Then you've not been paying attention. But you know keep believing that it's just wealthy white christian guys who come from families that were in the higher societies before already as that's bound to help matters.
So you are saying that people, who by their nature are wired for tribalism, will suddenly stop being tribal by overthrowing their government and getting them to design a new system? Yeah, that went really well in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria... No, wait: actually those countries fragmented into warring tribal factions. Who would have thought? The problem is within people's nature. Whatever system people come up with, it will always reflect their nature, including its flaws. The way to stop people being tribal is for people to learn to recognise when they are being tribal, recognise the problems with that and overriding that instinct. But you can't see that because everything about your polemic is also pure tribal thinking.
No you don't. Nobody does. “We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.” ― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People You are the lens through which you see the world. Therefore whatever you see of the world is coloured by yourself. No, because you run into the same problem again: every system is inevitably a product of the people who design it. Therefore people first need to know themselves, before they can design a system that can compensate for and protect them from their own flaws and weaknesses. That is how science works, for instance. That fundamentally ignores how people function. Most parents want the best for their children, no? So they will do what they can to give their children all advantages in life that they can. In nature (funnily enough) that is called "privilege": anything an animal parent does to increase the likelihood of their offspring's survival that is not genetic. Egg yolk is privilege. A warm nest is. Food is. In humans: a good home in a nice, safe neighbourhood; good, healthy food, good clothes, a good education, all the opportunities a child needs to get ahead. And those children will do the same for their children. And so on. It doesn't matter if you abolish inheritance --some parents will be able to buy them their first car; help them get on the housing ladder. It doesn't matter if you send all kids to the same state school --some parents will read to them at home, give them additional home tuition --anything to make sure they get the best grades possible. It is in the nature of good parents to want your children to have the competitive edge. Competition again. Wired in. And some parents will simply be better at it than others --they will be smarter, more talented, wealthier, more ambitious for their kids. So inequality arises again. People have to fundamentally let go of competition. And that is very, very hard because we are the product of 250 million years of natural competition. It's in our genes, literally. There are ways of creating a (relatively) non-competitive, yet progressive society, but if you ask ordinary folk to come up with one, they will not do so. Because ordinary folk, I hate to say it, are not psychologists. They have no self-knowledge, and they are a product of the current society. They will create a system that is as flawed as the existing one.
Then perhaps you need to broaden your horizons. And that right system i would assume is your system, ipso facto making your system exactly the same as the one you want to replace.
Only through self-knowledge: what kind of lens we are, and how that shapes the world we see. Science is an example of that. Those aspirations are incompatible. Competition is by definition the process of striving to achieve supremacy or superiority. Therefore by definition it is a process that is selfish and creates inequality. That inequality will inevitably carry over to the next generations as parents will by their nature try to give their children the best competitive advantages that they can --and if your system tries to prevent that, they will perceive this as deeply unfair and resist it. So again, as long as your system involves competition, it will create an elite. Second, it is possible to get the best minds without competition. You are the lens, remember? You only see what you know. Third, note how you are ascribing an increasing role to schools and the nation state in raising children to neutralise the competitive impact of parenting efforts. Doesn't that conflict with your idea of the nuclear family as the cornerstone of society? Indeed. Finding the "right" system for an equal, just and happy society has been a holy grail pursued by informed social and political philosophers for millennia. The answer lies not in some magic 'system'. The answer lies in people's self-knowledge.
You can highlight all you want, but there is no such thing as "equal opportunity". People with learning disabilities never get to become doctors. Blind people cannot become pilots. People in wheelchairs don't get to be firefighters. If you want to understand the complex debate around the concept I refer you to discussions of "normalisation" from two different perspectives, by Nirje and Wolfensberger (Google it). If there are no big prizes, what's the point of competing? I did not strive to be good at my job just for the privilege of doing it, and I'm not doing it just because I "won" the job interview, I'm doing it because there are significant incentives for doing it. Second, you have just created a new elite: those who get to do the jobs they want, vs those who have to do the jobs they don't really want to do. Inequality, right there. And parents will find a way to pass their advantages on to their children. It is human nature to. And you can't take those away from them --you'll find that's human nature, too. Third, notice how closed your thinking is: I previously told you that you don't need competition at all to get the great minds that will bring benefit society. You can get what you want without competition; without the risk of inequality. Yet here you are, still doggedly trying to fix the competition problem. Again, people will only perform if there is something in it for them. That doesn't have to be money, but there has to be an incentive. You're not paying attention. There is no magic system. The answer lies in people changing. You just refuse to acknowledge that because you're stuck in tribal thinking: "We the people are good, and beyond criticism; them the "elite" not-like-us-people are bad and must change". No, everybody is people, stuck in the same system, just in a different place. It is often said that the reason that poor people in the US nonetheless endorse its capitalist system is because they don't perceive themselves as poor, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires-to-be.
Then you've not been paying attention as if you had you'd know the problems you see around you are not caused by the design of the system as in the entirety of human history there's been thousands of systems and yet by a process of *elimination we've settled on one in particular, ask yourself why that is. *It was people who collectively choose to eliminate them BTW. Can i assume my grammar is better, or should it be the most betterer. The thing is all the while you believe the fault lies within the system you're not addressing the real cause, in essence because you believe the system is at fault no one is being held to account for their failings or actions. That's because everyone can see the systemic changes you propose would make the situation worse not better, because, and I'm starting to sound like a broken record, the problem you've identified isn't caused by the system, it's caused by the people within that system. It's not the system that causes people to sleep rough on the street it's that the people making the laws and spending the public's money have chosen not to provided enough housing. It's not the system that makes rich individuals avoid paying taxes it's the people who make the laws choosing not to make it illegal or not cost effective to do so. It's not the system that's making it acceptable to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia it's the people who make the laws who say it's acceptable, and by blaming the system we allow them to do that because their not being held accountable.
