I spend a lot of time thinking about the challenges of becoming an interplanetary civilization.  When people ask me why I do what I do, I tell them it’s not for money, it’s not for popularity, and it’s certainly not for a platform for politics.  I am interested in philosophy as Socrates exhibited it, specifically, the thinking it will take to move humanity off the Earth and become a multi-planetary species.  This past week, two things happened that reminded me of this task. The first was the Starship launch, which was very successful with SpaceX.  The second Dune movie did very well at the box office, showing continued interest, which I think is terrific because it gives people access to the old Frank Herbert books, which I think are masterpieces on a biblical scale, as opposed to just science fiction.  I have been thinking a lot about Frank and his books lately, the six he wrote, then the final two in the original series that his son continued to conclusion. 

If we want to be an interplanetary civilization, we must first solve some fundamental problems. One of those is the problem of power and why people crave it. One great example of exploring that problem is the novels by Frank Herbert in, Dune, the eight-book analysis introduced to the world through the latest movies, which are very good. But just the start of quite a journey.  More people would better understand our current circumstances if they read Frank Herbert’s books because he deals with a lot of serious stuff in that fantastic series.  Yes, as in the movies, they are dealing with the human race as they have colonized space, all over the universe space, not just a regional galaxy, 10,000 years in the future.  The politics are very similar to the concerns of the Old Testament, with bloodlines and kingdoms at the heart of the story.  Frank is very concerned with the nature of politics, so these Dune books are more about sociology and politics than they are about science or fiction. In the movies, the one from 1984 and now these recent ones, the lead character rises to greatness to become the new emperor, and that’s the end of the story.  That fits a typical narrative for a Hollywood movie.  But Dune is much more than these things, so these stories have been hard to make into movies.  The point in building up the lead story and characters is that the rest of the book rips them apart in a kind of libertarian study of the human race and how power corrupts, or does it?  One thing that Frank does that I am very interested in, that very few anybodies has ever touched, is how the spirit world influences the politics of humanity.  It’s an offering of the kind of Divine Council discussed in Psalms 82 and certainly reflects what Paul talked about in Ephesians.  Who rules us from beyond the grave, and how far down the rabbit hole does it go?  In those Dune books, Herbert even calls his work a prediction, not fiction, as he sets out to study ecology.  I think of our political life as just the surface reflections of much deeper forces at work, not all of them human as we think of the word.  And not just spiritual as we think of Casper the ghost or the Holy Spirit.  We must look at the spirit world as it strives to exist outside our known universe and expect that they are using self-interest to manipulate our lives to their advantage.  Frank Herbert deals with that level of political management, and it’s fantastic and can’t really be captured in the movies. 

As crazy as our political system is, I consider it a healthy necessity.  What America is going through is needed for global management of political systems that can then carry over into off-world colonies, which are coming at us much faster than people realize.  And we must solve some of these problems before we come to that impasse.  We must have a political system based on a healthy understanding of capitalism before we start moon colonies and cities on Mars.  Too much micromanagement of adventures into space will stop progress, and as Herbert assumes in his books, humanity reverts to the biblical necessity of royal bloodlines through the Vico Cycle.  I disagree with a lot about Herbert, especially regarding drug use.  But like the work of Graham Hancock that I have talked about in using ayahuasca to communicate with the spirit world, the spice in Dune is essentially the same kind of thing, and I think Herbert is on to something essential as far back as 1965.  Many of the Baal worshipers of Canaan also used psychedelics in their rituals, and in that context, it is likely the cause of the frequent turning away from God that is a majority of the narrative in the Bible.  Frank Herbert in Dune explores why this is the case and when drugs are used to speak to other spirit beings, who they are, and what they are motivated by.  And by coming to terms with that, you can then understand the kind of evil that is loose in the world now, and understand it with some perspective. 

Herbert goes so far as to place political motivations for spiritual influence in his many Dune books and migrates beyond universal influence, which is pretty impressive as a work of fiction.  I would put it on the level of Atlas Shrugged and other Ayn Rand works.  I don’t agree with everything she does either, but the thought process is beneficial.  Somewhere in these intellectual works are the answers we need to become an interplanetary species, so I don’t get too excited about transitory elections.  What we are all fighting against each other to achieve is the war of ideas that survive into the future, and I tend to think of these efforts in the most extensive picture possible. The trajectory of change will far exceed standard election cycles.  It’s why people win that matters, why certain people are attracted to power, and how power corrupts or is helpful to society.  And how a tyrant today might be a benefactor tomorrow.  Morality is often not so much determined by what we see but by what we are growing to understand and how that understanding is influential across over 22 dimensions.  And as we continue to build nations and colonies in space, what kind of political system should they have to accommodate with all considerations available, as we can know them, through science or fiction.  The Dune books have some magnificent things to say along those lines, and I think it is wonderful that the movies are doing well and that people are learning about the books for the first time.   One thing that space travel needs is a healthy appreciation of government systems that embrace capitalism.  Future religions must be joined at the hip; otherwise, their value will fall apart.  So, it’s not enough to build a Starship and start moving people into a new space economy.  We must work on the deep philosophical problems that have permeated the human race since the beginning.  And we have to solve them with something fresh, and America is the leader of that movement.  In the long run, it will make much more sense for people.

Rich Hoffman

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