What can we do to re-shape society for the better?

testman@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 72 points –

If top of the society is immoral psychopaths with power, and most of the society is composed of people with good intentions, then there is not much hope for "beta uprising" until things go way beyond point of recovery, because powerful psychopaths will not let their power get taken away.

Not sure if this is just evolutionary biology, but this cycle of psychopaths at the top has been going on since when, at least ancient Egypt. And in all these thousands of years, the system that enables this cycle got way more reinforced than it got dismantled.

So is it maybe better idea to put benevolent people's energy towards designing and preparing a new societal system that will have built-in mechanisms for preventing corruption and malevolence? "prepare" as in get ready to implement for when the current messed up system is about to grind to a halt and collapse? Well, it would be best to figure out how to go full Benevolent Theseus™ by replacing parts of currently failing system with the corruption-proof ones.

What are some resources related to this topic? Recearch on societal dynamics, designing political systems, examples of similar revolutions that already happened, etc. Post any links that you consider relevant

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Getting rid of apathy is the most important step. Too many people say "I'm not interested in politics".

Politics is everything, it shouldn't be considered as a legitimate choice to stay away from it.

Holy shit, I wish I could upvote this more than once.

In the US we live in a participatory democracy. If the citizens of this country don't actively participate in how the government functions, then all is lost.

One of the biggest tools that fascists use to subvert the will of the people is turn off various groups from caring about what is going on. They spread misinformation about this and lies about that. They act like things can get fixed with a snap of a leader's fingers, but that's not how reality works, so they complain about why we still have problems.

With that comes endless conspiracies and in general a mistrust and break down of government. And it all kind of steamrolls because the fewer people who follow the news and politics closely, the easier to let corruption go unchallenged.

I have to say, I'm pretty sure the US approach of seeming hyper democracy (voting for the local garbage men boss, sheriffs, etc) is actually detrimental to democracy in practice. You're flooded with choices that you can't reasonably be expected to be able to actually make an informed decision about. Simply because of time constraints, you can't study garbage policy issues 4h a day, every day, after work.

Maybe don't take your knowledge of US politics from TVs and movies. It's not that complicated and that's one of the reasons why there are political parties - it is pretty reasonable to assume that if one is registered as a Democrat then they follow most democratic party ideals. And if they are registered as a Republican, then they are a worthless piece of shit. It makes picking your candidate easier even ot is an imperfect system.

So what is the point of voting, if the candidates are pre selected like that anyway? It's no different from voting, say, the city council once and then letting them decide.

The current system is the simulation of a democracy.

it is pretty reasonable to assume that if one is registered as a Democrat then they follow most democratic party ideals.

Democratic Party Ideals are fucking fucking garbage though. I don't want Public-Private partnerships. I dont want unbridled capitalism. I dont' want to compromise with coal barons who sacrifice the environment for their personal wealth and power. I don't want a party that is funded by billionaires and will immediately sacrifice ideals if someone pays them.

I especially don't' want a party that accepts "former" republican's into it's ranks, and think that is a good thing.

Oh here we go!

This level of disconnect from reality is painful. Why don't you just hand the keys to our government to the Red Menace now and be done with it? Why even pretend?

If by "The Red Menance" you mean Full Communism Now, then yea, I'd do that immediately and I don't pretend not to. Let me spell it out for you. FUCK CAPITALISM, FUCK THE PARTIES OF CAPITAL.

The red menace is the fascists of the Republican Party, but your last post said all I needed to hear to know you're a clueless edgel0rd.

Hey comrade, why don't you book a flight to the communist utopia of North Korea and leave the the evil capitalistic countey you live in now?

"Alpha psychopaths in power", as you describe them, have always, and still, understand that their power exists entirely at the whim of the masses.

And so conjuring an excuse has preoccupied them since at least the dawn of history. "Ordained by god" was the go-to for several mellenia.

Now, it seems the tactic is just to manufacture division within the working class. Racism, ideological boogeymen (SOCIALISTS!!), xenophobia, rural/urban friction, and increasingly gender/sexuality, sexism... ANY way you can slice the common man into two segments and convince them that the OTHER side is bent on their destruction.

It's great because it's a machine that feeds itself. You see the two lines of people screaming at eachother, they manifest through their hatred the threat the other side fears.

As soon as the "betas", as you put it, stop fighting themselves, it's game over.

