I've heard reasonable arguments from intelligent people all over the political spectrum: Republicans who say that government is inefficient and lacks accountability with social programs; Democrats who say that we don't take care of the poor and under-resourced enough; Greens who say that we need to provide economic incentives to encourage environmental stewardship and fair labor practices; Libertarians who say that government would work better if it ran more like a business; and even Anarcho-Syndicalists who say that we'd be better off without a State, but instead with democratically self-managed workers.
The world is a complex place and everyone seems to think they know what the right solution is for all our problems. I don't buy that even the most intelligent people I know can really understand it enough to make a good judgement about How to Make Things Work.
If I was King of the World, I'd apply a few simple principles based on my own beliefs about how things work. I don't know what political system these would fall into, but here are my axioms:
1) Human beings are valuable assets that we must invest in. By providing some initial minimum of resources, we have the capability to enable creative, productive, happy citizens that will benefit society. Human beings are also fragile and if not provided the opportunity to succeed will end up being not only a drain on society economically, but also end up more likely to make other people suffer for their own lack of happiness and stability.
2) Parents hold the keys to the successful development of their children. There are of course other factors, but the more we, as a society, continue to deny this, the more we will emotionally cripple our children, preventing them from achieving their full potential
3) Intelligence is important, but without education, it's not enough. As King of the World, one of the biggest investments I would make is in providing free education for all. It wouldn't be mandatory, but one could always come back to it at any time in their life. This means I'd also have to work with educators to make school compelling enough for people to want to go through.
4) Effective management of shared resources and the encouragement of standards are crucial to enabling innovation and economic prosperity. Economic markets that have some amount of freedom have demonstrated their worth in the history of the United States, but left unchecked, corporations grow in power to the point where they can be just as despotic as a dictatorial government.
5) Decentralization of resources can help prevent concentration and therefore corruption of power. I want every neighborhood to have their own industrial 3D printer, their own community vegetable garden, and their own internet network nodes. I want people to be inspired to learn how to make and repair things so we don't support the sale of lower and lower quality goods by corporations who would rather make a buck than provide lasting durable products. I want people to learn how to manage their own health with something akin to the personalized medicine movement.
6) Play needs to become a higher priority than drudgery. Although there might be some benefits to hard physical labor, or hard labor of other kinds, play keeps us learning and excited about the world, rather than complacent and seeking addictive pastimes to distract us from the perceived meaninglessness of life. Perhaps Play would be the state religion - a religion in which we take the time to laugh and incite humor, to experiment and relax our discipline, to experience hedonism in it's varied forms without dulling our minds to the rich sensual world around us.
I'm sure there's more I could say, but those are the most important principles of the world I want to live in. In the meantime, I'll live the best I can by these virtues and share the happiness and success I gain from them with everyone I know and hope that can be a start.
The world is a complex place and everyone seems to think they know what the right solution is for all our problems. I don't buy that even the most intelligent people I know can really understand it enough to make a good judgement about How to Make Things Work.
If I was King of the World, I'd apply a few simple principles based on my own beliefs about how things work. I don't know what political system these would fall into, but here are my axioms:
1) Human beings are valuable assets that we must invest in. By providing some initial minimum of resources, we have the capability to enable creative, productive, happy citizens that will benefit society. Human beings are also fragile and if not provided the opportunity to succeed will end up being not only a drain on society economically, but also end up more likely to make other people suffer for their own lack of happiness and stability.
2) Parents hold the keys to the successful development of their children. There are of course other factors, but the more we, as a society, continue to deny this, the more we will emotionally cripple our children, preventing them from achieving their full potential
3) Intelligence is important, but without education, it's not enough. As King of the World, one of the biggest investments I would make is in providing free education for all. It wouldn't be mandatory, but one could always come back to it at any time in their life. This means I'd also have to work with educators to make school compelling enough for people to want to go through.
4) Effective management of shared resources and the encouragement of standards are crucial to enabling innovation and economic prosperity. Economic markets that have some amount of freedom have demonstrated their worth in the history of the United States, but left unchecked, corporations grow in power to the point where they can be just as despotic as a dictatorial government.
5) Decentralization of resources can help prevent concentration and therefore corruption of power. I want every neighborhood to have their own industrial 3D printer, their own community vegetable garden, and their own internet network nodes. I want people to be inspired to learn how to make and repair things so we don't support the sale of lower and lower quality goods by corporations who would rather make a buck than provide lasting durable products. I want people to learn how to manage their own health with something akin to the personalized medicine movement.
6) Play needs to become a higher priority than drudgery. Although there might be some benefits to hard physical labor, or hard labor of other kinds, play keeps us learning and excited about the world, rather than complacent and seeking addictive pastimes to distract us from the perceived meaninglessness of life. Perhaps Play would be the state religion - a religion in which we take the time to laugh and incite humor, to experiment and relax our discipline, to experience hedonism in it's varied forms without dulling our minds to the rich sensual world around us.
I'm sure there's more I could say, but those are the most important principles of the world I want to live in. In the meantime, I'll live the best I can by these virtues and share the happiness and success I gain from them with everyone I know and hope that can be a start.
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