Digital self-determination/Creativity and the Social Contract

In this module, we want to unleash the power of art, literature and imagery to imagine the Urban Social Contract of the future. As a backdrop we want to take the current and future space exploration and the possibility of establishing human settlements in other planets to creatively think about the urban/digital challenges that we would face in a city built outside Earth. Learners will hear from an expert in architecture and urbanism to learn how we used to think about the future of cities and the cities of the future and how city surveillance and power of control has evolved over time. Learners will also hear from an ecological and space ethicist concerned about the moral and ethical frameworks of space exploration and multiplanetary terrestrial life.

Background
Towards a new shore

Many light years away in space

There I will wait for you

Where human feet have never trodden

Where human eyes have never gazed

I will build a world of abstract dreams

And I’ll wait

In the realm of tomorrow

We will take the helm

Of a new ship

As the crack of a whip

We will suddenly be on the road

And traveling at the speed of light

Towards a new shore

Sun Ra The UN predicts that by 2050, around 68% of the world's population will live in urban areas. At the same time, we are experiencing a rapid digital transformation where the adoption of digital technologies are transforming all aspects of our lives from education, labor, our relation to Government and the exercise of our fundamental rights. Privacy, digital inequality, data governance and the increased power of Tech Companies are some of the issues that arise as a result of the digital transformation. These two forces (digitization and urbanization) and the structural changes and challenges they represent converge in the City. Cities are diverse places, where social and economic problems are most palpable. Trust in City Institutions remain high and they are at times better equipped to deal with policy issues where National Politics fails. In other words, the City is where ‘the rubber meets the road’ in terms of policy given that “social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate level consistent with their most adequate resolution.”

Moreover, these transformations affect core elements of our urban social contract; a Citys’ duty to guarantee security to its citizens. Governments, cities, and the private sector have turned to digital, biometric and physical surveillance of its citizens in the name of national and metropolitan security. We believe that to face these challenges we must redraw our Urban Social Contract and critically rethink our relationship with our cities and digital technologies.

In this session we want to unleash the power of art, literature and imagery to imagine the Urban Social Contract of the future. As a backdrop we want to take the current and future space exploration and the possibility of establishing human settlements in other planets to creatively think about the urban/digital challenges that we would face in a city built outside Earth. We will hear from an expert in architecture and urbanism to learn how we used to think about the future of cities and the cities of the future and how city surveillance and power of control has evolved over time. We will then hear from an ecological and space ethicist concerned about the moral and ethical frameworks of space exploration and multiplanetary terrestrial life.

Learning Materials
Additional Recommended Materials
 * The Ethical Dark Side of the New Space Age by Andrea Owe (2020)
 * Governing in the Planetary Age, by Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman (2021)
 * The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin (1973)
 * The Edgelands Institute Glossary


 * "Space Traders" by Derrick Bell.  This short story by Harvard legal scholar Derrick Bell poses an interesting (and damning) question about self-determination, what it means, who has it, and brings us right back to Jenny Korn's question about what are our boundaries of "us".
 * "Space Traders" (33 minutes; YouTube)

Video Sparks
These videos are not meant to comprehensively cover the topics. Instead, these videos are meant to spark a conversation about the ideas contained within. They often contain questions or different lenses from which to explore the week's topic. Viewers should look to the videos for ideas and from there, explore possible on their own, relevant research, videos, government documents, reports, etc that can further enhance their understanding.

Activity
Learners took part in the “Red Skies Project”, a collective role-playing intellectual experiment focused on revising the social contract for an imaginary human settlement on Mars in 2046. In this activity, learners are encouraged to imagine what some of the issues and challenges around digital self-determination and the social contract might look like on a new human settlement in space.

The Red Skies Project guide can be found here in case you are interested in borrowing or adapting it for your own purposes.

In the original sprint, we did not have new artifacts to build for this week but we encourage you, especially if you have been going through each of the modules, at this point to start to think about what you might contribute to the discussion on Digital Self-Determination. This can be done in several ways. You could add artifacts to some of these modules or you could edit the Wikipedia entry on Digital Self-Determination that the Digital Asia Hub and Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society's Spring 2021 Research Sprint helped to create. You can also engage in conversation with other folks on the topics in general or by using the hashtag: #DigitalSelfDetermination.

Regardless of what you do, be sure to share on Twitter or other social media platforms using the following hashtag: #DigitalSelfDetermination

Speaker Bios
Juan Diego Ardila: Lecturer and expert in Computational Architecture and Digital Fabrication at Universidad Piloto de Colombia. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from Universidad de los Andes and a Masters of Advanced Architecture from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain). Juan Diego has academic and teaching experience as well as industry, construction and fabrication processes. His work focuses on digital fabrication processes applied to architecture, computer-aided design and parametric design architecture.

Andrea Owe: Research Associate at the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, Andrea holds an M.Phil in Development, Environment and Cultural Change from the University of Oslo, and a BA in Fine Arts. Her research focuses on the ethics of the socio-environmental crisis, global catastrophic and existential risks, human moral progress, the prospect of making terrestrial life multiplanetary, and how AI may benefit holistically in the world.