The possibility remains that Human achievement necessitates belief. A convincing historical heuristic presents itself in evaluating the Humans’ past via their perennial search for meaning; emerging from the shell like the infant dinosaur, they blindly claw at the void in hope of spiritual satiety; whence war, faith, science, art. Whether the Human’s objects of belief are ancient, mythical, modern or rational, it is certain that attempts to predetermine the same will falter. Artificial constraints on belief or centralised promotion of belief systems normally fail; those that succeed rely on the rare utility and adaptability of their tenets and the assent of their devotees. A framework for the Humans’ future must allow belief within its dynamics, therefore, without being tempted by prescription. To do so, it is necessary to consider the minimal necessary coherence the Humans require for productive permanence. Further, careful thought must be given to the relative prevalence of belief symbols and political objects in the Humans’ world. Again, rather than the licensing of symbols or belief by some central authority, it is the rational evaluation of the functional utility of belief which is important: such an evaluation might then reveal the gaping deficiency in provision of these necessities to groups, and indeed their concentrated superabundance elsewhere.

For the well-sheltered Humans, whose existence is fundamentally unreal, the priorities and imperatives of existence are disconnected from their real concerns. Their distraction and confusion are their original cognitive sins, from which further echoing mistakes radiate. Human existence is therefore fundamentally dysfunctional, and ill-suited to providing for Human achievement or productive permanence. Its dysfunction also increases, as mistake upon mistake accumulate, with the reverberations of falsity and misdiagnosis self-replicating and reflexive, so that decisions and instincts are determined amid a cacophony of error.

Some Humans’ primary needs are catered for, but their endless toil and anxiety seems incidental to their lives; greater numbers of humans serve in abstract, imaginary occupations, their effort merged seamlessly with the encompassing superstructure of finance, entertainment, complaint, administration and arbitration whose complexity overwhelms. Real toil is undertaken by many, but few see a satisfying reward for the labour, and serve ghostly masters, making products for far-away customers. Meanwhile, the Humans’ entertainment is ever-more appropriately fine-tuned to their tastes, marketing ever-more accurate in its segmentation of their preferences, and their attention ever-more shamelessly leveraged by the benign-seeming platforms they use to record their lives. Upon these platforms, and throughout their other media, the Humans lie and lie, a dishonest crescendo, bands of rabid primates screaming. More, the instinct to cleave themselves and to establish and re-establish groups of reassurance burgeons and sharpens, centered around incidental characteristics, opinion or prejudice. Fed by the platforms which absorb ever-greater portions of their time and attention, their own economic alienation, and opportunistic manipulators of their emotion and direction, the Humans are distracted, and exist in newstime further and further from their brothers and sisters. Dichotomies rule: of opinion, wealth, between groups, within organisations. Political objects are unclear and ill-defined; because of the problems of distraction, the resolution of these dichotomies is elusive.

Perspectics, delineation and contexts

A catalyst for freedom of thought is recession; as we recede from political polarities, their contingency emerges; disagreement is clarified. Two rotating and coherent political objects remain. Recede further and the perimeter of contention is perfectly illuminated. With further distance still, the two independent points, viewed on a complex field of alternative contentions, seem close. Relative to the surrounding mass of unconnected political objects, the pair of entangled views have chiefly their similarities in common, for example the topic of their disagreement. At infinite political distance, their real nature is apparent and a coextensive single entity discovered. This is the opposite of a dialectical analysis; there is no hypothesis or antithesis spawning a synthesis. Instead, unity is arrived at with an analytical distance. The political object is real within a local context when analysed within a proximate space and time. When measured with sufficient allowance for the contingencies of time and space, its meaning dissolves, and is solidified only upon comparison with its partners. The use of political perspectics rarefies consideration of ‘issues’, encourages rational discourse, and galvanises contemporary discourse against future corrosive evaluation by the detached analysts of the Human Future. As we recede from an issue, unfettered critique geminates.

