Request for negative feedback

[Zanthius]

I have written a blueprint for a progressive world democracy, and I would greatly appreciate any negative feedback.



https://www.archania.org/governance/

[wolfhnd]

The obvious question is who enforces the utopia? We have and are making tremendous progress and I recommend you read Seven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature if you don't want to take my word for it. We have gotten to this point largely because of free speech, free trade, free markets, and free association and while I'm not an anarcho capitalist I think you should read Ayn Rand. Basicly a bit of beatles wisdom is called for :-)

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out

Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright, alright

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright, alright, al...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know know it's gonna be alright
Alright, alright

Revolutionary ideas almost always kill the patient in the attempt to kill the disease. I'm not saying your ideas are bad but that the only way to have permanent progressive change is to change one person at a time in your own life.

[Serpent]

Somebody has done a great deal of quality work.
Good concept; good overview; good convictions.
However. if people were smart enough and sane enough to do that, they would have done it by now.
People do not want to be saved by the smartest or the sanest among therm.
If they did, they would have supported the UN, which was the best idea they ever wasted.

[BadgerJelly]

I have skimmed through the paper and it seems to be a list of problems with no realistic solution presented.

What is the gist of the blue print and how it could be implimented? I didn't see anything tangible - I did look quite quickly though.

[wolfhnd]

Somebody has done a great deal of quality work.
Good concept; good overview; good convictions.
However. if people were smart enough and sane enough to do that, they would have done it by now.
People do not want to be saved by the smartest or the sanest among therm.
If they did, they would have supported the UN, which was the best idea they ever wasted.

If people were smart enough and sane enough there would be no need for a UN.

The secret to the success of Western Civilization is that group identity has been parsed down to the individual. Top down structures such as the UN are dehumanizing in their own way. They exist because of the cumulative individual flaws that make it a practical necessity that government exist. One need only look at the fact that Saudi Arabia was elected to the UN women's rights commission to see that such a structure guarantees nothing in terms of human rights.

Ants do not need a boss because they are not complex enough to have significant behavioral flaws. They go about their business as perfect little machines. They are not jealous or rebellious nor complex enough to respond to top down management if it existed. If we were as smart and sane as ants we would not require the complexity required to have flaws.

But we are not ants and we are complex and flawed. In a sense our flaws can be thought of as personality. They can also be thought of as random number generators that keeps the program from executing endless loops.

We can have utopian dreams of perfect social order but there is no science or philosophy yet invented that can deal with complex chaotic systems in anything but crude simulation. While what sets us apart from ants is our ability to plan we have yet to come up with a system capable of dealing with the nearly infinite variability in environmental forces. Therefore our plans must first and foremost be malleable to account for the unknown unknowns. Rigid political structures are some of our least malleable creations.

We live balanced between chaos and order too much either way and we tumble into oblivion. The smartest among us will never be able to define where that balance point lies. Every generation of geniuses has to be challenged by the next generation. To be perfect is to change and change often mindful of the precarious balance that must be maintained. The maintenance of that balance is never the work of an individual or a small group of individuals but arises out of the collective wisdom of the social order.

[Zanthius]

The secret to the success of Western Civilization is that group identity has been parsed down to the individual. Top down structures such as the UN are dehumanizing in their own way.

Something like this?



I have actually written about this two places:

Here: https://www.archania.org/governance/#There_is_more_room_for_corruption_in_more_centralized_societies

And here: https://www.archania.org/governance/#Previous_attempts_at_global_governance

[zetreque]

I only made it through about half of this tonight but here are some of my comments.

Biometric identification can be used to ensure a unique identity of each vote

privacy concern?

The surface area per capita is something I have attempted to calculate myself and even built a fun excel model to simulate it. I may look into your calculation closer at another time.

I'm not seeing anything here that is addressing birth control rate vs death concepts.

I would have liked to see something about hydrogen electric hybrid vehicles in the biofuels section.

There is some excellent work going into this, however,
Until it got to the section about education there wasn't any solution material.
This piece would be greatly improved it if had a table of contents and organized more into sections of problems and proposed solutions.

I am a little bit skeptical about the standardized education system proposed. One size doesn't fit all when it comes to education.

