Global Citizenship. Telling New Stories

The key to making progress in areas like climate change, terrorism, etc. is human collaboration. Humanity never utilizes its collective resources because it’s deeply ingrained that we are all in competition and when one gains, another loses. We will never make significant positive process in solving global problems without global collaboration.

The nation-state story of borders, boundaries, and division

Humanity is facing complex, urgent global challenges that cannot be adequately addressed on a national level (climate change, health pandemics, cybersecurity threats, migration, financial crises, challenges presented by new technologies, etc.). It is obvious beyond doubt that the traditional political systems forged in the fires of the industrial age have not kept pace with the evolution of networks, human needs, and broader organization.

Science and technology have been making steady, ongoing progress forward, yet for close to a thousand years, the nation-state system that encourages borders, boundaries, and divisions between people continues to carry on unchanged and largely unchallenged. Not only are such divisions unsustainable in the age of global hyperconnectivity, but they also create arbitrary inequalities based purely on where a person happens to have been born and ‘normalize’ tensions between groups of people based on identity.

The global citizenship story of collaboration, connectivity, and interdependence

“While the world may be increasingly interconnected, human rights violations, inequality and poverty still threaten peace and sustainability.” UNESCO

Now more than ever, humanity needs a powerful new paradigm of ultimate connectedness and collaboration not competition. We require new solutions that recognize and promote the connectivity and interdependence between people, brought to life by new institutions on a global level. The survival of the human species depends on our ability to see ourselves as one planetary civilization and work towards a common goal. Our supreme commitment to collaboration, as opposed to competition, is the key to solving the massive global problems we now face.

Collaboration is our species’ superpower. It’s how humans continue to thrive in almost every habitat on Earth. It is no longer of value to continue dividing the world into “us versus them.” It is just us – human beings on this planet which is our shared home.

Despite the populist narratives and trending stories in the media, there is a growing number of people who put their global identity above their national, ethnic, or other identities. People around the world are increasingly awakening to the fact that we are and always have been citizens of the universe. This global citizenship transcends all political, national, ethnic, and religious boundaries. Our continued survival depends on our resolve to work towards common goals and see ourselves as one planetary civilization.

In its most basic form, on an individual level, global citizenship is “the idea that all people have civic responsibilities to the world as a whole, rather than just their local communities or countries.” They prioritize cosmopolitanism – the belief that all people are entitled to equal respect and consideration, no matter what their citizenship status or other affiliations happen to be – as a framework for construction of cultural identity and belonging. Global citizens participate in activities whose scope and target audience go beyond national boundaries and embrace global responsibility in different policy areas such as global warming, animal rights, and migration by acting freely and without state coercion.

We need new governance models for global collaboration. In order to foster an environment where individuals can freely exercise their rights and obligations as global citizens to the greatest effect, we need new governance models that enable individual identity and diverse and dynamic economies to reformulate the ways in which we share, receive, and contribute real value to our shared home – planet Earth.

At this current moment in the story of humanity, we have an important choice – we can risk continuing to turn inward and practicing self-protection, or we can intentionally choose to craft alternative paths and narratives.

The story of future global governance beyond borders

Today’s political landscape is characterized by strong polarization, a sense of unease, and a decline of trust in governments and governance systems.

• A median of 56% across 17 advanced economies surveyed in 2021 say their political system needs major changes or needs to be completely reformed. However, in eight of the 17 publics, roughly half or more of those polled say they have little or no confidence the system can be changed effectively. – Pew Research, 2021

• 41% of people say there is “not enough democracy” in their country and an average of 49% of people say that their government mainly serves the interest of a minority – even in democracies. – Democracy perception index, 2022

• More than half of the world’s citizens today think that their voice “rarely” or “never” matters in politics, and 64% of citizens living in democracies believe that their government does not act in their interests.

• 48% of the people living in democracies say that the influence of Big Tech companies threatens democracy in their country and more than three-in-four young Americans have little trust in Facebook or Twitter to do the right thing. – Harvard Public Opinion Project (HPOP), 2022

• Globally, young people are vastly underrepresented. Only 2.6% of parliamentarians are under the age of 30 and less than 1% are young women. Around 25% of the world’s single and lower houses of parliament have no MPs aged under 30 and 73% of the world’s upper houses of parliament have no MPs aged under 30. – Interparliamentary Union report on Youth Participation in National Parliaments, 2021

The next generation of governance must be oriented toward active participation, abundance, play, and problem solving-not force, coercion, scarcity, or violence. The evolution of technology powered by Web3 gives us a unique opportunity to reimagine the future of governance as conceived and developed through global collaboration.

