The Majority is Foolish

Men are four:
He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool—shun him;
He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is simple—teach him;
He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep—wake him;
He who knows and knows he knows, he is wise—follow him!
        Lady Burton—Life of Sir Richard Burton. Given as an Arabian Proverb.

 

I would say that there are four types of people.  There are teachers, students, peers (those who teach and learn from each other), and fools (those that know not that they know not.)

The four types of people:
The peer.   Peers will learn from and teach each other.
The teacher.  He will recognize students that want to learn and can learn.  He will teach with sound data and sources.  He will use good logic, extrapolate well and stamp out false sources and logical fallacies.
The student.   He will listen, question wisely, and learn.  He will be polite and respectful.  He will exchange for his training.  He knows there is something to learn.  He is wise enough to know that he can learn and doesn’t know everything.
The fool.  He will be disruptive and disrespectful.  He will rationalize, use false logic and use fallacies.  He will use poor sources of information.  He will neither learn or teach.  He may think he knows it all already.
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Utopian Azimuths

A Utopian Azimuth is a goal for perfection.  An example of a Utopian Azimuth would be to have a justice system that would never incarcerate an innocent person or let a guilty person go free.

It is a lofty goal and one that has never been achieved anywhere in the world.

Another example of a Utopian Azimuth would be to have a system of commercial aircraft that would fly anybody anywhere in the world without a fatal accident.

We have had years when this goal has been achieved.

Azimuths are perfection.  Perfection can never be achieved, but perfection can continually be sought.  Perfection can be approached.  We can get closer and closer to perfection.

If a government isn’t striving to achieve perfection in all things, then it is broken.  If a government doesn’t have perfect azimuths, then it will not only never achieve perfection, but will get more and more dystopian over time.

The first test of a government is to ask what their Utopian goals are.  If the answer is that “Utopia is impossible” or “Utopia is socialism” or anything but a direction and an effort to achieve perfection, then that government is dystopian.  If a candidate has no utopian goals or if those goals don’t apply to everybody, then that candidate is dystopian.

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The World of Today, or the World of Fun & Love

I’m an anti republican, anti democrat, anti liberal, anti conservative, anti Limbaugh, anti gun, anti court, anti one percent, anti monopoly, anti government, anti socialist, anti communist, anti skeptic, anti capitalist, anti democracy, anti dictatorship, anti law, anti blame, anti punishment, anti tax, anti force, anti super rights and anti war.

I’m for maximum fun, maximum love, maximum sanity, for kindness, for politeness, for justice, for restitution, for prophylaxis, for maximum liberty, for maximum freedom, for maximum health, for equal rights, maximum employment, maximum opportunities, for proportionate responses, fair and equitable exchanges, maximum honesty, maximum truth, maximum morality, maximum logic, maximum education and maximized environment.

The world today focuses on the process and the groups of paragraph #1.   The world I love focuses on the results and conditions of paragraph #2.  No, paragraph #1 does not lead to paragraph #2.  Paragraph #2 has lead to paragraph #2.

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American Utopias

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Utopian_communities.aspx

As Brook Farm and Fruitlands dissolved, converts to the ideas of Charles Fourier in the United States grew to take the place of the transcendentalists. Fourierists believed that small, highly organized communities (or phalanxes) would allow residents to perfectly develop their talents and inclinations, free from the influence of traditional capitalist society. The standard phalanx consisted of 1,620 people living in common dwellings and working in their natural trades. In America, Arthur Brisbane became the chiefadvocate of phalanxes, hoping that they would complete what, to him, was the unfinished Revolution of 1776 by ending wage slavery. By the 1840s, Brisbane and his disciples had founded more than one hundred phalanxes across the country, from New York to Texas. Although most of these communities failed in short order, their existence underscored the general dissatisfaction some workers felt with industrialization and the triumph of the capitalist order.

There have been many attempts at starting Utopia in America.  Americans have long had the Liberty to start Utopias.

If you start one, please let us hear about it!

 

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Utopia Isn’t One Size Fits All!

The year was 1909 and mass production techniques had just started.  Henry Ford is quoted as saying: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”  People, however,  wanted their car painted in the color of their preference and soon vehicles of every imaginable color were rolling off the production line.

Utopia is a civilization that is nearly perfect for you and others that share your preferences.  You don’t want a compromise civilization dictated to you by others any more than you want only one choice in car color.  Don’t let governments tell you that they can’t give you a custom government.  That’s BS.  They are just protecting their power and vested interests.  Don’t listen to the one government people.

Suppose you could pick out the features/options of your new government the same way you could pick out the features/options of your next car.  What options would you choose?  What flavor of democracy would you want?  What are the rules of your capitalism?  What human rights are most important?  Perhaps you would want socialism or a benevolent dictatorship.  How do you want wealth distributed.  Do you want everybody to have the same wealth or do you want it the way it is in the USA with the top one percent possessing wealth equal to the poorest 95 percent? (see Wikipedia).  Perhaps you want a ten to one ratio in wealth where the richest have approximately ten times the wealth of the poorest person?  Do you want representative democracy as we have now (voting for a lawyer to vote for what you want).  Or perhaps you want a direct democracy via computers, a lottocracy, a plutocracy/aristocracy (what we have now).  What about a conceptology (a new idea)?  In a conceptology, you would vote for a book of 200 pages or less that describes a new plan.  Perhaps you want voters to prove their mettle before being voter qualified.

