The Shape of the World.

The story of man is a vast and complex thing.  It's the stories of countless individuals contained within the stories of several cultures, which in turn are contained in the stories of several lands, which in turn constitute the story of the species.  Every individual's story is subdivided into even smaller stories, and the stories of the species as a whole is just a small fraction of the story of biological life.  It is, to be sure, a self-similar object in the respect that zooming in to any one part will show you a segment that is similar to the whole- but at the same time it is a chaotic object in the respect that no two points are identical.  To add to this conundrum it is not even clear where one story ends and one begins - where does "his" story become "their" story become "our" story?  By no means is the story of man a straightforward thing, and by no means is any meaningful description of it going to be straightforward.

At some points in time we observe that man lives in a fully autonomous manner while in others we observe that man lives in highly organized societies.  Taking into account the continuity of the story in question, there must be a point between these two where society arose from a collection of individuals.  And since, as previous stated, this story is a self-similar one, there must be countless events dotted through history of societies rising from individuals- at all levels of scale- from simple individuals banding together to form a sports club to the merging of companies or the amalgamation of countries.

At all these points of amalgamation, a group realises that its co-ordination is overall more beneficial to them than their individual toils.  However the exact grounds on which this organization is to be formed is not so evident.  To many of those who realise the benefits of organizations but do not know how to achieve and maintain it a strategy of force and fear seems the only path, especially in cases where full co-operation is difficult to accomplish.

At several points through history, and even today, organization is established and preserved by means of a governing body wielding some economical or military force which then forces others into submission either by direct and violent confrontation or by methods of fear and coercion.  From schools which push children by threatening sanctions to workplaces which dangle the threat of termination over their employees to governments which threaten their citizens with incarceration this method of organization is evident in almost every facet of life throughout history.

Granted that in the past, when man was intelligent enough to the see the benefits of the ends, but not the proper implementation of the means, this approach was an unavoidable tactic which had to be employed for the greater good.

However, just as we moved from individual toils to organized societies so can our thinking mature from one pushed by fear to one pulled by aspiration.  Should a society be constructed appropriately- that is founded on sound laws which are derived from indisputable axioms using infallible logic- the several individuals which constitute the society need not be coerced. Rather they need be educated so as to garner the understanding of the laws themselves and so be driven to obedience not by fear but by the will to see the fulfilment of society's ends which in turn - if society has been correctly constructed- will fulfil their own ends.

That is not to say that there should be no response to the infringement of law, but rather that this response should be one that exists to educate the perpetrator and wherever and to whatever extent possible for the perpetrator to atone for his or her wrong doings by contributing over and above what is normally expected so as to compensate for the damage done.

Currently, the law is literally made up as we go along and sentences are not calculated but rather guessed by the self-entitled from their own little and subjective frame of reference.  What more, the "correctional" facilities serve uniquely as a behavioural deterrent and do nothing to contribute to the education of the impeached or the atonement of damage done.

What I am suggesting is no small feat, I am well aware of that, but as things currently stand the world is upside-down and it is required that we should turn it over.  Presently people are pushed by fear, but we must reach a state- or at least come as close to a state as possible- where people are pulled by aspiration.

I will not end on a closing note, for this is by no means the close.  We must begin a dialogue amongst ourselves regarding where democracy has failed and how we are to correct it.

On Poli-blehh-tics.

The following is not meant to offend anyone, but is a critique of the underlying concepts of multi-party politics.

Currently the air is rife with politics. It is rife with politics the same way a garden of flowers may be rife with the stench of a corpse, or a perfumery may be rife with the odor of garbage.

Let me first say, before actually inspecting the merit of politics, that it disgusts me on a personal level.  Having people come up to me and pretend to like me as well as pretend to be likable irks me.  To be a bit more exact, it irks the fuck out of me.  Underneath their smiles and friendly talk I know that not only could they not care any less about me, but that they themselves would make no effort to actually be enjoyable to talk to if it wasn't for their wanting me to like them.  How can I - how could anyone - put up with that?  It's like an emotionless sack of potatoes suddenly springing to life and showering me with compliments until I grant it my approval, at which point it slumps back down and resumes potatoing its way through life.  Anyway, on to the next point.

I would like, very much, for anyone who has read this far to read on and please enlighten me as to where I am incorrect in the following points.  For any political election concerning two or more parties there can be only one of four outcomes - regardless of who wins ;

 a) The winning party sticks to its electoral campaign and the promises held within.
 b) The winning party uses good ideas from both its own electoral campaign as well as its opponent's/opponents'.
c) The winning party forgets all about the electoral campaign and goes ahead doing whatever it likes.
d) Some combination of the above.