[Zanthius]

The I'm not saying your ideas are bad but that the only way to have permanent progressive change is to change one person at a time in your own life.

There is a lot of truth in what you are saying, so I have actually also spent a lot of time on writing an article about learning motivated by intellectual curiosity:

https://www.archania.org/education/

But I don't necessarily agree completely with you. I think that just having conversations about these topics, can help to change the world. One of the problems with humanity, is that we are spending way too much time talking about trivial and unimportant things, such as gossip about celebrities. If we just used a bit more time and energy on talking about things that might actually be somewhat important for our species, that could make things a lot better.



Also, here is quote by Confucius:

[Zanthius]

I only made it through about half of this tonight but here are some of my comments.
I would have liked to see something about hydrogen electric hybrid vehicles in the biofuels section.

Sounds interesting. I will look more into that, and see if I can include something.

I am a little bit skeptical about the standardized education system proposed. One size doesn't fit all when it comes to education.

To educate the world is a massive operation, and unless we have a standardized system I fear it won't be economically feasible, and it probably would generate too much chaos, even if it was economically feasible to educate the world without a standardized system. Diversity is important, but it is also important that we are able to communicate with each other, and understand each other. I am particularly concerned about biases in national history curricula, and I have written about this on my page about cognitive biases.

When we are studying the past, it is very difficult to be completely objective. Even if we don't produce fake histories, we cannot necessarily include everything in a history curriculum. So we include some things, while we exclude other things. The problem is that nations tend to favor historical events that make themselves appear more prestigious, while they tend to exclude historical events that make themselves appear less prestigious. This can perpetuate conflicts, such as for example the conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.

https://www.archania.org/biases/

[Lomax]

Hi Zanthius,

I think your ideals are good and your concerns appropriate. However (and this is also in reply to Serpent) I would like to say a word about the UN, and I think what I have to say is relevant to your work. The UN was formed because the League of Nations had failed us by allowing invasions of Abyssinia, China, Czechoslovakia and others, and yet now the UN stalls on similar issues. Since its formation we have seen the Vietnam War, the gradual annexation of Palestine, and genocides in Rwanda, the Congo and many other places. The international government waited until very much of the damage had been done, before intervening in the Balkan war. It is good at telling people off; not so good at actually disciplining them. With this in mind I wonder how we would ensure that our third attempt at a world government would be any better? I do not think that removing Veto Power would fully solve the problem.

Regarding your use of the word "democracy", I also wonder how we overcome the problem that most people simply do not want a zero-tolerance policy toward totalitarianism. Part of the problem with the UN is that most of the world thinks it can just "go along to get along"; that Serbian fascism, or Ba'athism, or colonialist massacres in the Far East, are simply not its problem. I think this is a delusion - but until it is dispelled, how do we develop an international parliament which does not have it?

On another note: I don't know anything about blockchains. How do we protect against voter fraud without having some database which contains information on all of the votes?

[Serpent]

It's very easy to see what's wrong.
It's fairly easy to see what would be good.
It's the transition from disparate madness to co-operative functionality that's difficult. The League and the UN were attempts, by chastised combatants, at a peace that could last. That might have been the start of a transition to world governance.
The UN has done and is still doing valuable work in child welfare, public health, communication and data collection. What it cannot do effectively enough is conflict resolution. Though it's mitigated a number of situations that could have become a lot worse, it can't contend with superpowers. Superpowers do not want their conflicts resolved in any way but through their own victory.
This has always been true of people. You can't make them give up their superstitions and their lust for power.
The only way I can see to a global community is to break the superpowers down into components small enough to make 300 or so countries of roughly equal strength.
If none see could their way to domination, they might opt for negotiation.
And I can't imagine that happening without a massive economic and political collapse first.

[Lomax]

I don't say that the UN is completely useless. Only that it has failed at creating a lasting peace (and, for that matter, at creating a properly democratic world governance). It's not just that it can't contend with superpowers; it doesn't want to contend with those it can contend with. It dragged its feet toward the Balkan region, which contains no superpowers, and did little to nothing about Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and so on. It does nothing about Nigeria as we speak. It can blame its impotence in Syria on Russia; it cannot do the same for these other places.

