Another dictator for life?
Watching Could Hungary get Kicked Out of the EU this morning, I once again felt like an alien.
PROPOSITION
- Humans are the product of an evolutionary process that rewards power (as one strategy, at least) with biological success. But science has armed our ape brains with overkill options like nuclear war.
CONCLUSION
- Working on systems of government that safeguard against the worst happening ought to be our primary focus as a species.
Instead, we keep fixating on our differences and crumbling into warring clumps of special interests, leaving the field clear for parasitic dictators.
Could it be we just aren’t wise enough to survive?
This whole dilemma was one of the tough nuts I chewed on as a teenager, when molding my love of epic fantasy and science into the Okal Rel Universe.
- The Reetions found one solution. Transparency mediated by incorruptible AIs. See “Making History” on Futurefire for how it got its start, or read Book 5: Far Arena, for how it could still be less than entirely “people proof”.
- Sevildom relied on a neo-feudal concept of honor, tied into economic and religious systems. A reputational check on abuse of power underpinned by the beliefs of Okal Rel.
None of it was perfect. And all of it was threatened by the two systems clashing again after a 200 year hiatus. But life survived.
What might help us get past the threat of dictator-controlled propaganda, us-them obsessions and other evils of the current decade?
References
Williams, L. (May 2006). Making History. Futurefire. http://futurefire.net/2006.05/fiction/makinghistory.html
