Do you know…?
February 22nd, 2007
Philip has posted a link to his friend’s blog which links to an amazing video called Did you know?. You should watch it now. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Wasn’t that great? It really makes you think. On the one hand, I agree with Philip in that we should temper our technological advances with an “exploration of our collective social understanding”. At the same time, this really makes me think of the state of the world today and I just have to wonder if there is any hope for the world. I really think that the world is fast going to hell. The cause? Democracy.
Now before anyone starts emailing me calling me a Pinko, I am not advocating any other political system. Democracy sucks, but it is the best we have. Deep inside, however, I think we have to be able to do better. No one wants to admit it, but there are people – a great number, in fact – that are just too stupid or naive to participate in government. A great example is the fundies in the US. Hate crimes are bad, really bad. Unless your religion says it is good and right to hate people based on their sexual orientation. Seriously. Read The God Delusion. Long story short: fundie kid wears T-shirt to school stating “Homosexuality a sin. Islam is a lie. Abortion is murder.”, school says “No. Hate is bad.”, fundie parents sue school and win.
So what, then, is the answer? Well, I think only certain people should be allowed to vote and serve in government. Heinlein had only certain people considered citizens and only citizens able to participate in government in Starship Troopers (The book, not the movie. The book was hugely satirical whereas the movie was very watered-down. Good action movie but not so much the social commentary). In the book, one of the primary ways of gaining citizenship was by performing military service. I’d imagine this would skew a society towards aggression and violence. Perhaps a system whereby the educated and enlightened were the ones who made all of the decisions would work. Require a degree to vote? Well, as long as you made all University completely free so that people would only be limited by their abilities that might work. Not that anything like that would ever happen. I guess I’m just dreaming.
