democracy

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages
democracy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/
noun: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. “a system of parliamentary democracy”
Similar: representative government, elective government, constitutional government, popular government, self-government, government by the people, autonomy, republic and commonwealth
Opposite: tyranny, dictatorship, a state governed under a system without any public say.

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I just can’t get it out of my mind that I can have a device that allows me to do exactly what I’m doing now but yet we do not have a simple way to give our opinion about matters of societal importance.

This representative style of democracy that everyone wants to employ It’s not really democracy. There are a few people who are democratic and then everyone else gets to be Democratic once a year or once every couple of years. It’s not really democracy because nobody’s really voting on anything. We vote for some guy that we don’t know and we hope for the best. They have media opportunities to show they are good people and likable and if we like them, perhaps we will give them our vote and let them play with our public funds.

And then there is this matter of having a public polling place. I’ve always wondered about this. I’ve always wondered why it is better to mobilize an entire population to come to one area rather than to mobilize yourself and go door to door and try to convince people of what you want to convince them of. In the age of electronic media, you would think we would have guidelines telling us when we have a particular candidate who wants to speak with us because they want to get elected. We know we are seeing various images a lot of them being discussed as news or semi news but we really need categorically to know what exactly we are being told and what we are being asked to do. I don’t think most people understand this voting business beyond a snap decision. Purely emotional, based on feel, the way they make most decisions in their lives. And if you are a style person, how about all the decisions in your life?

I have a picture in my mind of a genuine executive. Let’s say they are in a smart suit, professionally styled hair, they obviously have a fitness trainer keeping them in line and they are decision makers for extremely large sums of money. It is the type of picture your girlfriend puts in her head when you think you’re doing something wonderful. It’s a good image and it’s very clean because that’s how we got it. We took a group of genuinely slimy people and we made them look good by allowing them to spend some of their money on suits. Again, fashion people are relentless. But if you know this guy or girl, and you’ve seen them a million times through the media, how do they make decisions? Immediately and in the moment, right? With complete knowing and accuracy, they make their decision and we all go on. Am I being reasonable?

We now have two models of voting styles. One is knowing. We have a business person and so they obviously know all of the ins and outs of the business they are attempting to do something with. Play with it for its value or actually produce something of value for the world. In both cases though, the decision is made quickly. If this is true, why do we ask people to go to a public voting place and do this physical action? If they have a phone or a computer or any device really, why can’t they make the decision on the go at their leisure just like they do anyway? Again, either the spontaneous shopper because they emotionally feel something or the pure and clean thinking business person who knows the value and makes the right call based on the bottom line. You can take either side and there’s no reason people can’t have access to voting. None whatsoever.

Well here is the flaw. We need to teach people to use this voting right at a very early age. We can try to speak to adults but once they’ve joined the mafia, they are not going to unjoin them. Replace the word Mafia with employed alcoholism or drug use and it’s all the same. If they can actually have a job and get wrecked on their own hand, you’re not going to remove them from slavery. It’s all drugs so you know, there’s that. Nevertheless, if this is what we have right now, we at least have to put the word out there unilaterally and without opposition that these votes are a true and genuine thing and that we ask people their true and genuine opinion.

Next, I have a question concerning when a human being can vote. I believe the answer is they can vote if they can understand clearly what they are voting for. That means they are literate enough to read at least a page or two of text and understand the information. If this is going to include for and against arguments, we need a person who can keep it in their head or take notes or something so they can remember that we are weighing concepts one against the other. How old does a human being need to be to be aware of this? I don’t know. The system we have right now has no meaning to me whatsoever. I’ve seen children drive cars better than adults and I’ve definitely met young people way smarter and more capable of mind than people theoretically higher than them in society. Certainly with more rights.

Everything that we do now in our current theoretical system of democracy is based on money and only money. A human being has no inherent value until they can put numbers on the board. Either you are building a bank account or you are spending money and nobody sees any value whatsoever, male or female, unless you are earning. With this firmly in mind, what do people vote for? Money. If money is all that they have to survive on and all they have to count their self worth with, what else would they vote for? Let’s vote for more money so we can buy things and be real people. Does this work? Of course it doesn’t. We are participating in a fake illusion. The money we earn and even the things we buy in it have no basis in reality except to impress other people. We are attempting to fit into molds made by the corporations specifically to drain us of our funds.