[Zanthius]

It's very
This has always been true of people. You can't make them give up their superstitions and their lust for power.
The only way I can see to a global community is to break the superpowers down into components small enough to make 300 or so countries of roughly equal strength.
If none see could their way to domination, they might opt for negotiation.
And I can't imagine that happening without a massive economic and political collapse first.

Well, I don't know if it matters so much if the presidents/leaders of the superpowers are in disagreement with a "world government", if the majority of the population feels just as supportive of the leaders of the world government (which they might if they were involved in electing the world leaders). Donald Trump is for example very unpopular with large segments of the U.S. population. If we had a functional world government, I am not convinced that he would be able to prevent large segments of the U.S. population from listening more to the leaders of the world government than to him.

Since the world population is not directly involved in electing the people working for the United Nations, there is room for corruption between the national governments and the United Nations. In a system where the world population is directly involved in electing the people working for the world government, there will be much less room for corruption, and the world government will be much more in tune with the world population.

I think that the UN will never have the legitimacy of the world population, unless it is democratically elected by the world population. Democracy isn't necessarily a good idea because people are so smart. Democracy is a good idea because it legitimizes authority.

[TheVat]

A world government only seems workable where you have greater homogeneity and concomitant greater willingness to downplay regional/ethnic identity. Globalism may have healthful economic effects, but it hasn't been so great in regards to local cultures. I don't see humans much benefiting from erosion of local cultures and sense of identity. And local is the domain in which humans live their lives and take action. I would suggest the opposite of your approach: decentralize the world into more cohesive units.

I mean, look at how divided this confederation of 50 states is. Built on noble and inspiring ideals, and yet they are failing to unify people or achieve a truly progressive consensus on how to nurture the Earth.

Balkanized US regions, say for example an "Ecotopia" formed of California, Washington, Oregon, could actually be the loci or "seeds" of positive innovation and problem solving. Other regions might observe successful experiments and then emulate.

Anyway, a contrarian view for you to chew on. And I see you revived a six years dormant thread on magic shrooms....I'll go have a look.

[RJG]

I mean, look at how divided this confederation of 50 states is. Built on noble and inspiring ideals, and yet they are failing to unify people or achieve a truly progressive consensus on how to nurture the Earth. .

Good Point.

There will always be those that disagree (for whatever sound/unsound reasoning), even in this great country of ours. They will always conceive of "something better". ...including those (such as Zanthius) that conceive of a "better" world via a one world governance.

We humans by nature are non-conformists; we are afflicted with "The grass is greener somewhere else" syndrome. We are seemingly never content of our own current position, however great it may be.

If we truly wish to form a "one world" governance, then we must first kill (eliminate) this non-conformist human affliction, ...but, which then kills any motive for setting up this (greener grass view of) "one world" governance!

The motive to create "one world" governance, is the same motive that destroys it.

[Serpent]

World population can't be involved in directly electing governors. For one thing, somebody would need to set up the framework and propose the candidates - and that somebody would have to
- attract and focus the world's attention and
- gain the world's confidence
both very tall orders, indeed.

As for unifying, I don't think the US is a good example. The founding fathers were split, right at the start, on a fundamental issue, which undermined their basic tenets, and which they patched over with an obviously unsustainable compromise. Demagogues have been exploiting that fissure ever since. Machiavelli nailed it: populations united in a common enterprise leave insufficient room for power-seeking. It's much easier to manipulate people through fear, distrust, anger and envy than reasoned self-interest. That's what the new breed of dictators, large and small, are doing right now.

It's not the discontent that drives us; it's our ready acceptance of "leaders".

[Zanthius]

World population can't be involved in directly electing governors. For one thing, somebody would need to set up the framework and propose the candidates - and that somebody would have to
- attract and focus the world's attention and
- gain the world's confidence
both very tall orders, indeed.

I also think it would involve a lot of work, and that we wouldn't have any guarantee that it would ever succeed. However, as Confucius said:

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

To have this conversation could be portray as carrying one stone. But this conversation could lead to other conversations other places. Lots of the work is just about changing what people are talking about. And I do think we can achieve great things just by having more intellectually honest conversations.

