Idea: We don't need a Revolution anymore.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Maybe it's the fact that it's now an election year in the US that's got me thinking politics again, or maybe it's the fact that society and other things under Human control continue in this modern age to suck what can only be described as a whole lot of ass.

Anyway, in my travels online and in conversations IRL I have had with different people (and different kinds of people), there is a large and growing consensus that whatever floated the Colonists' boat two centuries ago, it just isn't working anymore. Of course, something like that is seldom spoken out loud for fear of sounding like a Revolutionary, which is somehow synonymous these days with everything a Good American is supposed to hate.

Besides that, there are the not insignificant facts that if Americans were to revolt en masse against their government, they would be laid to waste by the strongest military power the world has ever known; that most Americans just don't care enough to defend something as abstract as Liberty against a tyrannical government when they have something as literal as an iPod and "bills to pay;" and that nobody outside of the Establishment would have the first clue about how to design a proper Government anyway; so even if there was a Revolution, it would fail.

Well, that kind of thinking is depressing for a person like me who not only thinks the system has failed but has long since outlived its usefulness anyway. Add to that my delusions of grandeur and my foolhardy wish to "live in interesting times" (which is an old Chinese curse, by the way), and it's just a mood killer when you tell me how broken the world is and then say, "Eh, but whatcha gonna do?"

Usually, when your logic tells you there's no good way to avoid something, it's right. Sometimes, though, your logic is flawed. Sometimes your logic just isn't equipped to deal with the problem you're facing, because it's based on the same set of circumstances that led to your problem in the first place. I believe that right now, we as Americans (and probably people in "The West" in general) are living in just such a time. All the signs are pointing to the apparently undeniable "fact" that our governments are becoming more and more ubiquitous and all-seeing all the time; that "privacy" is something you only read about in fairy tales and lawsuits against peeping Toms; and that We the People are just in for it, no matter how you look at it.

But what if that's all just hogwash, and the only reason we believe it is because we've been conditioned to believe it? What if the reality is that the Government and the "System" in general is just a great big game of Monopoly set up two hundred years ago and has been hijacked, exploited, cracked open, broken into, and under constant attack since before it started? If that were true, if the Government we supposedly "owe" our allegiance to, just because it happens to be in power, is only a game, then what's keeping us from just walking away?

This isn't about taking off and living in the hills. It's about a paradigm shift that's desperately needed by millions of people. It's about recognizing what the hell is going on, really. There are people in Washington and London and Paris and everywhere else, and these people are playing a game called Politics. The game has its own rules, etiquette, and protocols.  And like any game worth playing, there is a prize if you "win." But unlike most games, the prize for this one is quite literally stolen from people who never signed up for the game in the first place. Most people don't realize that politics is a game. They think it's Serious Business, but it isn't. Have you seen the great big stupid grins that get stuck on politicians' faces whenever they're hanging out with each other? Those aren't fake.

So all of politics is a game. Everything, from international warfare, to micromanaging regulations within Federal departments, to the lines painted on the streets you drive on every morning, is a part of this game. The money you carry around with you is not actually worth anything -- it's just a "promise" that it's okay to pay you in paper because other people are all playing the same game that you're playing, and will also accept that paper as payment.

The problem of course is that this game has very high stakes, and it doesn't care who gets the short end of the stick. Especially with the jackasses who are currently playing at the top levels of the game, any recourse for the Little Guy is drying up quick. That's why there's so much talk about the System failing and everybody's wringing their hands because it doesn't feel good to know there's something wrong that you can't fix.

Except we can fix it. Politics is a game, so quit playing. Make a new game, and alternative game, make it open to anybody who wants in so you can grow quickly. Make it simple, make it fair, and put it into practice wherever you can. Model community groups after it. Model online groups after it. All that we really need to do is make that intellectual leap from this dogmatic "There is only one Government and My Government is The Government" drivel, to knowing that politics is only a game and you're perfectly within your natural rights to make your own.

People are (generally) born with two hands, two feet, and two eyes. Know how many governments we are born with? None.

[Cramulus]

First, Mittens

Heh, right before I read the last paragraph I was thinking, "Well I'm not playing that game." Glad that was the direction you were going. It's a strange modern world we live in - culture is madness. If we were to teleport someone in from the era of Feudal Monarchy, I wonder (once they had gotten past the HOLY SHIT, ELECTRICITY?! phase) if they'd think this way of life is better than theirs was.

The way you frame it, Vex, it sounds like if you're not a high level player, you're just losing. But I don't think that's the case - I think most people are playing an entirely different sort of game. ComfortQuest. And the rules of that game (how fast you can drive, how much money you can make, whether or not you can rip legally purchased CDs to your computer) are defined by the people playing the higher-level game (which involves wearing suits and "representing" others).

