Gene's Future

The "Gene" in the title is Gene Roddenberry. And "his" imagined future is depicted in the universe he created, the one we all know as "Star Trek." We all believe in something, and I believe in Gene's future.

That's right, I do believe we'll become smart enough, compassionate enough and advanced enough to create a future for ourselves as Utopian as the Star Trek universe now seems. This won't happen in my lifetime, and it'll get worse before it gets better. It won't happen suddenly but through a long and arduous process at the end of which we'll rediscover ourselves, remember who we really are; social creatures that have only come as far as we have because of our unique talent of organized cooperation.

Peter Kropotkin said that "competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of society." The gravest mistake we've ever made was to declare the reverse, that competition is the law of society, that we need to compete with each other, rather than cooperate, to get the best out of ourselves. The very idea is dumb if you ask me. In individual sports, yes, but even in team sports it's the cooperation between team members that decides which team wins. You can have a team with the greatest talents ever, but if they fail to cooperate effectively they'll lose against a well-oiled team of amateurs.

With Star Trek Roddenberry imagined a future in which almost all social and economical hierarchies are erased. A world without poverty in which crimes are reduced to instances of personal disagreements and crimes of passion. A society that replaced prisons with rehabilitation centers. A future where all children start on an equal footing with free advanced education, all able to become doctors, scientists, technicians, whatever they want to become. All who choose to work, which is most people, don't work for money or personal material gain, but for the betterment of humanity and, in extension, the betterment of themselves.

I choose to not believe in a higher power other than the power of our combined efforts. And we don't need a higher power than that. In that sense, I am a "Trekkie." I believe in the potential of organized cooperation between equal human beings. Not opposed to leaders, only to rulers. I believe in work, but despise jobs; our current implementation of work is toxic, as described in this quote from Bob Black:

"Work makes a mockery of freedom. The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are, have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing. And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace."

I too have to believe in something other than just that the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't know for sure if this future will ever become a reality, and if it will, I don't know if that'll be before or after we invent the warp drive. I hope it's before, because there's no greater horror to me than to imagine we'll one day export this broken culture of ours to the far reaches of space; "To boldly destroy where no man has destroyed before..."

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