Now, realistically, option c occurs the most, but that is not due to the fault of the system but rather to the politicians being downright dishonest.  Let us imagine that all four options are equally likely to occur.

If option a occurs the governing authority has ruled out all ideas proposed by its opponents, which realistically must hold some merit.  Therefore if option a occurs the ruling authority willfully discredits some good ideas simply because they are not theirs.  This would make any voter's vote quite inefficient towards selecting what is best for the country, for s/he has elected somebody who will only accept their own ideas, regardless of how good or bad they are, and will disregard good ideas when presented to them.

If option b occurs then all the good ideas presented by either party would occur, which is terrific.  When we reflect upon the voter's choice however, it would seem that his/her vote was useless, regardless of  their preference the voters got the best of both worlds (which, don't get me wrong, is splendid...but the voter's vote was definitely useless)

If option c occurs, the voters would have voted for something false, rendering heir vote useless.

If option d occurs then there is no suitable balance of the other three options which would make the voter's vote valuable...and if there was it wouldn't matter for this is the most unpredictable of all four options, making the voter's vote a shot in the dark.

Conclusively any voter's vote may be inefficient, useless or a wild guess when it comes to making the best choice.  And of course, nobody votes for a choice they believe not to be the best.

So who should you vote for?  In all honesty, it won't make too much difference...what you should ask is, should you vote?  Now there are two resolutions to this question, either replying "Yes" and going off to cast a useless/inefficient/wild vote or answering "No" and showing the world that you are not going to be duped into playing a game where you can only lose.

There's a lot of negativity associated with saying "No, I will not vote," and quite frankly it really gets under my skin.  The world has already set up a political system where you are bound to be cheated, and as a final insult towards all good sense goes ahead and looks down on - or at least strongly discourages against - those who don't vote.  Like by choosing not to be fucked over you are doing something wrong and that it is every citizen's solemn duty to drop their pants, bend over and silently tolerate the sodomy with a grin on their face and a ballot in their hand. (Excuse the graphic depiction...but I really need to get this point across.)

What might actually be worse, however, is the attitude some people take trying to justify voting after accepting it's all a sham.  "Well we're in this system so we might as well make the best of it."  Pray tell, kind neighbor, should I defaecate upon a silver platter and offer it unto you, shalt thou do your utmost to grace it by means of condiments and herbs? Of course not, you'd toss it away, to hell with condiments and herbs. As much as my dressed-up language made any difference to the meaning of my sentence, so much so does "making the best of this system" make it any better.

So what do I propose as an alternative?  I am not an authority in sociology or politics, and my opinion stands to be ridiculed as much as any other opinion stands to be ridiculed, but I do believe my suggestion holds some good merits.  What I suggest to remedy the situations is to fully delocalise political power and let it fall into the hands of the relevant professions, then having decisions made by these professions in small-scale referendums.  For example, the authority over urban planning is removed from the Ministry of urban planning and handed to urban planners and when a decision needs to be made it goes to a referendum held exclusively for urban planners, by urban planners.  The motions which pass to referendum would be suggestions made by the relevant professionals to a committee (possibly but not necessarily also exclusive to that particular profession, or possibly even exclusively employed to such a job)  which have no decisive authority and simply review the motion to ascertain its feasibility and then pass it to referendum.  The referendums need not be held once for every motion, but every two months (for example) the motions which have yet to be decided are put together in one bi-monthly referendum.  The choosing-committee can then apply any necessary changes and/or enforce the new motions.

To give a much clearer local example, instead of having all this fuss about SDM or Pulse in the KSU, I see it as a much more intelligent move to have one choosing-committee which takes all suggested motions, puts the relevant ones up to referendum once every two months and then applies/enforces those motions which pass.

In such a system, the people making the decisions are well-informed in their choices (for in the current system, lawyers make laws for doctors, which is banal as they know nothing about medicine, for example) and there is low risk of attendance to referendums dropping due to too many being held (provided of course that there aren't new motions proposed very regularly)  since people would only vote in the referendums relevant to their profession.  I realise of course that there are also responsibilities which a government currently handles which are not covered in such a system - such as the organizing of events.  For these I would propose that they are further re-allocated to other people in the profession to handle.  This might be quite a messy process and I recognize that it is probably the greatest defect in my suggestion. (Although it is not unsolvable.)

Thus ends my rant.

 
N.B.) It should also be said that by voting one is encouraging the debauchery to continue.  Only by dropping the number of voters will people begin looking for an alternate system.