The solution is probably the least likely thing, though. People, even a small dedicated number of them, who can resist the urge to dunk on their ethically inferior "opponents", and instead treat their "enemies" with dignity... who can view "the other" as a valuable human temporarily on the wrong side of an issue, then things can change. Daryl Davis (the black dude who keeps flipping KKK members) has it figured out.

It sucks because we have an example of how to do it (Daryl), but it's hard. It's slow. It isn't funny, and it isn't sexy. It demands so much more from you than taking a quick snipe and returning to your own echo chamber for accolades.

So yeah. The answer is plain, but our society does not actually value the efforts or skills that permit it. Possibly also by design of the ruling class.

According to Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, the answer is revolutionary violence.

It's a fascinating read. I very much recommend the chapter covering the Black Plague. Seems rather relevant nowadays.

Employers lost no time pressuring the authorities to curb the rising cost of labor. Less than a year after the arrival of the Black Death in England, in June 1349, the crown passed the Ordinance of Laborers:

Since a great part of the population, and especially workers and employees (“servants”), has now died in this pestilence many people, observing the needs of masters and the shortage of employees, are refusing to work unless they are paid an excessive salary. . . . We have ordained that every man or woman in our realm of England, whether free or unfree, who is physically fit and below the age of sixty, not living by trade and exercising a particular craft, and not having private means of land of their own upon which they need to work, and not working for someone else, shall, if offered employment consonant with their status, be obliged to accept the employment offered, and they should be paid only the fees, liveries, payments or salaries which were usually paid in the part of the country where they are working in the twentieth year of our reign [1346] or in some other appropriate year five or six years ago. . . . No one should pay or promise wages, liveries, payments or salaries greater than those defined above under pain of paying twice whatever he paid or promised to anyone who feels himself harmed by it. . . . Artisans and labourers ought not to receive for their labour and craft more money than they could have expected to receive in the said twentieth year or other appropriate year, in the place where they happen to be working; and if anyone takes more, let him be committed to gaol.

The actual effect of these ordinances appears to have been modest. Just two years later, another decree, the Statute of Labourers of 1351, complained that said employees, having no regard to the said ordinance but rather to their own ease and exceptional greed, withdraw themselves to work for great men and others, unless they are paid livery and wages double or treble what they were accustomed to receive in the said twentieth year and earlier, to the great damage of the great men and the impoverishing of all the Commons and sought to remedy this failure with ever more detailed restrictions and penalties. Within a generation, however, these measures had failed.

NoBoDy WanTs tO WoRk!!! lol.

Liquid democracy is a proposed way to do a direct democracy in a large country. It's only been tried on very small scales (Google used it to decide which food to get for their cafeterias), so we don't really know if it would work, but I like the idea.

I'd point out that there are countries which don't have much corruption or governmental malfeasance. Nordic countries tend to score very well on the Corruption Perception Index, and also have good social safety nets and governments that (generally, for the most part) serve the people. They're all small countries, though -- I suspect that politics becomes an increasingly dirty business the more power a country has.

If you haven't already, you might want to look into selectorate theory. It essentially shows not only how the psychopaths at the top stay in power, but also why attempts to reform the system often result in a new crop of rulers who are just as bad or worse than those they replaced. (c.f. Cromwell's revolt, French Revolution, Russian Revolution). A proponent of selectorate theory would argue that the solution is not to remove the psychopaths -- it's to create a system where things in a politician's selfish interest happen to line up with things that benefit the people. It's excellently summed up by this video.

In terms of curtailing corporate power from the top down, studying the history of U.S. antitrust law would be a good place to start. Extra Credits has a good series about it.

One reform method that has worked before is unionization. The vast majority of worker protections came about because of labour action. Unions are a lot weaker than they used to be, but it doesn't have to stay that way. If you can, unionizing your workplace is probably the most impactful action you could take to improve the existing system.

If your tastes are more radical, you could also consider mutual aid societies. A robust one could conceivably Theseus its way into failing institutions, or evolve into a provisional government if everything collapses.

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Stop caring about intentions. Stop giving the stupid a free pass. Treat stupidity as a type of malice, and act accordingly.

I believe that this alone should be enough to address the sykos on power. Easier said than done.

Bonhoeffer says stupidity is a social thing. I mostly agree. Things didn't turn out well for Bonhoeffer. Shoveling against the tide is exhausting.

I tend to agree with him and I think that the society where he lived is a great example of what happens when we let stupidity go rampant: Nazi Germany was a stupidocracy.

Stupid people will treat that as hostility and shut off their reasoning. That's unfortunately how humans work - question their beliefs, and they will believe even harder and attack you for even hinting that their beliefs are wrong.

