Yesterday afternoon, Lena posted a message regarding the constitution that I find very concerning. Here is the link: https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/constitution-132/topic/preparation-of-asgardian-constitution-2236/ Alternatively, it's pinned at the top of the constitution section as "preparation of Asgardian Constitution. My concerns hinge around one statement. That "all the inputs [we create] will be looked at with a lot of attention by a professional experienced team of lawyers who will draft the Constitution as a complete formal document." This means that any work we have done or will do is going to be compiled into one document, then given to a currently anonymous team of lawyers to view or ignore as they choose while they create a constitution we will hopefully vote on. This is bad. This is very bad. Now I hope that this was merely a poorly worded post. I hope we will get to know who is drafting the constitution. I hope we get some assurance that our work will be taken seriously rather than given lip service. I hope we will still be able to influence their drafting. I hope there is some kind of vote still even. Most of all I hope that their work is made public in real time. If any of these hopes are true then please tell me. I don't like saying bad things about this project. However, we cannot sit idle if we see it headed down the wrong path. I welcome any to dissuade my concerns here. Prove me wrong. Convince me that I have misunderstood something. Show me that this really is the best way. Give me rational arguments and I will respond in kind. Please. I do not want to think that our ability to influence the foundation of Asgardia has been reduced to an advisory document.

Greetings Fellow Asgardians. The currency, money, finance questions are some of the most interesting to me in developing our nation. I think the reasons are quite obvious. 1.) Space sounds expensive 2.) Space sounds expensive 3.) Space sounds expensive That's my only serious qualm about this project. We are going to need SO MUCH MONEY to accomplish even a fraction of what we hope to. I've been thinking about it long and hard. I think I have come up with at least a partial solution to start cashflowwing fast, and hard. Subscription Based: Online Co-op banking. The idea is actually quite simple. First, you need to have a Fantastic Online Banking Platform. - I have one in mind. People have the option to open either a free account or a subscription account. where subscription accounts receive a higher interest rate up to 5% Free accounts still make an impressive 1% - similar to some of the other "internet only banks" out there There would also be tiers for the amount invested in the bank. $0-99. - + 0.05% $100-$999. - + 0.1% $1000-$9999. - + 0.5% $10k - $99k. - + 1.0% $100k - $999k. - + 1.5% $1M plus - + 2.0% For each tier you would make additional interest that is added to your account's base interest. (1-5%) Example. 500,000 asgardians on the $1/mo co-op rate. They would only need 1k in the bank to cover their subscription. Plus they would make more money in interest by having more money in the bank. = happy bankers 6M per year from JUST Subscriptions. I could go much more in depth, but i'all post a link to my google doc write up when it's don. The $$ numbers start to make this thing look possible.

This topic is mainly just out of curiosity and is not meant to be critical. I would like to ask on how this nation will all work when it is all finished? How will we get our goods from other nations? Will we simply not? Grow our own food? Will we have to launch a ship every time Asgardia awaits a shipment? I can't seem to imagine a nation without any sort of support from other nations. So, I would like to call all Asgardians to theorize on this forum on how all this will work out!

I just want to clear up from what I have seen in most posts, we are our own nation, if we are willing to indulge ourselves into this nation, we must be independent. The reason I say this is because I see a lot of people trying to include their own nation (i.e. Nations Language). I brought this up because we must ready ourselves and be flexible enough to take on our own. Branch off new ideas. For instance say that we could use a language that you are not fluent at. Be Creative, Asgardians!

