What’s it all about?

 

Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.

This is a work in progress. Intended to serve as a scaffolding for thought and research. I am worried that we (humanity) have made such big strides ahead in technology but so little in our understanding about the big issues in life as Why, What and How?

Here we go!

The question is:

Why humanity doesn’t live in peace and prosperity?

Why humanity doesn’t live in everlasting peace and prosperity if we have already mastered the technological means and have access to the resources for that?

 

Possible answers:

 

Is it a greedy clique of corrupt politicians and business people who conspire against us to protect their undeserved profits because they know of no other way to safeguard their privileges other than instigating division, conflict, war and chaos?

If that is true – how powerful are they?

How can we stop them from doing that and prevent anyone from doing that in the future?

 

Or are our institutions the culprit?

Is it their failure to allocate resources and distribute profits fairly while safeguarding against those who plan to disturb the peace to gain unfair advantage?

Why is humanity stumbling from war to war for no particular reason using ever more sophisticated instruments to kill and maim fellow human beings?

 

Why?

 

Why does our justice system seem eager to punish severely petty crimes but keen to ignore major ones?

 

Those are obvious questions that anyone can relate to. What bothers me that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how are we going to go about resolving those issues before humanity self-destructs? I know: Democracy, Free Markets, Rule of Law! Truth is – regardless of the validity of those they don’t seem to work.

Why?

 

Where is the theoretical, philosophical, ethical, legal knowledge that we need to develop to overcome these obstacles and what are those obstacles?

One possible answer could be – our institutions do not have the built-in accountability devices to guard against them being highjacked by corrupt people who misuse them for undeserved gains.

 

For me a first step would be better understanding of what’s happening because personally it has been more and more clouded with the years.

 

First, I thought communism was good and capitalism bad.

Then, capitalism is good and communism bad.

 Democracy and market forces should take care of that….

 

 

And that seemed to be so true because then we won the Cold war – Soviet style communism crumbled under its own stupidity eager crowds dismantled the Berlin war and turned the pieces of the hated barrier into souvenirs – under the sounds of Pink Floyd singing “break down the wall…” Then the US bombed the Serbs!

Then NATO didn’t disband and kept going for no obvious reason. Then the Chinese communist system managed to bring their country out of poverty to the leading position in the world economy.

Then America is in multi trillion-dollar debt…

I still believe that it’s not by the benevolence of baker and shoemaker that we enjoy prosperity and that we have those inalienable rights.

What I don’t know is – what went wrong?

 

I know Marx does – he was confident that it was the ownership of the means of production that was the problem but while that does seem to be true with China’s success and the recent economic crisis triggered by US financial institutions it doesn’t seem to explain everything. Communism did fail in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Therefore, I am starting this blog hoping in a series of essays to manage to get maybe if not straightforward answers – to at least build a scaffolding that will help me scramble up to the shoulders of those giants and be able to see further (or perhaps to the tops of their heads?).

 

What’s in it for you?

Not much.

I am doing this mostly for myself. Why making it public?

If my thoughts help you in your own quest for knowledge – please, tell me – your encouragement may add a plank or pillar to my scaffold as I may help you build yours.

In general, I believe that understanding the fascinating and disappointing reality we live in will help enjoy it more and for longer.

 Last, but not least, is space travel.

What does space travel have to do with all this – you may ask…

It’s obvious – space travel is the latest and most exciting adventure of humanity. If anything is going to pull us out of the swamp of hate and division that we are drowning in is the unifying vision of a common quest. It may also provide purpose and employment for all those talented inventors, engineers and technicians who are now preoccupied with creating fancy tools for destruction. So my aim is to travel to space and in between now and then work to promote space travel for civilian purposes as a a worthy endeavor that will save humanity and civilization and may prove a useful substitute for the dangerous and wasteful arms race

 amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

So that’s my plan to take over the world. I know it may sound kind of naïve or even dodgy but that’s all I can think of for now and… you never know.

 

Why Politics

Happiness
Happiness is what people are after. It has two prerequisites; life (for obvious reasons) and liberty (somewhat more obscure but based on the premise that people can only pursue happiness when they are free to decide what it is and how to pursue it). To achieve happiness people make plans complete with goals, priorities, steps and dedicate resources.

Politics
Politics is about people acting together to achieve their goals easier.
Politics is the highest level of organising this cooperative action the other cheaper and often more effective methods being business and community organisations.
Politics comes where the other cheaper and more effective methods do not work.
The measure of success in politics is where the interests of the people are effectively formulated and pursued.
As government gives certain advantages to those able to exploit its inability to protect itself from corruption. Successful governments have effective mechanisms in place to prevent such exploitation. Those who do not succumb to corruption to the detriment of their citizens and ultimately to the elite too.

Relations
Most relations among people and notably the most important ones related to love, friendship and pooling resources to archive prosperity are managed without the interference of the state. The state only steps in if something goes wrong. The state defines, adjudicates and enforces rules to increase the chances that such intervention does not cause harm and helps improve the situation by providing a reasonably lasting solution. Historical experience has demonstrated that rules are best established through deliberation and that these rules have to protect the rights of every member of society in order to be stable and defensible. Thus the need for liberty which is based on the protection of rights.

When Borders Are Crossed
Most relations which do not fall under the jurisdiction of a sole government are managed between people without the interference of a government they are mostly successfully managed privately by individuals themselves or facilitated by non-government entities like travel agents, international trading companies, banks, NGOs, Churches and other religious entities as with relations within a state perhaps with the advent of new technology the role of these intermediaries will gradually decrease. When these methods fail the government needs to intervene following interests and rules.

Foreign Policy
Foreign policy is about the state policies to promote the interests of its citizens abroad. But how does the state find out what these interests are if foreign policy is not an election priority if compared to the economy and other issues.