Human civilization has two dimensions: external (bodily comforts) and internal (the flourishing of the human mind and spirit).

External development and internal development are not the same. Science, technology, markets, and artificial intelligence are powerful tools for external development. Only human beings can cultivate inner development.

Human beings have wisely applied the man-made means and tools of science, technology, markets, and artificial intelligence to achieve advances in material production, consumption, transportation, medicine, infrastructure, and education. These powerful means and tools have not autonomously achieved these advances in the external dimension.

The second aspect of civilization’s growth is internal to the human mind. It encompasses wisdom, character, conscience, compassion, meaningful relationships, responsibility, and the moral development of human beings. It also includes lives worth living, flourishing men and women, flourishing marriages, emotionally and socially bonded families, intergenerational families, neighborhoods, communities, nations, and the global community.

Every married couple is likely to have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, and many future generations. All these descendants will probably live on Earth someday. Therefore, every man and woman bears a moral responsibility to improve the world for their descendants, but never render it worse. This moral obligation is universal and applies to everyone in every generation.

Moral and wise people, including democratically elected representatives at the local, national, and global levels, and moral and wise constitutions, should guide the future of all human beings everywhere in every generation. Science, technology, markets, and artificial intelligence must remain means and tools in the hands of such moral, wise, and responsible people.

Free markets imply independence from human oversight, let alone guidance. If private capitalism operates without the moral and wise guidance of a democratic government, it will continue to exploit resources such as minerals, metals, and freshwater, depleting the commons—that is, Nature—thereby harming future generations. It will leave nothing for the children of today and tomorrow.

Human beings are the ultimate ends of all development.

Therefore, human beings bear ultimate responsibility for ensuring that external powers remain guided by human moral values and wisdom. Because the future is not something we simply inherit. It is something we continue to build, generation after generation.

Can humanity remain the conscious steward of its own future? Can increasingly moral and wise people, prepared through moral and wise education, learn to coexist and cooperate in enduring peace on Earth?

Democratic governments must first preserve Earth for all future generations of humanity, and then they may explore space for more Earth-like planets. Neither space exploration, artificial intelligence, nor science and technology, nor free-market private capitalists should be allowed to exploit the commons (Nature) for their own purposes.

These questions lie at the heart of A World Worth Building.