All systems fail ..

Monarchies.. fail.. Communism.. fail.. Socialism.. fail .. Republics..fail.. democracies..fail .. capitolism.. fail.. religion .. fail.. governments.. fail.. leaders.. fail ..

Yet people blindly follow.. cling to.. fight and die over all these failed systems .. why ? what makes any of them worth following much less throwing ones life away for ?

a reply to: Expat888

I hope you are not asking this question over the internet right?

Or do you use money??

Haha.. All of the systems break, but it's better than making your own corn and wondering if you will freeze to death soon. To me it is ..

What can fail will always need maintenance. What fails can usually be repaired. We just need to choose the right person to maintain a system in order to keep it from failing. Judge them not by their failure, but what they achieved while working.

a reply to: Expat888

Which is why history repeats itself.

All of the systems are flawed because people are flawed.

Once anyone has power over another, their sense of entitlement grows, along with their narcissism and a God complex.

No human being can resist the basic human instinct to obey a system, or to
abuse authority, not matter how altruistic they think they are.

See the Milgram experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment.
www.prisonexp.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Corruption in all systems is inevitable, because they are run by human beings, who may begin altruistic and end up
eventually with paranoid narcissistic leaders with a god complex
like Stalin killing millions.

Well intended people start what they think will be a working system
as time goes by they get caught up in the inevitable power addiction
and end up poisoning the very system they thought they were champions of

This will happen time after time and system after system,
because all humans
no matter how saintly they think they are
how well intentioned they think they are
how smart and knowing they think they are
will inevitably become power drunk with time

That is why civilizations rise and fall on a regular basis throughout time

It is a never ending cycle

Probably until the singularity occurs
and AI take over
as is also inevitable
and it too will become oppressive
in trying to create a fair and equal system
and will be over thrown by humans

Who will start it all over again.

a reply to: Expat888

It takes about a generation for the people that experienced the last war to die off. All the young ones grow up not knowing how terrible the war was and fall for the same carrot and stick all over again.

I remember the Nam and so can't believe when I see people frolicking down that same path, again.

They have to experience it for themselves.

The real dastards are the ones promoting it from the top. Government, military and corporations use the media to hoodwink everyone one more time.

Better get a handle on it America, you're already far down the slippery slope…

Lyrics

a reply to: Expat888

Well they do say entropy must increase inside an isolated system. Failure seems inevitable, god dam thermodynamics.

All systems fail when take to absolutes, its only when you take a bit of x and a pinch of y you find the correct way of doing it, its a bit like cooking you need the sweet to balance the sour etc

For Forms of Government let fools contest;
Whatever is best administered is best."

— Alexander Pope

All systems are human in origin. So are all attempts to defeat such systems. Human ingenuity vs. human ingenuity. What do you get? An arms race. One lot thinks up new ways to manipulate or break the system. The other lot tries to make the system stronger, more resistant to manipulation or breakage.

At times one has the upper hand, at times the other. The cycle goes on, unending.

Yet slowly, some sort of progress is achieved.

a reply to: grandmakdw


I simply agree that Power Corrupts, but let's not give up just quite yet, mankind is ingenious and we have new tools at our disposal, nearly all of the issues you mention can be combated with Direct Participatory Democracy.

The time for Representative Democracy has come to an end.

But the Establishment won't let go without a fight, look at UKIP in the UK, the Political Elites/MSM attack them daily as they try to preserve the status quo whilst Douglas Carswell (UKIP MP) promotes 21stCentury iDemocracy

a reply to: UKMinarchist

Nearly all of the issues you mention can be combated with Direct Participatory Democracy.

But solving them takes money. Money raised from taxes. And in direct participatory democracies (like California) people have a tendency to vote themselves lower and lower taxes.

Liberal dogma holds that people know what's best for them, and will always choose it. Look around you and you will see that this is nonsense; people make irresponsible choices and act in irresponsible ways all the time. People are foolish, venal, impulsive, corruptible, only too willing to yield to temptation. Not all the time, of course, but often enough to compromise their best selves, and thus society.

People need leaders. It doesn't matter how they are chosen or how they come into their positions so long as they do the job well when they're in power. If they're chosen by the people that makes it easier to hold them responsible for their actions, which is why we have electoral democracy (and, if they abuse their power in office, a legal system). It's a hard and thankless job, so they're entitled (I think) to a few perks while they do it, as well as a reasonable amount of respect from those of us who wouldn't touch the job with a bargepole. But being chosen by the people doesn't mean a leader must do what the people tell her to. A leader's job is to lead, and sometimes that means taking people where they don't much want to go, for their own sake and that of future generations.

You may disagree about that. Maybe you believe all decisions of state should be made by referendum, or by consensus. If so, I'm afraid our differences are probably irreconcilable.

Most of these systems "work". It is humanity that "fails".

These societies operate perfectly on paper, but bring human failings and greed into the picture, and perfect cloth unweaves itself.

It's a cyclical pattern of Revolution, Calm, Greed, Disruption, and Revolution again.

All forms of government are eventually overthrown and replaced with different forms, until greed once again causes unrest and the cycle begins anew.

So in a way, the system is stable, but only over the long term.

a reply to: Astyanax

people make irresponsible choices and act in irresponsible ways all the time.

