Escape The Fate World Around Me

[Jacquelyne Betance]

EscapeThe Fate's 'World Around Me' delves into the emotional turmoil and existential questioning that many face in a chaotic world. The song opens with a sense of disillusionment, as the narrator feels weighed down by the negativity surrounding them. The phrase 'you're lost in the clouds' suggests a disconnect between the narrator and someone close to them, possibly a loved one or society at large. This disconnect is further emphasized by the line 'your world around me kills me softly,' indicating a slow, painful erosion of the narrator's spirit.

The recurring theme of seeking answers is evident in the chorus, where the narrator expresses a desire to understand 'the reasons why we live and die in a world of lies.' This line captures a universal quest for meaning in a world that often feels deceitful and destructive. The metaphor of being 'addicted to the way we crash and burn' highlights a cycle of self-destructive behavior, suggesting that both the narrator and those around them are trapped in a pattern of making the same mistakes repeatedly.

As the song progresses, the imagery becomes more vivid and intense. The narrator describes sinking to the bottom of the ocean, staring at space from the ocean floor. This powerful metaphor conveys a sense of being overwhelmed and isolated, yet still searching for a way out. The plea 'I just wanna make it through this life' is a raw, honest expression of the struggle to survive and find meaning amidst chaos. The song concludes with a hopeful note, as the narrator reaches out for connection and understanding, hoping to see the best in others and make it through life's challenges together.

But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom. Let me briefly speak to three such technological frontiers:

(2) Outer space. Because the vast reaches of outer space represent a limitless frontier, they also represent a limitless possibility for escape from world politics. But the final frontier still has a barrier to entry: Rocket technologies have seen only modest advances since the 1960s, so that outer space still remains almost impossibly far away. We must redouble the efforts to commercialize space, but we also must be realistic about the time horizons involved. The libertarian future of classic science fiction, la Heinlein, will not happen before the second half of the 21st century.

(3) Seasteading. Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans. To my mind, the questions about whether people will live there (answer: enough will) are secondary to the questions about whether seasteading technology is imminent. From my vantage point, the technology involved is more tentative than the Internet, but much more realistic than space travel. We may have reached the stage at which it is economically feasible, or where it soon will be feasible. It is a realistic risk, and for this reason I eagerly support this initiative.

A better metaphor is that we are in a deadly race between politics and technology. The future will be much better or much worse, but the question of the future remains very open indeed. We do not know exactly how close this race is, but I suspect that it may be very close, even down to the wire. Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.

I had hoped my essay on the limits of politics would provoke reactions, and I was not disappointed. But the most intense response has been aimed not at cyberspace, seasteading, or libertarian politics, but at a commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap.

Voting is not under siege in America, but many other rights are. In America, people are imprisoned for using even very mild drugs, tortured by our own government, and forced to bail out reckless financial companies.

Jason Sorens reviews several important historical developments, including the rise of free trade in the nineteenth century and the growth of the welfare state in the twentieth. He concludes that structural change matters, and that incentives play a larger role than ideology in determining the type of government we get. He then considers several of the key challenges of both Seasteading and the Free State Project, as well as a few encouraging developments in recent politics that appear tied to the rise of the Free State movement. He counsels patience, but also proposes several strategies for moving forward.

One does observe, that just when maximum collaboration by the people of the planet is necessary, and we have the technological means to connect as never before, political polarization is at its apex, multilateralism and internationalism are in crisis, and connectivity is being used to promote tribalism, consumption, conspiracies, and cultural wars, rather than to promote a unified humanity.

I feel however that human change is like love: we always think it is impossible, but it is inevitable. So, in parallel with the growing isolationism and nationalism and the retrenchment into selfish pursuits, there is also a widespread emergence of voices and actions for social justice, equity, democracy, and the protection of the planet.

My mind went back 20 years ago, to August 14, 2002. To the opening of the Conference "Peace in Peacetime", held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Convened by the Puerto Rican Senate and the Arias Foundation, at the wake of the turn of the millennium, it brought together leading individuals from all walks of life and from all over the world: actors, singers, scientists, politicians, military, writers, journalists, mystics, corporate leaders, and Nobel Peace Laureates, to address the theme: how to live in peace in times of relative global peace and envision new humanity in the millennium to come. In other words, to rethink the future of the world.

"I wanted to come here, at the age of 91, because like all of you, I live in anguish over the fate of the world." This was the opening line of the Conference's inaugural speech, given by Ernesto Sabato, the renowned Argentinean writer. It was the first and only time I met him. He traveled from Buenos Aires. As I was part of the organizing committee of the conference, I was assigned to take care of him during his brief stay.I remember going to his room, to accompany him down to the conference hall, and take him to the podium. There were about 800 people present. Sabato was very frail, and he was leaning on my arm, as we entered the room. People stood up and gave him a welcome ovation.

"What's wrong?" he whispered to me a bit startled, and I saw his years, and his depth. "They are recognizing you, Don Ernesto," I replied, "they know who you are, and they appreciate you." He looked at me silently and lowered his eyes as we continued to the stage.

His opening speech, given in a slow and emotive voice, invited everyone to a deep reflection of concern at the critical moment that the world was living at that time, while maintaining an underlying hope that things were going to be better.

Amid the fear, and depression that prevails, there are emerging imperceptible glimpses of another way of living, a living that seeks the recovery of a humanity that now is feeling itself faint. Despite the turbulent times we are crossing, there is hope that man, at the edge of a great leap, may embody the transcendental values, the values of the spirit and the desire to turn life into a human terroir.

A very moved audience gave Don Ernesto a standing ovation for about ten minutes. He looked exhausted and touched. I helped him get down from the stage, and he asked me to allow him to sit on one of the chairs immediately below. While sitting there, he was approached by one of the young women ushers, students at local public high schools, who had been selected as volunteers to help on that occasion.

Back now from that moment of beautiful memory to the present crises of the world, in this second decade of the third millennium. Some time ago, I read an article by Vimala Takar, a woman activist and spiritual teacher from India, who stressed, like Don Ernesto, the urgent need to deepen human consciousness. The need to go, beyond political-organizational processes, to achieve a true revolution that would lead to a new humanity.

She said that we could no longer escape, the fact that science and technology had confirmed, that we are all interconnected in a holistic way. That divisions, between people and nations, are the product of ignorance of this continuity and that fragmentation is the root cause of conflicts. A deconstruction of this fragmented perception is necessary if we are to achieve a true social transformation.

Our lives would be truly graceful the day that the misery of the other feels like the misery of all .... The force of love is the force of total revolution, it is a force not yet totally liberated, unknown and unexplored, that constitutes the dynamic for true change. Compassion does not follow from intellectual conviction, or from an emotional reaction, it is simply there when the unity of life is a fact that is lived.

To perceive the spiritual value of oneness is to promote true unity and cooperation. The new life must be based on this spirituality, it is not something that belongs to a utopia but is completely pragmatic.

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