As a nation of laws we pass all sorts of them, and create new regulations, to govern how we live as a society.
How should we assess these laws and regs? There are generally two camps - we can judge them by the incentives and outcomes they create, or we can judge them by the good intentions that went into passing them.
Curious to know how people this
Technology enables the automation of virtually any process. The Internet unites all knowledge and human attention. Technology and logistics have advanced to the point where hunger can be eliminated.
For many, it has long been obvious that most political systems no longer justify themselves. Sooner or later, power grows too large while citizens become insignificant. Truth becomes hidden, and the reasons why we form states have long been forgotten.
Copied from https://free-cities.org/:
"Modern political systems are characterized by perverse incentives for both rulers and the ruled. Rulers are not held accountable and do not suffer economic consequences when they make wrong decisions. The governed are encouraged to believe that, through voting, they can obtain “free” goods. This politicizes the state monopoly on power and leads to constant revisions of the 'social contract.' As a result, there is an ongoing struggle over how to steer these changes in a particular direction."
There is a new form of governance for the future in which every citizen will direct the country’s development. This will be carried out through personal management of one’s tax contributions.
Operations will be executed via a unified state application in which each person will choose how their funds are allocated. Decisions on expenditures will be made once per month.
A 14% tax is allocated as follows:
2% for maintenance of mandatory institutions such as healthcare, education, etc.;
2% must be allocated to nationwide entities of the citizen’s choice — for example, animal control, wildfire prevention, bridge construction;
10% is distributed according to personal preferences. For example: paving the street in front of one’s house; improving a specific nursing home; erecting a monument to a poet in a beloved city; upgrading a particular hospital; funding cancer research; building a telescope; removing garbage near one’s home.
All financial flows will be transparent. Any citizen will have access to information about what and how much is budgeted each month in any region.
After tax allocations are made, requirements will be generated automatically. Independent evaluation organizations will assess the completion of works. The actual works will be carried out by private organizations not owned by the state. Which organization performs a given task will be decided by a process similar to tenders, but with citizens making the selections.
The state application will include a rating of organizations based on citizens’ evaluations. Each person may give positive or negative feedback on how the works related to their tax requests were performed. Over time, these ratings will influence the choice of contractors.
Any citizen may direct their taxes toward anything that constitutes public goods (it is not permitted to direct taxes to oneself).
Within the state application, citizens will compile lists of expenditures at both the national and district levels. Each project will have a forum for discussion and a civic importance rating reflecting public opinion.
This will not determine whether a project is executed, but will help people understand its importance to others and assist them in deciding where to allocate their taxes.
There will be no state apparatus. There will be no people vested with governing authority. The sole state organization will be an IT company responsible for administering state processes.
There will be no military apparatus, no spending on military development, no expenditures on intelligence services, no bureaucrats, no parliament, no chamber, etc.
The 'state' organizations funded by the mandatory 2% tax are: healthcare, police, fire services, emergency rescue (EMERCOM), schools, courts, water and power supply, and multifunctional public service centers (MFC).
If a private organization wins the right to perform the duties of any of the institutions listed above, nothing will prevent it from doing so.
The adoption of new laws will also be accessible to citizens and will be carried out through proposal submission, voting, and incorporation into the legal framework.
Any citizen may oppose something and actively express their position. There will be no state-driven information campaigns or control of opinions.
Anyone may act as an orator, attempting to persuade citizens toward particular decisions — as in ancient Greece, or as Roosevelt did. However, the decision about the course of development you choose for yourself always remains yours alone.
On the one hand, this system requires citizens to assume greater responsibility for their actions and for the country’s future. On the other hand, it will compel people to develop self-awareness, the ability to think critically, and to make sound decisions. It will serve as a reminder that money is merely an equivalent, not an intrinsic value.
This system is designed to reduce wars. If politicians, intoxicated by ambition and power, can unleash wars that their citizens do not need, then under the new system responsibility for deaths will rest on each individual conscience. War becomes a personal matter. Few will be willing to direct their taxes toward causing the deaths of people from their own or another country. This system will force people to seek other, peaceful and mature solutions.
People are capable of much more. We can advance science and technology, improve cities and healthcare, explore space, and care for the planet.
Wars, theft, and greed slow humanity, keep us going in circles, and solve no problems.
Humanity has matured; it is time to move to a new level. Direct democracy — which is often discussed — is possible, but it has not yet...
I took two years and put together a new form of government. I give it the title of Libertarian socialist republic. It’s a highly restricted, anti-corruption, and regulated government that has strong individual liberties and freedoms with a social safety net for the poor, medical, and retirement. Please check it out and give me feedback.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MgJ3Y3aTfkmY-hPsvh9MRgG9yesJONe1tUrjdYYCUJA/edit?usp=drivesdk
I put together a government and I’m wanting feedback, questions, and ideas. Please let me know what you think
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MgJ3Y3aTfkmY-hPsvh9MRgG9yesJONe1tUrjdYYCUJA/edit?usp=drivesdk
Communism for Marx, aka from each according to his ability to each according to his need, is only possible under material abundance.
