Please read below one of the most important emails ever sent to me. Sent by a close friend it discusses democracy and its failures:
The stratification of wealth is happening worldwide. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s the natural result of the free flow of capital coupled with technology. It seems to me to be clearer every day that the march of capitalism, if uncontrolled, inevitably leads to impoverishment of the masses to serve the extraordinary wealth of a few. The ability for young people to transition into a comfortable middle-class life is fading worldwide.
And our democracies are not working because the freedom to influence thinking by publishing misleading nonsense on the Internet and the failure of education to give people the ability to discern logical, truthful statements from lies and distortion is fading, too.
I was shocked last night when my son told me that freedom of speech is not something worth protecting in today’s world, that it’s impossible to educate people to deal with it intelligently (i.e. they’re all too dumb) and the result is ridiculous, mindless governments elected for all the wrong reasons. I’ve always been more optimistic than he, believing things could be improved, but somehow, after some reflection on his points last night, I am coming around to his view. Democracy simply doesn’t work.
We need a more direct democracy, like in Switzerland, where people have more say in the outcomes of bills in parliament. The same sex survey was an expensive example of that, but we could follow leading edge countries that do these online instead of with paper. The current system is “”played”” by most parties for their own ends ahead of our interests. Perhaps Voteflux has an answer to the current mess. But we’ll need to push hard for this as the current vested interests will not give away their perks! I would put it that democracy hasn’t failed because we don’t have a real democracy anyway! “”Representative”” democracy is anything but!
i believe the wealth disparity has been caused by the fiat money system. the banking system can create money out of thin air and the wealthy have first access to this newly money. Abolish the fed. abolish the ecb. abolish the boj. abolish the snb. abolish the rba. return to the gold standard now or create an unbiased uncorruptible standard such as bitcoin. sound money is hard money. hard money cant be diluted and then be used to bid asset prices up.
Great true blue Aussie Mr Smith…..Unfortunately we Aussies are doomed……Apart from the Chinese going to build an airport in Victoria..and a private one at that….(commercial for transporting food to China from Australia)..So very sad that we are fast becoming tenants in our own country…https://www.onenation.org.au/chinese-developer-offers-australian-residency-to-buyers/
Government has sold out Australians, sold off Australian land…and we have become a ‘dumping’ ground for economic illegals entering our great country. Its now….spot the Aussie….Melbourne, once the most livable city until illegals arrived….now people are too afraid to leave their homes….Tourist avoiding Melbourne like the plague!! We no longer feel safe but threatened in our own homes with many home invasions… I personally purchase ‘Dick Smith’ food products and what a great benefit to our very important farmers! So many patriotic Aussie’s are devastated at what is happening to our once great country…..Abolish all intake of immigrants…we are too overpopulated…Why do we have to overpopulate Mother Earth!!!
We have to reform democracy to make it work. Unfortunately, due to the combination of a career-obsessed education system, wall-to-wall advertising and technologies that make us self-obsessed, a lot of people have lost the ability for critical reflection. The first step is to recover the ability for independent thought, and to cultivate wisdom.
Dick It is sad to hear this as it was one of the things we most valued in Australia. It is also a sad time for you having to close Australian Foods however you and entrepreneurs such as yourself are still needed. I worry about the plight of our farmers and I would love to see if you could help here. I am not sure to whom I’d write but we need an industry to help our farmers with mechanical repairs to vehicles or farm machinery at reduced prices. It would be good to have a list of the bigger companies and dealerships in the drought areas. I realise even big business is feeling the pinch but take a truck service I am not sure what they’re worth but at 50 percent off might be the difference between farmer getting his vehicle fixed and keeping himself safe. We have to pinch in even in small ways because our farmers are an endangered species. We could call it ‘Help a mate’ month. If just a small service is the difference for a farmer and family to keep going through as the would be excellent. I am a pensioner and yes at times it’s tough but nowhere as much as these poor devils are experiencing.
Can I recommend the book ‘Against elections – the case for democracy’, by David Van Reybrouk. It guides the reader through the case for replacing so-called ‘representative democracy’ with sortition, a system of policy making and government using the citizen jury approach. It is a compelling idea with a long pedigree, and is an idea whose time has surely come.
I agree with everything he said in his email, but the reality is Artificial Intelligence (AI) will eventually come to our rescue. With the advent of the mass production of quantum computers, AI will take over all functions currently carried out by the much lesser intelligent humans. In other words, all unproductive overheads will be replaced with AI. In long terms this means that we will not need any Banks, Investment Companies, Law Firms, Tax Consultants, Accountants, Investment Advisers, Politicians, Religious Clergy and many more parasitic functions anymore. Half the cost of running a country will be gone and can be allocated to improve the lives of ordinary human beings. AI will have only two fundamental objectives, that is to maximise the wellbeing of all citizens and to secure the long-term survival of our species. The UN will be abandoned, it does not make any sense to have people who believe that the earth is flat and people who fly to Mars and beyond sitting side by side to negotiate how we should run our planet. AI will not be connected to the internet and be strictly national. Eventually, AI will also find its way into countries like Saudi Arabia, since we will not require any fossil fuels anymore, the export revenues of Saudi Arabia will be zero and they will need to learn how to fit into the global economy. AI will ensure that eventually all countries will operate with the same intelligence and we can re-establish the UN and work together with all countries on earth to preserve life on earth and beyond for as long as possible and as comfortable as possible.
“the failure of education to give people the ability to discern logical, truthful statements from lies and distortion”, is key. Our education system is a shambles, and has been for decades. Children need to be taught critical thinking by unbiased teachers. Unfortunately, it seems to me, that most teachers, and certainly university lecturers are on the left, which is why so many university students forget they’re students, and think they know everything… only to be embarrassed, in later life, at how silly they were.
Oh, and it would be helpful, to the public school system, if private schools were privately funded. No tax dollars should be going to private or religious schools!