Perfect society

[Rodion Romanovich]

Perfect society? Not possible.

There's no way it could ever happen without making slaves out of everyone, and that would hardly be perfect. As long as we have any freedoms there will always be problems- that's just the way it is. I can't even conceive of a "perfect society".

Sorry to crap all over your thread.

No problem, but I'd like to know how you motivate that statement. Why would all people need to become slaves for society to work, and why does freedom lead to problems?

[ScionTheWorm]

1.) Castrating sexual predators (I mean it, best punishment).
2.) State economically rewarding "good ways of running business", for instance rewarding environment friendly industries before the ones letting too much crap out in to the atmosphere.
3.) Religion: freedom, but no religion sent on national television (we have some fanatics on tv here in norway each day) or preferred by the state. Old-days missionaries should be illegal.
4.) Multi-culture societies should get rid of their gettos. I would allow serious actions to do something about the really isolated groups.
5.) Research focused on important things for the people of the state
6.) High taxes are required to have free healthcare and that stuff, but get rid of everything that's unfair, and tone down the bureaucracy

And a 4 hour workingday I don't think would do any good. In fact that would make the whole population rather lazy. Would rather trade it with longer vacations

[BDC]

Leadership by a benevolent dictatorship.

[ScionTheWorm]

yes dictatorship. leader not allowed to have family or possesions, only doing what benefits the state.

[BDC]

yes dictatorship. leader not allowed to have family or possesions, only doing what benefits the state.

Or even better, let them be an ai ala Deux Ex. Completely uncorruptable, completely benevolent.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yeah, but if you entered that secret room at Everett's house (in Deus Ex) you got an interesting discussion with that AI. Remember, it takes a human with his values to make the AI, then the AI will behave according to the opinions of it's creator...

Anyway, I don't think either democracy or dictatorship is what I want. I think no leadership and freedom to do what you want pretty much, but you'll be punished if you are a threat and you'll know beforehand what punishment everything gives, and what acts are threats. I think the leader should give very few orders, and a single leader for all aspects seems bad imo. I think the best hunter leader should lead hunt for food, but power to command in a situation should not lead to higher sexual status so that people will want power because it gives them partners. And I doubt any single person can command more than around 500 persons, so nobody should have power over any bigger group than that. It's democracy in the sense that you're allowed to do whatever you want most of the time, but dictatorship in that you had better obey in the cases where obedience is benefitial, i.e. during hunt. In a calmer situation you should have the right to question the orders, of course.

Democracy as today has weaknesses in that these people get to have a part in decisions: 1. stupid, 2. easy to manipulate through propaganda, 3. people who vote simply in order to sabotage certain things, 4. the democracy is not direct, you vote for who should be your dictator for the coming few years. The weaknesses of dictatorship is corruption, abuse of power and the ability of the person with power to use power in areas where no commanding or leadership is needed, thus depriving people of freedom more or less completely. Also, the fact that power gives status is harmful in the dictatorship regime, because a bad dictator won't resign because he wants the status.

If power is separated from sexual rank status again, power will not be desirable in the same way. If power has no sexual rank status, a leader who turns out to be bad will see no loss in prestige when resigning if it's needed. If the sole purpose of the leadership is because the leader is the best commander in situations when commanding is needed for optimal results, then leadership can't be a bad thing. In most other cases, it is. Actually, I think this is the clue - separate power from sexual rank status.

[ScionTheWorm]

the problem with democracy in our time is, like you say, that people are stupid, egoistic, manipulated easily and making bad judgements (even me )

say taking a number of newborn babies making them candidates. like princes, but educated to rule the state, being rational. The best candidate would be the ruler when he'd grow up. pretty science fiction I guess, but if he/she is very intelligent and non-egoistic, he would make good decisions for the state.

or another type of leadership would be a math formula. every decision made by this formula, taking welfare of the people as a priority, and the future of the economics etc. that would be some kind of computer.