For example, Marx in "The Poverty of Philosophy" work which mainly explained in Chapter 2 Section 1 was attacking not only M. Proudhon but all utopian thinkers.
Until then, Marx advocated for all possible pragmatic positions, which includes socialist and capitalist ones, that develop material preconditions for abundance.
Karl Marx saw things in terms of necessary cruelties not good or evil or even ought. He hated moralising.
For Marx, his issue is material abundance. He would support socialism if it served that goal. He would also support capitalism if it served that goal. Moral oughts were secondary to him.
He supported capitalism sometimes out of a belief that capitalists were digging their own graves by creating material preconditions for a future socialist revolution.
I don’t like mass manipulation. I don’t like how its used to pit groups of people against one another resulting in disastrous conflicts. Emotionally, it’s much easier to look critically at your opponent’s reasoning and find flaws there, rather than in your own reasoning. Ideally the people from the opposing camps would talk to each other and help each other to dispel the manipulations used on them. However, in practice, it doesn’t work for a number of reasons that have to do with defensiveness, misaligned motivations, emotions taking over, time and effort etc.
While searching for a communication format that could help to improve this situation I’ve come up with the following. This is a platform that has two roles: writer and reviewer. Users play each of those roles at different times. The interaction goes like this:
The process repeats as the user sends out his doc to different reviewers, considers their reviews, makes incremental adjustments to his doc and reviews the docs of other users when requested.
Potential advantages:
Potential disadvantages:
Do you think that there is something to this format? How can it be improved?
Hey all! For a long time I’ve been pretty unsatisfied with the available models of politics, as they seem to be mostly descriptive rather than explaining the core architecture of what makes political movements tick. So I’ve been wondering: is there possibly a unified theory or method that explains what movements are, why they think the way they do, and why they evolve and fragment the way they do?
Long gas lines, rationing of only 5 gallons, twice a week, if you could find any at all.
Nixon won landslide in 1972 because public was sick of chaos and economic problems, never bargained for an oil shock, caused by his diplomatic blunder.
Remember 1st rule of US politics. It's the economy, stupid.
The Philosophies of the South series creates a platform for scholars, thinkers, activists, and practitioners engaging with intellectual traditions and critical frameworks that challenge the dominance of Western philosophical paradigms. Bringing together work inspired by decolonial thought, Indigenous epistemologies, and other critical traditions, the series explores how philosophy can be reimagined through perspectives that emerge from histories of colonialism, resistance, and alternative ways of knowing. Through conversations across disciplines and practices, the series alms to foster intellectual exchange, expand philosophical inquiry, and contribute to ongoing struggles for epistemic justice.
Decolonizing the Self: Learning Land, Unlearning Empire
In this conversation, Leny Mendoza Strobel and S. Lily Mendoza reflect on their respective journeys from decolonial theory into Indigenous studies and practice. Drawing on their shared work with the Center for Babaylan Studies, a movement for decolonization and indigenization among diasporic Filipinx, they explore how reclaiming Indigenous knowledge systems, ancestral wisdom, and embodied practices can transform understandings of self, community, and belonging. The discussion considers how diasporic Filipinx and other communities grapple with histories of colonial dispossession, work toward accountability to the land (and those land’s original peoples) both in the homeland and in the diaspora, re-learn Indigenous ways of knowing, and re-imagine futures grounded in relationality, wholeness, and collective care.
About the Speakers:
Leny Mendoza Strobel is professor emerita in American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University and a Founding Elder at the Center for Babaylan Studies. Her work has focused on the process of decolonization and re-indigenization. Most recently, she facilitates a local place-based cohort with the vision of "repair and reparations" with local indigenous communities.
S. Lily Mendoza is a professor of culture and communication at Oakland University and the Executive Director of the Center for Babaylan Studies. She is known for her path breaking work on the politics of indigeneity and critique of the cultural logic of modernity.
This is an online conversation and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. The event is free, open to the public, and held on Zoom.
You can register for this Monday 29th June event (11am PT/2pm ET/7pm UK) via The Philosopher here (link).
#Philosophy #CriticalTheory #PoliticalPhilosophy #SocialPhilosophy #Ethics #Politics #Postcolonialism #Epistemology #Indigenous
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About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):
The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.
The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.
democracies were built on the assumption that citizens possess free will and a shared reality.
Today,surveillance capitalism treats human experience as free raw material to be sold to the highest bidder to predict and modify our future actions, algorithms maximize engagement by promoting outrage, division, and echo chambers, they actively degrade the shared factual basis required for democratic debate. Also, the immense wealth and data centralization of a few tech monopolies rival the power of nationstates.
