[extropy-chat] 2-party-system = 1-dimensional politics (was polls again)

[The Avantguardian]

--- Robert Bradbury <robert.bradbury at gmail.com> wrote:

> Having voted outside of the box in several national
> elections I can only
> beat my shoe on the table in agreement.

High praise from you Robert.
> 
> The reality, unfortunately, and one which "we" may
> not adapt to easily is
> that while many people on the list are adept at
> balancing N-dimensional
> spaces, the "public" (which is buying those
> newspapers) is not.

That is because there are those that profit immensely
by the current state of affairs at our expense. They
resist allowing a serious third party because they
have the current system completely hacked. "All your
economy is belong to us.", as you and Eugen are fond
of saying. To allow a third party into serious
contention is like the three-body problem. It would
throw off their tried and true calculations.  

> Now, this leads to an interesting question -- is the
> destiny of humanity
> multispatial?

Do you believe in destiny? I will tell you one thing.
If American politics does not become at least a little
more multidimensional soon, the Great Experiment will
have failed. Having burned itself out in just over 200
years.

The reasons I think this are several fold:

1. The quickly growing wealth gap in the United States
poses a grave danger to the life, liberty, and
happiness of millions of Americans. This growing
divide between the rich and the poor is due to the
middle class shrinking. If the middle-class does react
soon, it will no longer be a significant demographic
in politics.

2. This decline of the middle class is the direct
result of a rigid two-party system. A system where one
political party heavily taxes the middle class to give
the money to the wealthy. The other political party
similarly taxes the hell out of the middle class in
order to give the money, (after skimming some off the
top of course) to the poor. 

Obviously this state of affirs hangs the middle-class
out to dry of course no matter which way they vote.  
I bet I don't have to tell you which party is which do
I?

3. In a more general sense, the two party system is
one-dimensional politics. It leads to less
adaptability than a three party system which would at
least be two-dimensional. From the evolutionary
standpoint this is a serious problem. If you are stuck
walking back and forth along the same line all the
time, there are a lot of places you can't go. 

Rewalking all the same old tired ground is annoying
enough by itself. But if there is a truck headed your
way, you are REALLY screwed.  

>  Does the direction and politics and
> news of Smartski
> (Deepski?), CA differ significantly from the
> direction and politics of
> Slowski (Shallowski), CA? [1]

I don't think so. I doubt one's choice of Internet
connection is correlated to the politics of the
individual, unless one is appreciably more expensive
than the other. Unless you mean something else, in
which case elaborate. Then again I may not be getting
your gist.

>  A second interesting question is
> whether the power brokers can
> afford to allow humanity to become multispatial? [2]

No they can't, not if they don't care to deserve their
power. If they did deserve their power, they would try
to lead us somewhere and not just back and forth, tax
and spend, war and peace.

Since the percieve the greatest threat to their
privelaged position come not from the poor whom they
distract with bread and circuses but from the
middle-class wherein fall most professionals and
intellectuals. Thus they seek to widen the gap to
secure their own position.  

The short-sightedness of their plan is that they won't
realize that they NEED the techies to figure stuff out
for them, fix their fancy cars, and give them new
heart valves until it is too late.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."- Siddhartha Guatama aka Buddha.


 
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