If people would stop focusing on looking for other people to make things right, and instead put more effort into seeing how they can best contribute themselves, things wouldn't have to be as complicated.
Do you really believe that the general populace would ever consider this? I personally believe the general public is close to incompetent, they are given food if they do nothing. The weak always survive, even when they are close to useless, all because "everyone deserves to live". I say thats bull, if you don't contribute you don't get a slice of the pie.
When I talk to people about everyone having to contribute, their mind usually jumps to something akin to slavery. Where everyone is forced to work and provide regardless of their opinion, and get killed/neglected if they refuse. What I actually mean is more like, "Everyone is good at something. Find what you're good at, and see how you could use it to the benefit of those around you." You don't have to be working in the coal mines so that you can earn your next meal. If you like farming or gardening, grow some food so that you and other can have a more varied diet. If you like painting, hone your skills and share your work with those who appreciate your style. Of course, people usually have more than just one interest, so they can contribute in multiple ways.
You sound as though liberterianism would suit you.
I don't bother trying to fit into specific groups. With them comes prejudice, which gives people an excuse to disregard what I say because they generally disagree with said group.
@kingDZA
Hrm, not sure what you mean by that.
If you mean banding together for protests/etc, just take a look at occupy wall street. People do band together to try and make change.
If you mean stand up and do things yourself, then authority figures have more power to stifle your efforts than you do to accomplish them. By a large margin.
We could all go on strike, or boycott stuff, or whatever, but that's still forcing authority figures into action. If I'm reading your post right, that's not good enough for you, to which I can only reply "tough break, babycakes."
Protesting? No. At most, that should be a minor part of any movement, used to make others more aware. For some reason, it's treated as the primary form of action. Everyone just needs to realize that their lives do not
need to built around what the authority figures say. Those authority figures are no more powerful than anyone else, it's just that they have more people listening to them, that's why the general mindset must be changed. You do not
have to listen to anyone. Knowing when to draw the line when those figures get too used to having authority is vital to having a future that sucks significantly less than the present, in my opinion.
As for low level government, DZA, which is basically what you're talking about, it's a wonderful idea that consistently breaks down once you hit a certain population density -- simple fact is that sheer logistics demand a certain degree of authority figures after things hit a certain point. It's certainly a lower and less pervasive degree than we've got (mostly because of the whole power seeks more power thing), though. Communications technology might be cutting into the extent that's necessary (See some of the Arab Spring stuff, ferex), but it's still years from actually coming into full maturity.
The why of it not really working is just scope, more or less. People working as individuals, even in tandem, have serious problems dealing with issues beyond the level of information they're able to process. You end up needing specialists in processing and disseminating that information appropriately -- i.e. authority figures. That gets the ball rolling, and then we end up where we're at. There's potential for technological solutions in the future, but at the moment all we can try to do is mitigate the damage to the extent we're able (currently failing pretty hardcore, but it could be worse).
It's obvious that these ideas wouldn't work on the same scale things are currently on. It would have to be more local. Instead of massive industries providing for whole populations, it would have to much smaller communities primarily providing for its members. Ideally sharing the excess produce with whatever other community needed it.
Specialists are fine. There are going to be people who are particularly adept at things to pass on the knowledge to others, of course. It's not really that authority figures should be completely eliminated, it's that people should be intelligent enough to know when the figure starts trying to use that authority for their own personal advantage. So when a tyrant begins to rise, they are simply able to look at them and say "Nah, that's fucking stupid." and not have it escalate any further.
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Topic: Isn't unemployment a good thing? (Read 17604 times)