Abstract

AbstractOnce-confident cultures face growing strains. Fears over job loss, crime, wars, and religious extremism are feeding calls for enclosure. Politicians are reversing policies that have fostered free movement of ideas, people, and commerce. Yet those who call for walls in the name of protecting cultures and economies stand to lose ground as AI opens new fields for the emergence of individual sovereignty, free communities, and radical abundance. In virtual realms, billions of people each day directly interact with others of their choosing, enabling new cross-cultural contacts, friendships, and trade links to form and spread. The numbers of individualistic and confident “digital natives” will continue to swell as costs of internet access plunge. Meanwhile, in the physical realm, zones of “extra-statecraft” are spreading policy reforms that draw free individuals and their peaceful ventures to their realms. The advent of artificial intelligence is set to supercharge these trends, bringing unprecedented opportunities as state failures grow. To accelerate these trends, a coherent vision can give birth to a global civilization that transcends today’s self-enclosing political cultures. A new transcultural vision is one that honors the sovereignty of all individuals on the planet, and the peaceful paths they embark upon – including paths that cherish past and present generative cultures. This chapter maps how an inclusive transculturalism – rooted in respect for freely chosen personal destinies – can emerge and spread a network of havens for free trade. It draws on a social innovation that arose 3000 years ago. In the aftermath of protracted conflict, Phoenician merchants began leaving physical gifts across the Mediterranean to systematically plant seeds of transcultural trust. Starting with these trust-building gifts, they created a thriving trade network of free zones and free cities. In our time, “digital gifts on a beach” can reach individuals around the world and spark moves to a global depoliticized and transcultural awakening. Supporters of a coherent transcultural ethos can offer inspiring online learning resources about its values and provide paths for interested individuals and communities to use AI-enabled tools and civil society partnerships to rapidly improve their conditions. These new digital resources will make it possible for individuals to connect with kindred spirits, gain skills, enter online free markets, build “low-code and no code” resources for greater self-reliance, and launch a new generation of asset-awakening free economic zones and free cities. Such gifts can accelerate the grassroots understanding of transculturalism and lead to creation of new havens for those who wish to leave areas scarred by political hatreds and intercultural conflict. A global co-evolutionary civilization can arise by these actions in which individuals from all cultures are free by birthright to peacefully pursue their paths in both virtual and actual realms.