[Mind's Eye] getting to the positive

There was philosophy once called logical positivism. \\it's people
were well-intentioned, like Russell and Carnap. If you have a few
hours to spare I could explain its basics - in the end it got so
concerned with words they were all that was left. Strangely it was
accused of being crude in its use of brute fact.

The problem as I see it is that we want democracy but have not found a
way to accept its biggest flaw - that of decisions made through the
sway of ignorance, and further problems with the corruption of
representatives. Attempts at a fix of this in perfection are doomed
or the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

One might try to produce communication free of ideology and this let
Reason alone have power (Habermas) - but as far as I can see this
never works - and Habermas only suggests his 'ideal speech situation'
as an ideal type (following Weber).

The best positive I can reach is that we could change our material
conditions to produce less discontent. To get to an understanding of
this we need to agree on some basic facts - and the move towards these
is critical. People as old as Orn and myself can remember when it was
possible for most in the West to get somewhere near this because there
were plenty of well paid jobs about. Oversimplifying a lot this is
not now the case and we need to establish what the new conditions are.

Productivity is vastly enhanced from the times in which our work
ethics arose. My guess is we could get by quite nicely on a 30hr
working week and a 40 week year with retirement at 60 whilst
increasing current production. I am only guessing, but the reason I
have to guess is odd. Why don't we know? There are perhaps a dozen
vital areas like this to which we have no accepted answers.

The positive moves are all about establishing facts and the first of
these has to be an explanation of why we are so bad at this and
whether new technology can help break the 'spell'. Here, the paradox
is we need the technology to start working to this end with most
people not able to understand why and an existing situation in which
dominant education and media will try to pervert any attempts.

Many are discussing these issues in great detail. I'm sure a few of
us could put a '101' together from Internet sources. Semiotics is a
key discipline in the critique (Michael Betancourt), as is
environmental science (as opposed to the Kymer Vert) and most
economics that you don't get on Fox and the increasingly dumb BBC
(Steve Keen) One can even argue the Tea Party and OccupyX have
similar protest issues. You can get a radical smear of this on the
Keiser Report (courtesy on Russia Today).

The aim is already worked out - a return to economies with a link
between toil (labour value) and reward and money in people's hands,
not hoarded by an elite or subject to their looting- and meaningful
democracy.