A Lunar Future
The Moon may be a Harsh Mistress, but if treated right she would be an excellent friend.
I went onto Facebook to post something to the Everyday Futurist group, and saw a post by the wonderful science writer & former NASA flight controller, Marianne J Dyson.
Here is an extended quote from her post:
"But I have serious doubts that having private individuals or companies “own” the Moon via having claims recognized in US or some international courts on a first-come first-served basis would avoid conflict any better than if nations outright claimed the land. I say this because, well, look at Hong Kong and Ukraine.
Should we withdraw from or revise the Outer Space Treaty? What other options for managing the extraction and distribution/sale of lunar and asteroid and eventual Martian resources are worth considering before we start down the path of proxy wars in space over the best ice and mineral deposits and orbital locations to meet the needs of our O’Neil cylinders and planet-based factory towns?"
I know an option. I’ve never heard anyone propose anything like it.
It fully complies with futurist Jim Dator’s observation about strategic foresight, namely that "Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous"
Ready? Here it is:
We set up a Lunar Commons. Nobody gets to own any part of the Moon, ever. EVER.
Ridiculous? Excellent. We are well on our way.
Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel-prize in Economics for her study of successful management of non-governmental, non-private Common Pool Resources. Among other things, she figured out the eight organizational design principles which govern how groups of people successfully manage Common Resource Pools (CRPs).
This isn’t capitalism. It isn’t socialism. In my opinion, it is how people have managed limited natural resources long before we invented “isms”. That it is still essential for managing limited resources around the world today is a testament to its utility and its grounding in fundamental human nature.
Here are the eight design principles Ostrom found which were always present in a stable local common pool resource management group:
Clearly defined the group boundaries (and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties) and the contents of the common pool resource;
The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and
In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.
Boiling down the eight rules, a successful Commons is a formalized continuous negotiation ( “argument”) that prevents any single stakeholder or subset of stakeholders from ever taking more resources than can be maintained & sustained. That argument is backed up by teeth (see rules 4-6). If you abuse the commons, the others using it will take decisive action to stop the abuse including removing access to the resource. Simple as that. There is no such thing as a “Tragedy of the Commons”. It is a lie to justify exclusively taking control of a common pool resource away from a community to give to those who want to own it. That is the true tragedy of the commons.
Make sense? The Moon Treaty & Outer Space Treaty appear to assert that the Moon and other celestial bodies are common resource pools for humanity. It clearly follows that governance of the Moon’s resources should be organized around the design pattern which Ostrom found for CPRs, right? Luna is and should be a Commons.
Let that sink in for a moment. No one owns the Moon. “No one ever should own the Moon” is the strongest moral statement we can make about use of the Moon’s resources for the good of all humanity. The Moon, and by extension other celestial bodies should be managed and maintained by a nested set of Ostrom’s Commons.
That still sounds like a bit of legerdemain and puffery. No matter what we do, someone is going to fight for control of the Moon’s resources and land. Too many big players who want to own or control the Moon, right? A Commons can’t defend against existing powers, much less the kind of resources that a country or company could bring to bear as we open up space resources, right?
We need something more to make a Commons work for something as big and resource packed as Luna. We need something founded in the idea of rights. Perhaps something which would draw on the newly forming Rights of Nature legal movement.
The Luna Commons also needs to be a Deodand.
Science Fiction author and university trained futurist Karl Schroeder revived the middle ages term “deodand” for giving a non-human thing standing under law as if they were a person. Thankfully Schroeder’s deodand doesn’t revive 14th century Catholic law. His deodands are social and technological constructs which enable natural resources to exercise judgement and will for their own self interest. Deodands would legally be a person under the law similar to how a corporation is considered a person.
Put another way, a modern Deodand is a legal mechanism for natural systems to protect themselves by asserting self-ownership and self-determination rights via a legally recognized proxy. In this case, that proxy would be the Lunar Commons members. Those members agree with the idea that the Moon is a “person” deserving of rights, including the right to “become” something more than it is now.
That completes the incentive loop. The Lunar Commons establishes that the Moon should have rights to use its own resources for its own benefit, rights to keep from being exploited, and that those rights include an obligation to balance it’s potential future with that of all of humanity. The great powers of the world get shoved back every time they step out of line within the Lunar Commons by progressively losing access and control over those resources until they relent. The whole world would have a stake in making the Lunar Commons an actual functioning common pool resource for everyone’s benefit.
Now it is time to ramp up Dator’s Ridiculousness factor, so that we get a much more useful and interesting future.
