On September 11, 2001, hyperterrorism made a violent debut on the world stage. Since around that time, the prefix hyper, borrowed from the Greek preposition meaning over and beyond, has found applicability in many unrelated manifestations of the modern age that have achieved a magnitude beyond historical standards. These include, in no particular order: the internet, technological innovation, [blockchains](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101175), [artificial intelligence](https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/629649/), [late-stage capitalism](https://books.google.com/books?id=16kjEAAAQBAJ), financial crises, [the ubiquity of concrete](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210628-concrete-the-material-that-defines-our-age), [modern education](https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1882999), [human pandemics](https://doi.org/10.1353/sym.2023.a914667), [climate change](https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.410), [the maritime domain](https://doi.org/10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.8.3-4.0207), fossil fuels, plastic pollution, and [nuclear proliferation](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26254794). That these are recent phenomena is no coincidence. Just like hyperterrorism "rides on the back of globalization, using the structures of contemporary life to attack modern society" (Dartnell, 2001), the modern Anthropocene enabled them. In their seminal book [Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt4cggm7) (2012), philosopher Timothy Morton characterized these multifaceted manifestations as *hyperobjects*. What characterizes hyperobjects? Following Morton's taxonomy, they are forces that exist at vast temporal and spatial scales beyond those of human perception; they transcend human lifespans and geographical reaches. They are also nonlocal and pervasive, happening everywhere at once. They exhibit stickiness; once you become aware of their existence, you start seeing their footprints everywhere. Yet, they also ebb and flow from our consciousness as their shadows collide confusingly with our daily lives, much like a [hypercube](https://youtu.be/UnURElCzGc0) does when passing through a lesser-dimensional plane. Importantly, the boundaries with their environment are blurred; it becomes unclear where hyperobjects begin and where they end. Causes still precede effects, but hyperobjects encompass both. Lastly, of import for later, they escape the oversight of our human governance. To be clear, there is nothing mystical or supernatural about hyperobjects, although their intangible vastness may evoke [[A tribute to H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian undertones]]. They are just emergent properties of life and reality at large- and complex-enough scales. Within Morton's framework, they are treated as objects in and of themselves. I like to think of them as phenomena that simply have more dimensions and magnitude than what we humans typically consider as "objects". It follows that our governance and tools are inadequate to comprehend, let alone mitigate, these issues. That is especially problematic when hyperobjects happen to pose an existential threat to mankind. This is also not to say that all hyperobjects are modern constructs. Some are characteristically ancient, like religion. Likewise, not all hyperobjects are anthropogenic. Morton argues that even black holes meet the definition of hyperobjects. The implication for humans is obviously not tangible, but it is nevertheless notable that poorly-understood cosmic singularities hold explanatory power over the fabric of reality. ## Implications for human governance What motivates my preoccupation with hyperobjects is challenge they pose to our tribal governance mechanisms. Let's briefly review what they are and how they came about. A few powerful narratives have driven the development of human societies, as pointed out by Yuval Harari among others. A prominent one is **religion**, a hyperobject that grew from our collective desire to give meaning to our lives and, perhaps more importantly, our deaths. Religion generally came with its own hierarchical governance including an invisible deity, its divine entourage (angels, disciples, prophets, etc.), and a self-appointed human clergy to oversee orthopraxy. Another tribal narrative has been that of the **nation-state**, which compels us to sing anthems, rally under a banner, and sacrifice ourselves in uniform, under a never-ending us-versus-them doctrine that conveniently foregoes our collective humanity. Like religions, nation-states come with their own governance, ranging from autocracies to open representative democracies, and backed by the business end of various weaponry. As a third example, **fiat currency** is a powerful motivator for society to organize itself into a complex web of producers and consumers, under the indirect governance of a central bank. Like religion and nationalism, fiat currency is nothing more than a shared narrative among its adopters, a common faith in the future value of an arbitrary device embodied by coins, notes, and increasingly, numbers on a screen. Since the Enlightenment in the 18th century, another narrative has emerged: that of the rightful pursuit of happiness, knowledge, liberty, and secularism. In 1945, at the depth of human despair, the renewed need for governance became too pressing to ignore, and thus spawned bodies such as the United Nations and the European Coal and Steel Community (later transformed into the European Economic Community, and, eventually, the European Union). These remain, to this day, remarkable attempts at injecting a degree of supranational governance into human affairs. I need to emphasize the greatness of these initiatives. No external force convinced humans to band together. No alien space force threatened nation-states into cooperation; only the wisdom of a few visionaries who sought to steer human History away from incessant warfare. Building those entities meant that hegemons had to concede some of their own dominance in return for an international rule of law. Global governance held the promise of something greater; that the human world could become more than the sum of its parts. The success of that model, of course, has been obvious over the second half of the 20th century. An unprecedented era of peace and shared prosperity ensued overall, localized hiccups notwithstanding. The world owes a lot to the establishment and enforcement of an international rule of law in which dialogue prevails. Yet, the global governance model is starting to fray at the seams, because it is suboptimal at addressing the hyperobjects of the 21st century. <div style="font-size: x-large; text-align:center;">❧</div> ## References - Dartnell, M. (2001). [Hyperterrorism: A New Form of Globalized Conflict](https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ctheory/article/download/14725/5596). C Theory, University of Victoria. - Hudson, L. (2021). [At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down](https://www.wired.com/story/timothy-morton-hyperobjects-all-the-way-down/). Wired.