else, and that we would stay in this role for only twenty years. After that we would leave this planetary system to explore the universe. This would mean that we need fear no one after my crown has been relinquished, and that we would have to institute changes which would remain well after we’ve gone. We would need to build solid institutions and must ensure that we do not create an extreme backlash for major changes we implement.
Give this (impossible) scenario, what should be done?
First of all, we should aim to achieve an ethical, stable prosperous environment that would last long after we’ve gone. To forcibly change things too much will create a pressure-cooker environment in which everything explodes as soon as we leave. Changes therefore need to be made with subtlety, and in a way that has support – or at least will after they’ve been in place for a while.

Incentives

I’d try to start softly – offering incentives to humanity to stop its self-destruction. I’d first demonstrate my power. That would be relatively simple – take a small crew to Mars in a journey that takes less than a minute, and let them transport back. This would prove that’d I’ve broken the speed of light so clearly have capabilities worthy of note. But before I give anything to humanity, my conditions:

• Implement an immediate halt to the clearing of any land for which no written record exists of it being cleared within the last five hundred years.
  This must be an international ban, with large “undeveloped” parts of poor countries purchased by wealthy countries, with the money put into trust funds dedicated to education and health in the receiving country. Extensive checks would be required to minimise the risk of significant quantities of the money being lost to corruption. 
• Require that all military sales be made public, and that they are monitored to verify the purposes to which the weapons are put.
• Set up a competition for solving some of the most pressing issues facing the world (and for which clear measures of success are available). For instance: An inexpensive (suitable for third world use) design to clean polluted water so that it’s safe for drinking, a testable plan to deepen popular understanding of the political process; a testable inexpensive and politically viable plan to dramatically improve rates of literacy and numeracy among the poor in third world countries. A prize for one million dollars for each should be enough prior to testing, and ten million dollars (or Euros) for social plans that can prove their efficacy through rigorous multiple-disciplinary testing.

Fix some immediate problems

• Eliminate all weapons able to wipe out all human life, including nuclear fission weapons (by making harmless all weapons-grade plutonium and similar materials) biological weapons (destroy stockpiles and samples) and anything else that may have a high likelihood of ending the human race and the life-on-Earth experiment. Of course, removing the “nuclear deterrent” would create a few geopolitical problems. Those would need to be addressed by some of my other initiatives.
• Ban, through an enforceable international treaty, the manufacture, sale or use of any weapons which are capable of continuing to kill or maim more than two years after being deployed. This would not mean that, for instance, land mines would be banned, but they’d have to decay to a non-operational state within two years of deployment.
• Remove the power of veto from all parties on the United Nations Security Council and other top-level United Nations bodies.
• Require that all top-level United Nations bodies contain active representatives of at least half of the population of the planet.
• Arrest and detain for trial everyone with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
  For a god, there is nowhere for even the most powerful to hide. We could easily just pick up the people on the list and teleport them to a prison cell.
  This would, of course, have to be combined with god-like powers protecting prosecutors and judges in the ICC, but that shouldn’t be too difficult when we’re the only ones with god-like powers.
• Remove 80% of the carbon molecules from Earth’s upper atmosphere (having god-like powers can be very useful). This is a short-term fix to a long-term problem, but the environmentally exposed people of the planet (i.e.: the poor) are already very definitely feeling short-term impacts from climate change.
  Standard risk management indicates that when faced with a major risk, even when the evidence isn’t yet conclusive, it would be negligent to not act to mitigate that risk. Our planet and health are too important to argue over the details until it’s too late. Best to act.
  Furthermore, on the topic of causes of this problem: If you heat up a gas it becomes more active. The atmosphere is one big gas system – so we get more extreme weather of all sorts. This is what we have.
• Immediately open all bank account information around the world to appropriate government and approved investigative agencies, with appropriate judicial safeguards. To eliminate secret hoarding of literally trillions of dollars in wealth and taxable income.
• Prohibit tax havens through an enforceable international treaty preventing “excessively low” tax levels on high-value transactions.