Sects are the obvious example of that behavior, but on smaller scales, we are all a bit like that.

The stupid already treat random shit as hostility, and they already shut off their reasoning (otherwise they wouldn't be stupid). So there's no change in that.

I believe that you're right, when you say that we [humans in general] are all a bit like that. Even then, we're fairly flexible - we only behave like morons when we get away with it.

How on earth would you decide who is stupid? And why are you the one to judge everybody's intelligence? Fuck off fascist

Read the rest of the comment chain. As I already said, you don't need to decide which sort of behaviour is stupidity or not; you just stop trying to decide what's "intentional".

In no moment I said or even implied that I shall be "the one to judge". So stop making shit up.

And no, I am not fascist. Again, stop making shit up.

Also, you're being a great example of what I'm talking about, because odds are that you're full of "good intentions" behind your little witch hunt, but you're effectively contributing with fascists by giving them a reasonable cover and desensitising people towards the word. Just like the boy who cried wolf contributed with the wolves.

'Stop giving the stupid a free pass' - the kindly explain to me who are these 'stupid' you are referring to in your original comment?

the[n] kindly explain to me who are these ‘stupid’ you are referring to in your original comment?

That's the same as "I just made shit up about you, but I demand you to spoonfeed me because I'm entitled." Sorry but the world does not revolve around your belly, and I'm not wasting my time with you, go be a self-demonstrating example elsewhere.

For other posters who might be reading this: what I'm considering "stupidity" and "the stupid" is already hinted by this, this and this. I can bring up some more formal definition if someone really wants, but the point is that it should not matter - take off "intentions" from the equation when handling people, stop giving people a free pass to cause harm because "oh no, that person is stupid, not malicious".

No, I don't let you off your self-constructed hook so easily.

From your other comments I can thus read:

  • the intellectually disabled are not considered to be among the stupid (I wonder whether that includes people on the spectrum as that would luckily leave me out of your ideas of sanitizing society
  • stupid seems to have to do with people's behaviour being harmful towards others. Why of all available terms

That's not sufficient information to start persecuting other people. And I don't care if you cook up the definition of who is stupid all by yourself or if it's you plus a select group of pseudo-enlightened friends. The underlying idea is 'remove people who show unwanted behaviour' - and I think that approach to running a society has a name.

Begin teaching media literacy and critical thinking skills in schools.

Guillotine all the billionaires and redistribute all their wealth. That's an important first step

That's like cutting off the top layer of the skin cancer without addressing the underlying causes.

It's a fun "fuck the man" statement that's worse than worthless because it makes solutions seem like they need to be radical without actually proposing a real solution.

It's been done before. How did that work out for Russia? Or China? Or anywhere else that the rich died at the hands of the poor?

What happened was that corruption was always the underlying cancer and it never actually went away, it just changed around what organ it infected as one was cut out and replaced by another.

Want to see billionaires lose all their wealth? Create a labor backed "proof of work" currency system they can't buy into and stop considering their money to have value. No blades required. Just pay taxes on estimated profits so you play by the rules. What happens to a billionaire when the dollar value of a gallon of milk goes through the roof but the labor value for it remains constant?

Corruption loves to live among middlemen. And we live in an age where most middlemen can be cut out of transactions. And within the decade that's going to be even easier.

What do you think is going to happen when open sourced AI lawyers can generate legal paperwork for cents on a dollar? How much does that benefit Walmart, who already have teams of lawyers on retainer? How does that help the people who work at Walmart? Or the local grocer they are trying to put out of business with unfair competition practices?

Transactional costs are about to go to shit. And with that in mind, I would encourage anyone here to read the economic paper from a century ago "the nature of the firm" positioning the entire existence of the mega corporation as worthwhile based on the existence of high transactional costs.

Corporations and billionaires are already screwed beyond measure. It's just no one's realized it yet because the Jenga tower still has pieces left so everyone points at the monolith and exclaims how it's going to still be around for as long as it's been standing.

Violent revolution is pointless and just going to set back the conditions for their own demise that the capitalist prisoner's dilemma of competition is about to deliver.

Don't sharpen a guillotine. Become better friends with your neighbors and network online with labor in the same sector to prepare for what's ahead.

The chips are falling into place. I just hope people at large aren't so caught up in their own BS that they pass up the opportunity that's going to present, as I'm not sure there will ever be another like it.

