Let's face it - Representative Democracy is Dead

[ymetca]

It became obsolete with the advent of the Internet. It was always a stop-gap measure anyway, conceived in an age of oil lamps and horse-drawn carriages. It's a vestigial appendage of a bygone era. It is really WAY past time for an upgrade.

I, like most people, would much rather vote directly for policies and projects, than for someone who supposedly represents me, which is surely an impossibility. If we have the means to establish a Global Direct Democracy, why then should we not do so?

We know what stops us, of course --cabals of the wealthy and powerful coupled with atavistic religious sentiments and teary-eyed flag-waving. We have been duped by advertising. We have been lulled into obedience, ping-ponged between fear and helplessness. Competing empires of hierarchical control systems weave webs of conflicting laws and overlapping jurisdictions, establishing dubious borders, patents and property rights, and myriad other schemes to oppress the hoi polloi. "One Person, One Vote" equals "Mob Rule" we are told, over and over. Is it not the first fear that pops into your mind when I tell you that all votes can and should be equal?

But we forget the strategy of our vast underclasses --that there is safety in numbers. It is statistically unlikely we can all agree on anything, let alone our own mass-destruction. Direct Democracy is a balancing of the needle around the middle of the bell curve. And laws we all agree upon would be few, but likely sweeping. I doubt the majority of people on this planet want to exterminate any other class but that of the rich and powerful. And therein lies the rub, and why we don't have it already.

Still, we are afraid of it. Of the truth that Representative Democracy is a Fake Democracy. We know that in order to establish a Global Direct Democracy we need technologies as corruptible as any. We know we need biometric uniqueness to ensure the integrity of a single vote, but we need it without absolute identity being divulged and thus coerced. We know we must re-conceive voting as an integral daily practice of all Earth Citizens; that voting is not either/or but a spectrum from very much for to very much against, and that the needle of reasonable certitude must constantly be re-calibrated. Are you still very much for or against this or that? Is there some other law you wish to be enacted? Has this law harmed you? Do you have the means of redress?

Whew! All this probing seems like a ridiculous amount of work. Especially when we've all been conditioned to a set-it-and-forget-it attitude towards the things we take for granted. But that is kind of the point. The things some take for granted others do not. And I would think that a Direct Democracy, over time, would gradually move such things from the Dire Needs to the Things We Take For Granted column. Things like clean air and water, food, clothing and shelter, education and self-actualization, would likely be our top priorities until those problems were solved for the 99%. It would be an exponential leap for humanity if we all became shareholders in a global prosperity system, instead of a bunch of individual cogs in a machine of endless toil creating crap destined ultimately for landfills. When all of us can truly participate in the democratic process --when my vote is as powerful as any senator's-- well, then, we shall see just what can be accomplished.

We must abandon, at long last, our allegiance to hierarchy. Those pyramids we found buried in the sands of Egypt and engulfed in the jungles of South America are not shining examples of what humanity can accomplish, but warning signs to be taken seriously. Even our current civilization will fail if we do not break our thralldom to hierarchy.

The long adolescence of humanity is coming to an end. Our King of Hill games are getting hackneyed. We can either transition ourselves into shared empathy systems of global prosperity and a clean environment, or fight yet again to plant a flag on a desolate rock.

...

The year is 2035. I am standing on a street corner when a blank slip of paper lands on my shoe. I pick it up and words appear on it: Welcome to the GDD! You have been registered, and now you have a say so in everything. Do you need something right now? Or, if not, would you like to weigh in on some of the pressing issues of the day?