Decades of ever-accelerating technological innovations have missed the single most instrumental component to our survival as a species: a focus on evolving our internal technologies. The issues we face as a society don’t need more gadgets or bandaid solutions; the issues we face need widely-adopted systems that promote humanity’s collective inner-evolution. Through advancements of heart-expansion, communal consideration, and an inner respect with no choice but to emanate outwards, human decision-making could pivot en-mass to uncover an ancient future where peace, equity, and regeneration flourish once again. Utilizing emergent technologies in the gaming, crypto, and DAO worlds, I’d like to propose a possible solution to humanity’s moral crisis: The Spiritual Incubator.
We suffer no shortage of computer tech: data-storing DNA, missions to Mars, damn, I even heard we’re planting brain chips in soldiers now. Yet amidst all the cutting-edges and headline-hypes, we continue to suffer from an excruciating lack of social and environmental justice.
A couple questions may immediately jump to mind, like: can we somehow safe-guard against rights infringements in the future? And are these technologies ecologically sustainable - or are we doomed to erode the only home we’ve ever known? And while these questions may seem pertinent, I have recently come to see them as missing the forest through the trees.
Hot take: the biggest issue of our time is not the climate crisis, nor the endless attack on human rights. The biggest issue of our time is that we are collectively accustomed to letting these catastrophes occur.
Which brings me to a more exciting question: what would it take for us to actually do better?
To me the answer feels both incredibly simple and at the same time, exhilaratingly ambitious: the answer is Love. We have to upgrade our inner technologies; that of our hearts and that of our minds. We have to train ourselves to Love broader, braver, better. And want to know some great news? We can actually do this.
The tomorrow that I see us building is one in which our global culture prioritizes “Love” at the forefront of its structures and systems. Love that looks like equitable resource distribution. Love that feels like upheld sentient rights, and tastes like the fresh air of environmental restoration and ecological regeneration.
To expand our hearts in Love is not always easy, however; if it was, we likely wouldn’t have a billion-odd relatives living below the poverty line. Don’t get me wrong: to Love is a fucking skill - but, lucky for us, it is a skill that can be developed by employing specific, systematized tools.
The way we move through the haunted houses in our own minds is mirrored in how we engage with the triggers of our outer circumstances. This relationship we have to our personal pain-points informs how we face head-on, or turn away from the pain in our external existence, too.
To me, social justice is not just about erasing the problems we already have - it’s also about how we sit with and hold the problems as they are. A gentle and tender quality of care inevitably births environments in which the severity of subsequent issues is experienced as less acute.
Let’s take a deeper look at what social justice is really about.
Social: relating to community, and to the collective.
Justice: peace, equity, and genuine respect.
In order for us to achieve true social justice, i.e. genuine respect for the collective, we must have genuine respect for the collective of states we find within; the good, the bad, and yes, also the ugliest, most shameful parts of our perceivable Self.
Not always a walk in the park, folks. And yet, this inner expanse proves to be one of the most rewarding and liberating landscapes to adventure through. In my own life, the science of how to afford myself compassion has been one I’ve found myself to study insatiably.
So how does a person genuinely respect this enigma of existence they finds themself to be? This question is intrinsically and inextricably linked with any inquiry into social justice.
Luckily, humanity’s methods of inner development are plentiful. From journaling and affirmation to dancing and masturbation; breathwork, manifestation, mushrooms, meditation… our species has no shortage of tools with which to upgrade the integrity of our spiritual capacities.
But these tools don’t come for free - they come with the very real costs of time and often immense amounts of energy. Being fully present with the psychological distress so often revealed through deeper shadow work is no child’s play. Many folks do not have the extra time or the energy required to practice these tools in consistent or focused ways. This blocks huge brackets of our population from reaching some of the most potent milestones in their internal journeys.
So how do we make these tools not just more accessible, but actually incentivized? Enter, emerging technology…
Crypto and blockchain technologies give us the tools to build new boats. But you can build a warship and an arc for Noah from the same steel. Arguably, our intentions with the technologies available matter even more than the infrastructures themselves.
That being said, thanks to the potentials provided by blockchain technology, we can now tangibly imagine the first ever gamified, play-to-earn Spiritual Incubator. This means we get to incentivize some of the most marginalized members of our communities to access inner evolution. A miracle. This Incubator will enable its participants to earn money as renumeration for their participation in the advancement of our collective consciousness. 🤩
Through the undertaking of personalized inner development routines (including but not limited to the methods listed above), individuals will experience the spaciousness, optimism, and courageous daring that is the result of transcendent experience. Through the palpable awe of being connected to something so much greater, it will become realized that their external personas, accomplishments, and material belongings do not define their worthiness, nor lack thereof. This is true freedom.
As individuals participate in the Incubator program, their progress will be tracked and measured by various other forms of emerging tech such as AI and EEG. As the participants’ inner evolutions progress, they will earn compensation in the same cryptocurrency as our very own Incubator DAO, and will eventually obtain membership into its democratic voting processes and broader think-tank environments.
Perhaps a percentage of all earnings will go towards remunerating Two-Spirit Indigenous wisdom-keepers for their development of a certain phase or level within the Incubator. Perhaps a pool will be redistributed to a collectively voted-upon environmental cause. It will be up to our ever-evolving community to decide.
As the technological singularity draws near, the Spiritual Incubator catalyzes a watershed synergy between the previously disparate factions of emerging computer tech and the ancient technologies of the heart. The cross-development of these disciplines is not only an overdue step towards the tangible realization of a livable future here on Earth, but it is also an imperative step towards a world without poverty, without war, and within which everyone belongs.
We get to become the leaders in our organizations, companies, and communities who have the courage to propose new, benevolent systemic approaches. We get to audaciously imagine sectors where the bottom line is not drawn by the hoarding of resources, but by the expansion of wellbeing. We get to be the ancestors who stop complaining about the warship they’ve been occupying and instead, build a new boat. So who’s in? Let’s get building.