[ExI] "Toward a Type 1 civilization" by Michael Shermer

[Lee Corbin]

Stefano wrote (Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 5:02 AM)

> Samantha Atkins [quoted the Shermer piece]:

      Type 1.0: Globalism that includes worldwide wireless
      Internet access, with all knowledge digitized and
      available to everyone. A completely global economy
      with free markets in which anyone can trade with
      anyone else without interference from states or
      governments. A planet where all states are democracies [!!!]
      in which everyone has the franchise. 

> > Yes!  This has been part of what I see as near term extropic
> > goals for some time now.   The world wide web is how the
> > true "global brain" comes into being.  
> 
> Mmhhh. "Democracy" meaning "the rule of the people", I do not see how
> it could go without a real sovereignty of the single people concerned.

We want representative democracy. The "real sovereignty" should
reside in the mass of people, however deluded, electing somewhat
more intelligent and hopefully more thoughtful specimens to debate
and consider legislation.  I presume we're all on the same page here.

> Now, the primordial act of sovereignty is to give oneself the
> legal system of one's choice, rather than a system imposed
> from outside, e.g., a colonial power or a supernational bureaucracy.

Yes, that's right, although it seems reasonable to me for more
advanced (i.e. democratic and individual rights respecting nations)
to intercede temporarily in chaotic nations to restore order,
principally for humanitarian concerns.

> If this is the case, I think we should accept the idea that the
> planet may continue exhibiting a plural and diverse landscape
> of political and economic regimes, and that peoples may
> continue to have a say about that.

The cultural straightjackets of a number of nations will, to
be sure, at least give any democracy they embrace a
distinct character. But what examples do you have in mind?
For all their "other ways of doing things", the Japanese seem
remarkably democratic to me.

Unfortunately, certain nations in which religion is the dominant
force will be slow to accept democracy (as opposed to rule by
priests, imams, or other holy men.  Is this what you were getting
at?

> Or we could opt for a Brave- New- Worldish "enlightened"
> globalism, but in that case we have already renounced the
> idea of different states and of "democracy" altogether.

I'm also at a loss to understand exactly what you're suggesting.

You mention Brave New World.

That Huxley novel is best noted for his use of a "drugged" society
in which people were (in Huxley's mind) necessarily unfulfilled
and unhappy despite the drugs. That Huxley's views are really
quite monstrous and quite contrary to enlightenment is best
seen in the marvelous David Pearce essay http://www.huxley.net/

Lee