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Aswad -> RE: Gor meets Earth (12/27/2009 8:01:03 PM)
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This isn't even a hypothetical possibility, as there is simply no viable migration path from what we have to something arbitrarily designed improvement that doesn't involve a substantial loss of life and shitloads of people scramming to get ther crap sorted, or takes a very long time and a lot of people going contrary to their nature. Incrementally improving things is another matter, but that's hardly what you were looking for here, is it?
A key point would be to abolish the nation state in its current form, but how are you going to enforce that without an institution with the same problems?
Humans are adverse to risk. Nobody really cares what's going on, so long as we all feel reasonably certain that the sky won't fall down tomorrow. Just keep the wheels turning and make sure that nothing changes too much, and everyone is content enough not to rise up and change things. Minorities above a certain size require integration, obviously, to avoid them rising up and changing things, as well. Avoid any wars you might actually lose. Ignore the long term in favor of whatever goes on inside the term you've been elected for, though in some countries there may be a tradeoff to avoid complications during the next election race to secure reelection.
Take care to thoroughly restrict freedom, but to never make it appear as though you are targetting any major voter block. Make sure to trump arbeit macht frei, kinder, küchen und kirche, und so weiter, und so weiter. People will give up anything for a feeling of security, whether for themselves or their children, or children generally, really. Keep them on the treadmill to acquire status symbols, and you don't risk anyone starting to think too much. Make sure they feel they have plenty to lose, so that even the ones that see problems will refuse to do anything to risk what they have. Let the young adults be disenfranchised enough that they can't rouse the older ones, since aversion to risk grows with increasing age. All these efforts stabilize things, and cultural prescription takes care of lubricating people.
Opium is the other route, but it's mostly illegal now.
Really, just like the US originally opposed independence, soo, too, any future improvement will be a small group of people deciding, against the will of the majority, to drag the rest, kicking and screaming, along for the ride. And once the dust from that settles, everyone will be happy again, of course. More or less, anyway. See, back in older cultures, the mediocre masses that were content to exist were held as slaves, and the rest were the actual citizens. Now, the inmates run the asylum, and the kwadirae are in each other's chains, which, given their desires, equates to freedom for them, in a functional, pragmatic sense. And, of course, the good of numbers, of replacable, mass produced, mediocre people- so it has been ingrained in us- outweighs Good.
If nobody's objecting, I'm pretty sure it ain't an improvement in that sense.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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