Quote Originally Posted by Husar
The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.
We might speak of the "potential energy" of a mobilized public, but the problem is that mobilization is of a typically highly-diffuse group that shares as its only uniting factor common citizenship in a certain state, and is almost always fueled by rage or panic, toward short-term (and perhaps short-sighted) solutions, is probably not as noble a goal as it might seem.

Reflexive reactions associated with anger or fear are of course evolutionarily advantageous, engaging us to swerve out of oncoming traffic or avoid a falling object, at this point in our history we must acknowledge that its usefulness has run out. We must, if possible, modify our physiology in such a way as to change this response, such that immediate danger can be recognized accurately and quickly, but without the concomitant sensitization, sensory neglect, and contextual collapse/convergence. This will make our actions what could be called "better-considered" for longer periods of time during stressful situations. The downside would likely be considerably-increased metabolic expense, but at this point I think a few more humans starving to death under extreme conditions would be a small price to pay for cognitive efficiency.

Quote Originally Posted by Idaho
But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!
I'm not sure I like this story of some generic masses being compartmentalized away from "the elites". To be extreme, we might consider the "masses" to be their own guards at a free-range labor camp.

Elites are not distinct from the masses, then, but rather hold concentrated resources of various sorts that make them relatively influential within the camp. What you seek is to homogenize their influence, but it's difficult to see how this could be achieved without homogenizing individual resources, presumably every single day or every few hours, and that's a pretty huge and well-known can of worms.

Ultimately though, any moralistic - or morally-grounded - argument for a particular sort of governance is doomed to be short-lived and inconsistent with itself. My stance on the inadequacy of current power politics and wealth politics is simply that "elites" are still large and diffuse as a group, in some ways even more diffuse than the masses (really, as pointed out, Masses - Elites), and yet bent toward a narrower set of goals and priorities, leading to ineffective and uncoordinated governance of any sort.

What must be done, I believe, is for an absolute technocracy to assume power over all governance in the entire world, to establish and affirm certain overarching goals and priorities as part of this governance, and oversee the fruition of its own meta-goal (e.g. post-humanism). The one way I can think of to safeguard such an arrangement - never mind reaching the point in the first place - would be to fund the development of an army of robotic overseers, which for the duration of the process toward the meta-goal would ensure that the technocrats, being individually replaced from time to time as all humans must be, "stay on task", so to speak.

Now, the problem of reaching the opening of this stage: perhaps voting has its part to play in the process, in which a short-term swing towards the left-wing (so we must work to manage any nascent transition from rightist hegemony to leftist hegemony) will allow the democratic instantiation of an ever-more centralized state, in which the new leftist governments would allow the appropriate technocrats scope and resources to operate.

Yes, it seems a conspiracy would be necessary at some point, but hopefully the interval outside relative openness should be short enough - a few years - that the program could not be stopped if and once discovered.