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[ox-en] Re: Collective Consciousness and Reaching the Utopian Society



On Friday 14 December 2001 18:33, you wrote:
On Fri, 14 Dec 2001, Stefan Merten wrote:

set a direction. And they only get to be there by showing they're good at
it. It seems like the best kind of democracy to me. But it is still
representative, not like Athens, or a kind of government where
everything is decided by referendum.

Another slashdot newbie here, so forgive me if I missed a few points.  I have 
78 mails yet to read through.

Firstly the democratic idea of a referendum seems redundant to me (in terms 
of parlimentary elections).  In a 'normal' (western european style -- my 
experience) election, there are more than two candidates, so a simple 
bivalent option is not enough.  eg: in an election for 
pime-minister/chancoller/president/taoiseach/parliment-leader there are 
candidates Stallman and Bush, on the ballot paper one chooses either Stallman 
or Bush.  In a 'normal' European style election (again, only my experience) 
there are candidates 1..n.  Therefore a referendum type choice (yes|no) is 
not really sufficient.

I come from a country with more referenda than most (a referendum for 
Mastricht, Amstardam, Niece (european teaties) & Divorce, Abortion in my 
voting liftime ~=4 years).  We also have the concept of Proportional 
Representation in parliment elections,  which differs from a referendum.  I 
give candidates 1..n a preference from 1 to n.  ie: n=13; Stallman [1], 
ANOther[2] ... Bush[13].
(For those of you in the US, most european countries have a lot more than two 
political parties and we have independant candidates.)
I believe PR (Proportional Representation) more representative of voter 
choice than other (current European) systems.

But thats away from the point.

On the point.  I have been reading the list.  A lot of what we are talking 
about is a 'Utopian Society'.  I was recently talking to a friend who 
believes that it is a naive goal.  That the inherent 'badness' in people 
means we will never reach it.  My contention is that people are not 
'bad/evil', they are just uneducated, yes including Hitler/Stalin (not 
education in the University sense, but in the Egalitarian society sense), and 
we should aim for the Utopian goal through education, even though we may 
never reach it.  I believe that through iterative 
education/positive-social-interaction (each generation is a new iteration) we 
can educate individuals in social integration (IMHO an internal concept in 
Utopian Society), no-racism, non-violence, etc....  What do you guys/gals 
think?

Is the Utopian Society actually reachable?  Is it more reasonable to 
concentrate on a more reasonable (possibly non perfect) goal for society?

Personally I believe one should always aim as high as possible, however 
impossible the goal seems to be.

I like that water testing idea.  I offer my support 
(se401011 _NO_SPAMMERS_PLEASE_.cs_I_KNOW_SPAMMING_COMPANIES_USE_REGEXP_MATCHERS_TO_STRIP_"NOSPAM"_MESSAGES_.may.ie)

balor
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