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?

Considero que Asgardia possui algo muito interessante que é a imensa diversidade de pessoas oriundas de todos os locais da Terra, com isso imprimir muitos valores e regramentos diversos seria um imenso erro; pois ao invés de nos unirmos estaríamos essencialmente formando grupos étnicos dentro de uma nova sociedade, e como temos visto na Terra, isso consequentemente irá provocar conflitos.

Logo, meu pensamento é que o foco de nossa constituição seja o Direito a Vida, ao Bem Estar, ao Respeito e Convívio, e funcionamento do Governo. Tendo isso estabelecido como normas rígidas, podemos consequentemente ingressar em outros objetivos menores, mas não menos importantes... tais como: casamento, propriedades, heranças (que ao meu ver seriam mais objetos do Direito Civil).

Outro ponto importante é a adotar um idioma nacional, como podem ver estou escrevendo em português que é meu idioma nativo, e não em inglês, e isso não é um protesto, mas sim que ainda não possuo conhecimento suficiente para escrever em inglês sem a ajuda de tradutores (que eventualmente falham na transmissão correta da informação), obviamente minha leitura do texto acima foi feita utilizando tradutores; e por isso sugiro que adotemos um idioma neutro, a priori a sugestão parece estranha, mas a longo prazo todos podemos nos beneficiar adequadamente disso, no caso o idioma é o Esperanto, que não possui nação e acredito ser bem mais fácil de aprender para qualquer pessoa, visto que sugerir um idioma já amplamente utilizado por uma nação, seria como sobrepor uma etnia a outra, e não é isso que desejamos... além do fato que seus nativos seriam priorizados na comunicação.

Mod Edit This is a translation of this post.Jewell Ledoux 12/31/2016, 12:13pm I consider that Asgardia has something very interesting that is the immense diversity of people from all places on Earth, with this print many values ​​and many regulations would be a huge mistake; because instead of uniting we would be essentially forming the ethnic groups within a new society, and as we have seen on Earth, this in turn will cause conflicts.

So my thought is that the focus of our Constitution is the right to life, the Welfare, the Respect and Coexistence, and functioning of the Government. With this established as strict rules, can therefore join other smaller goals, but not least ... such as: marriage, property, inheritance (which in my view would be objects of civil law).

Another important point is to adopt a national language, as you can see I am writing in Portuguese is my native language, not English, and this is not a protest, but still I do not have enough knowledge to write in English without the help translators (which eventually fail in the proper transmission of information), obviously my reading of the above was done using translators; and so I suggest that we adopt a neutral language, a priori suggestion seems strange, but long-term we can all properly benefit in that, if the language is Esperanto, which has no nation and I believe it is much easier to learn for any person, as to suggest a language widely used by a nation, it would be like superimpose an ethnic group to another, and that's not what we want ... besides the fact that their native would be prioritized in the communication

"I think that Asgardia has something very interesting that is the immense diversity of people from all parts of the Earth, so to print many different values ​​and regulations would be a huge mistake; Because instead of uniting we would be essentially forming ethnic groups within a new society, and as we have seen on Earth, this will consequently provoke conflicts.

Therefore, my thinking is that the focus of our constitution is the Right to Life, Well-Being, Respect and Conviviality, and the functioning of the Government. Having established this as rigid norms, we can consequently enter into other smaller but no less important goals ... such as: marriage, estates, inheritances (which in my view would be more objects of Civil Law).

Another important point is to adopt a national language, as you can see I'm writing in Portuguese that is my native language, not English, and this is not a protest, but rather that I do not yet have enough knowledge to write in English without the help Of translators (who eventually fail in the correct transmission of information), obviously my reading of the above text was done using translators; And therefore I suggest that we adopt a neutral language, a priori the suggestion seems strange, but in the long run we can all benefit adequately from this, in the case the language is Esperanto, which has no nation and I believe it is much easier to learn for any Person, since suggesting a language already widely used by one nation would be like overlapping one ethnicity with another, and that is not what we want ... besides the fact that its natives would be prioritized in communication."

I think your points are very fair. Having looked around the forum quite a bit, I've seen many people calling for both English and Esperanto be the languages of our founding and, thus, the official languages of Asgardia. That should certainly be a major focus of the constitution. There's even been some suggestion that Chinese be a third official language of Asgardia. What do you guys think about that?

I feel that--like Bluenose said--a lot of the suggestions for virtues and goals are simply that. Goals. Virtues. They aren't guiding philosophies. I think that one of the major guiding philosophies of our civilization should be * FREEDOM *. I think it's fair to say that all human beings and all Asgardians fight for freedom; whether that's the freedom of information, freedom of individual liberty and consciousness, freedom to think and believe what we want, or the freedom of scientific achievement and academia.

