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Designing a Better Society Than Plato's or Ours

JustSheila

Crusader
Could we come up with a better model for society than Plato or Scientology?

At the top of Plato's ideal society, were the politicians/philosophers to govern over the rest. They weren't allowed riches and luxuries, but had to live an austere life.

At the top of Scientology was the politician/philosopher/cult leader governing us - L Ron Hubbard, and later, DM. It didn't work. :no: There was nobody to ensure the cult leader lived an austere life, nor would there be, if the cult leaders run the show. L Ron Hubbard was filthy rich. So is DM - with all the power and money of the cult at his exclusive fingertips.

In Plato's society, just beneath the leaders/philosophers were the military. These were the enforcers, the ones who would battle anyone who challenged the society on demand, without question, using whatever tactics, right or wrong, they thought appropriate.

Also existing in Scn, was the GO or OSA or IAS doing exactly that. Divorced from the philosophers in their own sort of bubble, they could and did commit atrocious crimes on others in the name of the society of Scientology. In Scientology, the philosophy was written in such a duplicitous manner, that it could be flipped around to justify inhumane actions, while at the same time claiming to be a humanitarian organisation.

Beneath that were the technically skilled and businesspeople, allowed all sorts of riches that they could earn without limitation, left alone to do as they please.

Also does not work - have a look at current societies where the money simply feeds the top 1% of that group, who then influence the military and leaders.

There are a lot of great minds on ESMB. What are your ideas of the ideal society?
 
my own thoughts about utopian societies is fairly well expressed by the twentieth centuries' dystopian triliogy; zamyatin's 1924 "We", huxley's 1937 "Brave New World" and orwell's 1948 "1984"
 

JustSheila

Crusader
my own thoughts about utopian societies is fairly well expressed by the twentieth centuries' dystopian triliogy; zamyatin's 1924 "We", huxley's 1937 "Brave New World" and orwell's 1948 "1984"

Thanks, CB. Can you be more specific and provide a general outline of what you mean? I know this is a subject in which you've put a great deal of thought. You are well-read and intelligent. I sincerely would like to read your thoughts on this.

We all wanted to change the world, to better it. Ideas can do so. Yours are welcome. :yes:
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
To quote Douglas Adams:

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.


To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.


And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not.


And somewhere in the shadows behind them --- who?


Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?
 
Thanks, CB. Can you be more specific and provide a general outline of what you mean? I know this is a subject in which you've put a great deal of thought. You are well-read and intelligent. I sincerely would like to read your thoughts on this.

We all wanted to change the world, to better it. Ideas can do so. Yours are welcome. :yes:

actually, i'm not very well read but for the most part the little i have read i've read well

but just for now...

my computer time is over; catch ya later...
 

JustSheila

Crusader
To quote Douglas Adams:

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.


Good quote. It sets up a conundrum, though, doesn't it? But then, Douglas Adams was not alive in the Internet Age.

What if there were a system where those whom were best suited to govern didn't even know they were governing? What if it were indirect?

What if there were a computer program or system that randomly elected the best solutions, the best ideas to solve problems and then a system of choosing amongst those solutions?
 

Veda

Sponsor
Many years ago, it was asked of the voting public, "Are you fit to govern yourselves?"

With the 2016 presidential elections not far away, and the likely nominees being the corporate-oligarchical favorites, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, it does appear that the majority of voters are in a stupor.

Whatever system is adopted, one will still be left with the same folks.

Many efforts have been made to encourage others out of that "stupor."

One was the work of Alfred Korzybski:

9780766181595_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG


Hubbard borrowed much from Korzybski but, rather than to use it to free, used it as deceptive lead-in to his mind-trap.

To make a long story short, without a grass roots means to elevate individuals, towards greater rationality and wisdom, it's not likely that any model for society will change much.

Perhaps, though, a model that included individual intellectual and emotional development might have a chance. :)
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
Many years ago, it was asked of the voting public, "Are you fit to govern yourselves?"

With the 2016 presidential elections not far away, and the likely nominees being the corporate-oligarchical favorites, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, it does appear that the majority of voters are in a stupor.

Whatever system is adopted, one will still be left with the same folks.

Many efforts have been made to encourage others out of that "stupor."

One was the work of Alfred Korzybski:

9780766181595_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG


Hubbard borrowed much from Korzybski but, rather than to use it to free, used it as deceptive lead-in to his mind-trap.

To make a long story short, without a grass roots means to elevate individuals, towards greater rationality and wisdom, it's not likely that any model for society will change much.