One of the recurring themes here on PD is the desperately and hopelessly fucked up state of modern living. And one of the questions we've wrestled with is What The Fuck Can I Do? I want to help make things better, but any avenue for change has been kaiboshed by bureaucracy or just plain apathy (they go hand in hand towards Aftermath). Your suggestion, make a new game, is one solution.

And I look at my life and realize that in a way, that's what I've been doing all along. My life will go on more or less the same, regardless of the War in Iraq, regardless of which puppet wins this November's election, regardless of whether or not it's legal to rip my CDs to my hard drive. Grover Cleveland could take the white house and I'll still be drinking Dr. Pepper, smoking pot, playing D&D on Sunday, etc.

But you can't escape it for long, right? No matter how much escapism I've engineered into my life - and I consider my hobbies and my group of friends a form of escapism - there's still bullshit everywhere. We live in it. I can escape from it for a while but in the end I'm still getting screwed by the City of Yonkers. I'm still getting paid shit and then giving a third of it to the government.

But these are the dangers of modern living.

Primitive man had to face wild animals, starvation, tribal warfare. We have to face income tax, draconian schedules, the RIAA, and apathy.

People are (generally) born with two hands, two feet, and two eyes. Know how many governments we are born with? None.

[LMNO]

It sounds like you're saying that a society is simply laid over the human condition, like a very lumpy carpet.  That whatever system you're in, provided it sustains your continued existence, the basic facts of human nature will out.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The difference is that income tax only exists because we believe it does. A Saber-Tooth Tiger could eat a caveman no matter how many committees pass a resolution against it.

We can avoid the bullshit if we want to, we can drop off the radar and live a life Thoreau would be proud of if we want to, and we can form coalitions to see how we can better play Their Game if we want to. But there's a problem with all that -- that is all still playing the game. The game rules say, "Pay your bills or go without electricity / Get a SS card or go without social benefits / Obey our silly rules or live in the woods and fend for yourself against bears and property owners."

If you make a new game, you set the rules to be better. And it doesn't take a violent uprising against the current government -- you just stop recognizing that government's power. Granted, a firing squad doesn't much care how valid you think it is, but if your game is simple, viral, and leads to people seeing the difference between natural laws and the arbitrary rules of a stupid game, that won't matter for long.

The idea here is that such a system could propogate itself without fear of being decapitated because it would never have a head to begin with. Just communication and data, and people receiving that data deciding whether or not it's worth it.

With luck, the Revolution would just sort of 'happen,' as more and more people jump ship from obsolete nation states. It's a huge goal I know, but there isn't really much to it, if you can get people to stop a moment and think.  The only reason the world is as shitty as it is is because 99% of the world is trusting their governments to play the game for them, and because nobody seems to realize that it's just a game in the first place.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

It sounds like you're saying that a society is simply laid over the human condition, like a very lumpy carpet.  That whatever system you're in, provided it sustains your continued existence, the basic facts of human nature will out.

In a way that is what I'm saying. Human nature is one thing, and the methods we use to reign in parts of that nature and bring out other parts are a society's rules. What I'm proposing here though is that instead of taking your society and bending it to your will by imposing a new set of rules with a new cabal of assholes in the driver's seat, you create a system that runs itself. It's sort of the idea behind the American Constitution, except that idea failed.

Utilizing modern technology, almost 100% direct democracy is now possible. It won't be implemented of course, because that scares the powers that be, but it is possible nevertheless. And because such democracy is possible, it is no longer necessary to wait for those in power to put it in place. We can just build it, and use it.

[LMNO]

100% democracy would be a fucking horribe way of living in a society.

Why?  Because my views on how to live are almost always in the minority.

100% democracy = Mob Rules.

[Diseris]

IMHO...

Things are going to get a lot worse before they ever get better.

The capitalists are consolidating at a faster rate than ever before, perhaps soon they will have a winner, the guy/gal who owns everything.  Politics is just a means of settling the lower classes by offering them a (false) hope of being able to change the system.   With the current players and field, the Reps will win the big seat, backed by the Supreme Court.  I'm expecting the same shenanigans we've seen the last two elections with perhaps a bit more bravado on the losing side this time, but still no widespread violence, and more importantly, no change for the better, unless you're filthy rich and have something to gain from a less friendly more intrusive law enforcement package.

Besides that, there are the not insignificant facts that if Americans were to revolt en masse against their government, they would be laid to waste by the strongest military power the world has ever known;

Have you seen the non-lethal weapons the military has been developing?  Bet they're not for invading foreign governments...

that most Americans just don't care enough to defend something as abstract as Liberty against a tyrannical government when they have something as literal as an iPod and "bills to pay;" and that nobody outside of the Establishment would have the first clue about how to design a proper Government anyway; so even if there was a Revolution, it would fail.

