It all started in college. It was time to write my final course monograph, and like every student, I wanted to propose something original, relevant—and, above all, transformative. The first idea that occurred to me was simple yet audacious: if science fiction inspired Santos=Dumont to invent the airplane, why don't we use it to reinvent the administration of economies, especially public administration?
The proposal seemed to make sense to me. After all, Santos=Dumont read Jules Verne, dreamed of flying machines, and then built them. He didn't just get inspired—he made it a reality. So why not apply the same reasoning to public management? Why not look at the societies imagined in works like Star Trek, Foundation, or Nosso Lar* and extract more efficient, ethical, and human models from them?
*Important Note: Although Nosso Lar (Astral City: A Spiritual Journey 2010) is often cited alongside works of science fiction for its description of an organized and spiritualized society, it is essential to recognize that it is not a work of science fiction, but a text from the Spiritist doctrine, psychographed by Chico Xavier. It describes a spiritual plane that is part of the universe of Spiritist beliefs, and its approach reflects spiritual, not speculative or scientific, values and principles.
I presented the idea to the examination board. And what I received was... laughter. Everyone found the proposal ridiculous, except for one: Professor Mercier**. He not only listened attentively but encouraged me to keep thinking about it, even if it wasn't the accepted topic for the paper. It was a gesture I never forgot.
**Personal Note: UNIFIEO is my Alma Mater, and Dean Professor Antônio Pacheco Mercier was—and continues to be—my intellectual and human mentor. It was he who saw value in the Prospenomics proposal when many dismissed it. Osasco, the city that offered me the chance to study and prosper, and which houses UNIFIEO, is also the land of the first airplane flight in Latin America, performed by Dimitri Sensaud de Lavaud in 1910. Despite this historical feat, Osasco is frequently subjected to our 'mongrel complex' (síndrome de vira-latas), which makes us ignore or minimize our own achievements.
It is precisely against this mentality that Prospenomics stands—to show that transformative ideas can emerge from anywhere, even from where they are least expected.
In the end, I had to shelve the idea. The approved monograph was about the role of CACEX (Foreign Trade Department of Banco do Brasil) in Brazilian exports, based on my internship in the exchange department of Banco Noroeste. A technical, bureaucratic, soulless work. I did what was necessary to finish the course, but the flame of Prospenomics—as I later named my proposal—never went out inside me.
With the advent of blogs and digital platforms, I finally found a space to publish my ideas. I started writing about Prospenomics, about post-scarcity societies, about how science fiction can be used as a public policy laboratory. And little by little, I realized I was not alone. Others were also looking for alternatives, dreaming of new models, wanting more than just to survive within flawed systems.
This book is the result of that journey. An attempt to gather reflections, provocations, and concrete proposals for a new way of thinking about public administration—inspired not only by reason, but also by imagination.
Because, ultimately, every great transformation begins with an idea that seems ridiculous—until someone realizes it.
Astronomer, Astronaut, and Astrologer
Long before building cities, domesticating animals, or writing stories, the first hominids must have marveled at the starry sky. Imagine the impact of looking up, amidst the darkness of the African savanna, and seeing that mantle dotted with mysterious lights. The sky was a silent, constant spectacle, yet full of movement. It was humanity's first great blackboard—and the stars, its first teachers.
The observation of the stars was not merely contemplative. It offered clues about the world around them. Our ancestors noticed that certain celestial patterns preceded rains, storms, or intensely sunny days. Over time, they understood that the movement of the stars and the Sun indicated the arrival of summer or winter, the time to plant or harvest, to migrate or take shelter. The sky became a natural calendar, an orientation system, a cosmic compass. And thus, the study of the stars became a tool for evolution.
Over the centuries, this knowledge was refined. The first astronomers emerged, dedicating their lives to understanding celestial bodies with mathematical precision. They created maps of the sky, calculated orbits, and predicted eclipses. Astronomy became a fundamental science for navigation, agriculture, and the very understanding of our position in the universe.
But the sky was not always viewed with scientific eyes. During the Middle Ages, the stars came to be interpreted as magical symbols. The astrologer emerged, the one who saw poetry in the stars. He did not merely seek to understand the movement of the planets, but to translate their hidden meanings, relating them to human life, individual destinies, emotions, and spiritual cycles. Although astrology has been marginalized by modern science, one cannot deny that it preserved the fascination with the sky in times of intellectual darkness. Furthermore, it was precisely this metaphysical pursuit that would later give rise to chemistry, physics, and psychology.
Then came the 20th century. And with it, a new type of celestial character: the astronaut. If the astronomer observed the stars and the astrologer interpreted them, the astronaut went to them. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. In 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon. Humanity, for the first time, ceased merely looking at the sky—and began walking on it. The astronaut represents the courage to transform dream into action, to cross frontiers previously considered insurmountable.