Solve some of the medium-term and longer-term problems

• Ensure that 95% of children in the world receive at least the basics of education. This would include a requirement for the teaching of literacy, numeracy, the basics of the scientific process, and evidence-based independent reasoning skills. We would also need to require that non-evidence based teaching and teaching methods take up no more than 30% of student’s face-to-face school time, and religious or doctrinal teaching no more than half of that 30%.
  This would not only give societies the tools to reduce a great deal of the unnecessary poverty in the world, it would also reduce the world’s population expansion (as the more educated a girl is the less children she will have – some evidence on this points to around one less child for every three years of education girls receive – possibly because of increased awareness of options, increased choice and increased use of contraceptives, and increased power in communications with men).
• Create an international military service that is required by law to intervene when gross human rights abuses are taking place. The international military service would report to, and be accountable to, the United Nations. The UN could tell it not to act in any individual case, but its default position would be to act. That way, if the UN can’t agree on something, they can continue to argue while the intervention is occurring. This is far closer to the way the police services operate within most countries – they have rules by which they must act and intervene. If someone authorised to provide guidance outside normal rules (i.e.: the courts) tells them to do differently, then that can happen, but until that happens the police are required to act to protect the public. An international military service would have the same objectives as a local police force, but would generally operate on a different level of intervention.
  Additional measures may be required to ensure this doesn’t just become another method for powerful vested interests to control those with less power. Those measures could best be copied from the constitutional and legal frameworks of most peaceful democracies (those that are peaceful both internally and externally).
  A problem occurs when very powerful and popular governments are the ones committing gross violations of human rights. Imagine the backlash from arresting the leaders of the USA or Russia to stop the key roles they’ve played in the rise of vicious dictatorships over the last century. China is rapidly moving into this position as well.
  Sometimes the least-bad option to let tyrants off without penalty – because the alternative would be worse.
  We’ll have to use god-like powers to figure out an acceptable solution to this one.
• Give a basic level of legal rights to every creature capable of feeling pain. They are to be kept free of pain caused by deliberate acts or neglect. The restrictions should apply to any who are capable of being active participants in a sapient society.

A few things to encourage international changes in behaviour

• Encourage reducing the number of human acts that countries prohibit.
  We should prohibit only that with which a single instance would cause major problems.
  Murder is an example of this. Recreational drug use is not.
  We should allow, but restrict and closely manage that which is undesirable but which causes major problems only when used on a mass basis or when uncontrolled.
  Therefore pollution, smoking (of almost anything), suicide, prostitution, possession of lethal weapons, should be allowed but controlled. Even capitalism could fit under this concept – if allowed to run rampant, capitalism can cause more harm than any amount of recreational drug use.
  … But require all countries to enforce a minimal set of human rights for everyone under all circumstances (when even the so-called “good guys” engage in torture, such a need becomes universal).
• Encourage (but don’t force) countries to implement genuinely progressive tax systems – in which rich people pay proportionally more tax than poor people.
  Rich people have benefited much more from the countries they live in than poor people. They certainly didn’t get to their wealth purely on their own – while living on a deserted island. People who’ve benefited from their society and have the means to contribute more (i.e.: they have more money) owe it to that society to help its maintenance and help it be improved further.
• Encourage progressive taxing of companies.
  In the same way it makes sense for people on high incomes to pay a higher proportion of taxes, it makes sense for high-income companies to pay a higher proportion of tax. Companies that make an enormous profit (as a percentage or as a gross figure) should pay a higher rate of company tax than companies that make only a small profit. There are too many instances of companies making an absolute killing (pun intended) and escaping returning any of that money to the society that let them make it (and which, in many cases, suffered as a result of their profit drive).
• Tax all large international funds transfers.
  Even just 1% to 2% would be enough per transfer.
  Money can currently move without restriction between countries, but people can’t. Money moving between countries without restriction has caused major problems for many countries (the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990’s is just one example). We don’t need to stop it, but we should discourage reckless movements of large amounts of money.
• Implement a tax on all military purchases – around 15% at point of sale (deductable (and traceable) if it’s then resold as a new item), and payable by all people, organisations and governments.
  The money raised from this could be used to fund humanitarian initiatives, education programmes, emergency food aid where needed, and the international military service. It would also facilitate the tracking of military expenditure.
• Require that military manufacturer’s take a degree of responsibility for gross violations of human rights perpetrated primarily using their weapons. Start with open statements that “Yes, we are making profit from violations of human rights”, then progress from there.

Some Technologies that will be needed

Two of the biggest physical problems the world is likely to face over the next hundred or so years are access to clean drinking water and environmental destruction – and the many problems those two issues cause.
To address these we’ll provide two technologies. In both cases we wouldn’t provide the technology itself. We’d instead release papers describing how to build these things, and make sure the papers were available to as wide a base of people as possible. The aim with this would be to enable diverse groups, rich and poor, to use the technology, and prevent monopolisation.

