Why we can do better

We can do betterA guy on Facebook asked a question that a lot of mainstream people probably ask when they hear about what we’re doing with Copiosis:

“Why are you not interested in fixing our current form of government?  I know our system isn’t perfect and the problem is we allowed the corruption to get out of control, however, I don’t believe it’s too late to restore what our government was meant to be and do.”

The reason why I am unwilling to fix governments of any kind is because government, no matter its form or structure, was never intended to facilitate progress, freedom, or liberty.  Trying to fix any current form of government is like saying to someone who has you locked in a cell “Let me show you how you can keep me imprisoned longer by making my imprisonment feel better to me!”

I know.  Those are strong words.  Why do I feel this way?

Let’s look at arguably the best form of government on the planet—that which we use in the United States.  The US Government was not designed to represent the people, even though it is called a “representative democracy.”  Our federal republic was designed on the premise, held by the wealthy class at the time, that ordinary people like you and me had no idea how to govern themselves, were woefully out of touch with the goings-on in their world, and even if they did know the methods of governing, they didn’t have the disposition, the smarts, to actually do the governing.   All three of these premises were demonstrably false back when our government was created, as chronicled in Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States”. Ordinary people, as now, were quite aware of national issues, were smart, had smart opinions and were seriously questioning the wisdom of the wealthy class.

BTW, I don’t vilify the wealthy class.  They are an important group critical to a successful transition to a new system.  The problem with the wealthy class, then as now, is they have allowed their material success to lead them to believe that they innately (due to their success at amassing wealth) know better than ordinary people how to govern.  It should be obvious today that this same class, which dominates our government leadership today, is NOT very good at running our country, let alone maintaining the system they believe in or keeping said system free of debilitating inefficiencies such as corruption, regulatory capture, nepotism, and a penchant for war and expansionist exuberance.

Second, and most people aren’t aware of this consciously, our current system of government runs on top of  a type of transactional tool that itself causes all kinds of problems, including all the problems we see in our leadership.  When a system uses a physical money as a medium of exchange, the problems we see in the world are inevitable.  Physical money is amoral, it can be taken from you against your will and it can be lost or destroyed.  It allows two-party transactions where nearly always there is an inequality of knowledge about the transaction, leading to an inequality in power.   Physical money also allows producers to be rewarded before the effect of their production efforts are known.  But the most damaging thing about money is it creates a zero-sum game simulation.  It’s not a real zero-sum game, but people perceive it as such.  leading people to be things they (and we) would rather they not be and do things they (and we) would rather they not do.

By the way, money and markets are a brilliant invention of government used to control ordinary people and to finance war.  More famous people than I are finally beginning to get this fact.  There’s no reason we must continue to use inventions deliberately designed to finance violence to run civilization.  Especially when there’s a better way.

But most important, our government systems haven’t kept up with evolving human society.  More and more people are beginning to question the validity of working for a living, having to pay for necessities and being limited in what we can do by the inane statement “we can’t afford it.” Humanity wants to go farther, faster.  There’s tons of evidence supporting that.  But our systems of government are like drag chutes holding us back.

We want to travel and colonize the planets, the solar system, and beyond, but we can’t afford it.  We want to fix the environment.  We can’t afford to do that.  We want to (seriously) end hunger, crime, homelessness, obesity, corruption, etc., but our current system and its fuel (physical money), won’t allow it to happen because all these are too expensive to solve once and for all.

We can do better.

There is no logical reason whatever to try to fix the status quo.  Especially when there are plenty of options now to do so much better.

I see Copiosis as the bridging technology between our status quo and the future resource-based economy.  It offers just enough familiar components while also offering enough innovation to catapult us way beyond the governments that were never intended to support the planet or the people on it.  That’s why I don’t want to spend a single second trying to “fix” what’s wrong with government.  The whole thing needs replacing, including its invention of violence—physical money.

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