When Ron Garan, astronaut, went to space, he came back transformed by what's known as the Overview Effect. Seeing the planet from a different perspective, he understood that we are all One. There is no them and us. We live on a fragile planet suspended in the void. From the perspective of outer space, the economy is not visible. It simply doesn't exist in the cosmic view.
He concluded: "We need to move from thinking economy→society→planet to planet→society→economy. That's when we're going to continue our evolutionary process."
The Current Imbalance
We have reached a place where the economy dictates everything. It has become the lens through which all decisions are made, the measure by which all value is assessed. We live in a time of reducing salaries but increasing costs. We're told to save water during drought conditions while data centres are being built in their thousands, consuming millions of gallons of water to train AI models and store our digital lives.
The rich are lining their own pockets while the average person on the street is struggling, going without, unable to pay for medical treatment or put food on the table. There is a huge imbalance, and it grows wider each day.
The economy—this invisible construct that astronauts cannot see from space—has become more real to us than the planet itself, more important than the wellbeing of our societies.
The Coming Collapse
The economy is primed to crash and burn. It's a house of cards built on unsustainable foundations. One day it will collapse, and when it does, society will have to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Perhaps then, in the ashes of the old system, we will build back differently. Perhaps then we will remember what Ron Garan saw from space: that the planet comes first, that society matters more than profit, that the economy should serve life, not the other way around.
The Truth Beneath the Lies
We're told so many untruths. Climate change may be real, but it has been harnessed as another money-making scheme. People who are genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of the planet are being sucked into systems that claim to help but ultimately serve the same economic masters. Carbon credits. Green washing. Sustainability theatre.
But real change requires changing fundamentals, not buying our way out of the problem with the same thinking that created it.
Do We Need So Much?
Less than 100 years ago, many people had very little. They had a roof over their head, food, basic furniture, but not a lot else. They lived simpler lives, closer to the rhythms of nature and community. They understood scarcity and abundance in ways we've forgotten.
Do we need so much? Do we need the endless consumption, the perpetual upgrades, the mountains of possessions that weigh us down? What if we questioned the very premise that more is better, that growth is always good, that the economy must expand forever on a finite planet?
A Different Way Forward
The Overview Effect offers us a gift: a glimpse of reality from a perspective that strips away our human constructs. From space, there are no borders, no economies, no stock markets. There is only a fragile blue sphere, teeming with life, floating in the darkness.
If we are to evolve as a species, we must learn to see from this perspective even while our feet remain on the ground. We must put the planet first, society second, and the economy last—in its proper place, as a tool to serve life, not a god to be served.
The current system will eventually fail because it is fundamentally misaligned with reality. The question is not whether we will rebuild, but whether we will have the wisdom to rebuild differently when the time comes.