[BadgerJelly]

Machiavelli ? Aristotle? Did they have a point?

What is more, the age old attempts of religion have been rough-shod ideas about the unity of humanity.

Do we want the masses voting? Do we want people without a basic education and understanding of the global view to vote about things on a global scale?

There is the instance of what has been happening in Northern Syria of late, but this is in the face of open hostilities ... once the dust settles then what? Ho wlong will the balancing act last?

I'm not pessimistic about humanity at all, I just don't see shift revolution as anything other than a bad lesson relearned, and one that becomes more and more costly.

[Zanthius]

And local is the domain in which humans live their lives and take action. I would suggest the opposite of your approach: decentralize the world into more cohesive units.

I kinda agree, and I am actually not a big fan of increased centralization, since I believe there is more room for corruption in centralized societies:

https://www.archania.org/governance/#There_is_more_room_for_corruption_in_more_centralized_societies

However, I do think there are some ground rules which all municipalities need to accept. Such as basic human rights:



https://www.archania.org/governance/#No_discrimination_based_on:_ethnicity,_gender,_or_sexual_orientation

We also need to have some ground rules for taxes, otherwise countries will just compete with each other to have the lowest taxes to attract businesses:

[Zanthius]

Do we want the masses voting? Do we want people without a basic education and understanding of the global view to vote about things on a global scale?

No, not necessarily, and that is why I have focused so much upon education:

https://www.archania.org/governance/#A_standardized_system_for_educating_third_world_countries

https://www.archania.org/education/

However, I do think that if we are going to have any chance of getting a progressive world democracy, we need to work on many things simultaneously. One of those things is education.

[BadgerJelly]

Zanthius -

There are too many flaws here for me to even begin to start.

You mention the rights that "should be available to everyone today." But they are not available to everyone today. What do you propose? I see problems and no attempt at a solution only an attack on the current system - which is actually holding up well enough in the face of a dramatic change.

Previous attempts a global governance are called "religions." They hold up reasonably well, but they have staying power because they are not merely political institutions (meaning institutions with both feet planted only in the idea of the individual or in the idea of the global situation.) Religions cross national divides as much as they create them.

I have been of the mind that education is the most important thing. I would love to hear how you think we could educate people on a global scale?

[Zanthius]

You mention the rights that "should be available to everyone today." But they are not available to everyone today. What do you propose? I see problems and no attempt at a solution only an attack on the current system - which is actually holding up well enough in the face of a dramatic change.

Even today, countries that don't respect basic human rights are under pressure from the international community. We are never going to be able to implement a progressive world government simultaneously everywhere in the world. This could start as an alliance between a few countries. Then, more and more countries could join, if they perceived the alliance to be beneficial to themselves. Eventually, some day far into the future, those few countries that still are not in the "global alliance" would be more or less forced to join, in order to participate in trade and so on.

I have been of the mind that education is the most important thing. I would love to hear how you think we could educate people on a global scale?

I have already given you the link to where I have written about this....

https://www.archania.org/governance/#A_standardized_system_for_educating_third_world_countries

Our only hope is to make educational facilities where children can be exposed to honest people. However, people in third world countries are often skeptical to the idea of getting educated by foreigners. To increase the local popularity of the educational facilities, they should also offer free food and medical aid. Much of the food can be grown at the facility, which will also serve to teach the local population about more efficient ways of farming. Many third world countries are unfortunately dangerous, so there should be armed guard towers to protect the people working in the educational facilities.

There are many benefits with having a standardized system for educating people in third world countries. The components to the different buildings can be mass-produced in factories. It is also much easier to oversee that the educational facilities work like they should, and that they aren't getting corrupted when they are standardized. Study programs can be made available in universities, which give graduated students the opportunity to work in any of these standardized educational facilities all around the world. Employees can then also easily change to work in different facilities in different countries if they desire to broaden their experiences.

[BadgerJelly]

I don't think putting people into a prison is my idea of "education".

Also, you assume "honesty" is somehow the best policy. Have you heard of H G Well's and The Time Machine?

