Democracy 2.0: the Goal

Imagine a perfect human society. What does it look like?

(really think about it for a minute)

How many people do you think would agree with you on this? If you think that every single living person would agree with you then you are deluded. Maybe most of them would agree with you IF they knew everything you know about economics, politics, government, etc. But they don't know what you know. And you don't know what they know.

So how could you possibly agree on the form and structure of a perfect human society? And, more importantly, if that unknown perfect human society is the undescribed goal of all of our current work, how can you expect to agree with anyone on the changes that should be made today to the current system to reach that goal.

If a doctor did not know what a healthy person should look like, how could she prescribe a cure for what ails them?

We do not really know what goal we are striving after. We may think we know that we want more or less of justice, mercy, freedom, safety, etc. But we cannot even articulate what the right amount is.

Democracy 2.0 is an attempt to define the goal that we are all striving for. I want to lay it all out, expose every assumption, and define every trade-off. Then we can debate it, separate from today's scandals. With enough time and discussion we should be able to design a system that we can all endorse as the best overall system that we are capable of dreaming up. We should be able to clearly define the places where the system will accept tweaks and changes that experience will require. In fact the system must be able to be greatly modified from within, if it is to stand the test of time.

Then, and only then, can we have an intelligent discussion about changes to the current system.

We need to decide where we are going before we make any more course changes.

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