This is homework.
So, my group and I have been tasked with starting a new society with the following prompt:
Your group must pick an island to land on. All traces of society have been erased, resources that have been spent are back in the earth, any animals/plants that are currently on the island are there now. You get to bring a box, the material of which is your choosing, which holds roughly 1 cubic yard. You can put anything into the box.
Pertinent info:
We've split up different parts of the assignment to be covered in each of our essays/presentations. My semi-assigned part is government. Semi-assigned because no one in the group (aside from me) has a clue about what should be put in here.
I'm here to ask for help and novel ideas- anything/everything, criticize away.
Here's my blueprint:
Government
Government will initially consist of an 'elder council' of the original 5 members. These are replaced by the council itself via a 3/4 vote as they die or abdicate. We make the plans and decisions for the growing society, with 3/5 vote required for establishing a general plan and 4/5 for a concrete decision. Our council will function as both the criminal & civil courts, will be responsible for all legislative functions and must also be the chief executive. However, in legislation the council will act as more of a final-say, with a larger group which will participate in meetings and provide discourse. IF in the future it is required, the military should be a separate and subservient organisation that sits on meetings and may advise us.
I've chosen this because hey, we're going to be a bit smarter than our progeny, and not only is this the simplest working form of government, (given our resources (LACK OF PAPER I'm looking at you)), but hopefully good will come of our maintaining a hold over this gov. Really, with what we're starting from, my opinion is our future is based on what our progeny do, not us. Thus the focus should be on educating them and trying to lay a foundation for them to improve on.
Laws
Laws will be oral only, as we don't have the resources (yet) to write anything down. We're considering using braille to make a punched-leather set of 'commandments' if you will- again just hoping to pass along some of our knowledge. General laws include:
-physical violence & unwanted force are forbidden to civilians, with the exception of defence
-stealing other's property is forbidden (yes, property)
-one must work or learn to eat
-one must try to share, be kind and understanding to fellow people
I want to maintain the greatest amount of freedom possible, especially since I'm a westerner and I've western ideas about where culture should head- for instance, despite the threat of genetic death we're only limiting mating options to forbid double-blood brothers & sisters in the first-generation, to be tightened as we get more people. Point being: preserve idea of 'love' and choosing your own partner.
Punishment
Punishment is tricky. Obviously it has to hinge on the severity of the crime, but the exact method of it is...euch. Obviously we'll want to keep to non-violent methods, and focus on trying to rehab people with problems. So I feel our 'council' is going to have a big hand in this early on, trying to play it by ear and using our own senses of justice & wisdom.
That said, possible non-violent punishments I've come up with:
Jail, shunning, sanctions (less food, more work), creative things intended to embarrass (forcing 2 people who got in a fight to hold hands for a day, for instance).
For more extreme cases we have a choice: Exile or death. Exile comes with the problem of forming splinter groups (if they survive), so in 50 years we've got a group of 8 hardened malcontents living on our border..
Death is heavy-handed, and comes with a host of moral and civil issues.
If it comes down to it though, everything has to be on the table- we can't afford to babysit dangerously insane people for instance. Which brings us to...
Enforcement
Enforcement should be carried out by any and all members able. Mainly, this means no excuses for gender, and as with other duties everyone should play a hand at some point.
But yep, was having issues pulling up discussions/papers on this kind of hypothetical situation, and my group's about as helpful as a bag of wet tissue paper. I can provide extraneous info if you request it, (we've picked britain as the island, we've 5 members, 2m3f, aren't a religious group, box is packed full of books/tools etc).
Give me your knowledge!
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Topic: You're starting a new society! (Read 4682 times)