Did he genuinely transform the way we understand politics and power, or is the extent of his influence often overstated?
Sure, we can go back all fourth all day about the facts, or the statistics, in an effort to "prove" mass migration is a problem,.
But in reality, its unsubstantiated...
However, the people that attempt to do this, for the most part, are not bothered by the "statistics". They just use it to not be labelled as a "racist", When really, they don't care about race, they care about the Cultural displacement that is happening...
Sure, there are some exceptions, like with anything. They may say "we want X to be more white"
This is the mistake a lot of "racists" make, they link the wrong things together...
What They/"Racists" Think: "Behaviour = Race"
**What They Don't Realise They Are Thinking: "**Behaviour = Culture"
These wrong links (racism), make the people who have made the right links (culturalism), seen as racists. Even if they have said a single thing relevant to the definition of Racism.
There is nothing that you can say to why Culturalism by definition is a "bad" thing?
Note: Don't respond without an argument. Thanks
Our society has turned into...idk but it's very off putting for me. Racism, pedophilia, drugs, crime, hate, wealth inequality, i could really go on and on, but facts are this is our everyday. What is morally right and wrong? And who makes these judgements. How can we ever come together as functioning people again when we can't get the basics of morality agreed on. We have gone back 100 years it seems, women's rights and health are again up for debate, we are treating people worse than vermin because they aren't white, and undocumented, crime is rampant, drugs are no longer a problem or taboo, it's everyday life, our kids are not being educated correctly, and not a actual real solution to any of this mess is being sought out. Our society is really ok with all of this and I want to know why?
To answer the question of whether the demographic problems of Western civilization can be solved without migrants, we must understand the impact Protestantism had on Western civilization over the course of 500 years. The Protestant idea of fulfilling God's calling transformed Britain into a powerful empire. But no one noticed that this idea gradually began to erode the institution of the family, relegating it to the background. This, incidentally, is where feminism arose, since the problem wasn't that women's social status was low, but that the role of women as wives and mothers was not valued in Protestant society, with its idea of serving God's calling. In other words, Protestant society's success in achieving prosperity was achieved by consuming its demographic capital. Therefore, the answer to this question cannot simply be Christianity, since the source of the problem is Protestantism, which is also considered Christianity.
They were born in Europe, which is scientifically and historically accurate, regardless of how much they may deny it. Since they are from Europe, the only place where they truly belong is not Canada, the United States, Australia, or New Zealand. All of these places belong to the indigenous people. Mexicans live in Mexico, and the majority of them are indigenous people who were colonized by the Spaniards.
America was colonized by the English, the French, and the Spaniards. They are the ones who belong there. Every Hispanic, every native, and every Pacific Islander who lives in America is in their native land, and that is where their ancestors came from. Black Americans were taken as slaves from either Africa or different regions around Africa. Their logic doesn’t make sense for them to ship them off to the whole continent of Africa because Liberia was their attempt to do that, and it had become a thriving nation, but black Americans don’t really have a native area to go to because none of us know where our ancestors came from because we’re a mixture of all of Africa, spread out in the southern United States.
Why can people go back to Europe if they want to, but you all get free healthcare, free college, and everything you could ever want? Why would you want to avoid Europe and stay in America where you have black presidents, black governors, black mayors, Hispanic, and native congressmen and congresswomen? I mean, if their primary concern is to avoid gay people as well, you could simply go to Russia. There, you wouldn’t face any significant challenges other than a language barrier.
The same could be said for anyone who considers their race superior. We could all simply return to the ancestral homes of our ancestors, but most people are unaware of their ancestral origins, so there’s not really a viable solution. We could either accept this reality and deal with it, or there will always be people who look different, have different sexual orientations, and have different gender identities, all of whom want progress in the world while we’re all stuck in the same old cycle. Therefore, there’s no real reason to complain except to complain.
If there is no objective morality, what drives the ultra-wealthy to pursue ever greater wealth, even at the cost of legality or conventional morality? The passion with which some seek accumulation seems to imply a belief in some objective good, yet that appears incompatible with a worldview in which all values are ultimately subjective.
Maybe morality is merely a disadvantaged route to righteousness, and perhaps anyone granted extreme wealth and power eventually drifts into a position of carelessness.
Id like to hear others opinions.
You all know that we are not all equal unless you were born yesterday.
Yes, some people are more equal, but others are more equal than the others.
And the human rights and natural rights are not inscribed on your forehead when you are born.
People believe they are real because they wanna believe they are.
Only the laws of physics, like gravity, are real and never change.
Humans are wolves to each other, and war of all against all is the only natural thing.
And justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger, and people gather around the stronger for protection.
Forget about equality and rights.
They are all delusions.
Title. Are Social Contract theories (Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) still important today or do they only have value as part of the history of political philosophy??
