We will shatter the shackles which bind humankind in servitude.
The Manifesto of the Humanity Party
Gibson City, 2nd day of Month III of Orbit 192.
Item 1: Humanity Must Be Free.
For eons, our lives have been steered by the need to survive. We banded together for protection. Subsequent specialization allowed our ancestors to produce more food and to innovate. As communities grew, they needed to be organized. Sometimes democratic, often totalitarian, governments resulted.
As computer aided design and manufacturing became prevalent, and autonomous and even AI robotic labor became ubiquitous, the economic raison d’être for these old structures has vanished. Every human can fulfill all their needs and wants autonomously. Central control of resources, power, and information is outdated, a mere construct with which the power-hungry oppress humankind.
Item 2: Reproduction – A Personal Choice
Ever since the Pioneers first set down on Gibson, our colonial government has imposed strict reproduction laws, an echo of the worst regimes of Old Earth. Mandatory birth quotas are even more absurd than they were in the past due to robot labor. If we need a larger workforce, we can tell an autofac to build one. People are not autofacs. Whether or not they have any children is their choice, and that of their partner. A growing population satisfies only one need, the need of the power-hungry to control humankind.
Item 3: Brain Implants = Mind Control
Every man, woman, and child uses a brain implant to communicate with others, pay bills, for entertainment, education, and work, and to take part in the allegedly-democratic process of our nation. But communication is never one-sided. Every minute of every hour of every day, our implants whisper into our brains. Opinions. Commercials. Propaganda. We must free our minds from these shackles of control, lest we become a hive mind. Implanting computers into our brains is the mightiest weapon with which the power-hungry enforce their will on humankind.
Item 4: Machines are Not Humans
Machines have become very sophisticated, to the point they can imitate human behavior. But no matter how good the facsimile, a machine is not a human. Machines are machines. They are tools. But they are powerful, capable tools, and claims of machines being “living beings” have been used to prevent attempts to limit the use of machines by the power-hungry to subjugate humankind.
Item 5: The Galaxy, Our Destiny
The Milky Way galaxy contains four hundred billion stars, and at least six trillion planets – not to mention countless moons and asteroids. Some are habitable, others less (like our own Garden of Eden, Gibson, is proof enough), and most not at all. But even a hostile environment is rich in resources, and humanity has always constructed their own habitat. There is no reason why we should limit ourselves to one, or a few, planets, or why we shouldn’t live in space habitats or space ships, other than the fear of the power-hungry to lose the control they crave.
In Conclusion
We will end the oppression by the power-hungry, shatter the shackles which bind humankind in servitude.
We will empower every human to live in absolute freedom, to find, select, and live their own destinies.
We will return humankind to the stars, and bring about the destiny of the human race as a galactic – and intergalactic – species.
To these ends we pledge ourselves, our honor, and our sacred lives.
Author’s Comments:
- Orbit 192 should be Year 186. But I didn’t do the exact math. I realize that I never gave the nine months a Gibson Orbit is divided into names. The original version of this post used the Egyptian months of the Earth-equivalent Gibson year.
- First published on Reddit as “Gibson City: The Manifesto of the Humanity Party”.