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Entry tags:
- issues,
- meme,
- mind,
- politics-2
(no subject)
I'm all at sea. How does one participate in democratic politics when the majority of voters are incapable of logical thought? Where even basic, objective, verifiable facts do not enter the minds of many or most people? Where logical conclusions get inverted?
All of my political thiking revolves around the idea that you can show people a red cube and they'll agree that there's a red cube there and not a blue sphere. But that's not the case. The blue sphere which doesn't exist becomes the fact, and the red cube becomes some sort of partisan trick to be dismissed out of hand.
I had thoughts of coding a web site that would allow people to examine facts, apply their basic values, and follow them to logical political conclusions, with the computer helping them with the logic part, but it seems kind of pointless. Even if it were logically sound, people would reject the entire system if the results were contrary to what they thought the results should be, or if an objective verifiable fact was contrary to what they thought it should be.
I suppose it might be useful to a certain elite of any political group, and in guiding them might guide those they had influence over, but if you look at the apparent groupthink that guides the Bush administration today, objective information contrary to the desired reality is not found to be welcome.
Progress does seem to get made over the decades and centuries, in at least some ways. Explicit slavery of ethnicities is no longer viewed as ok in most of the world. Slavery of women is still ok in parts of the world tho, with no large-scale world-wide campaign to put an end to it, and it's frequently claimed that "feminism is dead". Genocide against Jews is no longer ok, tho genocide in Africa can take place without much concern. It's no longer ok for young children to work long hours with dangerous machines in factories in at least some countries. Blah blah random comment. Eventually historians agree that it was probably a red cube, and not a blue sphere, but decades of shit has to happen before that point is reached.
So basically i need to release a virus that 1) makes everyone more intelligent, so facts can penetrate consciousness, and 2) makes everyone have some degree of non-self-serving ethics. Did i mention blah blah random comment?
Blah blah blah.
blah.
All of my political thiking revolves around the idea that you can show people a red cube and they'll agree that there's a red cube there and not a blue sphere. But that's not the case. The blue sphere which doesn't exist becomes the fact, and the red cube becomes some sort of partisan trick to be dismissed out of hand.
I had thoughts of coding a web site that would allow people to examine facts, apply their basic values, and follow them to logical political conclusions, with the computer helping them with the logic part, but it seems kind of pointless. Even if it were logically sound, people would reject the entire system if the results were contrary to what they thought the results should be, or if an objective verifiable fact was contrary to what they thought it should be.
I suppose it might be useful to a certain elite of any political group, and in guiding them might guide those they had influence over, but if you look at the apparent groupthink that guides the Bush administration today, objective information contrary to the desired reality is not found to be welcome.
Progress does seem to get made over the decades and centuries, in at least some ways. Explicit slavery of ethnicities is no longer viewed as ok in most of the world. Slavery of women is still ok in parts of the world tho, with no large-scale world-wide campaign to put an end to it, and it's frequently claimed that "feminism is dead". Genocide against Jews is no longer ok, tho genocide in Africa can take place without much concern. It's no longer ok for young children to work long hours with dangerous machines in factories in at least some countries. Blah blah random comment. Eventually historians agree that it was probably a red cube, and not a blue sphere, but decades of shit has to happen before that point is reached.
So basically i need to release a virus that 1) makes everyone more intelligent, so facts can penetrate consciousness, and 2) makes everyone have some degree of non-self-serving ethics. Did i mention blah blah random comment?
Blah blah blah.
blah.