Slavery. Perpetual slavery. And really no rights to vote.

So I have this picture in my mind. We just set up the voting app. It’s called the voting app because it’s the only voting app. There are no other voting apps and everyone knows right from the beginning that this is it, it’s not a matter of competition, the team will make sure that the bugs are out of it etc etc but that’s it, this is how we vote. Every phone has it, every school teaches it, there are videos all over the internet talking about it, the media people all tell people about it, the politicians agree that this is going to be and then we launch it. Who can vote? You may be asked to prove you understand what you are reading. If you can put together rational sentences explaining why you rationally believe something is worthy of your vote, you can vote. I think that would work just fine and I think we already have the technology for it.

I’m talking about AI. The wonderful thing about AI, if you listen to it speak, it’s wonderfully rational. Whenever I have listened to AI responses to questions or have seen text produced by artificial intelligence, it is wonderfully rational. They say something and they say that there is good mathematical evidence that this is true and therefore we should believe it. It’s very kind. It has no problem doing due diligence. It has no problem saying that there are alternative issues that need to be addressed. It’s fine and it’s rational.

Do human beings have the capacity to do this? I look at the entire roster of my life and I can’t see anyone capable of being offered a piece of information and have them truly chew on it and digest it and allow it to be a part of their lives. I’m talking about a great cut through economic levels here. Millionaires to bums. I can’t find it. I can’t find a person with a natural inclination to simply say a rational or mathematically correct thing and have that become a guiding point in their lives. AI talks like this however. When you ask a question, any question that could be considered rational, you will get rational thinking. This plus this equals this and therefore we do this. I just don’t know any people that engage in this type of thinking. It exists. We have business leaders. But people don’t do it. Why not?

Nobody asks them to. That has been the number one dealbreaker as far as me seeing any hope for humanity. When we are children, unless you are private school elite class you are taught that you are children. You are managed. In my experience here, there was a time when you could go to the upper level schools and run into autonomous behavior amongst the children. When you went to the lower level schools, literally, you had teachers screaming at the children to control themselves. Nobody was interested in their creativity. Only it was important that they stay in control of themselves. Or be controlled and led easily. Quite an education really. The last time I saw this behavior that at one time was part of the high school way of life was at the University level locally. I tried to give a speech there and I had to ask the teachers to stop screaming at the students to pay attention. The students weren’t paying attention and the teacher yelling at them wasn’t changing things nor was it allowing me to do mine. Education.

If you ask me, this voting app sort of changes this classroom behavior. Even if it’s just this one thing. Even if it’s the difference between giving a like on Instagram and making a genuine opinion about public policy, this would be a great start.

Maybe it’s about having an opposing voice. I am an opposition voice. I don’t really believe that Kamala Harris is going to change the world to be a better place. I don’t think she’s going to stop selling weapons in Ukraine by stopping the war. I don’t think she’s going to pull the trigger on only electric cars and tell people tough shit, it’s time to stop polluting. She’s not going to do that. She’s not really going to break the chains that bind us because those chains are the chains that will keep her employed and in power the way it kept Obama in power and she has it in her mind as do a lot of people that we are looking at at least 16 to 20 years of rational economic policy. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to work because the actual economics of everything they are talking about is an automatic fail. But this is there positive thinking.

We have to tell people the truth. I personally think that when you sort of kidnap or steal a piece of property that you intend to use for mining or drilling or something, something that will basically destroy everything in the natural landscape so that we can produce money and garbage and poison the entire region with the waste product. Whenever we have these sorts of votes, we have this situation where we have this necessity for money and jobs and so this is why we do these things. But then they have the ecological damage that would be done. Most people who live in the economic world, accept the economic argument as fact. I wouldn’t. No sir, I’m sorry. I don’t care. I don’t think your firm needs this contract and I don’t give a damn how much money you think is in the ground. Go away and find something else to do. If you want to talk about the budget or how many jobs the region lost, it means yesterday and today are the same and so will tomorrow except we’re going to do it without you. No, no more mining, no more drilling. No more.

