Re: Mind's Eye A Call To Democratic Arms?

I agree with that Allan. The question for me takes existing ideas on
argument as part of the problem and ponders on what technology could
replace it. I don't mean we should give up governance to some
computer super-brain thingy and to be honest I'm not sure what I mean
either.

Take some of the standard drivel the polmuppets churn out at us:

"The vast majority of the British (US/Dutch/German) public believe
blah blah". This is always rhetoric and never means the speaker/
writer has polled the people in fair conditions with fair question.

"We must reduce the deficit/government debt" never means by
'euthanasia of the rentier class' (something Adam Smith said). It
always means something economic that nearly all the audience only
understands in homily terms about household budgets irrelevant to
national and global economics.

People aren't convinced by argument at all in the main - they don't
know enough to take part, so they try to conceal this by judging
character or following their bit of the herd.

I think we can produce technology that would ring the bullshit bell on
rhetoric and when the majority is cheating - and remove the soft
skills of persuasion, propaganda, core myths and so on - to leave us
with the critical elements of what needs to be reasoned or
experimented with. Science is a technology that does this, if
somewhat imperfectly, but it isn't good enough to do what we need.

I don't think it would be unfair, say, for me to claim to know more
about economics than the rest of this group (I taught it after all) -
but knowing more of such stuff can't be the answer either. Whatever
the technology would be, it would be something most could simply use.

On 9 Jan, 16:29, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am all for the small d   --  the problem with the small d is the
> spin doctors and their deep wallets spreading cash    and government
> officials both elected and hired that is willing lap up the bribes in
> all their forms..  until the grease ends well what can be said..
> but the perks are not bribes  even though they are.
> Allan
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> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 4:16 PM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The human world is in a mess.  It's hard to express what is going on.
> > My guess is we are being ruled by a small, unelected, hidden politburo
> > we could call banksters.  I take this as metaphor, much as I would the
> > notion the rulers are alien lizards.  I also guess they have skewed
> > any dialogue we have to make it very difficult to identify the real
> > problem we face through argument.  This is more or less a 'Dr Who'
> > predicament, though I suspect it is the real one we face.
>
> > Those of us who are democrats (small d) know the answer.  We want a
> > human world at peace and our institutions based on real democracy with
> > government as unobtrusive as possible in the lives of reasonable
> > individuals.  This, sadly, is the easy bit.  Even something as easy as
> > this is potentially totalising and fascist.
>
> > Much, of course, has been written on this, and my conclusion is this
> > can't be helping much.  My own country, Britain, has made some kind of
> > decision to give up empire, but we clearly cling to the coat-tails of
> > the USA through the dupes or war criminals we elect - or who know a
> > secret case not made to us that justifies war and other rotten
> > policies.  If I was capable of listing all the literature I've read on
> > this matter I wouldn't finish until sometime after a week tomorrow and
> > I'm by no means a specialist.  Even if the democratic parts of this
> > literature is right, it doesn't convince me of any course of action,
> > as almost none of it explains how we might lay down the arms of the US
> > umbrella without giving up to something worse or simply as bad run by
> > people less favourable to my ethnicity.
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> > My belief is we must change what dialogue and argument are to address
> > a move to real, global democracy.  We have new technology that would
> > allow this, but currently it is being subsumed into the skewed form
> > that has allowed domination through the ages.  It could be that this
> > technology would tell us we need the American Empire.  I rather hope
> > it would rather be a call to democratic arms and very substantial
> > changes in what we do and can be.  Any suggestions as to what this
> > technology is or would be?
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> > --
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> --
>  (
>   )
> |_D Allan
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> Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.
>
> Of course I talk to myself,
> Sometimes I need expert advice..

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