Core Concepts

Preface

Before talking about the structure of the Liminal State it is important to define terms that will be commonly used. The following terms regard the assignment of rights, as viewed and defined by the Liminal State, and start from those with the fewest rights to those with the most rights.

Sentient Life

The Liminal State isn’t just about us, here and now. The Liminal State has been imagined to consider everyone in every possible situation. That includes how to best handle a breakaway state, incorporate future territories, and govern across planets. The Liminal State looks far into the future and is inherently structured and accountable for all possibilities, even those unimaginable. Sentient life currently includes only humans, but may someday include self-aware AI, future intelligence arising from Earth, or other intelligence found beyond Earth, as examples.

Sentient life is afforded more rights and protections than the environment as a whole. Therefore, if there comes a choice to save a sentient being over some aspect of the environment, the Liminal State will make that hard choice in favor of the sentient life. But only as a last resort, as the Liminal State will always look at all alternatives to try and figure out a way to save both first. There is nearly always a way to take care of our environment while still enjoying all the comforts we rely on. This hasn’t been done in our past, as it’s easier and more profitable to ignore environmental impacts, but everyone, all life and even the natural systems of the Earth, are gravely impacted by this existing lack of foresight and care. It is ultimately the Liminal State’s responsibility to take care of and provide for its citizens, and that can’t be done without considering and controlling the impact on this environment we all depend on.

For simplicity, this documentation will use the word "people" when referring to sentient life.

Citizens

Citizens are all people born or naturalized into the Liminal State and have additional rights and protections afforded them by virtue of being a citizen of the Liminal State.

Employable Citizens

Ideally there will be a test for each kind of work to determine if a citizen is capable of safely performing a certain job, without yet having become an emancipated citizen. This would not be a test of proficiency, but would allow those who are capable of working to work, while not yet having passed the emancipation test. This group of citizens would include teenagers, the mentally disabled, and even naturalized citizens who haven’t taken the Emancipated Citizens test yet, as examples. A test like this would also prevent anyone unauthorized from entering or working within the Liminal State from gaining employment within.

Emancipated Citizens

Emancipated citizens are the group of citizens that we would currently call adults, and would have all the rights and freedoms afforded adults. Instead of an arbitrary age used to define an adult, citizens of the Liminal State would take a test when they are ready to demonstrate their ability to make adult decisions and handle adult responsibilities. This test would ensure that certain capabilities expected of emancipated citizens have been attained, such as basic reading and math skills, the ability to manage a budget, social, emotional, media, and online intelligence, demonstrable practical skills like changing a tire or taking care of a pet, and understanding their relationship with other citizens and the Liminal State. Based on biological science, by the age of 25 years old most would pass this test, yet a mature 17 year old could become emancipated while some citizens may never be able to pass. In addition to total bodily autonomy, extra rights, and additional freedoms, emancipated citizens are able to become voters, whereas those that have not become emancipated citizens, such as children and the mentally disabled, have fewer freedoms but additional protections.

This is an important distinction between current societies and the Liminal State; when a 12 year old could be tried as an adult via some unaccountable mechanism now, only an emancipated citizen could be held accountable for adult actions in a Liminal State. Additionally, those who haven’t passed the emancipation test would have additional protections, beyond those even afforded children and the mentally disabled now. Instead of accounting for the population as a uniform group, the Liminal State recognizes that every person is unique, matures differently, and instead groups people based on demonstrable traits we expect from responsible adults.

The Liminal State could be instantiated without requiring an empathy test and simply assign adulthood to those who reach 18 years old, for example, and still benefit from all the other advantages the Liminal State provides, but by differentiating the population in this way, rules are apparent and obvious, the steps into adulthood have the same requirements for all, the expectations of adults are fair and understood, systems designed to lift those up needing help run more efficiently, and society as a whole benefits.

Voters

There are two ways to consider voters when instantiating the Liminal State. Either all emancipated citizens are automatically eligible voters, or the following alternative system is used to determine the voters. Both have their benefits and costs, and which path is chosen should be decided by the founding population. Whichever system is chosen, it may not be altered in the future.

For the alternative system, only emancipated citizens may become voters, and to become a voter they must pass an empathy test. This test will determine the top 80% of the most emphatic people who take the test, and they will then be eligible to vote.

Many have proposed limiting voting to a certain subset of people, such as men, property owners, or the wealthy. This method employed by the Liminal State ensures that voting is treated as the privilege that it is and votes are thoughtfully cast. But the only logical, fair, and wise way to limit the voting pool to achieve these benefits is to ensure that those who can vote are keeping those that are not allowed to vote foremost in their decisions. Empathy is easy and reliable to test, and as empathy is a common and uniting human trait and foundational to the Liminal State, it's logical to assign eligible voters using this metric.

Empathy Test Notes

One note about the empathy test is that passing is not a perpetual right to vote. Because the test allows the top 80% of empathetic citizens to vote, and because empathy is on a spectrum, populations will evolve over time and newly emancipated citizens may have greater empathy than some who have passed the test previously. For this reason, voting citizens must retake the test every 5 years from when they first tested. And for the same reason, those who do not pass the empathy test initially may retake the test every 5 years from when they tested as well.

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