“For everyone’s benefit” includes the Moon and it’s assumed future desire to have agency. One key governing goal of a successful Lunar Commons is to recognize that the Moon’s potential is like Pinnochio’s potential. The Moon can become a self-determined agent shaping its own future. An embedded goal of the Lunar Commons deodand guidelines would be to gradually transition the Lunar Commons into a fully mature Schroeder-type Deodand.
The Lunar Commons would act as the agent for that future super-A.I. deodand. It would be the legal entity able to assert the “will” of the Moon to protect itself from being owned by any individuals, nations, or corporations. Without the rights of nature conferred by asserting that it is a deodand, anyone could claim the Moon and its resources for their own ends. As long as they could back it up by political, economic, & physical force, they would be right.
Thus as a deodand the Moon would only belong to itself. That would protect it from those who wish to own and control it because the vast majority of others don’t want anyone else to own it. So while it may own itself, the Moon would be amenable to renting & selling off bits of its natural resources for the preservation of its own autonomy. That would also help it fulfil its other purpose of helping all of humanity.
The Moon would be an autonomous A.I. which makes decisions with the same priorities and sensibilities of the original Lunar Commons organization. We obviously aren’t near that point in tech development yet, but our Lunar Commons stakeholders can emulate it by incorporating those principles into the organization. We already do something similar with corporations, stockholders, and boards of directors. Keeping humans in the loop on decision-making will likely be necessary no matter what automation capabilities develop.
A treaty isn’t going to protect the rights of a benevolent Moon who wants to share her resources with humanity to create a better future for both her and us. Look at how many treaties the United States violated with indigenous tribes. She needs the dual protections of being a Commons and a legally recognized Deodand.
A Lunar Commons would need to be set up by stakeholders recognizing the need to not only equitably manage the Moon's known & unknown resources, but do so with the intent of using any development they authorize to further the future interests of the Moon itself as an environment and as a sovereign entity.
This Lunar Commons arrangement would in essence be the governing body discussed in the Moon & Outer Space treaties. Anyone choosing to set up a Lunar Commons could use the existence of those treaties to assert its legality as a sovereign deodand entity which should be universally recognized under international law.
It need not be legal, any more than the Declaration of Independence was legal to the British in 1776. Its goal is to force a broader consideration of the matter and bring political pressure to bear by less powerful countries and organizations on more powerful ones. The establishment of a Lunar Commons would create a necessary conversation that nation-states are unaccustomed to having in any serious way. It would be a standing question that would be used as a cudgel any time a nation, company, or other power chose to take even a piece of those resources for their exclusive use. They would be guilty in the eyes of the world of stealing part of humanity’s future for themselves alone. No country could withstand that pressure for long.
The Lunar Commons need not be a reality to create reality.
The stakeholders in the Lunar Commons (LC), basically anyone with a demonstrable interest in its peaceful development or use as a scientific platform, would need to have a voice in preserving & managing the Moon's resources. These efforts could be managed via conventional means like contracts, rents, extraction fees and the like, as determined by the LC. That gives it a very healthy income source as Lunar development proceeds. Just how much is a 100 year lease on a dark side crater?
Since anyone agreeing to recognize the Lunar Commons organization would also be stakeholders & members of the LC, interested parties would never be cut off from negotiating an equitable arrangement with the other stakeholders. Those whose interest in the Moon as a common pool resource lay in the preservation of its natural state would also have an equal voice that could insist on preserving as much of its natural state as possible while also allowing careful use of its resources to assure its future preservation.
The LC would thus represent the inherent interests of the Moon as an independent entity separate from any country or organization, but one whose interests are entwined with the prosperity of humanity and its expansion into space. Done properly it would provide the Moon with independent international legal status akin to a nation.
The LC's sole goal would be protection of the rights of the Moon itself as an entity in and of itself. It would preserve its fundamental Right to a future, the Right to Become More.
The stated purpose of the Lunar Commons could be something like:
- establish & maintain protected undisturbed natural areas (aka "Beautiful Desolation")
- create new settlements which would promote the ongoing presence of biological life on the planet in order to maintain it's natural autonomy and control the extent of lunar development
- fulfil its self-accepted treaty obligation to benefit all states & all peoples of the international community equally via fostering the sciences, and carefully using its unique attributes and limited resources to advance development of the resources of the solar system at large for everyone on & off of Earth
Note that no government has to ratify any treaties to make a Lunar Commons happen. It just takes a few stakeholders to agree that this is the way it will be done when someone starts developing the Moon and then proclaim it to the world in a way that cannot be easily dismissed. The rest is politics trapped in global virtuous cycles of self-interest, and maybe some clever marketing.
If this sounds messy, it is. It is far less messy than letting nations and corporations fight over ownership of something that our earliest ancestors viewed with awe, and our descendants may build their futures upon.