Government is an aggregate of force that should be used only to protect rights. To explain in detail I will have to summarize my views on the role of a government, so I apologize for the text dump. Please understand, if I would for example say that a government should not provide schooling, I am not saying that we as a society should not provide schooling but that it is not the government's place to do so. Rather, it should be offered (perhaps still for free) privately instead of using public funds. To be direct, I believe in the natural rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, among others. These rights are born from natural functions, duties, of humans. The specifics of that are a subject on its own so for the rest of the post lets assume that these rights do in fact, exist. Taking that assumption, it is very important to understand fully their nature. Natural rights are all "Negative rights". This means we are not entitled to them, but protected from their removal. The right to own property does not mean man should be given property, but that he may own possessions that no other man may take away. Given this, Natural rights have a very special relationship with force. Force can be defined as an entity enforcing it's unwanted will upon another entity through violence, exceptional coercion, deception, or other means.The only permissible time for an individual to use force is in defense of his rights. This is because force by it's nature violates it's victim's liberty, and often other rights as well. On an individual level, this is easy to understand and accept. No one would argue that an individual can never be permitted to take another's life without just cause. Stealing is widely understood to be wrong, and thankfully most societies around the world now understand the evils of slavery. If we expand on this, it can be said that to protect the philosophy of rights, stealing must always be prevented. No matter how hungry a man may be, he should be prevented from taking the food of another, even if it could be considered wrong for those with plenty to not assist him. However, to protect this hungry man's life, we must ensure he is provided opportunity to earn food. Without the right to work, the right to life is meaningless. Life requires food which requires work. Notice this does not entail providing a hungry man with a "job". The rich are not obligated to offer "jobs" to the hungry poor, they do so because it is in their own best interests. These "jobs" are merely a contract whereupon a person agrees to work a set amount for a set amount of pay over long periods of time. One can be assured that as long as mankind has unmet needs, work will be available in abundance, and the right to work merely assures that everyone receives the fruit of their labors. The way force should affect this principle is actually very minimal. Imagine a man who sustains himself by selling handmade carvings of wood. He works on his own, and for that he gains wooden carvings. If these carvings are worth money then he is successful. If these carvings are worthless then he is not. He may use force to protect his work from theft, but no one would say he can use force to make others buy his carvings. Yet, when the lens is widened to include an entire nation, most people will forget this basic rule of force. To understand this one needs to understand what government truly is. Government is the instrument with which a society projects it's collective force. A government necessitates power. Without power it is no longer a government but a grand, wasteful committee offering advice to it's people. As an aggregate of force, a government's first and only acceptable job is to protect the rights of the citizens it derives it's power from and serves. Notice this is no different from the acceptable function of force on an individual level. Both an individual and a state have the same restriction on force, that it may only be used to protect the natural rights of individuals. This is a simple thing to accept in a simple fashion, but the ramifications are widespread and easily misunderstood. A government must protect it's citizens that much is simple. It also has a responsibility to do this in the most cost effective fashion possible, usually through diplomacy. If diplomacy fails then a government inherits the responsibility of war. Thus, a government should handle foreign affairs and national defense. It also should handle internal defense. This means the defense of it's citizens' life, liberty, and property. All three are equally necessary for without property one cannot live and without liberty life has no meaning. Given this, a government has the infinitely complicated task of safeguarding it's citizen's lives and property without erasing their liberty as modern governments have, all while using the least amount of resources possible. This is the entire extent of a government's responsibility. If the list seems short that's because it is. Any tasks that go beyond this scope are no longer directed at protecting rights but at improving lives. It is not a government's place to improve lives. A government cannot donate because it does not work. A government takes from its' citizens using force to sustain itself. This is acceptable to protect rights and nothing more. A citizen can not take from a neighbor on his left to help a neighbor on his right and so neither can a committee of citizens, no matter how prestigious. A government embodies force and cannot take any action without using it. So a government must be confined to the proper role of force. This does not mean that we should not attempt to improve lives. With the current role of machines in our world there is no reason why anyone should want for food, shelter, clothes, hygiene, or even minor luxuries. We could easily distribute them throughout all of Asgardia, and most of the world as well if we pooled our collective abilities. However, to say the government can, should, or will do this for us is naive. The government cannot help the poor because the government is us. It is our force pooled together. All it can do is deprive us of our liberty and force us to donate in the fashion it chooses. A fashion historically corrupt, inefficient, and sometimes even harmful. At best we place the responsibility of helping our fellow man with a small group of politicians standing in a horrendous conflict of interest. We have the ability here to do what has never been done before. The wonderful gift of the internet enables us to work together in ways previously undreamed of. We can found a society on the principles of charity, knowledge, and integrity and work together to achieve them. We do not need a government to do this for us. Children need rules to do what is right. If we Asgardians must also be forced to help each other, than we admit that humanity is nothing but a race of children. If we are all children then how can we hope to find enough enlightened leaders for any government to stand the test of time without it becoming eventually twisted by abuse? We must grow up and act together as adults for the betterment of Asgardia and humanity. No government we can create should be responsible for making Asgardia a utopia for our descendants. We are responsible. Each and every one of us share that responsibility. If we give away that responsibility then we do not deserve what I hope Asgardia can become.