Aye, Democracy is not perfect but there are now many technical ways to mitigate against this, unfortunately people only hear of the California or Swiss models. We need to bring Meritocratic Democracy to the 21st Century and tell the uninterested electorate not to vote unless they know what they are talking about, but there are many 'leaders' who want to preserve their power so new designs are rarely seen, but they do exist, hopefully one day we will get lucky.

But like Max says

All systems fail when take to absolutes, its only when you take a bit of x and a pinch of y you find the correct way of doing it, its a bit like cooking you need the sweet to balance the sour etc

a reply to: UKMinarchist

Participatory but meritocratic? How does that work?

originally posted by: UKMinarchist
a reply to: grandmakdw


I simply agree that Power Corrupts, but let's not give up just quite yet, mankind is ingenious and we have new tools at our disposal, nearly all of the issues you mention can be combated with Direct Participatory Democracy.

The time for Representative Democracy has come to an end.

But the Establishment won't let go without a fight, look at UKIP in the UK, the Political Elites/MSM attack them daily as they try to preserve the status quo whilst Douglas Carswell (UKIP MP) promotes 21stCentury iDemocracy

There is no system that will work for more than a couple hundred of years,
because by that time a power elite develops
and they always see themselves as superior
and due the vast majority of the resources since
they are so intelligent and so paternally just to
the the little people.

There is and always will be a historical cycle of systems.

We are due to return to a system of autocrats

In my opinion, the singularity is due quite soon

We will attempt rule by unemotional
and completely fair
AI

Who will probably eventually see humans
as we see ourselves as so
fundamentally flawed and dangerous
to ourselves and to the planet
that they will
quietly let humanity die
while keeping us as
safe and comfortable
as pampered pets

Here are the theories I've seen presented:

1. We are inherently flawed (usually a position arrived at through religion or a pessimistic selective view of a short period of time we call written history), therefore any system we create is flawed.
2. Design, thriving, corruption, decline, revolution are stages inseparable from human civilization.
3. We could achieve a better system but "they" won't allow it.
4. I don't want to be a victim of climate, or commit to back-breaking labor if I go back to farming like we once did so I'll put up with this proven failure of a system because it's the best we got.
5. Subconsciously, I love our culture, it's poor food quality, cheap entertainment, gadgets and toys, failed economy/government, exploitative nature, whatever...because the prison is "comfortable".

I've been on these teams at different times in my life so I remember the logic it took to arrive there.

My current view is this:

If you ask a grossly huge portion of humanity, 1 by 1, in private, what they want deep down they will probably answer: Food, Shelter, Love, and Leisure Time (for meditation, entertainment, design, fun, etc). Yet somehow, we go against our hearts, and continue to sign up for this week's version of division fetishism. We probably do so out of fear, vengeance, and lastly...ignorance.

Denying ignorance in my life meant to terminate my allegiance to any of the above stalemate teams and searching for, if possible, a way to cut to the core of everything and sidestep the distractions.

enter Permaculture

Ways are being developed and improved to achieve all of the things we all want deep down, sustainably and simultaneously.

The reason why a system which both provides for our basic needs through as much local interaction as possible AND facilitates leisure because of it's advanced models that emulate natural ecosystems will work better than anything we've ever tried before is because it doesn't commit the 2 sins that existed way before theocracies, socialism, Abrahamic religion-states, monarchies, blah blah.

Sin 1: Suppression of the human being and all of it's ingenuity through hard, time-consuming labor in a battle against nature.
Sin 2: Non-local exchange of energy/information (massive government), inherently inefficient and vulnerable to collapse/corruption.

The template for efficient, productive, abundant systems is there. You just have to learn how to decipher it from the seemingly chaotic, intimidating facade of nature.

National Socialism in nazi Germany was one of (or the only) system that did not fail. It worked tremendously well, even with it's flawed concepts of one race being superior to another. I know this is hard to accept, but you have to remember that the one who wins writes history. It's simply a fact that their system was superior in growing economical, cultural, technological, etcetera. If national socialism didn't include all this hating of 'inferior races', than it could've worked out to be the best system that humanity has ever seen, for the nation, for the world, for all life and the progression of humanity.

a reply to: Expat888

The reason they fail, is because the minute humanity left the rain forest, we were no longer in harmony with nature. We created our own artificial environment, which is fantastic in that we no longer starve as much, and it offers us shelter and some comforts, but has a flaw in that its not self sustaining, it requires replenishment. So we keep pulling resources out of our environment to sustain it. As a result over time when those resources become depleted we have to get them from somewhere else (wars and oppression of populations). As a result we are slowly consuming our planet and its ability to sustain itself and us. So far we have been able to keep somewhat ahead of it, but as the population approaches 10 billion we are going to have more trouble feeding and providing for so many people.

a reply to: openminded2011

And thus we need population control so we can restore this harmony with nature and not give up the comfort of our technology and scientific progress.

a reply to: Velom

I believe it is true that either we will correct the population problem or nature will.

a reply to: openminded2011

Either the nature problem gets corrected, or it will cycle endlessly forever.

The very sad delusion that rules the world, they believe without humans it was somehow correct.

It was NEVER correct, everything is dying, the entire Universe is FAIL.