31. We have changed as a species, governance should follow suit – Corin Ism*

If you had the power to start society from scratch, meaning the world would be one large common, how would you organize it? What rules would you set? If any? Corin Ism has done that experiment. She has lived in a simulation of the planet Mars and developed design principles for space societies. Corin Ism is a power innovator. As the co-founder of Foga, the Future of Governance Agency, she is on the forefront of all that has to do with shaping governance to better suit our connected world. ”We are different now, not because the internet exists outside of us but because it is a part of us. I am someone else when I have access to Wikipedia than I would be without it”, she says. ”This changes our capacity for empathy. The fact that we can feel close to somebody on the other side of the world is a new feature of this species.” ”And that opens up another way to organize societies than that which means you get a lottery ticket when you are born. The passport you get will affect your life more than your gender or any other circumstance.” Many are familiar with cryptocurrencies’ use of blockchains. Fewer have considered blockchain jurisdictions like being a citizen of a bit-nation without physical territory. But this is one of the cutting-edge ideas about future forms of governance to which Ism dedicates most of her time. She eloquently makes it crystal clear that much of what we see as natural in our societal matrix, to the point that we seldom even think about it, is far from self-evident. Such as the financial system, the military or the nation state. Humanity and the world we inhabit are changing. Fast. We have every possibility to shift our mindset from scarcity to abundance. Ism talks about an awakening, but without the spiritual component (possibly it’s the same thing but seen from different angles): ”Nation states and the obsession with territory is contingent on us as very physical beings. But I would argue that we are getting less and less physical". ”We have changed as a species, but we haven't really woken up and celebrated that.” Here’s the website of the Future of Governance Agency. On Corin’s personal website you’ll get a panoply of her many achievements (she is, for instance, also an artist). * Corin was formerly known as Carin