Your Views on a world Government

[Starhawk]

Sorry Dog that sounds terrifying to me, I mean I know some folks that if they were self governing would end up blowing up the world (if only an accident while the were stoned) People have proven we can't govern ourselves (individually) for millenia, we need something to unify us and in some ways some ways we need people to look up to for guidance and leadership, it is in our very nature to form tribes, states, nations and governments because we know we can't rule ourselves withotu guidance and leadership.


I think a good form of government would be that instead of the rich and powerful being politicos we switch over to a mentallity of letting true leaders and truely wise people become our leaders no matter whether they are loaded or poor.

[Makinus]

Starhawk said:
I think a good form of government would be that instead of the rich and powerful being politicos we switch over to a mentallity of letting true leaders and truely wise people become our leaders no matter whether they are loaded or poor.

And how you would identify true leaders and wise people? I know a lot of very charismatic people that after the election wrecked entire countries... just to point an example, once we elected in Brazil a mr. Fernando Collor de Mello as president, that later was involved in a scandal of millions of dollars apropriated from government funds, and even implicated in extorsion schemes.... the brazilians went to the streets to demand his impeachment and he resigned, but during the elections he was the most popular candidate, very charismatic and so on...

[deccan]

Makinus said:
And how you would identify true leaders and wise people?

Exactly. Lord Acton's oft-quoted line that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." should always be kept in mind. Any system of government that relies solely on the continued benevolence of despots as the sole check on government is always suspect.

[deccan]

It occurs to me that I should post this link.

A Short Guide to Comparative Government

It's funny, not too serious.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Funny.

[dogscoff]

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Or, "Power corrupts, Powerpoint corrupts absolutely." If you'd ever sat through some of the deadly, dreary dull utterly-empty-but-somehow-full-of-[censored] 'presentations' fronted by lifeless, soulless career-junkie 'executives' that I had and wondered just how anything ever gets done on this miserable planet if this is the international business standard, then you'll know exactly why that quote is true.

It's not so much the software itself, but the powerpoint attitude: The strange concept that you don't need any knowledge about your (probably non-existent) product or (probably sub-standard) service, or even the bare mimnimum of intelligence or personality that might somehow be sufficient to cover for the complete lack of content in your so-called 'presentation' just as long as you have a smeggin' Powerpoint slideshow with fancy fades, wipes, a few bar charts, a pretty background and time at the end for a "Q&A session before lunch"

*pant* *pant* *pant*

Sorry for the massive OT rant, this was supposed to be a short, jokey post but something just touched a nerve there.

[dogscoff]

Sorry Dog that sounds terrifying to me, I mean I know some folks that if they were self governing would end up blowing up the world (if only an accident while the were stoned) People have proven we can't govern ourselves (individually) for millenia,

Well, I'm not suggesting that every individual should have their own set of nuclear launch codes. Neither am I suggesting an entirely unnaccountable anarchy. I'm just saying that some day we will have the technology to "cut out the middle man" when it comes to politics. As tech makes it easier and easier to put people in touch with one another on a massive scale, we won't need the (self-serving) institutions that currently (pretend to) represent us, because we will be able to represent ourselves directly. And I'm not suggesting a simple Athenian democracy be electronic vote either because that ways lies stagnation by committee on a scale never before imagined.

Instead it would be something far more subtle and more organic in which each person represents themself and has a voice, and in which no single person or Groups can dictate to others, but in which large-scale decisions can made and acted upon in a moderately efficient manner with all the checks, balances and stability that people have wished for elsewhere in this thread. I think the technology will soon be here, although the will (as always) will be a few centuries behind. I just have a gut feeling that that is the way things will eventually go. Again, I'm being vague, but if I had all the details worked out I would be a lot cleverer than what I is.

[Makinus]

So, in a future eletronic democracy world government we would have an Chinese/Indian (from India and not America) government, since two/thirds of the global population are either indian or chinese.... (nothing against any indians or chinese people, i´m just pointing that a population-based democracy system will have an overpowering tendency to be dominated by some cultures where a higher natality rate is a predominant cultural trait)

[Gandalf Parker]

Makinus said:
So, in a future eletronic democracy world government we would have an Chinese/Indian (from India and not America) government, since two/thirds of the global population are either indian or chinese.... (nothing against any indians or chinese people, i´m just pointing that a population-based democracy system will have an overpowering tendency to be dominated by some cultures where a higher natality rate is a predominant cultural trait)

By then there may be only one race and one people. I think we will probably see a UN world rule long before a single-government world rule. So by the time any world-wide voting could happen, the idea of any one group of people might very well not involve nationalities or races. Im not saying there wont be some huge group for people to concern about, Im just not sure what it would be.