Is democracy our political zenith for political and social stratification or will it eventually die out like other systems did? This may seem like an overreach today but it certainly appears like an increasing possibility in the future from my perspective.
Modern democracy is perhaps now reaching it's normalization/maturation stage, especially in western nations - that it has begun to show more than a few cracks on the way.
Amongst the most bothersome for me is the polarization among distinct ideological groups and their strong refusal to seek a middle ground.
The election of Trump for instance was widely marred with protests despite the supremacy of the Democratic institution on which he was elected. That shows that more than a few were willing to subtend their respect for rule of law just to have their way.
The build up to an election process is not in any way better - often involving bitter rows, blackmails, and an invisible financial cabal pulling strings behind the scenes; making current democratic practices both expensive and morally suspicious.
With an increasing globalized world my guess is that it will become increasingly ethnocentric, causing serious questions about its sustainability in the long run.
I note that Democracy really isn't democratic. Rather than considering an issue and deciding as citizens how to handle the issue, representative democracy avails us only of a choice between gatekeepers, who do the deciding for us.
I don't need a decider.
Steem is new technology, and as more people become informed as to how it works, actual Democracy will eventuate. That's what Steem does: allows us to voluntarily support, oppose, or ignore any given content, and this includes political issues.
I have long ago noted that Steem is practically an ideal mechanism for government, if only tweaked a bit to reckon the differences between transitory content and political decisions. All that needs to change for actual direct democratic voluntarist government is eliminating the seven day payout period, and replacing it with a permanent vote, which can be rescinded at will, at any time.
Say we're faced with a plebiscite to build a border wall. You like the idea a little, so upvote at 10%. Your stake generates a payout daily to fund building a wall. Later you change your mind, and decide the wall is much more important, so up your support and vote at 80%, and the amount of funds your vote generates increases 8 fold.
Suppose I also liked the idea a little and upvote the wall at 10%, but later change my mind and choose not to support the wall at all, and actually oppose it, so downvote it at 10%. Instead of contributing to building a wall, my vote will sap the funds available to construct the wall - until and unless I change my mind again.
This creates a fast and nimble direct control over funding any initiative that enables informed citizens to respond to new information and prevents coercion. No gatekeepers. No theft to force us to pay for things we don't want.
Even if extant governments try to stop this from happening, they can't. The world has changed because of Steem, and we're all more free as a result.
Don't look back at a supposed golden age. The real golden age is coming.
Thanks!
Steem is indeed the perfect representation of modern Western democracy. Those who have accumulated enough resources dictate to their servants which information will be seen and which censored. Every interaction is determined by mercantile profit motive. Those at the bottom of the pyramid calling for communist/socialist reform of the existing mercantile matrix, while those at the top of the pyramid attempt to profit by creating more chaos with vote-selling and delegation to chaos actors.
It is hard to argue with that. Chaos is indeed a ladder that the unscrupulous climb to power. However, not all we plankton seek socialist or communist benefits we haven't earned. I don't want to seize the means of production.
I already am the means of production. We all are. Non-point source production is become inevitable and centralized hoarding of capital is doomed to obsolescence. Clearly, today that has not yet happened. The mechanisms by which it is happening are already extant, and only catastrophic events might delay them.
Only our extinction will prevent them from eventuating.
Thanks!
I too believe the power of Steem is great. Especially when it comes to recording history.
Posted using Partiko Android
That is one of the most exciting potentials coming to fruition IMHO. Open source surveillance data shared to publicly auditable and decentralized DLTs will make corruption and oppression virtually impossible upon nominal adoption.
That coming transcendence of the extant power paradigm will be welcome indeed!
Just imagine all the news media sources on only 1 platform where anything said can never be taken back! Is that part of a utopia? Lol Somehow this will all be botched up in the process I'm afraid. 😆
Posted using Partiko Android
Well, today a lot of stories, information, posts, and data is being purged from the net. Archive sites that aren't decentralized are being purged of pages and sites.
I'll take messy but decentralized permanent retention over neat and clean sanitized information any and every day.
Man, USA is a Republic not a democracy. Separate powers and checks and balances, not mob rule.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Just a bunch of numbers on a computer screen. "Checks and balances".
Posted using Partiko Android
How is democracy the zenith of human sociopolitical development? The idea that the ill-educated, over-emotional rabble deciding which baseborn muck will rule as their annual king ought to terrify any rational man. In which human social sphere would such insanity be implemented? Would men seek medical treatment from hospitals run by "physicians" elected to their position via popularity from janitors and phlebotomists? Would men invest in a company run by a CEO elected via the acclaim of entry-level employees? Do men entrust war to military forces commanded by generals appointed to their posts via the popularity of privates? Democracy is nothing but humanists using the merchant class to rebel against the established political class. All democracies will lead to communist totalitarianism, as the merchant class themselves will be sacrificed by the humanist reformers in gaining power in the name of "freedom," "equality," or some such nonsense.
This democracy didn't run a "normal" course in my opinion. Also, hi there! 😁
Posted using Partiko Android
Is it sensible to seek a "middle ground" with those who peddle hatred or scientific ignorance?
Is it not understandable to have protests when the candidate who lost the popular vote gets still elected?
I think you're kinda missing the point though,.but We can always agree to disagree on this one. If we simply rule out the opinions of others as 'peddling hatred' or 'scientific ignorance', while forgetting that they represent millions of like minds, then it'll always be a bitter row of me against you with the winner being the one willing to go to extremes.
About Trump all am saying is that there were rules guiding the process, and a democratic process meant accepting of those rules no matter the results.
This wasn't meant to be about Trump; sorry if it felt that way. I'm just curious as to our democratic evolution with increasing polarizations
Curated for #informationwar (by @wakeupnd)
Ways you can help the @informationwar!
Hi @empress-eremmy!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.748 which ranks you at #5001 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 206 contributions, your post is ranked at #119.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server