Extraplanetary SORAnomics

One of the unique characteristics of SORAnomics is the ability to scale naturally through space and time. It means that its economic maxims for tiny human societies, such as a family, are the same ones for large societies, such as a big corporation or even the global human society. The maxims for humans on Earth are also the same for future humans in other planets and those in the past such as in the Roman Empire.

This is because its maxims are based on the study of human nature formalized as metaphysics (when viewed from the outside) or moral philosophy (when viewed from the inside). Metaphysics correctly believes that mind or soul is the cause of the universe or of reality and that physics is subordinate to metaphysics. To the metaphysician, consciousness is superior to matter, or to anything existing in time and space, and even time and space itself:

This maxim alone has the most significant implications on everything, whether in daily life, philosophy, or the sciences. In SORAnomics, it destroys the numerical limitations imposed by any model, such as that of the perfectly inelastic supply curve  and, more famously, the Malthusian growth model.

Malthus' model implies that the mind must be trapped by the box imposed by nature. An economist who is either a materialist or a pessimist will conclude that human populations must be limited by the finite-ness of space and conceivable time, as seen in the limited size of the planet and its life span. He will never consider that humans, unlike animals, have a mind which can conceive of unlimited possibilities to get over the limitations imposed on it by nature or reality. Historically, population pressures were solved by improved agricultural production and by sending humans overseas voluntarily or involuntarily, easily refuting the dire predictions of pessimist economists.

An economist who is either a metaphysician or an optimist will conclude that human populations are unlimited and have the whole universe to expand to. Any significant population pressure on the Earth can likewise be easily relieved by improved agricultural production, fairer distribution of food, less waste or destruction of scarce resources, more energy-efficient food, and by sending humans to other planets, such as Mars. All of these possibilities, however, are very much restrained or made difficult specifically because of the production motive and profit maximization doctrine of the materialistic and dismal science called Economics because it lacks moral philosophy, which in turn is caused by materialism or the tendency of the human mind to be enslaved by the utility of objects. This tendency seems most visible in primate minds or animals that have evolved hands useful for grabbing those objects.

The allure of objects tends to encourage the ego, leading to selfishness. This manifests as monopolies and rising costs, especially in basics like food and education which everyone needs. Ideally, moral philosophy is supposed to prevent this, but since universities continue to teach business and economics which focus on numbers instead of morality, the selfishness prevails and permeates subtly throughout the human species.

Mars is to us what the New World was to the Europeans

It would be naive to think that humans will just stop being selfish anytime soon. So a solution for future generations would be to establish a better society in Mars where there are still no selfish humans nor primates. Mars and other planets would literally be new worlds similar to what the Americas and Australia was to the Europeans.

That's why one of the future goals of our proposed social resource allocation system is to allocate resources towards the colonization of other planets. Unlike European colonization which was caused by the lust for gold, this extra-planetary colonization is caused by the desire to create a better future for our great great grandchildren and future animals (whatever would be remaining) so that they will not suffer from the current man-made disasters like global warming and war that affect us all.

Elon Musk is pioneering space exploration by developing better rockets just as Henry the Navigator made ocean exploration possible by developing the caravel, a better boat. Both had capital and vision.

In future posts, we will explore how SORAnomics can remove the obstacles unknowingly imposed by the dismal science of Economics and how the social resource allocation (SORA) systems proposed for Earth will work in the same way in Mars or whatever planet humans move to. A positive economist, whose cognition can expand beyond the planet, will easily see that there is actually a shortage of humans needed to colonize, explore, and populate the  universe, and thus, will never see his fellow-creatures as competitors for resources, nor fear general overpopulation.