How do we go about crafting a spacefaring civilization? Nick Nielsen has been exploring the issues involved in terms of the choices cultures make and their conception of their future. Change the society and you change the outcome, with huge ramifications for our potential growth off-planet and on. The history of so-cal
This is, I think, my longest blog post yet (at about 14,000 words), so particular thanks are due to Paul Gilster for being willing to put this up on Centauri Dreams, where I have already received a number of perceptive comments, which will help me to improve my formulations.
In this post I begin with a discussion of what I call “institutional futurism,” which is futurism as practised by institutions and think tanks, then I consider the thoughts of a couple of individual futurists (Peter Thiel and Laurence Smith), in order to place space development in the context some possible futures.
My own futurism is cast at civilizational scale, and I propose, based on my understanding of the institutional structure of civilization, six possible civilizations of the future, and how these civilizations might pursue space development.
After reviewing these six possible civilizations I move on to some general considerations of conflict and destabilization, and then I finish with the reflection that, at the bottom of the terrestrial gravity well, we are like crabs in a bucket, dragging each other down. This final section on planetary civilization represents the result of a slow evolution of my thought that I intend to take further. In the recent past I had a rather different understanding of planetary civilization, and I am now trying to think through a different way of conceptualizing the degree and kind of civilization that we have on Earth today.











