No choice is neutral

I heard on radio yesterday that there are plans to put thousands of communication satellites into orbit in an attempt to make the internet accessible to everyone on earth. Amazon wants to launch 3,236 satellites into low earth orbit. SpaceX plans to launch up to 12,000 similar satellites and apparently Facebook is planning an internet satellite as well (source: www.theverge.com). No legal permissions, time-fames or other third-party involvements have yet been discussed (for this, read "made public").

I'm not one who has ever believed that conspiracy theories explain the state of the earth and its people. However, cooperation between humans to achieve certain large-scale goals is certainly necessary. The question, however, is: What keeps humans cooperating?

At first glance, it would seem that having a system that gives about 95% of humanity access to the internet is a 'good' thing and therefore should be pursued. The internet (which initially was a military research project), Facebook (which started out as a small network called FaceMash at Harvard University in which users could 'rate' the attractiveness of female student pictures - nice one Mark Zuckerberg!), Google (at first a straightforward web-based search engine but now an information gathering behemoth) all espoused very different values in their formative years.

I mention this because humans have a tendency to believe any myth that serves their purpose. Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind  continues to intrigue and provoke deep reflection. He suggests (if I'm interpreting him correctly) that Homo sapiens could only arrive at its present-day levels of achievement if very large numbers of humanity shared a belief in a value system that is developed for that purpose. He sees these value systems as based on myths and exist only inside the human brain. They have no biological or natural explanation.

Information is power, it is often stated, but it is only powerful if it can be recorded, classified and re-interpreted. If someone wants to influence the decisions of an employer, a local council, a government or even their local sporting club, he or she has to learn to speak in numbers. Google collects information, not about what kind of a person you are - kind, hard-working, arrogant, self-effacing - but about how many times you access a particular website, how many credit-card payments for a certain product you make, how often you buy petrol and converts these numbers into a "profile" of you in order to market more products targeted at you. Elections are driven today by specifically and microscopically targeted campaigns, all based on the collection, analysis and use of numbers.

"Experts do their best to translate ... ideas such as 'poverty', 'happiness' and 'honesty' into numbers (the 'poverty line', 'subjective well-being levels', 'credit rating')." (Sapiens, p148)

I cannot help but examine other myths that we adhere to in order to make our world function as it does in the present era. If I believe that there is a god who has influence over our world, would I not try to have some sway with Him/Her (mostly Him) in order to make my lot easier? Would I not join with others who have this belief (for which there is no objective proof) in order to reinforce this view of the universe (whatever that might be)? Is it actually true that 'capitalism' is better than 'socialism'? Who says so? Is there such a thing as a 'human right' and if so, where did this idea come from? Are we all 'born equal' and what does this mean? Patently, we are not equal. A white baby born in Cabrini Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, is not 'equal' to a black one born in Tenant Creek Hospital, Northern Territory, Australia, but some belief systems would have us think they are. Even if they were 'equal', they certainly aren't treated as if they are. The United States of America continues to function as the United States of America because its citizens believe in the concept of human rights. The citizens of America continue to believe in their 'united states' despite strong evidence to the contrary that those States are not united.

Harari examines one section of the American Declaration of Independence, as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I'd like to highlight one comment that Harari makes here. "... there are no such things as rights in biology. There are only organs, abilities and characteristics." (p123) This begs the question: from where did these "rights" come? Human beings chose to believe that rights actually exist and so a whole way of interacting was gradually built up. Of course, for a society of millions of people to enjoy a relatively stable existence, these beliefs must be widespread. The Roman Empire survived for four centuries on this idea. This is what Harari calls 'imagined order', a belief that enables us to "cooperate and forge a better society." (p124) And as a corollary, it is extremely difficult to make significant changes to this system on one's own. Only when a comparatively large population changes their belief system do human behaviours change: slavery was abolished in the US (but not world-wide); priests in the Catholic Church could no longer marry (but it was not always so); women achieved suffrage (or was it that men permitted it?); gay people could marry (instead of being sent to prison).

The Yarra River, Melbourne, Australia (my photo).
What value systems and 'imagined order' is evident here?

Many human activities could never happen without this imagined order, this widespread agreement about belief and values. Huge urban conurbations that house and give life to millions of humans could not exist otherwise. Imagine a game of Australian Rules or baseball without the widespread agreement about how these games should be played! It is certainly not biology at play here but a belief that one way of acting is better than another.

I wonder what the 'imagined order' might be with regard to indigenous populations, refugees, wildlife, national parks, climate change, various political systems, family, marriage, to name a very few?

Sapiens continues to give me food for thought, both palatable and unpalatable. I'm finding I am being challenged to re-examine many of my own beliefs and patterns of thinking.

I suspect that highly developed critical thinking skills more widely spread through our population will serve us better than making the internet universally accessible.