Does a wheelchair user have the same opportunity to become a firefighter as an able-bodied person? Does a learning disabled person have the same opportunity to become a doctor? So no, there is no equal opportunity --not in the way you mean. Again, read the literature on 'normalisation'; both Nirje and Wolfensberger's perspective. Don't assume you are the first to think about this, or the smartest person on Earth. Sure: people can compete for power, privilege, control; all that still creates inequality. Those who perform for pride and respect are not competing (clue: pride and respect are not finite resources)! But you're thinking in the right direction; keep going... No, I'm all in favour of such a system. Science is such a system, and I think science is awesome. But I'm saying that such a system cannot be designed by people who are not self-aware of their own nature. FINALLY! And where does that tribal thinking happen? In people. So where does change need to start? In people. You cannot expect a better system from people whose thinking is still fundamentally flawed --you just get another flawed system.
So far so good. And the train comes to a screeching halt. People don't change as a society, society changes people, specifically societal norms effect the way people think and behave. And the train goes into full reverse. The change you desire can't come from the "system" as the "system" is not what dictates how people think and behave, it's the people who shape the "system" not the other way around. In essences you're attempting to solicit change via a top down reorganisation of "the system" but that's never going to happen and it would fail if you attempted it, not because your system is any better or worse than what came before but because the people within "the system" believe it's to their advantage to work against each other rather than together. True change comes from within.
You are totally missing the point. - You acknowledge that it is the electorate which will have to change the system, since the 'elite' are not going to. - You acknowledge that it is people's human nature that gets in the way of a fair and just system. - Ergo: people --the electorate-- have to change their human nature in order for them to be able to create and implement a fair and just system. The fact that you are working very hard at not having to acknowledge that suggests to me that you don't want to accept that the electorate has responsibility. You say that you want to give it to them because the system won't allow them to take responsibility, but that is all ******** to avoid having to acknowledge that the electorate already has responsibility. Because if you did acknowledge that, you would have to admit that your 'tribe', the electorate, is equally responsible for the current state of affairs and it's not all the bad ol' elite's fault.
Simple science says: - People created the system. - Therefore people were here before the system, and the system is a reflection of the people who created it --and their human flaws. - Therefore in order to create a more equal and just system, people have to change their way of thinking. Else you just get another system with the same human flaws. No, people have to change first, otherwise they will simply create another tribalist, egoistical system. Finally: I'm out.
All the people already collectively work on "the system" and they've been doing so since time immoral, it's just you (and I FWIW) don't agree with the result of that collective work.
If not people then who? little green men, elves, aliens. It seems for some strange reason you refuse to accept that people are responsible for the problems you see around you and that IMO only contributes to those problems because all the while you blame "the system" you're not holding the people who are actually responsible to account, your basically enabling them.
Remember when you said? Gender used to count as little as 50 years ago. Not so much these days, because people are working on the system all the time. Sometimes in a good direction (gay marriage, emancipation, equality and diversity now being accepted things) and sometimes in a bad direction (Trump, Brexit). Science is a discipline: a way of doing things that compensates for the cognitive, perceptual and interpretative flaws of humans, thus allowing us to understand objective reality. It's a tool. That's all. First, I'd say, it has to understand the problem, which is itself. But you keep apologising for the electorate rather than actually giving them the responsibility that you claim you want to give them.
People voted for Trump, didn't they? Did they not bother to find out what he stands for? Did they not consider his values? The repeal of net neutrality was therefore eminently predictable. People effectively voted for it; they got it. They only have themselves to blame.
So people didn't have an opportunity to vote for Bernie Sanders in the preliminaries? People didn't have an opportunity to not vote for Trump? Don't delude yourself. The US electorate were not helpless sheep. The absolutely embraced Trump, like the UK electorate embraced Brexit, all in the name of nationalist tribalism and sticking it to the 'elite'. They were going to change the system, yeah! And how did that work out? They just replaced one group of 'elites' with another, because their human nature made them too stupid to recognise that they were being played. Seriously, stop being the people's apologist.
Show me where I defended the current system? You have no rational argument left, so you resort to ad hominems. Which pretty much demonstrates how society is in the sorry state it is: people not accepting responsibility, not self-reflecting, just scapegoating some 'other': the immigrants, the gays, the lefties, the 'elites', whoever. Junkie logic: their predicament is never their responsibility; it's always someone else's fault.
Sorry but that's simply not true, if it wasn't the people who created statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154 then who did? Now it could be argued that the people weren't aware of the powers they were divesting to the Federal Communications Commission when the people who they elected wrote them into the statue books but if that's the case then that means your system of creating thousands of smaller groups who vote on every little thing would suffer from the same problem. How ever you slice it these regulations, laws and rules don't write themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, it's people like you who blame "the system" and see the electorate as helpless pawns in a game being played out by so called "elites" who enable the abuser to keep abusing, you're basically making excuses for bad behavior, all the while your blaming it on "the system" instead of the abuser you're allowing the abuser to escape without consequences. Again that's simply untrue, there were 519,682 elected officials in the United States as of 2012 so are you saying the "elites" presented every single one of them and that's before we get onto the countless people who were not elected, are you seriously suggesting that the "elites" hand picked upwards of a million people to represent their interests? Because if so i would have thought a secret like that would be hard to keep.
