“As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth’s final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
-Commissioner Pravin Lal, ‘U.N. Declaration of Rights’
That’s wild, I never knew the origin of that last sentence.
Well, Commissioner Pravin Lal is a fictional character, one of the faction leaders in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, truly a gem of a game that most passed over. Most figured it was Civilization in space. But while in theory a successor to Civilization, it was actually a whole sci fi epic with its own original story, future history, and deep explorations of future technology, ecology, and philosophy. The quotes from the tech discoveries and secret projects really illustrate some of the essence of the game.
But I do take great pleasure in quoting Pravin Lal as if he is actually some great historical diplomat.
Ah, that explains it. It didn’t sound like a quote that would come from the real UN. Maybe in some other, superior timeline…
I think this take misunderstands the political reality: in the U.S. we have what could charitably be called a flawed democracy. Just because laws are passed or policies enacted doesn’t mean there is majority support.
The house of representatives is elected under rules which are determined state by state. Many states have gerrymandered districts, which is just legal cheating.
Each state receives two senators, regardless of population. Places like North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, each get two senators even though they have smaller populations that individual cities in other states.
The president is selected by the electoral college, not the popular vote.
Supreme Court justices are appointed for life - random chance of when they die determines how many justices one party or the other gets to appoint (before we get to Republicans cheating Democrats out of an appointment).
All of which sounds and is grim, but I take a little encouragement from the fact that the majority of Americans do support many reasonable policies and improvements.
Also, more than a third of people sit home on national election day. Which is the highest rate of attendance of any election. State and local elections get an even smaller portion of the electorate.
It’s not that they choose this, it’s that they choose not to oppose it.
Even that I think can partially be explained by people feeling in their gut that their vote won’t change anything about their situation. Might be wrong, but you look at something like Obama winning which did have some positive effects, but not the hope and change people were expecting.
Oh, laws were broken.
“If they didn’t want it, they shouldn’t have dressed that way.” Yeah, no.
Difficult to not vote against your own interests when there are only two viable parties and both are owned by the rich.
Same goes for almost every other western country
No, Americans are a special breed of stupid
I don’t think so. I think there is 0 exceptionalism, neither positive nor negative. Americans are being targeted and exploited not because they are “stupid” or possibly naive, but rather because they have resources others do want, being either power or resources.
One empire to collapse, but for another few to rise to fill the void it leaves.
And those few are not so much more merciful. I’m trying to imagine what the world would look like if it’s only Russia and China on top, while the US implodes like the Balkans.
Make no mistake about it: this is ENTIRELY because of religion, which allows the rich to fool the lower classes into hating groups that the magical books say are bad.
Sadly, if Democrats were a party in favor of workers and benefits and also gave angry speeches saying how gays and trans people were going to an evil afterworld of torture, the world wouldn’t be like this. The bulk of the lowest classes of society are not only scientifically illiterate, they are prejudiced, idiotic, and cruel. They deserve what they fucking get for their religious idiocy.
The problem is that there are good decent middle class people and some lower class people who don’t believe in fairy tale garbage religious myths and THEY are the ones that get massively fucked by this voting block of the ultra wealthy and ultra stupid, and since that voting block is over 60 percent, and the psychopathic upper classes won’t change and the lower classes won’t stop being stupid, political mobilization sadly will continue to not work until something like market collapse, environmental collapse, or some sort of destructive force changes things.
Even among the 40 percent of people not in that block of idiots and upper elites, there is still a large part that is religious and can’t name the enemy: it’s religion, it’s idiocy, it’s the psychopathic upper classes, and this moderate group of complacent people will doom us all.
There’s not really a good solution to the problem. Education doesn’t work on the religious, it just creates a group of people who can’t think critically and can claim to be educated. Violence won’t work when only 20 percent of society is willing to act and a large part of the religious 50 percent is armed and part of the police apparatus in society. The only thing that will change this is technology that somehow destroys or creates poverty specifically for the religious ignorant classes while passing over those who understand science and technology.
It’s hard to even blame the upper classes for exploiting the lowest classes when they are so stupid and unwilling to learn basic scientific thinking. Everyone religious is delusional and going to collectively destroy the planet.