Perhaps, though, a model that included individual intellectual and emotional development might have a chance. :)

What will free mankind is the break free of Earth an voyage to the stars. Then, perhaps, a group of like-minded people can set up something useful free of the traditions that bind us here on Earth. As the feminists say: culture is not your friend.
 

tetloj

Silver Meritorious Patron
What will free mankind is the break free of Earth an voyage to the stars. Then, perhaps, a group of like-minded people can set up something useful free of the traditions that bind us here on Earth. As the feminists say: culture is not your friend.

Isn't that kinda how the US was originally settled? :confused2:
 

Veda

Sponsor
What will free mankind is the break free of Earth an voyage to the stars. Then, perhaps, a group of like-minded people can set up something useful free of the traditions that bind us here on Earth. As the feminists say: culture is not your friend.


Plus a change from the focus on the Earth-bound thin film of atmosphere in which we dwell on Earth, to the moon, Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and, eventually, beyond, will boost the morale and - hopefully - sanity of Humankind.
 

Gib

Crusader
Many years ago, it was asked of the voting public, "Are you fit to govern yourselves?"

With the 2016 presidential elections not far away, and the likely nominees being the corporate-oligarchical favorites, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, it does appear that the majority of voters are in a stupor.

Whatever system is adopted, one will still be left with the same folks.

Many efforts have been made to encourage others out of that "stupor."

One was the work of Alfred Korzybski:

9780766181595_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG


Hubbard borrowed much from Korzybski but, rather than to use it to free, used it as deceptive lead-in to his mind-trap.

To make a long story short, without a grass roots means to elevate individuals, towards greater rationality and wisdom, it's not likely that any model for society will change much.

Perhaps, though, a model that included individual intellectual and emotional development might have a chance. :)

I agree Veda.

Human engineering.

as he told John MacMaster, I created a assembly line of square ball bearings to come out as round ball bearings, or something like that.

And in other words, create scientologists. Yuk. All thinking like Hubbard with his pure evaluations of what society should run like and his pure evaluations on how people think. He wanted people to think with his pretended knowledge of the mind.
 

tetloj

Silver Meritorious Patron
My two cents worth...not a well thought out philosophy. While the outcome of 46 years on earth, it is also as much a product of recent events and observations in my life, and likely to change....

I eschew power and the influence of power and want to get as far away from it as possible

Of course you can run but you can't really hard, but I consider the sojourns of 'power'* in my life an irritation that I bear as best I can and then go on with living.

I've been through the phases of thinking it is possible to make the world a better place - to "the world will be the world regardless of what I say or think"

So....am interested in what others have to say as it is one of those things that feels a bit too scary big too think about. But I don know what I like and what I don't

FWIW



* (the elite, those rules that are made without considering the problem they are trying to resolve and not mindful of the collateral damage of ill-considered rules)
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
Isn't that kinda how the US was originally settled? :confused2:

We Americans carried too much baggage from the Old World - in fact we are now, more than the Old World, the major source of believers in the religions that originated there. People said they came here to found something new, but what they actually came here for was to find a place to practice their minority cultures and express their own prejudices free from the dominance of the majority culture in the Old World. But they wanted to keep most of the old stuff, and only shave off the little bit that was irritating them. That's why Chinatown and Little Italy existed in NYC.

But civilization has evolved, and there are even now significant minorities in the US who have thrown off that old baggage to some degree. A group of them could colonize someplace else and be free of a lot of the crap. No ancestral homelands to fight over. And technology, as JustSheila hinted, could make many of the functions of human government obsolete. The real reason we need government is mostly distribution of finite resources and protection of property rights. Of course, this society would need some police, because even utopias will have madmen - or will they? Will genetic engineering make the chance of having an egotist or a narcissist, or even a sociopath, vanishingly small? I'd love to see it. So much of our cultures on earth evidently sprang up to keep the idiots and predators at bay. What would a society that didn't have those predators and idiots look like?

And what would happen to it if a predator suddenly fell out of the sky?

That is the basic theme of the book I am working on.
 

JustSheila

Crusader
Many years ago, it was asked of the voting public, "Are you fit to govern yourselves?"
<snipped for brevity>

To make a long story short, without a grass roots means to elevate individuals, towards greater rationality and wisdom, it's not likely that any model for society will change much.

Perhaps, though, a model that included individual intellectual and emotional development might have a chance. :)

I eschew power and the influence of power and want to get as far away from it as possible

Okay. So let's start with grassroots, then, but as you, Tetloj and Udarnik pointed out, there is still this problem with humans handling power over each other.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902), the historian and moralist, otherwise known as Lord Acton, wrote in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

So that brings us back to all our original good intentions and thoughts in Scn, the whole idea of clearing the planet. We thought that if mankind were saner, we would have a saner society. We wanted to believe someone had found a way so badly, that we followed a madman into his own insane mind.

