- Capitalism and Alternatives -

let them alone?

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on November 01, 1999 at 14:23:31:

In Reply to: Suicidal Races Warrant Dictatorships? posted by Deep Dad Nine on October 31, 1999 at 17:45:28:

Lets start with defining dictatorship. SDF seems to enjoy trying to belittle me for some reason, but a definition is worth giving.

A good one is "a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)"

And I suggested that you wuld require such to see those goals enacted - because if you did not take that approach the opposition would be to great.

: DDN: I guess I’m a dictator then. Personally I’ve always had a very hard time understanding why things like eating and breathing have to be compromised.

For more people nowe, than ever before, eating and breathing is *easier* and less 'compromised' than it had been in 'the wild' - but I get your major point.

: With eminent destruction at hand, what’s wrong with a dictatorship? What’s the point of “freedom” if its going to make us physically and psychologically unhealthy and perhaps even kill us? How about instating a GREEN dictatorship until we’ve reached the point in our evolution where we understand that polluting our own air and water is bad for us AND unnecessary.

Because meanwhile you must arrest and divert the development of all mankinf with the support of a most authoritarian regime which must compell people to behave in a certain way. I am suggesting that doing so makes the "until we’ve reached" condition forever unrealisable and thus the regime must be forever in place - until it is overthrown or collapses for lack of resources necessary for its survival (lack of people who contribute to it in one form or another)

: My point is that most of us seem to be lacking some very basic common sense. The objectors to my proposals that you’ve listed, for the most part, are people that apparently have no problem hurting someone else

*they* make up a vast proportion of the human race - you have deigned them 'evil' and subject to be crushed according to your judgement (that they are 'bad' and will kill us all etc)

: These people are thinking only of themselves, whereas I believe am thinking of EVERYONE (or at least trying to) as are many of the people in your “For” lists. I might welcome a dictator that would enforce respect for very basic common denominators like food, air, and water in the name of the collective. I think I’d be willing to exchange the restrictions and freedoms that I have now for those that I imagine under such a regime.

The point is that others wont, and that pretty soon you'd have social tensions, collapse, violence and a greater despoiling than envisioned before. The 'enemy' as you see them are not a small hidden minority - they are all around you (play x-files music..)

: And I’d have very little pity for all the selfish little brats that would be screaming and whining for their oil refineries and strip mines.

It isnt they that would 'whine' but the poeple who want what comes oput the other side - cars, microwaves, holidays in Folrida etc etc. Thats alot of poeple.

: DDN: Having said all of this now let me pose the question a little differently. Let us not assume that my proposed changes would have to be instated overnight and without compromise.

I thought it was the compromise you didnt want - hence my original post.

: What form of government, from where we stand now, would be best for simply maximizing the probability that these kinds of changes would occur in reasonable time frame and/or to the degree that we could save humanity from hell on earth. Would this government look more like capitalism or more like communism?

If you dont mind comprimise, and do not wish to encounter mass opposition then maybe, and frustratingly for you, what exists now in the west (vaigly representative democracy) is the best option. the rest is utopianism. Fun, but is it really gonna happen?


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