Its not that they don't care, they just aren't learning how or why the country was formed.  They have no basis for complaining and attacks against the status quo are scary...Change is not good unless you're at Taco Bell.

Well, that kind of thinking is depressing for a person like me who not only thinks the system has failed but has long since outlived its usefulness anyway. Add to that my delusions of grandeur and my foolhardy wish to "live in interesting times" (which is an old Chinese curse, by the way), and it's just a mood killer when you tell me how broken the world is and then say, "Eh, but whatcha gonna do?"

Except we can fix it. Politics is a game, so quit playing.

The choice to not play is a vote in and of itself.  It would be nice to set up a democratic utopia, but without changing the existing system you may be hard up for resources.

Sad as it is the choice must be to vote for one of the major ass clowns and hope that the powers that be finish up their god damned pyramid so that a paradigm shift can actually take place.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

100% democracy would be a fucking horribe way of living in a society.

Why?  Because my views on how to live are almost always in the minority.

100% democracy = Mob Rules.

I didn't mean that actual 100% democracy is the way to go. But we need to increase representation levels. The same 0.1% of the population parading around like they're in it for the Common Man is getting a little old, even for some of the more Pro-Establishment people I know.

Diseris:

People are gaining a reason to complain all the time, and not just whacko paranoid conspiracy buffs. But those people aren't exactly given a talk show.

There's no reason that a new system cannot leech off the old system while it's growing. It would be like dual citizenship until the time comes to just pull the plug.

Why would I vote for one of the puppets when I know they are all on the same team playing the same game? Voting for them and then hoping something changes more than aesthetically is pointless, and that's the reason this system keeps getting worse. Too  many people still have some faith that it can accomplish something.

[Diseris]

I don't believe that all the puppets are playing for the same team, there are a few deviants from the norm running, but the money and power don't want them to win so you don't hear much from them.  Well, maybe I'm just throwing away my vote, but the hope is that more and more people will see that third parties and minor candidates are getting more popular, which will, hopefully, feed itself. 

What happens when the small fries go big?  Probably the same betrayals as always, but at least there is some hope of change.

Opting out will work if you can feed off of the resources of the current system, but not using money and  not voting isn't going to give you a real popular party.  Where will the food and materials necessary for life come from, those still in the old system?  And why should one arbitrary new system be used over any other arbitrary system?  Hell, you could have one president elected for each web portal, because, for sure, there is no unity on the net.  Maybe you could get all the malcontents together to agree there is a problem but beyond that there won't be much agreement.

[Diseris]

Better yet, run for office.

Spout a bunch of God is good nonsense and shape yourself up to look and act like a politician, get some cash from the big boys then get in office and work for the little guy and social justice.  You're still free to do that.

I'll vote for ya.

[hunter s.durden]

100% democracy would be a fucking horribe way of living in a society.

Why?  Because my views on how to live are almost always in the minority.

100% democracy = Mob Rules.

Oppression by popular conscensus.
Fuck that.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I don't believe that all the puppets are playing for the same team, there are a few deviants from the norm running, but the money and power don't want them to win so you don't hear much from them.  Well, maybe I'm just throwing away my vote, but the hope is that more and more people will see that third parties and minor candidates are getting more popular, which will, hopefully, feed itself. 

What happens when the small fries go big?  Probably the same betrayals as always, but at least there is some hope of change.

Opting out will work if you can feed off of the resources of the current system, but not using money and  not voting isn't going to give you a real popular party.  Where will the food and materials necessary for life come from, those still in the old system?  And why should one arbitrary new system be used over any other arbitrary system?  Hell, you could have one president elected for each web portal, because, for sure, there is no unity on the net.  Maybe you could get all the malcontents together to agree there is a problem but beyond that there won't be much agreement.

The alternative system is better. Also, it doesn't require you to give up the amenities afforded you by the dominant system. It capitalizes on the waste of the dominant system -- wasted time, wasted effort, wasted resources. Also, the dominant system is quickly decaying into a de-facto police state because interest in keeping it a republic is dropping like crazy.

[Diseris]

Yeah, you're right, I'm Pope, may as well be president too! 

[East Coast Hustle]

I don't think he was preaching anarchy.

At least, I hope not because I really liked the OP.

[Diseris]

Just having a real hard time with the economics behind the idea.

Looks like a setup for soylent green.

The disassociated drop out, the rich get richer and maintain control through force, you get one of four roles to play...dog, pig, sheep or rat.

The tracking shouldn't be too bad, everyone who wants to vote in the new system will need some form of ID to ensure single votes. 


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