Difference between revisions of "User:Wouter.drucker/Government"

Revision as of 09:11, 25 February 2013

Government versus no government

Government has been criticized a lot and rightly so. This doesn't mean the answer is no governance, and that everything will magically be alright if we just pretend there are no decisions to be made. Much of today's problems arise from scarcity and a lack of holistic thinking. For instance much of government happens at the stage of city planning and design: do we house everybody separately? Or do we allow people to mix, so they have a chance to help each other?

Democracy

Democracy versus the Scientific method, singularity versus multiplicity

Democracy is where 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'. We want to establish a meritocracy, where the best ideas determine the ways for example education is organized. The scientific method allows the best methods to float to the surface because their results will be superior in a way that can be proven. Here it is apparent where the difference between a Democratic system and a meritocratic Scientific system arise. In a Democracy only one method can be tested and the choice of method follows from whatever get the most votes, the scientific system allows for different methods to be compared. The underlying difference is singularity versus multiplicity.

Democracy and scarcity

A little analogy for clarity. Three people want to watch television, one doesn't. Course of action: watch television. You have to find a way where all the parties are made happy: three people watch television and the fourth does something else in a separate room. An RBE should very much be about overcoming the first, scarcity type, situation, and create the second, everybody wins, situation. When there is scarcity you have to resort to political solutions (political in this case meaning, who gets what: at this level there is trade already, now you get what you want, next time I get what I want). We have to overcome this using planning and reason. Relying on democracy won't get us very far.

Regular versus Anarchism (evidence)

Evidence supporting regular

Human trafficking is lower in countries where prostitution is illegal. ^[1].

Evidence supporting Anarchism

Prison

Most people will be very surprised an idealistic project like Rbe10K is considering a prison. Idealistic however does not mean: our project will be ideal. Idealism means we have ideas that we think are better than what we see around us and we want to try to act on them and bring them in to practice. Not having a prison and instead relying on the prison system of the country we are in is too easy and maybe even a missed opportunity. Naturally we can think of a way to deal with this issue in a much more humane (retribution should no be part of a legal system) and more holistic (the legal system should be intricately interwoven with education and architecture) way.

References