New governance models hold great promise for enabling the full realization of our human potential when they are 1) collaborative, 2) borderless and human-to-human, 3) networked, 4) decentralized and enabled by technology, and 5) inclusive and participatory. When these governance models use technologies to incentivize individual participation, support collective deliberation, foster trust, and avoid cultural, national, economic, and gender biases, they hold great promise for enabling the full realization of our human potential. The future of governance is based upon citizen activism, consensus, and active participation concerning the way people believe their societies should be organized.

1) Collaboration is part of our history. It will also define our future.

Humans have rejected cooperation almost to the point if its extinction. However, responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change are giving us cause for optimism, showing us that humanity can unite in times of crisis. It’s time for us to think carefully and deeply about forging the new types of cooperation that we desperately need. This requires an honest assessment of what is required and what our technologies can help us achieve.

Right now, instead of challenging the status quo, prevalent data technologies exacerbate existing power structures. We need a far bolder approach. Rather than blindly believe that more data and digitalisation is going to save us, we should spearhead radically new forms of collective action: cross-sector and within-sector collaborations and coalitions to drive impact and systemic change at scale. It is critically important for multilateral coalitions of like-minded reformers to step forward and undertake sustained and concrete action to address the global challenges.

2) Social organization is global in nature and based on human-to-human interaction and information networks instead of territory.

The increased global connectivity of the past decades has created a new kind of space that goes beyond national territory. Human beings are increasingly connected across borders, resulting in the growth of communities defined by common interest regardless of national origin, making movement of individuals, capital, and information freer, faster, and more efficient.

This vitalizes our ability to reconsider the typical modes of social and political organization that have traditionally been based on territory. New systems of governance independent of specific territory are required, and now possible.

3) New networked, information-driven systems of organization enable action across greater distances and spheres of life.

Interdependence and sovereignty between people are powerful tools for aligning interests and creating overall functional social outcomes. Technological, economic, and environmental changes are pushing power upward to a globally integrated economy and outward to distributed peer-to-peer networks. The new generation of networks is characterized by relatively interdependent and equal participants sharing a common purpose who voluntarily negotiate their rules through bargaining and persuasion and then maintain and enforce those rules through mechanisms of trust.

4) New technologies are providing the liberty to transcend popular perceptions of borders and nations toward more evolved models of self-sovereignty and free association amongst interdependent groups.

Transparency driven by the information revolution grows trust, Web3 and advances in blockchain fosters direct peer-to-peer interaction supports the shift towards the decentralization of governance and finance, and the growing pool of AI-driven solutions and tools can help in many ways. But the focus of digitization needs to remain on people and their needs, not on data, algorithms, or machines. This makes digital ethics essential for human progress in this century, and for this we need a discussion about values and principles from the perspective of society as a whole. We need to build systems that protect human rights and freedoms and boost good governance practices.

5) The next generation of governance models will involve active engagement on a human-to-human level within well-designed incentive systems, with the optimal balance between enlightened self-interests and the interests of the group.

Models disempowering those contributing from having any agency or decision-making power leave the mass of available resources outside the public domain. Instead, highly participatory well-designed incentives for good governance and citizen engagement can create accountability at each level of interaction in entirely new ways. Governance systems need to harness resources, intelligence, and the local knowledge of the many instead of the few to be effective, and economically reward individuals for contributing and participating through problem-solving instead of being passively dependent upon centralized bureaucracies for the delivery of services.

For the first time in history, citizens can now reach consensus and coordinate at scale through technology-enabled peer-to-peer procedures, without the intermediation of a third party. In such distributed architecture, processes and codes agreed upon by humans are the ultimate governance mechanisms. The protocols are open-source and can be reviewed by anyone, and the networks are not owned or controlled by any one single entity.

As we enter the uncharted waters of the future, we need to transform the existing paradigms by developing new narratives about who we are, designing new institutions and arrangements that truly represent human interest, and testing new fresh and bold ideas with a view to raise the level of human consciousness.

In the increasingly borderless worldwe are all aligned in our desire to live joyful, meaningful, and prosperous lives, and the resources exist to make it happen. We’ve been told stories of division for far too long. Stories of borders and divisions, differences and conflict. It’s time to develop new stories and new narratives to create a future in which we can all prosper and thrive. We can only achieve it if we come together, in collaboration, as one united humanity.