Inevitably I’m going to be unbelievably gay for talking like this. You have to understand this. In order for us to live in the world, you have to be a man’s man. We can talk about what the hell a real man is all day but it seems to be a psychopathic lunatic with the ability to kill. Perhaps someone is controlling him like a good woman or the leader of the country. But basically we are talking about someone who can draw their weapon and end the life of another person in order to save the lives of innocent people and we say this is our hero. A killer. A non-reasonable warrior with no other skills other than to destroy things.

Here is a little argument about coercion. This is old knowledge by the way. I am repeating knowledge that my ancestors have taken the trouble to think about. It has to do with two difference between a salesman who comes to your door and the mafia. The salesman tries to get you to give them some money and for you to take some responsibility into your life. You have to buy something. The mafia wants you to give them your money and to shut up and not put up too much of a fight about it. Kind of jesus’s argument really if you read the New testament the way I do. It is the correct way to live under a fascist violent dictator who simply takes what they want without asking your opinion about it. The point is that it is much more effective to tell people to change religions or die under the sword, or be tortured, and to ask people to genuinely believe in something and vote for it with their heart.

Why don’t we take a detour from fascism for a while and have a look if we can actually have democracy based upon a little assistance from modern technology. If a human body, without an internal combustion engine or even particularly to be surrounded by a car, can stand or sit on any number of transportation devices and scoot quickly across an urban center. I myself am a lifetime bicyclist and I know all about getting from one place to another without a car. If we have this much ability to scurry around because of technology, let’s say we have this intellectually as well. So what does it look like?

Let’s say they use my basic currency. If I have someone who wants to play with the Utopian! the first thing we do is set up a page. These pages are limitless and Google docs has the whole thing. If you want it not to be privatized through Google, I’m sure Google will give us exactly these documents to use. So here’s the deal, everyday you have a series of ideas that go out for you to vote on. This is what we pay elected officials to do. This is exactly what we pay elected officials to do. This is participating in democracy. Well, we need literacy. We need to teach everyone literacy because everyone has to vote. Everyone has to read. And here’s your page. Just exactly like a politician would read it except maybe a little simpler. It really would be more like a Facebook vote except that the votes would be real. This is what people think.

I think it would be maybe a page or two of text. Maybe the general idea has to be finished in one page and then the second page has a brief issue of pros and cons and maybe cost breakdowns. If you can’t say what you want to say at least basically in a page or two, you have something too complicated here.

What would I put on there? Do you want democracy or do you want to be taken care of? I think that’s the first question right there. Do you want to be responsible for your life or do you want to be a perpetual child? Maybe I’m mixing metaphors and I need to speak more clearly. Do you wish to make your choices or do you wish to give your choices to other people? I want my choices. But wait, how many people would vote to let others take care of them? Probably a lot.

Can we fix this in basic information? What it would require is for the business people to stop overtalking scientific research that says there’s too much pollution for the global systems to do what they’re going to do. We are screwing up the planet whether-wise and ecologically perhaps irrevocably and forever. And though we all understand that people are the be-all and and all of life on the planet Earth, our presence here is killing every other living species making us the stupidest and most disrespectful people in the history of history.

I’m not saying that a voting app is the answer to the problem. I am saying however it’s a start. Do you want democracy? Do you want to be responsible for your own life? Do you want to live your days through your own eyes or do you wish to live your days through someone else’s? I think the answer has everything to do with one’s level of economic dependence. If we are slaves, we are going to vote for anything that makes slavery better. What if we are not slaves?

Would you agree that global ecology is as important as war?

Maybe I’m asking bad questions. I could rethink this all day. Maybe I’m being coy. My point is, would you vote for war or would you vote for peace given the opportunity? If we asked everyone in the world this question, no matter where they are on the economic spectrum, unless they are in that ridiculously tiny percentage that truly makes their money from human misery, people are not going to vote for war.

