Have you ever wondered why, in our own home, we are often treated like "guests" who have to ask for permission to use our own water or manage our own land? It feels like the ground was shifted beneath our feet long before we were born. That is because it was. Today, we are deconstructing Tool #3 of Babylon: The Doctrine of Discovery, the foundational myth that tried to render our ancestors—and our very souls—invisible.

In Research Report #224, we identify the Doctrine of Discovery as the "metaphysical root" of colonisation. It started in the 15th century with Papal Bulls that gave European monarchs a "divine right" to invade and subdue any lands not ruled by Christians. This doctrine created the legal fiction of Terra Nullius—the idea that the land was "void" or "nobody’s land." 

This wasn't just a land grab; it was an ontological erasure. It posited that Indigenous peoples didn't have the "reason" or "sovereignty" required to own anything. In Taitokerau, this tool still lives in the way the Crown asserts "Radical Title" over our whenua, assuming ultimate ownership by default while we are forced to "claim" our customary rights.

We often talk about "the system" as if it were a natural force, like the tide or the wind. We assume that the way our economy works—extracting wealth, rewarding greed, and leaving the hard-working whānau behind—is just "the way it is." But Babylon is not a force of nature; it is a man-made machine with a specific starting point and a clear set of beneficiaries. To deconstruct it, we first have to understand where it came from and how it managed to plug itself into the soil of Taitokerau.

In our strategic research, we define Babylon as a "high-entropy engine" built on two primary foundations: Newtonian physics and Chrematistic economics.

Where did it start? The intellectual "Source Code" of Babylon was written during the 17th-century Enlightenment in Europe. It began with the "Newtonian Error"— the belief that the universe is a giant clockwork mechanism made of separate, dead objects. This shifted our worldview from one of connection to one of separation.