Dr_seven t1_iwvvn4z wrote
Reply to comment by andreaskrueger in For world philosophy day 13 thinkers share the philosophical questions that will define this century | Including Noam Chomsky on destruction, Naomi Oreskes on climate crisis and Carissa Veliz on innovation by IAI_Admin
>But in light of our real challenges ALL those "internal purposes" are secondary or even tertiary. Who gives AF if a state 'has done its job just fine' when harvests are failing due to a forever-unhospitable nature.
I agree completely.
>Democracy might be good or not so good at tackling its own aspirations. But while it does, it is using up attention, trust, time, and resources.
I think one problem might be that the "democracy" we have today is a pretty limited and inflexible version of it. Certainly, the liberal capitalist model seems to have failed.
>And my implicit/suggested value (collectively binding decision structures should solve the most important collective challenges) is "external" to all that; it evaluates the political system not by its own self assessment, but by its objective failure - not having changed the apocalyptic direction of society. > >By that criterion, (also) the democratic ideology is failing us miserably. And that made me say "not functioning properly".
That makes sense.
Ignoring the issue of implementation (naturally), what is it that forms the base failure of our systems? Is it lack of awareness of material reality, i.e. ecology, physics, and so on? Is it the manipulating media and social superstructures that restrict imagination and shunt thought into preexisting lanes of inquiry? Some mix of both?
It's entirely possible that humans, as we are, just aren't wired for making decisions at this scale and complexity. But something about that feels wrong, given how fantastic the diversity of human social adaptations has historically been. We can shape a social reality to produce almost any result- the only question is if that can be done in a way that helps us end up in the best possible place during this ongoing crisis.
LegendaryUser t1_iww3ir9 wrote
>Ignoring the issue of implementation (naturally), what is it that forms the base failure of our systems? Is it lack of awareness of material reality, i.e. ecology, physics, and so on?
The only answer I've ever come to that feels right is that people operating in groups for the purpose of completing a complex task, function more like parts of a machine than each piece functioning as a microcosm of the whole. Each piece of the machine may work towards a unified goal, as specificied by the actor choosing to be a part of the machine, but each component will have its own goals and interests that may not perfectly align with the end goal of the machine, even if the job the component does satiates the machines desires. I'm inclined to believe that being a part of the machine in the first place conditions you to behave in ways that the machine deems acceptable, else the machine will simply spit you out. And that is probably one of the core issues. Gating success or acceptance, as defined by society, by checking against the needs of the machine and largely dismissing the parts that don't immediately provide benefit, such as spending a large amount of money on greener means of production or disposal, or acting like a goofball, which you might find entertaining but the machine mught not. Our machine is geared towards production, and until we downshift a bit, the game will be production at all costs.
andreaskrueger t1_iww5dkx wrote
Base failure/s ? Just one choice out of many:
Externalities. A glacier has no vote; a frog species finances no election campaign; a stable climate could not be voted for; the global dumpsters (atmosphere, oceans, etc) are free to use; cheap oil costs nothing but drilling refinery transport (and military) but neither the nonrenewability, nor the resulting pollution has to be paid for; (and without politics taxing all those, the economy misses out on that vital information completely, so it cannot deliver proper optimization); and almost no one gives AF about anything after the current election cycle - let alone future generations.
All the services that a no-longer-tame nature had delivered, were never in any government budget balance sheet.
So in short, we are losing literal INVISIBILITIES that only a tiny minority ever cared about, but which played zero role for everyone else.
"Minority" is a key observation here.
Diversity - what if the "base failure" is totally different, for different subgroups?:
I've watched plenty elections. The vast MAJORITY gets it all wrong. Each time. And still. Largely not even by their own thinking, but then they did not free themselves in time.
More (much more?) than three quarters of voters are just different shades of conservativism; perhaps that's why "democracy" has such horrible outcomes when completely new societal, technical, economic paradigms would have been needed instead? Only when the relevant timescales are longer than a human life, the situation might sometimes progress and improve, because old views can literally die out. And gerontocratic subsystems try hard to postpone that.
The ecological MINORITY has been growing, but much too slow. Perhaps only very recently out of the one-digit percentages? With its super slow growth, the biggest "base failure" of the ecological minority might have been ... in spite of better knowledge (and while time was running out) still believing in ...
the majority vote principle.
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