The answer to the question is of course to allow democracy to exist without slavery dragging it down to corruption. I don’t really think we should do a 100% socialization of the world. I don’t think we should have any big dramatic changes. I just think we should have some budgetary changes. I think we should allow a decent living and a structured life to people who wish to participate in peace at least equal to or perhaps better than people who agree to participate in war. If the American government can have such a well-paid army, I think the Peace corps should be a genuine choice for young people to make. I think exactly like someone would make the decision that the number one career move they could do for themselves would be to join the army, I think that option should be available to everybody.

You lose your job. Damn, join the Peace corps. It’s not a bad thing. It’s decent money. You get benefits. You put in a few years of service time and you can save a block of money. But you can also be proud of what you’re doing. If you’re single and your life is not going anywhere, you can join the Peace corps. It’ll give you something to do everyday and of course you’re guaranteed housing somewhere. Your work is needed. Your work is always needed.

I also see a few people who are participating in capitalistic enterprises who might decide it’s not worth it. Take a look at the spreadsheet. If I continue working for this country, I make x amount of money. If I were to quit this job and join the Peace corps I would make 30%. However, living the Peace corps lifestyle doesn’t require quite a bit of money. In fact, if I shifted from a capitalistic lifestyle too a peaceful life, a number of things would happen.

This is my alternative argument. This is the alternative party. They need at least 50% to allow for decent voting. Right now, the game, at least in America and in any country whoever had the opportunity to rape another country for its wealth, is purely economics. You can have private industry with the ability to generate massive amounts of money but also governments with their own gigantic wealth who also have the ability to make things happen. But it’s the same time, the marketplace if allowed to exist non-capitalistically as well as capitalistically would eventually level itself out. You would have your fabled love for innovation. It just wouldn’t be a matter of public or private funding to get it done. You would just need a genuinely non coerced marketplace telling you it was a good enough idea to waste resources on.

There is one other thing that we’re not talking about. It is absolutely true that globalization has destroyed local culture everywhere. It is absolutely true that these are economic decisions and it is true that global pollution and garbage as a result of these economic decisions have us in ecological freefall. We have destroyed the ecology of the planet Earth and with it its ability to function normally. And that we see no sign stopping or even thinking about this rationally. We have to take accounting for this and the only way to do it is to ask people what they think. Given the truth of the situation and a rational alternative to giving in, what would the vote be? How many people would vote for pollution if they didn’t have to? How many people would vote for war given any other alternative? How many people would genuinely vote for death if life was worth living?

So at the end, it’s time for me to make my vote. I go over to the voting app and today I get a chance to say what I think about the wars in Ukraine and in Israel. Firstly, I don’t believe in any of the publicly philosophical arguments made by the Russian governments. There is mining and minerals in the region and they want them. They also want Crimea as a traditional ground for going on vacation and getting drunk and stupid. The Russians want these things for themselves and they do not care what Ukraine has to say about any of it especially as they do not wish to be friends anymore and have even elected a Jewish president. I also do not believe there is any particular reason for Jews and Arabs to hate each other or fight each other anymore. It’s a simple matter of resources and everyone having enough food. If everyone has enough to eat, if there is no poverty, if no one is suffering, I don’t think we need to fight anymore.

So I hit the button voting no. I do not wish the war in Ukraine to continue and I do not wish the war in Israel to continue. I’m sure there will be votes in the future of how to handle resources and manage people’s. I’m going to keep voting for local authorities and autonomy. I’m going to vote for using public funds for land reclamation, ecological cleanup, retraining and reorganization and making sure that the infrastructure exists that all people get food, clothing, shelter, reasonable education and medicine available. Rational thinking and independent people trying to feed themselves and take care of their communities. I would vote for everything that leads down this road and I would vote against everything intended to keep the economy alive. Keeping the economy alive in its current situation is the last thing I would ever vote for.

Quanda Mbuku-Cheboreska is a tenured professor at The international University in Prague. She teaches a class called technology and community and is well known for her activism and demands for change.