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[Maximum Spin]

We don't live in a panoptic society that designs schools and hospitals the same way it designs prisons,

We don't, not here. Obviously designs vary from place to place. That's exactly the point: America is not one single society.

neither do we teach our kids that santa and god are allways watching.

nobody taught me either of these things

[wierd]

I would say that we do in fact live in a pan-optic society.  That was singly the big thing that Edward Snowden revealed.

It is incontrovertible. Our government does not trust its own citizens, and actively spies on them, and in secret, because it knows that spying is not culturally accepted.

Throw into that, the mass surveillance network created by private enterprises, and the alacrity with which our government cuddles up to it, for the above purpose.

[Maximum Spin]

I would say that we do in fact live in a pan-optic society.  That was singly the big thing that Edward Snowden revealed.

It is incontrovertible. Our government does not trust its own citizens, and actively spies on them, and in secret, because it knows that spying is not culturally accepted.

Throw into that, the mass surveillance network created by private enterprises, and the alacrity with which our government cuddles up to it, for the above purpose.

Well, sure, if you want to talk about overthrowing the federal government I'm completely down with that. Although I recommend you just don't use the mass surveillance network created by private enterprise if you're concerned about it. It's actually really easy not to use it.

[wierd]

I would say that the big onerous change, that befell the USA vis-a-vis its government-- was the switching of primacy of authority from states with the federal government.

One needs only read the verbiage of the constitution, to note that the intent of its creators was to enumerate only the barest essential functions for the Federal government, such that a functioning confederation of mostly autonomous (in every other capacity) states could in fact, remain cohesive and confederated.

ALL OTHER THINGS were explicitly stated to be the purview of the citizenry, and of the states, in that order.


This would put the federal government at the logical bottom of the totem pole, excepting for the very specific items enumerated.  Somehow, our nation has flipped this arrangement around.

As drafted, it would make individual people the deciders of their destinies and moral codes, allowing them to form associations at local town, city, and state levels-- which then interact via agreed upon trade frameworks.

As practiced now, it is top-down authoritarianism, in the name of consistency and conformity.

[queue up all the people that will now rant and rave about states that do not recognize women getting abortions as OK, or do not recognize same sex unions.]

[Maximum Spin]

I would say that the big onerous change, that befell the USA vis-a-vis its government-- was the switching of primacy of authority from states with the federal government.

One needs only read the verbiage of the constitution, to note that the intent of its creators was to enumerate only the barest essential functions for the Federal government, such that a functioning confederation of mostly autonomous (in every other capacity) states could in fact, remain cohesive and confederated.

ALL OTHER THINGS were explicitly stated to be the purview of the citizenry, and of the states, in that order.


This would put the federal government at the logical bottom of the totem pole, excepting for the very specific items enumerated.  Somehow, our nation has flipped this arrangement around.

As drafted, it would make individual people the deciders of their destinies and moral codes, allowing them to form associations at local town, city, and state levels-- which then interact via agreed upon trade frameworks.

As practiced now, it is top-down authoritarianism, in the name of consistency and conformity.

[queue up all the people that will now rant and rave about states that do not recognize women getting abortions as OK, or do not recognize same sex unions.]

I agree completely, as should probably be obvious. However, I really want to stress that this reversal of power has been largely superficial. Not in the sense of being unimportant, but in the sense that it has operated entirely on the surface — by which I mean low-hanging fruit like mass surveillance or threatening institutions with lawsuits and the withholding of federal funds etc. As pertains to the lives of actual people, these only touch the surface: for the most part, people outside the large cities are still living in an America where people are the deciders of their destinies and moral codes. It's only the assholes who say things like "private business only operates at the pleasure of the state" who want to overturn this, but there are too few of them to enforce their will in anything more than a haphazard manner. It's like in the Soviet Union, where everyone is breaking the rules, and sometimes you get caught and executed, but that's just a risk you're accepting.

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[Maximum Spin]

Idk maybe it's unrealistic given how sucky 7 billions people are performing: but I'd rather have the power to actually change something if people happened to agree on what.

I don't affirmatively want to change anything. The world is great. There are some things that could certainly stand to be changed (meaning, the world could still get better), but it's no problem for me if nothing is.