Design your own Utopia and send it to me via the contact form.  I will pay $100 for every unique and viable plan submitted and published by this site.  Include your name, address and phone number so that you can be paid.  Your contact information will not be published.  The offer is limited to the first few submittals.

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What is the USA?

stmps

Certainly the USA isn’t the ONLY nation with Freedom, Liberty, Equality and Justice.  It is also obvious that the USA doesn’t have the worst Freedom, Liberty, Equality and Justice of any nation on earth.  It is also certain that the ranking of these qualities among earth nations is moot (open to debate).

The troubled half of the population will argue that the qualities of Freedom, Liberty, Equality and Justice, as found in the USA, cannot be improved.  This essay does not address these skeptics, but the choir – those that believe that change is possible and they can, in some small way, support change.  The ‘choir’ has the belief that society can become more perfect.

With Justice, would some get away with murder because people either don’t understand what a fact is?  Would some get away with murder because the law makes murder legal in certain situations?  Would some go to jail for years for doing something that didn’t cause anyone harm, loss or injury?  Would trials be long and expensive?

With freedom, would force be necessary?  With Freedom, would people be constrained in choice or action?  Freedom is described as: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.  With freedom from government, or anarchy, we would not have freedom as others could rule us by force taking what they wanted from us at gunpoint.

Liberty is defined as:  the power to do as one pleases or freedom from physical restraint;  freedom from arbitrary or despotic control; the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges; the power of choice; a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant; permission especially to go freely within specified limits.

With liberty, there are some constraints to absolute freedom that would be applied by the police or the courts as ordained by government rules and regulations.  The maximum freedom would be a universal self restraint from causing others harm or injury.  Maximum liberty, then, would require that the laws, courts, justice and police be as perfect and as possible.  Maximum freedom would be the ability to select the government of your choice, if not one of individual creation.

Liberty and Freedom are plausibly proportional to freedom of choice.  They are proportional to the minimization of force.  They are proportional to the ethics of all members of society as less force is necessary with a completely ethical, honest, trustworthy and sentient society.

Perhaps more electronic monitoring can replace force and punishment as a control  mechanism.  Perhaps the only punishment and or force needs to be banishment.  Perhaps justice requires mainly electronic monitoring and not require the ‘logic’ of the troubled half of society.

Perhaps maximum Freedom requires one to choose his own government and the people in his society.

Equality requires equality of rights and representation.  Equality of representation would require a lottocracy where representatives are randomly chosen from a pool of college educated or super literate people so that every profession, sex and race has an opportunity to be equally represented.

If freedom requires selection of the members of society and equality requires randomness, then there is a problem that requires compromise as part of the solution.  Maximum Liberty requires Justice to establish just compromise between Freedom and Equality.

Maximum Liberty does not require a one size fits all approach or  a homogenous society.   Maximum Liberty does probably require an absolute equality of rights.

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Utopian Healthcare

Guy asked: I was wondering if you could provide me with your healthcare model?

Answer:

People should be free to select their own utopian government.

Some could select a socialistic form of government complete with their own government provided health care system.  Many citizens of France and Canada seem satisfied with their healthcare systems.

My preference would be a utopian city state where everybody has access to a job that pays sufficiently to provide for healthcare.  Everybody could have a job.  Even the bum on the street could collect old cans and trash.

Those that truly refuse to work would be required to live under a rather frugal type of socialism.  People don’t need/want the same dream.

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Designing your own Utopia

The year was 1909 and mass production techniques had just started.  Henry Ford is quoted as saying: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”  People, however,  wanted their car painted in the color of their preference and soon vehicles of every imaginable color were rolling off the production line.

Utopia is a civilization that is nearly perfect for you and others that share your preferences.  You don’t want a compromise civilization dictated to you by others any more than you want only one choice in car color.  Don’t let governments tell you that they can’t give you a custom government.  That’s BS.  They are just protecting their power and vested interests.  Don’t listen to the one government people.

Suppose you could pick out the features/options of your new government the same way you could pick out the features/options of your next car.  What options would you choose?  What flavor of democracy would you want?  What are the rules of your capitalism?  What human rights are most important?  Perhaps you would want socialism or a benevolent dictatorship.  How do you want wealth distributed.  Do you want everybody to have the same wealth or do you want it the way it is in the USA with the top one percent possessing wealth equal to the poorest 95 percent? (see Wikipedia).  Perhaps you want a ten to one ratio in wealth where the richest have approximately ten times the wealth of the poorest person?  Do you want representative democracy as we have now (voting for a lawyer to vote for what you want).  Or perhaps you want a direct democracy via computers, a lottocracy, a plutocracy/aristocracy (what we have now).  What about a conceptology (a new idea)?  In a conceptology, you would vote for a book of 200 pages or less that describes a new plan.  Perhaps you want voters to prove their mettle before being voter qualified.