But the original intention was good, it was correct, it was right, even though we were misled. If this problem of handling power could be resolved, we could have genuine leadership that works exclusively for the benefit of mankind using actual intellect, wisdom and compassion. :yes:

WHAT IF the thirst for power was considered a sort of insanity? What if there were a treatment for it?

What if, just by being considered a sort of insanity by an entire society, it stopped manifesting?

What if it were one of the first rules of that society?

What would be the possible scenarios - and where do we go from there?
 

Gib

Crusader
We Americans carried too much baggage from the Old World - in fact we are now, more than the Old World, the major source of believers in the religions that originated there. People said they came here to found something new, but what they actually came here for was to find a place to practice their minority cultures and express their own prejudices free from the dominance of the majority culture in the Old World. But they wanted to keep most of the old stuff, and only shave off the little bit that was irritating them. That's why Chinatown and Little Italy existed in NYC.

But civilization has evolved, and there are even now significant minorities in the US who have thrown off that old baggage to some degree. A group of them could colonize someplace else and be free of a lot of the crap. No ancestral homelands to fight over. And technology, as JustSheila hinted, could make many of the functions of human government obsolete. The real reason we need government is mostly distribution of finite resources and protection of property rights. Of course, this society would need some police, because even utopias will have madmen - or will they? Will genetic engineering make the chance of having an egotist or a narcissist, or even a sociopath, vanishingly small? I'd love to see it. So much of our cultures on earth evidently sprang up to keep the idiots and predators at bay. What would a society that didn't have those predators and idiots look like?

And what would happen to it if a predator suddenly fell out of the sky?

That is the basic theme of the book I am working on.

I'm curious, have you read Korzybski? Just curious.

What I highlight in red is what I kind of figured out. We need government not to govern as in a leader who wants to promote his ideas,

but a government that makes the rules for civilized life fair for all, and doesn't change the rules all the time.

I think hubbard touched on it, with games. Sort of like if one is playing the game called football, and in the middle of game the officals change the rules, well that kind of sucks. It's like moving the goal posts back or forward in the middle of the game.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
Okay. So let's start with grassroots, then, but as you, Tetloj and Udarnik pointed out, there is still this problem with humans handling power over each other.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902), the historian and moralist, otherwise known as Lord Acton, wrote in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:


So that brings us back to all our original good intentions and thoughts in Scn, the whole idea of clearing the planet. We thought that if mankind were saner, we would have a saner society. We wanted to believe someone had found a way so badly, that we followed a madman into his own insane mind.

But the original intention was good, it was correct, it was right, even though we were misled. If this problem of handling power could be resolved, we could have genuine leadership that works exclusively for the benefit of mankind using actual intellect, wisdom and compassion. :yes:

WHAT IF the thirst for power was considered a sort of insanity? What if there were a treatment for it?

What if, just by being considered a sort of insanity by an entire society, it stopped manifesting?

What if it were one of the first rules of that society?

What would be the possible scenarios - and where do we go from there?

But what if the genes that code for thirst of power are necessary for other things, too? Aggression isn't always bad, it pushes the entrepreneur forward. Some people are just shitheads. When the headman says "time to move, winter is coming and food is going to get scarce", there is always some shithead going "nuh uh, make me move, winter's not coming this year". That's why religions got started - so the head man could say "God says so" and settle the damn argument. Have you ever been in a school project where they won't assign a leader? We had some of those in business school. Fucking disasters, they usually were. I'd been a maverick on-my-own scientist until then, and damn did I get an appreciation for hierarchy right quick.

Someone once said that civilization is like a stone wall. Pull an offending stone out at random, and the whole thing could come crashing down. So you should not pull stones until you understand what they are there for.

And a certain minimal level of intelligence is required for a just society. I see kids in my son's school all the time, their parents aren't evil, but it's evident how their stupidity is fucking up their children's lives. If you want a better society, you'll need to end that cycle. But how without the kind of draconian control over family life like the Chinese exert with their one child policy?
 

Anonycat

Crusader
Science Fiction.

Heinlein, H. Beam Piper, all of Campbell's guys (including Hubbard) read Korzybski and quoted him in their books.

During my pre-teens I read a lot of great, classic sci-fi too. I even read 2001: A Space Odyssey before it was a film. In my 20's I was a "Dick head", briefly. Trivia: My uncle tried dianetics with LaFayette in ~1950, and was also a hobbyist SF writer. No, he didn't like dianetics, and ultimately gave up on the (fad?) hobby of writing SF under a pseudonym. He had a great career path, but it made me wonder how many people engaged in writing amateur sci-fi at that time.
 
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