The foresight of an idealist often ends at a “good enough for now” point, for example they want to “save humanity” or “bring about world peace.” They don’t always look to the stars and wonder “how many suffer on distant planets?”, “what happens in a trillion years?”, or “what about the evolutionary fate of bacteria?” as if these problems are currently ignorable or beyond our jurisdiction.
Large considerations can drastically alter what we consider the most ethical action on a smaller, short-term scale. Melting our swords into farming tools may seem wise until we consider the band of pillagers over the hill. There’s danger in over-confidently predicting a certain outcome, but by ignoring the future we don’t get to weigh up the risks at all.
Outside wishful thinking religious or “law of attraction” type answers, a permanent and universal solution to domination will likely be an immense undertaking. Even if eliminated from existing lifeforms, whether via their extinction or enhancement, oppressive forces like suffering and greed arose spontaneously in the course of evolution, which itself arose spontaneously in the universe. If then we destroy or repair the universe, how can we prevent it reforming with the same problems? These aren’t yet questions we’re able to answer definitively, but we explore some theories in Metaphysics and Spirituality.
Our Master Plan
While seeking an answer to the question how to end domination once and for all, we’ll be guardians of the universe to limit domination and suffering as much as possible. This means recognizing we can’t simply run away by achieving nirvana, practicing pacifism, or ending life on Earth, and we also shouldn’t numb ourselves, but stay sensitive and empathetic to oppression until our job is done.
Exploring the universe or empowering ourselves with advanced science and technology before first ensuring we’re of excellent moral character and capability (Nobility) risks doing more harm than good and further complicating our problems. Human attempts to colonize Earth resulted in some of history’s worst atrocities and the aggressive, catastrophic growth of industrial civilization. Even “helping” wildlife is often beyond our jurisdiction, currently it takes the form of endless “culling” to “curb overpopulation” or holding animals on captive display to “save their species” (we explain what’s wrong with this approach in Animal Rights).
That isn’t to say there aren’t already highly empathetic and intelligent individuals capable of responsibly leading large efforts to explore the universe and help the vulnerable, but people are currently unable to choose good leaders. They’re not incapable, but they don’t even know their elected leaders on a personal level. Besides this, any power and knowledge we acquire is likely to fall into the wrong hands until the stable political condition is moral meritocracy. We offer a solution in the article Leadership, where we promote starting with community-level leadership and mobilization.
The first question isn’t “how can we better ourselves morally?” but “how can we shift the focus from selfish or materialistic goals to moral cultivation?”