Everything I learned about morality I learned from Star Trek. 🙂
Irreni’s prime directives, or first principles, are derived from Star Trek. The two prime directives in Irreni are “Life goes on” and “Everyone in”. Two secondary directives derived from the prime directives are “Everyone is important” and “Smallest MGO size of survivability.” These are directives, not rights, because rights don’t exist, directives do.
Star Trek poses interesting thought experiments. Here are just two:
- What if one could build a “ship” where some one-hundred people could live and thrive independently.
- Is the Prime Directive of non-interference correct?
Imagine if you will you are going embark on a spaceship to the Andromeda galaxy. Further this ship will need one-thousand years to reach its destination. Along the way the only resupply for the ship will be solar energy, solar gas, and asteroid minerals. For this thousand years then the contents of the ship that it launches with will need to be used and survive a thousand years.
The ship itself will need a design that can survive a thousand years without maintenance. Suggesting a society that has learned to build such things. Further all food, clothing, medicines and waste are reused as close to one-hundred percent as possible. A lab will need to exist that can change chemicals back into original shipped conditions, suggesting a society that knows how to do this.
For the most part the only inefficiency of this ship is consuming energy to live and propel the ship.
This thought experiment represents the Starship Enterprise. They used magic though, replicators, magic we don’t have.
MGOs, or micro-governing organizations, are a real version of the Starship Enterprise. However, without the replicators. Farming and manufacturing will need resupply. The objective remains the same though. An MGO is designed to be as efficient and self-sufficient as possible without resupply.
This MGO design is real power and approximates ultimate power in the form of total control: MGOs depend on nothing to survive. Total control implies no dependency on others. An individual cannot do this. However, a group of people can and the question becomes then what is the smallest number that can be as self-sufficient as possible without resupply.
Human survival depends on the smallest numbered society being self-sufficient without resupply.
The “Life goes on” prime directive means until the Universe ends, not Earth as modern religions preach. “Life goes on” means life needs to prevent the Universe from dying of heat death in trillions of years. “Life goes on” means we need to manage the collision with the Andromeda galaxy in billions of years. “Life goes on” means managing the Sun such that it doesn’t destroy the Earth in millions of years.”Life goes on” means managing climate change today.
“Life goes on” as a prime directive is in harmony with “Everyone in”. We are going to need trillions of people to manage the galaxy and eventually the universe.
“Everyone in” serves a few purposes as a prime directive. Today it is a directive to combat bigotry, jealousy, and cruelty that runs counter to “Life goes on”. People could drop nukes on destroy the entire human race over petty bigotry. “Everyone in” then is a wall of separation of humanities worst behaviors between “Life goes on” and self-destructive human nature.
“Everyone is important” supports “Everyone in”. “Everyone is important” maximizes and optimizes the investments put into survival. This is why the smallest group of people that can implement maximum survivability is the MGO size. This ensures we are maximizing resources.
But “Everyone is important” is far more than an efficiency purpose. It is also a meaning purpose. Today most people feel their lives have no meaning. Life meaning has become separated from immediate feedback. The only visceral feedback we get is a paycheck. This is sad. Really sad.
The MGO being the smallest size possible means everyone is important to the survival of that MGO. MGOs are focused on local government. MGOs will grow their own food, manufacture their goods, cook their food, eat their own food, wait I’m hungry. You get the idea. Where today everyone is a small part in a corporate machine of millions of people, in Irreni everyone is important for survival of a 30 person group.
Irreni then very much reflects the Star Trek thought experiment of a self-contained, survival group of people.
What about “non-interference” prime directive of Star Trek? Irreni’s “Life goes on” directive runs counter to Star Trek’s prime directive. If the Starship Enterprise were part of the Irreni network as a mesh node then it would do everything it can to help all life advance to go on. Because “Life goes on”. While it may be a romantic notion to not interfere with other cultures, it is a deadly and irresponsible one. If the Irreni, Starship Enterprise could help a primitive society catch up to the technology of Irreni society then that society would have all the tools and technology for their life to go on.
Irreni World Scale’s two prime directives then of “Life goes on” and “Everyone in” align with the concept of Star Trek’s self-sustaining starship. However, they are in opposition of Star Trek’s “non-interference” prime directive because all life as a responsibility to all other life to ensure all life goes on.