The fact that a vast majority will ignore this discussion, is the same reason why most people will not organise towards a cause.

I have little hope in individuals.

Given up entirely, or are you hoping we all join a hive mind to solve our problems?

I believe that the massive scale of corruption that exists within the capitalist system necessitates rebuilding from the ground up. Part of the solution is going to be intentional communities (I hope anyway) where we’re building communities with the intention of solving some of these large scale problems (scarcity, pollution, racial injustice, etc) in the community. There’s a collection of already existing communities on ic.org where you can find resources on how to build a community or where to find them. There’s every flavor of community whether you’re looking for a commune, a spiritual community, an eco-friendly community, permaculture, etc.

Have y'll tried letting the smart people make decisions?

Yup. Look at how the best-and-brightest theory worked out in the mid 20th century--e.g., the Clintons. Technocracy doesn't work.

Uh, the Clintons weren’t the smartest amongst us. Smarter than some sure, and that’s a pretty low bar these days, but I lived through that era. We were not governed by our smartest, by any stretch.

Yup, but it's a question of whom society recognizes as smart. Bill and Hill met at Yale. They sold us a bill of good with free trade. They thought they could get away with Hillary crafting a national healthcare system, almost in secret, and that everyone would accept it b/s she's brilliant. Obama, Columbia/Harvard/Univ of Chicago, bailed out bankers, not home owners. That was a disaster.

The term, best and brightest, came into common use in describing to the Kennedy adminstration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest They really bungled Vietnam.

I don't know that we've ever been governed by the best and brightest. Sometimes I think we're governed by the most venal and greedy.

It’s objectively not, though?

If it were, well, that’s been explored in Idiocracy.

The point isn’t that we should give the reins to the “smartest”, but the actual smartest, for a change.

Agreed. The GiEC did an amazing job all these years. Too bad no one is listening to them.

And GIEC/IPCC is a consensus body that is consistently behind the curve on the science.

Imagine if we’d just listened to scientists directly. We could have gotten started on tackling climate change before the Rio conference in 1992 even took place.

If CBT and DBT were taught to kids in school... man, what a change that would make. To be taught at a young age how to control thoughts, cope with stress, face emotions, communicate effectively.

This is a question too complex for a Lemmy thread, here are some thoughts.

  1. Being a net positive will make things better, per difinition. That's what everyone of us can do, regardless of what you are doing. Of course this requires a reasonable process of deciding what's right, so take a look at the next point.

  2. Think. To think is naturally the greatest skill of any human. Our intelligence has been key since we started civilisation. Think about everything, be critical about any ideas. Only ideas supported by facts can be good ideas. This is how you find the stuff that makes your life worse. Does your city need to be designed like this? Does a omnipotent being make sense? Do I need to slack off today?

  3. Unrelated, but working together with others is beneficial to everyone. Cooperation is what got us so fary and what will bring us beyond the stars. One thing I want to point out specifically is that world federalism, albeit hard to achieve, is a worthwhile end goal.

Organize labor.

Evolve labor strikes from the dark ages with guerilla tactics.

In every company I've ever consulted for, there were bottlenecks where a handful of people in key roles not showing up to work would tank the entire operation.

Why the hell are we still striking with everyone walking out instead of everyone clocking in and getting paid and funneling money to keep key roles empty as the coffers burn while revenue drops and payroll still runs?

Why are strikes so often per-company (or worst per-store) instead of per-industry?

In the digital age organization is theoretically much easier than it has ever been.

And yet labor is still playing with the 1920s playbook while corporate is hiring specialized modern talent to combat it.

What about seizing the means of production?

Look at the actors strike, whining about studios using AI to replace them.

Why the hell aren't the actor unions building their own AI platform for generative performances? It'd unquestionably be a better product working with talent than competitors ostracized by talent. Reminds me of when the MPAA fought against Napster instead of embracing the tides of change and as a result missed the boat on owning digital distribution platforms to Apple and others.

But no. People are scared of change and cling to the status quo even when that isn't working very well for them.

Embrace change. Focus on progress. Evolve.

If the masses can do that faster and better than the boardroom (which really shouldn't be that hard as those guys suck at embracing progress and abandoning status quo), then the masses are going to be holding the bag at the end of the changes coming.

If the masses can't organize enough to stay ahead...

Well, we should probably all learn to enjoy eating cardboard and watching the world burn around us.

