Your perfect society

[formerly known as hf]

I forgot the drugs.



Sex, food, sex and food, food and sex, heavy beatz, video games and copious amounts of our old friends madman, charlie, lucy, 'nita, ice and kix alongside vast quantitites of grad a skunk.

[UloDeTero]

Firstly, this is an excellent topic, Seko!
Secondly, I agree with a lot of what you said. But what you said was a lot so I'll just note some things I remember thinking while reading it.

Overpopulation

Contraception and sex education are a must. But paying people to be sterilised isn't a good idea, imo. It seems to me that if you introduce money into a situation, the situation becomes about the money. So, for example, people who are sterile anyway would have the op just for the money, because they have nothing to lose. It's similar to suggesting legalising trade in human organs. ("Hey, I've got two kidneys! I'll sell one and make a quick buck!") While there is a huge difference, I do feel that throwing money at a problem isn't an effective solution, and in many cases may just serve to promote greed.
A good solution may be encouraging school 'sex ed' trips to maternity wards, or showing birthing videos. It may seem harsh, but it's one way of reinforcing the reality of the situation.

A thing to keep in mind is that in an equal society everyone has a right to have a child, and a lot of people want to have children for no more reason than that. Plus, people are getting IVF treatments because they "have a right" to have children, and hospitals etc are happy to take their money. But, hold on a minute, overpopulation is becoming a problem and these people want to bring even more people into the world who wouldn't exist otherwise.

I think it's a fine line between maintaining order and dictatorship. A lot of things on national scale require everyone to pull together, otherwise it won't work. Thing is, everyone's so consumed with independence and freedom that they don't tend to think about the bigger picture and the community around them.

Well, I don't have time right now to write more, but maybe later.

[formerly known as hf]

There's no such thing as a 'bigger picture' - any allusions to 'the good of all' is always going to be contested, is going to be unequal, and is going to cause friction.

Your community, your bigger picture is not the same as mine, is not the same as hers, or his, or that transgendered person over there...

The only thing we can ever hope for is a compromise born out of productive tension and good-willed friction.

We (have always) lived in a heterogeneous society - that multiplicity can be a boon, not something to be overcome by some masterfully ordained 'good of all' - as no such thing can ever exist.

Embracing difference and working with it should be a possibility (as opposed to against it or through it) without any attempts to universalising, totalising concepts (which will always, as I have said, be unequal in thier effects and affects, contradictory in their nature and divisive in their modes of practice).

There is an alternative to 'good of all' socialism, an alternative to libertarianism and an alternative to good-natured by often ill-thought out and concieved liberal 'equality for all' identity politics.

[Chris]

Economies need to be changed from growth orientation to sustainability orientation. That involves huge changes in many areas: trade, transportation, housing, agriculture, finance, manufacturing, energy, etc. I think that we have to make these changes as a matter of survival, and in some cases (e.g., limiting global warming) the changes have to start in this generation.

Apart from content issues, which will change over time, a good process for making political decisions is necessary. I think that modern representative democracy has several fundamental flaws. Demarchy seems like a good way to go, though we would need to try it on a small scale first to get experience with it and work out any bugs. To the extent that demarchy is politically implausible in the near future, I think that elections should be made small to minimize the need for media campaigns and make representatives more accountable. The more people an elected official represents, the less accountable he/she is to them.

[Tiamo]

A perfect society is a 'contradictio in terminis'. It is impossible.
Every change to such a perfect society would make it imperfect, wouldn't it? But that would mean that such a perfect society would be completely static. However, that sounds like horror to me, living your life in total boredom...

But, though a perfect society cannot exist, a 'better' society most certaily can! My motto thus is: pursue improvement, not perfection!

[Tiamo]

A thought on the subject of overpopulation:

during 99+% of the existence of mankind overpopulation has NOT been a problem, the population has always adapted to the amount of food (and other vital resources) available. During that time there was no such thing as anticonception.
Overpopulation and anticonception have only been an issue in the last 100 years (or less). Now, is this just a coincidence, or are those issues related? How did mankind avoid overpopulation in the past? Couldn't we use that 'solution' again nowadays? If not, why not, what has changed?

[SekoETC]

How did mankind avoid overpopulation in the past?

Many kids died before reaching breeding age. It was all normal. Also many people died before reaching old age so there weren't that many old people to take care of. There were a lot of illnesses and not so much cures. Plagues. Blame the development of medical science. Back in history only the strongest (or most cunning) individuals would survive, while the weak ones would die. Now we live in a society where the duration of life is expanded for as long as possible.

I wouldn't be here if we lived in a Spartan society. My mom is handicapped. Also I had jaundice as a baby and without blue light treatment I think I could've been disabled as well. So not saying medical treatment is bad, just sometimes people should accept that death is not such a bad thing and sometimes it can be a relief.

[Chris]

How did mankind avoid overpopulation in the past?

Infanticide.

[DylPickle]

I wouldn't be here if we lived in a Spartan society

Infanticide was actually quite popular in parts of the ancient world. Athenians were just as likely to leave their unwanted baby on top of a mountain as the Spartans were.

It's fun stuff, pretty much.

[SekoETC]

Earlier I was about to post about the Finns leaving weak children in the forest and the priests would just write in the book that they were taken by a wolf. But I didn't think it was relevant. Also in the stone age, women gave birth every spring, like animals, and they didn't know that pregnancy was caused by sex, they just thought it was a natural occurrance related with the time of year. Many of the kids died and they built altars for them, with little holes in them and they would pour blood in the holes so that the baby spirits could drink the blood and not come haunt the living.

[DylPickle]

Oh, that is insane!
...The crazy, messed up, yet creative things those ancient people would come up with....
Kind of ironic how we educated players of cantr can't incorporate crazy and creative unknowing nonsense like that into the game.

[Chris]

Oh, that is insane!
...The crazy, messed up, yet creative things those ancient people would come up with....

Seems sane enough to me. It's sad that infants were killed, but we have only the ethics we can afford. I'm sure there are cases of families that kept every child regardless of their ability to feed it and wound up starving themselves.

[Money]

Over-population isnt actally a problem. Its the wants of that population that are. We have enough resources in the world so that evreyone could be clothed and well fed but because the ones who have these resources will not spread them out more evenly we have this perception hat we need more reasources.

[SekoETC]

I don't remember if I said this already but: In my perfect society there would be basic income for everyone that lets you live a life worth living. Even if you were ill or handicapped or old. Currently even animals live better than old people. There are regulations about how often animals need to be taken out, but nothing about how often old people should be taken out, so they might get out twice a year.

Also there must be work for everyone according to their abilities. Must be. The money comes from the ones that are well of and in return they get the satisfaction of knowing that they are making poor people feel better, and that if they should get sick or old or disabled, they would be treated just as good as they treated others.

[Tiamo]

So people don't have to work for a living any more? The lazy and incompetent can just lean back and enjoy? And the willing, hard working people are ripped off their hard earned money, so working hard isn't rewarded any more?

You think that is perfect?

Well, something like that has actually been tried in a few countries in this world. It proved disastrous!