Design your own Utopia and send it to me via the contact form.  I will pay $100 for every unique and viable plan submitted and published by this site.  Include your name, address and phone number so that you can be paid.  Your contact information will not be published.  The offer is limited to the first few submittals.

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Boston Marathon bombings

I woke up crying twice last night over the death of the older Tsarnaev (a Boston Marathon bomber).  I remember his bullet riddled body (I’m entirely against assault weapons),  his three year old daughter, his wife and family here and in Russia/Chechnya.  The ‘face of evil’ that Kerry spoke of, once the smoke has cleared, is government.  Our own government, laws and discrimination (by giving super-rights to some, we discriminate and enable bigotry against others (perhaps the Tsarnaev brothers were discriminated against in the form of granting super-rights to others?)

I consider the Tsarnaev brothers to be the latest victims of government enabled bigotry.  I also don’t like inflammatory speech that brands them as ‘the face of evil’.  I also don’t like speeches that appeal to the pride, sympathy and emotion (like Obama’s recent remarks in Boston).

I don’t like government that listens like a brick.  (where is the government database of complaints, suggestions, and letters?)

Massachusetts has a ‘Murder Hot Line’ to see that any accused of murder get a lawyer appointed before they are interrogated.   Massachusetts also has no death penalty.  I hope Massachusetts law is respected and that torture and death penalties aren’t evoked in this case.

A potential solution is to let people form their own government elsewhere – as long as they vow to make it the job of their new government to protect the natural rights of the people.  Let them rent land from a government in lieu of taxes and for a nominal rent.  Since the average American generates a deficit, renting land for nothing would be a plus for the United States of America.  I think dissatisfaction arises when a government tries to force their morality (or lack of morality) on everybody.   The people that object strenuously to this solution should be shot (just kidding).  The Jewish people got their own state.  The American Indian got their own reservations.  This solution works.  This solution at least works better than war and shooting people.

Further Reading: The New Republic

I’m no expert on Chechnya, so please add a comment if my comments seem non
sequitur.  I love humanity and meant no disrespect or callousness towards any of those suffering loss or injury.  I empathize with all.  The discussion of peaceful government reform is my only objective.

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What is Utopia?

The definition of utopia in wikipedia gave the usual etymology and then lost it’s way.

It starts:

A utopia (/juːˈtpiə/) is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. The word was coined in Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean.

From there it drifted into More’s socialistic ideas, Plato’s Republic and several other concepts without drawing the cogent conclusion (conclusions are forbidden at Wikipedia) that Utopia isn’t a “one size fits all” concept.   One government, one society will and can never be everybody’s’ Utopia.

Hypothetically (hypotheticals also aren’t allowed in Wikipedia), one man’s utopia may enslave others.  Some like the cozy feeling of being controlled and subjugated, otherwise they wouldn’t pay to be the slave of a dominatrix for an hour or day.  If some want to be slaves and others want to be their masters, that’s ok.   However, it must be voluntary.  Not everyone would want to be a slave – at least not for a lifetime.

Many would think that being a billionaire is utopian.  However, it’s not realistic to think that everyone can be a billionaire.  Without providing any calculations, let’s just assume that everybody can’t be a billionaire – at least not all the time.  So as desirable as it is to be a billionaire, let’s cross this one off the list of utopian ideals.  We want to make a plan that will increase the aggregate level of satisfaction in a society.

What is Utopia?  It’s perfection.  Some argue that Utopia can never be achieved because perfection can never be achieved.   This is true.  Yesterday’s commercial airlines surely wouldn’t be perfect by comparison with the airlines of today.  So let’s qualify Utopian perfection.

Let’s qualify the definition.  Let’s define Utopia as a society that as perfect as possible for the era.  We should probably also add that the utopian society is one that constantly improves.   As technology improves, so should society.

Other questions arise with this definition. Is a utopian society perfect for the middle class, the upper class or the poor? Or is it utopian for all three? Does technology have to be perfect? Does government have to be perfect? Do people have to be perfect? Does education have to be perfect? Does the standard of living have to be perfect? Does the environment have to be perfect? Does population control have to be perfect? Does freedom have to be perfect?

The most logical answer is that the aggregate satisfaction level has to be highest for the most people.  Another logical answer is that, since all of the previous questions are important and since utopia is arguably the quest for perfection, that all the questions should be answered as a quest for perfection.  Everything should get better.

Utopia is then a perfect society that undergoes continual improvement to achieve the highest aggregate satisfaction level for the most people.  Utopian society also provides freedom for all.  Everybody has different needs and different concepts of Utopia.  Utopia therefore provides different governments and conditions so that all can live in a world that’s perfect for themselves.   One man’s heaven may be another man’s hell.  A utopian society would allow a man to move from a society  that is his hell to a society that is his heaven.

In Utopia, one size does not fit all.  Each man can move to a place that gives him what he wants and needs.  One man might prefer to live in a billionaire’s mansion as a slave or servant.  Another man might rather live in a dormitory or barracks and live in total freedom from subjugation, suppression and government.

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