What is our constitution intended to uphold? By this I mean what values do we hold dearest? What standards shall we use to judge our constitution's effectiveness? Before we can create an effective constitution, we must have a clear idea of what we intend it to do. A society that first values national strength and security will have a very different ideal constitution from a society that values freedom and intellectual growth above all else. Unfortunately, any unified principles we currently have are those given out in Mr. Ashurbeyli's addresses, and these are general and vague compared to the standards required here. Peace, free information, and the protection of Earth are wonderful goals, but they are still goals. We must distill our collective understanding of Asgardia into defined principles. We must forge a unified philosophy to base our constitution off of. Without such a thing, anything we create will be fractured, incohesive, and fail. On this forum there are already many discussions regarding specifics of the constitution. There are existing drafts. There are many discussing what type of government we should have. Democracy, republic, technocracy, even dictatorships all have their merits and failings. However, if we do not come to a consensus on what is important, then how will we be able to weigh these systems against each other? We will not! We will only be able to argue our personal views on a case by case basis. If we do this, then our decisions might contradict each other. Instead of moving towards one goal, we will move towards many and rip ourselves apart. Now, of course there are many differing views and opinions here about a wide variety of subjects. We will all disagree about many things, and no foundational system could ever satisfy everyone. Yet we must do our best to compromise and select one. We must argue our philosophical differences out at the beginning. We must acknowledge our disagreements and put them aside for unity as best we can. Then, our future discussions will be about the best way to accomplish our goals rather then endlessly arguing the goals themselves all the way to the document's signing. This will not be a quick, nor easy process. In my view, it should take at least as long as all other constitutional work combined. But it is necessary. We cannot build an entire nation's foundation by arguing in different directions the entire time. I do not intend to have this discussion in this post. Instead, I would like to discuss the merits of this view here. Do we need to base a constitution on a unified foundation? Is the information we currently have enough to work with? How could we effectively begin, let alone finish this task?

I would like to start a discussion here regarding the dangers of state sponsored education and influence of youth. I will assume that to most readers the benefits of these things are already fairly apparent, so I am not going to spend extra time describing them. Note that I do not refute their merits. I am merely trying to show the other side of the coin and give a more complete picture. Please keep this in mind as you read. To begin, all developing children have 4 major influences as they grow. 1. Their parents and immediate family. 2. Their local community. 3. The culture they are immersed in. 4. The state. This discussion will chiefly involve the fourth. First, we must understand that anything we say, any plans we make, any suggestions we have will either be sponsored by the state or they will not. If they are not then they will be nothing but suggestions. We can only implement them if we do so privately, through personal expense. If they are sponsored by the state, then they will be universal. They will effect all children in Asgardia, or at least the vast majority. This is an incredibly important truth because anything that influences most children of a nation will directly influence that nations future. This could lead to very good or very bad things. Imagine if every child was given an incredibly intelligent personal tutor throughout all their childhood with infinite virtue, utter patience, and a complete commitment to truth. Such a generation would be filled with paragons of accomplishment. Alternatively, what would happen if every single child was taught to celebrate racism, prejudice, and violence? The ability to influence a nations youth is very similar to the ability of a dictator. Interestingly, a dictatorship actually has the greatest potential for good of any governing system because of it's incredible unity and efficiency. A great and *virtuous* dictator could create wonders for a nation, and has done so many times in history. But there is simple and practical reason to not want a dictatorship: risk. It is easy to destroy a great nation, but it is hard to fix a corrupt one. While a dictator has unparalleled potential for good, he also has equal potential for corruption, and corruption is much more harmful then good is helpful over the long run. But what does this have to do with children? Traditionally, children have been taught primarily by their parents and family, and secondarily by their community and culture. This is an incredibly diverse set of environments and creates a very diverse youth. However, when the state takes upon itself the role of educator, it has an incredibly large amount of influence on every child. This creates a unified environment and influences children evenly in mostly the same way. On a small scale it is not very different from cultural influence; yet, as the state influences children more and more, it creates subtle trends that will effect the entire nation in one way or another. Then, when these state influenced children grow up, they already are influenced by the state and naturally will tend to agree with it. They will become the next generation of educators and will reinforce the state's message to their children and community. Eventually this state interference will become cultural purely because every child was effected to at least some degree. If this message is good and children are taught to be more intelligent, more hardworking, more kind, then we can say that this was good. We improved society much beyond what it would have been without state influence. However, if children at some point begin learning propaganda, ignorance, or hate, then all is lost. Because it means that *every* child will be effected, and in a short amount of time it will be almost irreversible. It is surprisingly easy to create division and spread ignorance among people. It is surprisingly hard to enlighten the ignorant and unite the divided. This is why mass education and state sponsored influencing of children is dangerous. It can create harm or good in unparalleled amounts, but it will do so evenly, and once corrupted will be virtually impossible to fix. This does not mean that any individual idea is a bad one. It does not mean that any system will be corrupted or that any person in power will take advantage of their ability to influence a nations youth as Hitler did. It also does not mean that we wouldn't benefit from uniform mass education in wonderful ways. What it does mean is that we must always be aware of what could happen if a system is eventually corrupted. After all, the nuclear bomb has the potential to save us from asteroids, prevent world wars, and equalize military power enough to prevent conflict. Yet, we work to rid the world of them because if they are misused, there will be no recovery.