Nothing you say holds together and there is no reference to how these facilities will be build and/or paid for.

One "benefit" of standardized education is mass indoctrination.

Even today, countries that don't respect basic human rights are under pressure from the international community.

So this is a case of agree with us or live outside of our trade zones? This is just authoritarianism in the guise of "freedom" and "democracy." I don't buy it for a second.

Some day far in the future many things could happen. So what?

Things are on the up, why rock the boat? Poverty and war are decreasing and it seems to me that the spread of such equality is causing more problems than ever. The only counter is by managing communications in a more productive fashion that doesn't resort to the policing of thoughts - which has rapidly been a problem of the communication age in recent times.

It's going to take the rest of this century, at least, for the third world countries to catch up - better they do so slowly than drag everything down that has been so slowly and carefully built up over the previous 500 years or so.

[Zanthius]

I don't think putting people into a prison is my idea of "education".

The fence and guard towers are not to keep people inside. It is to prevent robbers and so on from the outside.

[Zanthius]

I
So this is a case of agree with us or live outside of our trade zones? This is just authoritarianism in the guise of "freedom" and "democracy." I don't buy it for a second.

Well, if countries want to discriminate women and homosexuals, they are kinda violating the rights of their citizens. If you want to "be free" to discriminate the women and homosexuals in your society, I don't necessarily think you should have that freedom. Sorry.

[BadgerJelly]

Well, I'm not sorry to tell you that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

What constitutes discrimination and how does this relate to freedom? Discrimination is a broad term and an important one.

[Zanthius]

What constitutes discrimination and how does this relate to freedom? Discrimination is a broad term and an important one.

The type of discrimination I am concerned about, is when countries have less rights for women, and when societies have made homosexuality illegal. There are actually societies that have death penalty for homosexuality.

[Zanthius]

Also, you assume "honesty" is somehow the best policy

The thing is that in societies where people usually are honest, people usually also trust other people. When we are constantly suspicious about the intentions of other people, we don't necessarily communicate as efficiently with each other. We don't necessarily share valuable information with each other. In general, the most functional societies we have today, have the highest degree of honesty. In order to have evolving mindsets, communication with intellectual probity is extremely important. Without it, we are unlikely to ever learn from each other. It is unlikely that we are going to listen to each other. We are just going to close our ears when we encounter data that is contradicting our beliefs.



I am very interested in why so many people don't have evolving mindsets. I don't necessarily see the purpose of communication if people are just going to yell at each other, without listening to each other.

[Serpent]

The type of discrimination I am concerned about, is when countries have less rights for women, and when societies have made homosexuality illegal. There are actually societies that have death penalty for homosexuality.

Death penalties for all kinds of things the rulers don't like. Indefinite imprisonment without trial; routine torture; loss of political rights, arbitrary deportation --- and that's just in the western democracies! The only counter against that kind of power is grass-roots popular opposition.

Of-bloody-course you need to have everyone voting. Doesn't matter if you consider them educated enough or sophisticated enough. Doesn't matter if they're women or albinos or army deserters; doesn'y matter if they're in jail or refugee camps or residing illegally someplace where a faction doesn't want them.
Everyone must have a voice - else you end up with pockets of bitter disenfranchised minority - and some enterprising businessman will be more than happy to arm them.

The only possible way to stop despots is to empower their subjects. All the masses. All the pawns in all the political and military games.

Word the question in such unequivocal terms that it's clear to everyone what they're asked to vote for. Not for names on a ballot, persons whom none of us know or trust, but for policies that affect the people directly.

If there had been a plebiscite on gun control, for example, the NRA wouldn't get to write the law. Americans would still disagree on the details, but they could work out those differences. If there had been a referendum in every country that took part in the invasion of Iraq, it would not have taken place - and we would not now have to deal with the human fallout.

[TheVat]

You lost me at "standardized system for educating people in 3rd world..."

Well, that and the armed guard towers. Nothing builds trust of foreigners like men with rifles.

Education is not a one size fits all garment.

The rest of your theory seems to boil down to "liberal democracy is great, it should be everywhere ASAP.". That's the basic premise of Fukuyama's " The End of History." Let's hope the Marxists read it and come round.