English. That Esperanto works would be where English is today!

[ES] Mi esprimis al mi en tiu forumo pri la oficiala lingvo, sekvu la ligilon (https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/general-discussion-14/topic/official-thread-languages-of-asgardia-thoughts-and-proposals-732/?page=1)

Memoru ke la ĉinoj estas la plimulto (131,496), se ĉiu elektas por sia denaska lingvo, havas la saman problemon kiel la UN, elspezis milionojn sur tradukistoj kaj tradukoj, estas tiu interesa?

Ne estas bona kaj neŭtrala lingvo, donita ke ni estas pli ol 230 landoj en unu loko. Se ni havas problemon pri la lingvo, kiu estos kiam imprimirmos niajn kutimojn kaj kredojn?

De neŭtrala punkto estas en mia opinio la plej grava afero ni devus fari por ke PACO estas efektive atingita, kaj tio postulas egalan ... se grupo havas minimumon de "privilegio", aliaj grupoj estos formita kaj unuo ne ekzistas, nur malgrandaj konfliktoj povas esti establita kaj do generi gravaj konfliktoj.

Jen mia penso!

[BR] Expressei-me no outro forum sobre o idioma oficial, segue o link (https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/general-discussion-14/topic/official-thread-languages-of-asgardia-thoughts-and-proposals-732/?page=1)

Vale lembrar que os chineses são maioria (131.496), se todos optarem por seus idiomas nativos, teremos o mesmo problema que a ONU, gastando milhões em tradutores e traduções, será isso interessante?

Não é melhor um idioma uno e neutro, tendo em vista que somos mais de 230 países em um só local. Se já temos problema quanto ao idioma, o que será quando imprimirmos nossos usos, costumes e crenças?

Partir de um ponto neutro é ao meu ver a coisa mais importante que devemos fazer para que a PAZ seja realmente atingida, e para isso é preciso igualdade... se um grupo tiver o mínimo de "privilégio", outros grupos irão se formar e unidade não existirá, logo pequenos conflitos podem se estabelecer e consequentemente gerar grandes conflitos.

Esse é meu pensamento!

[EN] I expressed myself in the other forum on the official language, follow the link(https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/general-discussion-14/topic/official-thread-languages-of-asgardia-thoughts-and-proposals-732/?page=1)

It is worth remembering that the Chinese are majority (131,496), if everyone chooses their native languages, we will have the same problem as the UN, spending millions on translators and translations, is this interesting?

It is not better a neutral language, given that we are more than 230 countries in one place. If we already have language problems, what will it be when we print our customs, customs and beliefs?

From a neutral point, in my opinion, it is the most important thing that we must do so that PEACE is really achieved, and for this we need equality ... if one group has a minimum of "privilege", other groups will form and Unity will not exist, so small conflicts can establish themselves and consequently generate great conflicts.

That's my thinking!

Esperanto as an official language scares me, as its George Soros' native language. There may be backlash.

I did not intent for this to become a discussion of language. While on official language is of course a crucial choice, it is but one of many. We must consider the balance between freedom and security. We must discuss the merits of different economic systems. We must decide between the search for truth and unity.

The decisions are endless and I intended to start a discussion on the merits of answering them first rather than choosing a constitutional draft and tinkering with it until most of us are happy.

Touching on language, it is not how many Chinese there are, it is how many people already can effectively communicate in one language.

In China there are many dialects, just as in India (where Hindi is the national language) there are hundreds, if not thousands, of spoken languages. The common language is English through most of India, though, is English (I could be wrong and will concede this point to avoid an argument here).

The point I would like to make is that our nation should be focused on the future and outside the box of translators. AI is rapidly moving forward. Who knows where technology will be in the next 5 years. There could very well be a universal translator that makes this whole thread a mute point. Let's think outside the box and look at the possibilities before us. Approaching Asgardia with the mindset, the temporary chains that bind our tongues disappear.

Touching on language, it is not how many Chinese there are, it is how many people already can effectively communicate in one language.

In China there are many dialects, just as in India (where Hindi is the national language) there are hundreds, if not thousands, of spoken languages. The common language is English through most of India, though, is English (I could be wrong and will concede this point to avoid an argument here).

The point I would like to make is that our nation should be focused on the future and outside the box of translators. AI is rapidly moving forward. Who knows where technology will be in the next 5 years. There could very well be a universal translator that makes this whole thread a mute point. Let's think outside the box and look at the possibilities before us. Approaching Asgardia with the mindset, the temporary chains that bind our tongues disappear.

My choice for a language ... Binary ... :)