These three characters—the astronomer, the astrologer, and the astronaut—are archetypes that inhabit our collective imagination. Each one represents an essential dimension of the human experience:
1-The astronomer, with his rational and scientific quest.
2-The astrologer, with his symbolic and poetic sensitivity.
3-The astronaut, with his audacious, transformative realization.
Santos=Dumont, for example, can be seen as an astronomer and an astronaut of aviation. He studied the principles of flight but also built the devices that made it possible. Inspired by Jules Verne, Dumont showed that science fiction can be the first step towards concrete innovation.
And this is precisely where the concept of Prospenomics comes in. If we want to build a society based on collective prosperity, abundance, and shared realization, perhaps we should look to these three characters as guides. Can the astronomer, the astrologer, and the astronaut help us achieve a prospenomic society?
The Three Characters That Inspire Science
If in the first chapter we saw how the archetypes of the astronomer, the astrologer, and the astronaut represent essential dimensions of the human experience—knowledge, poetry, and action—in this second chapter, we explore how these archetypes manifest in scientific practice and the advances of civilization.
Throughout history, great discoveries have not come solely from pure reason or blind experimentation. They arose when these three characters met within the same individual, revealing that human progress is often the result of an alchemy between dream, observation, and courage.
Kekulé and the Dream of the Ouroboros
The chemist Friedrich August Kekulé, for example, discovered the structure of the benzene molecule not through cold calculations, but through a symbolic dream. He saw a snake biting its own tail—the symbol of the Ouroboros, an ancient archetype of eternity and the infinite cycle. This image led him to conceive the cyclic structure of benzene, something that revolutionized organic chemistry.
Kekulé, at that moment, was both astrologer and astronomer: he interpreted a metaphysical symbol and translated it into a scientific structure. He saw poetry in the stars and, at the same time, applied logic and observation to transform that insight into concrete knowledge.
Mendeleev and the Taste of Matter
Another fascinating example is Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table. To classify chemical elements, he did not limit himself to external observations—he put substances in his mouth, tasted them, physically explored their properties. This gesture, unthinkable in modern laboratories today, reveals an astronaut's mindset: someone who throws themselves into direct experience, who touches, feels, and risks.
But Mendeleev was also an astronomer: by organizing the elements into patterns and predicting the existence of as-yet-undiscovered substances, he demonstrated a systemic, almost cosmic, view of matter. He did not just explore—he understood.
The Fusion of the Three in Science Fiction
These examples show that major advances do not come from a single approach, but from the interaction between the three characters. And it is precisely in science fiction that this fusion happens most clearly.
In works like Star Trek, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, or Stanisław Lem’s Solaris, we see scientists who dream, explore, and interpret. Science fiction allows the astrologer to imagine possible worlds, the astronaut to explore them, and the astronomer to understand them. It is the stage where poetry, science, and action meet.
Therefore, when science fiction is applied to reality, these three characters interact. They cease to be isolated archetypes and become complementary forces, capable of transforming societies, reinventing public policies, and inspiring new economic models—like the one we propose with Prospenomics.
The question that arises now is: How can we use this symbolic triad to build a truly prospenomic society?
The Public Administration We Haven't Invented Yet
If the previous chapters showed how the archetypes of the astronomer, the astrologer, and the astronaut inspired scientific and social advances, now it is time to look at the heart of our collective coexistence: public administration. And here, unfortunately, creativity seems to have lagged behind.
We live in a world where models of social management change very little over the centuries. Democracy, for example, is considered the best political system we have—and indeed, since Solon and Cleisthenes, it represents an advance over authoritarianism. But is it enough? Even being millennia-old, democracy still carries deep flaws, such as mass manipulation, clientelism, and low actual representation.
The same applies to accounting and banking systems. The double-entry bookkeeping method, created by Luca Pacioli in the 15th century, is still the basis of modern accounting. The banking system, which emerged in the 16th century, continues to operate with logics of scarcity, interest, and capital concentration. Why have we never used truly advanced ideas to reinvent these vital systems?
Today, liberalism generates wealth but not prosperity. It favors individual accumulation but ignores that the existence of poor nuclei makes the wealth of others inefficient and fragile. Conversely, communism and socialism, in their historical versions, fail by trying to distribute a wealth that has not even been generated—creating scarcity instead of abundance.
It is in this scenario that the concept of Prospenomics emerges: a proposal for a post-scarcity society, where prosperity is shared and progress is measured by collective achievements. Instead of competing for limited resources, everyone benefits harmoniously, with systems that encourage collaboration, innovation, and mutual well-being.
But for this, we need to think outside the box. We need to look at the models of society that have already been imagined—even if only in fiction.