[wierd]

I would say that as the group's size increases, the signal to noise ratio increases proportionally, until the only remaining viable path is authoritarian rule. (Otherwise, the apparatus of state is hamstrung by deadlock and petty dispute.)

This is why I do not desire "More people!".  The best solution is not to continue "Growing!" eternally, but instead to assume a population size that is insufficient to measurably impact the actual literal health of the planet, despite the petty deadlock of its political apparati.

The alternative is Chinese Panopticon, times 9000.


To answer your specific queries-- within the contexts of those representational bodies-- the individual in a society of 150 individuals, is 1/150th of the vote within that power structure.  If he or she is a very apt public speaker, they could indeed be very influential.  Greek city-states were historically renown for this phenomenon, and produced fantastic orators for this very reason.

To be more specific--  that same person is 1/300millionth (ish), of the national vote.  That is a reduction in effective agency of several orders of magnitude.

The fundamental problem arises when a social construct believes itself to be separate, and primal over its constituent components.  When that happens, it becomes an authoritarian regime (since they only way for this to happen is to monopolize the use of force, and use it to coerce its components into compliance.).  As stated, the typical reason this seems to happen is because of inability to reach agreement, as n-size of the body politik increases, and the odds of the "Cannot reach resolution" catastrophe increases, until probability equals 1.

Authoritarianism sidesteps this problem, by denying the foundation of that deadlock-- individual choice does not matter; Compliance is mandatory under threat of severe punishment, meted out by the authoritarian power structure.


The logically ideal scenario for humanity, is to accept that this is true about itself, and then make some decisions.

1) Decide to stop growing, and to voluntarily retract to a level that cannot inadvertantly destroy all life on the planet through such deadlock, and selfish individual agency.

2) Create a perfect authoritarian to run the planet.

3) Create a despot that can enforce either 1 or 2, before their regime implodes.

(and of course, 4-- Fail to do any of the above, and demonstrate why Fermi's paradox exists.)

[Maximum Spin]

(and of course, 4-- Fail to do any of the above, and demonstrate why Fermi's paradox exists.)

(Well, we're not going to wipe ourselves out, just die back to a sustainable position. That sustainable position might be as low as "a couple thousand people" depending on what factors get us there, of course.)

[wierd]

Currently, the trajectory is to create the perfect authoritarian.

China is working VERY hard on that right now.  They are not very concerned about the use of AI as the arbiter of such judgement-- they are poised to leapfrog the US and all other industrial nations in that capacity in the next decade, and they have plenty of resources allocated to that goal.


Chinese panopticon x 9000 appears to be the choice that will be affected, through decision 3 (China as despot.)

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[wierd]

Freedom of assembly, is just the voluntary association of individuals with like-minded ideals.


There is no need to enforce it. It happens naturally.


The problem occurs, when the finite resources of either space, or raw material, force two equally and oppositely polarized groups to interact.  This leads to altercation, as incompatible idea(l)s flow from one group into the other, and the subsequent "purity!" counter-actions occur.


The ideal state is for humans to be so sufficiently few in number, that when this inevitable event occurs, it happens in a contained, isolated, and most importantly "Not important on a global nor catastrophic scale".


If two isolated amazon tribes hate each other because one wears blue and the other wears red, it does not really affect a whole lot in the global scheme of things.

Compare with the cold war.  The political pissing match of the US and the USSR, threatened the world in nuclear annihilation.


The ideal is for the latter type of situation to be fundamentally not possible.  The petty squabbling is inevitable; It is a natural consequence of free will, and free choice.  The ability for it to destroy all over things, is what must not be allowed.

The perfect authoritarian is always mindful. It uses force perfectly, and surgically.  It excises dissent like a malignancy, leaving only forced compliance and order.  In this way, it prevents these kinds of catastrophes--- Free will is dead.

Since free will appears to be necessary for HEALTHY human activity, the perfect authoritarian's solution is eternal misery and ill health.  this is not ideal.

That leaves only the massive contraction solution.  The contradictions do not matter, because they do not jeopardize the whole.

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[Maximum Spin]

But ultimatively I believe in a global coalition of the civil society, not only because I feel it's the only way to have a positive yet realistic outlook on the world - but more importantly because:

It's all very well and good to want this, but it's prima facie impossible. People are too different. They want and value different, irreconcilable things.