• Design a cheap, simple and effective water filter system that can turn sewerage and sea water into clean fresh drinking water.
  The design would be one that could be scaled down to a hand-held unit or scaled up to an industrial unit for a city.
• Design a safe, inexpensive and non-polluting power source. Something which, if it overloaded or was in powering an aircraft that crashes would not result in excessive deaths beyond the immediate area. Small-scale cold fusion, or some other distantly aspirational technology should do it. If a small fusion engine explodes it won’t destroy all life in the vicinity for a thousand years to come – it will only hurt those around when the accident happens. Not perfect, but an important improvement over nuclear fission.

Of course, any technology fix will only be temporary – new technology problems would arise shortly after. But the two technologies above have an immediate and screaming need.

Measures to ensure stability after control has gone

• Require all nations to commit to reduction of environmental destruction and carbon emissions.
  A binding international agreement would be set up to implement and manage this, including open monitoring, a structure which actively discourages evasion and encourages all parties to prevent others from opting out.
  One of the advantages of having god-like powers and staying around for a decade or two is that you can ensure these things become part of international norms and accepted practice. At present inertia and vested interests are preventing the implementation of a binding environmental agreement. My plan is to create the reverse situation – where vested interests and inertia would prevent the dismantling of a binding agreement which improves Earth’s environmental position.
•  Halt the destruction of all areas of high biodiversity.
  If those areas need to be purchased to achieve this then so be it. That’s what being a god is all about.
  Areas of high biodiversity (e.g.: Rainforests and coral reefs) form a large part of the lungs of our planet, their destruction includes the destruction of many living creatures capable of feeling pain, their destruction is usually only for short-term benefit, and it usually only benefits a few people. Keeping a large rainforest in place could benefit millions of people over thousands of years – not just because it operates as a filter of air, water and moisture, but because we can learn from it and because its destruction is irreversible.
• Create human colonies on other planets.
  Find (and/or make) a set of habitable worlds a few light years from Earth. Planets close enough to communicate with within a decade or two, but far enough away that nutcases on Earth couldn’t readily send some sort of annihilation weapons.
  Half of these colonies must be completely unknown to Earth, and too far away to stumble across for thousands of years. These could ensure the survival of Earth species humanity through any war or tragedy
  The aim would be not just to ensure the survival of the human species, but to ensure the survival of millions of other species that currently call Earth their only home.
• Require all nations to report on their measures to reduce “national misery”.
  The idea of reducing misery as a more effective way of improving the lives of a people than increasing happiness has been floated recently, and some quite robust arguments have been put to support it – mainly because misery, and its causes, has more of an impact than the lack of happiness. Reducing misery requires reduced poverty, improved universal health care, improved literacy, reduced violence and reduced environmental destruction. Happiness (to put it simplistically) just measures whether we think we’re better off than the people around us.
• Encourage (but not mandate) all nations to switch to a nominally compulsory parliamentary voting system, with a president as head of state with only nominal powers, elected with a system which includes published preference deals and run-off elections for the presidential position.
  Compulsory voting reduces problems of certain groups of people (e.g.: the poor and minority ethnic groups) not voting so increasingly having their interests destroyed. Nominally compulsory voting implies very small penalties for failing to vote. Parliamentary systems distribute decision-making power to a wider group than the single individual of a presidential system, and are also generally more inclusive than the winner-takes-all style of most presidential systems.
• Require that all countries set up the right to appeal to all legal findings unless doing so creates major and unacceptable risks to the nation, and every nation must publish the details of circumstances in which appeal is not possible.
• Encourage political systems that encourage, rather than prevent, new entrants.
  A system in which a single president is active in day-to-day politics and government becomes a winner-takes-all system. Better, then, to use a parliamentary democracy in which the ability to act is proportional to the level of popular support.
  We need to find ways to reduce the effect of money on political systems. We have returned to the bad old days of power overriding the interests of the wider society.
• Mandate protection of those who take risks to expose corruption and abuse … to the point of encouraging and actively protecting them.
• Mandate teaching “evidence-based reasoning skills” for all children (after basic literacy and numeracy has been achieved).
• Modify necesasry national constitutions to;
  – Enshrine basic human rights in every constitution
  – Facilitate third and fourth parties to enter the political mainstream
  – Concentrate the legal ability to resort to violence only to organisations closely monitored and controlled by independent parties ultimately controlled (through multiple layers of executive government) by the wider public.

These are just some thoughts speculating about something that will not happen, but it’s worth thinking about nevertheless. I often find that it’s good to identify the things that we could be aiming for if we had the will – because many of the things here could be done if there were sufficient political will. It’s a pity it’ll never happen. However, a list like this helps me to move from “something is very wrong” to having a much better idea of what we’re missing.
I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts on what we should do – What realistic and unrealistic changes should we make to the world that will result in lasting improvements for decades to come?

Chris Malcher
chrismalcher.com