A serious evaluation of the Humans’ predicament will not ignore the relationship between human achievement and human misery. Tract upon tract of human territory exists in suboptimal condition; underdeveloped and rotten. Similarly, for each human individual living in at least relative comfort, there are perhaps two who do not. Capital has created shining beacons of achievement, but their very scarcity points to a fundamental dysfunction. Arguments about relative levels of regulation or taxation within the global free market belie a more concrete necessary discourse. The permanent leverage advanced national economies exert over the tenant economies of the poorer territories will not simply even out, too powerful is their current advantage; convergence is unlikely. Conversely, blame and agency must not be apportioned to the firms, individuals and governments of the richer countries. The complex economic relationships between the poor world and the rich are now intrinsic and inextricable. Poor relative economic conditions exist in pockets of the rich countries, and great wealth coheres in the capitals and boardrooms of the poor. As economic flows broaden and equilibria becomes rarer, categorising nations by relative wealth will lose meaning. Economic self-determination is desirable but any endogeny is sporadic and exception rather than rule. A tyranny of monopoly emerges, whether by state, region or corporation. Great resistance, fueled by resentment at material superiority, overspills into fear and intolerance. Internal or external inequalities are both damaging to social coherence and even inherent to unregulated capitalist economies. Piecemeal legislative attempts to ameliorate the excesses of prevailing disequilibria will fail, since capital suborns unenlightened political processes. Lastly, no serious rational alternatives to the prevalent accidental modes of economic relations have been systematically attempted – there is then no practical evidential base to justify the Humans’ economic system. Locally real, programmatic endogeny is therefore necessary as a precondition of productive permanence, in order to secure lasting capacity and avoid distracting conflict en route. ‘Programmatic’ means coordinated, democratic and phased; ‘endogeny’ refers to a chiefly internal and self-ordered economic dynamic. A priority is given to longer-term investment and the temporal consequences of economic activity. Societal aims and intentions are explicit; economic activity serves these aims. Resources and the benefits of local resources are chiefly locally held and invested, and capital flows are transparent. Since global interconnectedness is real, no islands of economic uncertainty can exist; there can be no leakage or waste. This shift is chiefly a psychological and political one; the human planet realm of human activity is no longer a broad space for exploitation and acquisition but rather a narrow venue and limited vehicle for achievement.

What is the speed of the expansion of Human consciousness? Appropriate milestone correlates are the development of language, art, technological achievements, political achievements, space exploration. If we consider humanity as the sum expression of Human achievement, and human achievement as the output of the human minds, with human minds a fundamentally solar construct, shaped by evolution, driven by the power of the sun within the human planet, then a radial model of human expansion emerges.

Sun -> Human mind -> space

Humanity can the become a local expression of solar consciousness, which currently is trapped on the Human planet, awaiting take-off. In other words, a local fragment of the universe has awaken and began to contemplate itself. Humanity will escape from its self-imposed tutelage, and conciousness will expand into the wider universe. This mind-wave will race outward. Two relative measures of the pace of the expansion are possible – one slow, one quick. By the first measure, Humanity has wallowed for centuries and countless iterations of its own neurology prior to its departure; at a universal level its expansion and growth is rapid, exponential and shocking. The wave carries forth the useful accoutrements of productive permanence. Its carrier – the Human individual – is borne with dignity, abundance, rationality and peace. Because its mission is intentional and urgent, petty disagreements are rare. Inefficacity is confronted; solutions are considerate. Leadership is dutiful and meaning valued.

Human achievement is sustained and projected forwards without limit, so that the Humanity wave echoes positively throughout the cosmos, a monument in stone to itself and to its mended home. If the Humanity wave encounters similar projects, it will bargain, negotiate and recognise in them their common consciousness, driven by the universe, which inspire their missions. Like interacting ripples on a pond, they will merge and self-replicate, as the universe fully begins to know itself: a network of consciousnesses emerges. If the journey instead is a lonely one, through a dark forest of silent civilisations or otherwise a bottomless, empty ocean of meaning, then humanity will journey on with contemplative wonder and surety, that its mission is a noble one: a wave of meaning echoing outwards forever, bearing each constituent particle of thought, the Human individual, ever further.