I think the best anyone can do is try to make life as good as possible in their mini sphere of influence, their personal bubble of friends and relationships. If everyone did that, society would be better. I'm not sure what to do about psychopaths in power. Maybe deal with the psychopaths in your personal world or aim to reduce your own personal behavior that's harmful to others?

I'm currently taking a class about this (kinda). The current system, which is, in the states, neoliberal capitalism (redundancy for clarity) encourages people to act immorally, or more accurately under a set of morals that justifies those actions. A different system can encourage a different set of actions to get success, and a different set of morals to justify those actions. This is a large part of politics. The other part is praxis, or getting that in place. I'm not going to share the set of theory I believe in, but rather common ways people try to impose their desired version of society.

One way is through the current system, even if you want to completely change it. This is what the class I am talking about. You identify who has power, why they act the way they do, and how you can get them to enact your policies, or at least gain power yourself. This method falls under a lot of criticism, as it stands to reason that a system built by those in power cannot overthrow them. You can't use the master's tools against him.

The other way is revolution, but that has its own problems. It is hard to convince people to completely change everything, and when it does happen, it often happens in the best way possible for those who have power. It also isn't any more moral than the other options, but that is the nature of changing an immoral system. Welcome to politics.

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert, as I am just getting into political theory, both in my own studies and formal education.

Take good care of yourself and always claim the rest you need - don't let anyone call you lazy, disabled or mentally ill for working during as many hours of the day as you want. Being productive is not a virtue.

After you have spent enough time resting: support your local mutual aid circle, or (help) create one. Use your talents and skills to help and support others in your community as much as you can afford. Try and work without participation from the existing authorities (not always possible, but at least don't seek their support unless you have to), basically create your own self-government infrastructure within the crumbling ruins of the old society - like a new tree growing in a hollow stump.

I think society is doomed.

It's too connected and secure. No pockets of diversity can form instead everything is going to merge into one large mass.Then within the large groups the successful and determined aren't rewarded enough as they are just apart of that mass.

Idiocracy is right. Idiots with no jobs will have loads of kids.

We need people to care about themselves and society again rather just caring about feelings. People don't even care about their country and countrymen and willing to drop it at the first hint of something better.

Go vegan!

solves nothing. you eliminate a negligible amount of carbon emissions. focusing on our individual impact is a waste of time when there are companies and their leaders doing orders of magnitude more damage.

Companies and their leaders are paid by individuals, lol. Going vegan definitely does help.

Even still, why did you only mention carbon emissions? The question was about making a better society. Did you forget that veganism is about animal rights?

going vegan doesn't help animals much either. we live in an overproductive society that wastes most of what it produces anyways - even if your personal choice marginally reduces demand, the abuse is ongoing. we need systemic solutions. we need to destroy the meat industry. veganism will never be popular enough to create systemic change on its own.

How do you plan to destroy the meat industry without anyone going vegan? You realize the meat industry is funded by non-vegans, right? And tax payers, of course, who also eat meat and won't support policy that challenges their freedom.

Destroying the meat industry isn't going to have the beneficial impact you think it will.

Most of the food we grow we can't eat, most of the farmland we use exclusively to support livestock isn't suitable for anything else. These animals are eating food that is otherwise biological waste that will simply decay and contribute to carbon emissions.

I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, I am saying elimination isn't improvement, it only creates more problems.

This sets aside the problems created by eliminating animal fat and protein from our collective diet, which causes a health and nutrition problem on top of a pretty significant caloric deficit that again, we don't necessarily have the agricultural land to replace.

If being vegan is your jam then more power to you, but it isn't the answer for society's problems.

While animals can eat waste from crops grown for humans, that's a minority of their feed. Almost all new corn and soy cropland is cut to meet growing animal agriculture demand.

How does eliminating animal fat and protein cause health and nutrition problems? Humans are perfectly capable of living on vegan diets at all stages of life.

Put people above animals, always and forever.

I do! But I also value animals, and consuming their dead corpses is completely unnecessary and on top of that is wasteful, hurting humans in the process.

i think studying spirituality and doing meditation can bring us together, that is the only way we can understand all human and living being are same there is no difference between us (on spiritual level off course). There is too much discrimination in this world, rich vs poor, white people vs darker color people, america vs china vs russia, straight people vs LGBTQ+ community, communist vs capitalism vs socialism, vegan people vs meat lover, religion vs atheist.

spirituality can solve things which religion couldn't.

Get rid of extremists, both commies and nazis kind of extremists. Then make the Internet less connected so hive minds don't show up. Bully anyone who is making a fool of themselves

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