Off my normal thread.

[darkness0within]

Now for all of you that don't know...

The UK is leaving the EU next year... Or is it?

I think many are worried that the UK will go down the pan once we leave the EU. There are certainly some people who will lose out. But I firmly believe that there will be winners too.

I'm not going to get all political about it as politics bores me to death. My own feeling about democracy in general is that it is dictatorship by consent. You vote people in as they promise this or that to get your vote. Then your elected representative goes rouge and does his or her own thing. But still we vote as it is our democratic right.

I am old enough to remember when we voted to go into the 'common market' as it was known then. in our constituency it was an overwhelming NO to it. But still our local MP, (as others) decided to flaunt the will of the people and vote YES... Now that is democracy in motion. 

My own thoughts on the EU is that it has wanted to be an United states of Europe for some time. The UK has lost its way as bit by bit we have squandered our industries and trades over time... Sound familiar to you?

Personally I think it's time for change. We could never go back to what was. But we could move forward with a new confidence that has been sadly lacking for many years.

 

[anirbas]

Observing your spelling of certain words, I was fairly certain you hailed from the United Kingdom.
As does my spouse. He has lived here since 2010. After tRump was "elected", I wished I had moved
to England, instead.

I have only been interested in politics, or even which party runs the country I live in twice in my lifetime.
The first time in the Eighties when Reagan inserted "trickle down economics" into our lives,
I was lividly against. Which we are now seeing the end game of, in America after four decades
of robber barons sucking the country and its people dry of even our honor.

And the second time, this third and last time tRump attempted to become president, and did.
I was vehemently against this. He is the antithesis of all that is good and honorable
about the everyday people of this country.

This country's industries have all been moved to other countries, since the eighties. In the sixties
and seventies when I was a child, factories were everywhere, all over the country. Making everything from steel
to car parts to ceramic tile and textiles.

I agree it is time for a change in both of our countries. But, this murderous slashing
of civil rights in my country, is not the change I am talking about.

[darkness0within]

We live in interesting times anirbas.

Our countries are not that dissimilar. The same problems plague both countries. it's just a matter of scale.

Both have been tolerant to immigration. In many ways it is the lifeblood of a country to allow immigration. 

The flip side of this is both have a certain population group who are very unhappy about it. At this time the past, in this respect is ever present it seems.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Fear that someone will take their jobs. their homes. This it seems to me is where governments have fallen down I feel.

I don't pretend there are easy answers to this... There isn't. But everyone has worth. It's just a matter of finding what someones potential is. And helping it along.

Everyone benefits.  

 

[darkness0within]

I've got to say all this doom and gloom that the media, and others are pumping out about leaving the EU is certainly not changing my mind about things. The trouble is that there are so many vested interests. It's also clear that many foreign manufacturers who came to the UK did so as it was a great springboard to the EU.

Some people are after a second referendum. This would be a mistake in my view as it would open the flood gates to calls for a second vote on this, or that in the future. So you don't like what a general election brings. No matter, we'll re run it again and again till we get what we want.

And what would you get? Anarchy. Democracy would wither and die as no one would respect any voting. It's on life support now... I hope they don't turn off the machine.

[darkness0within]

Well, we are close now to leaving the EU... Perhaps.

For some the world will end when we / if we leave it seems, and the national media has been instrumental in a concerted effort to spell out the doom that will happen if we leave. I'm waiting for the plague of locusts and the death of all the first born if we leave the EU to be circulated through the media soon.

It is true that there will be winners and losers. And that things will seem a muddle for a while. But I see what is happening as a golden opportunity to shake off most of the shackles the EU has slowly placed on us here in the UK. What was signed up for in the 1970's is a far cry to where we are now. The truth is that the EU is trying to be a fledgling united states of Europe and each country being just a state of that.

I have watched our elected MPs in the main bitch and moan, ask for another referendum because people did not know what they were signing up for... A peoples vote. (I thought we had that in 2016.) Clearly for many reasons many MPs don't like the fact that a majority of people did not want to stay in the EU, and that has stuck in their throats.

We in the UK cannot go back to how things were. That would be foolish to think that. But we can go forward 'mostly' unfettered to create something new.

[anirbas]

"But we can go forward 'mostly' unfettered to create something new."

Hold that thought...Have to get off of the computer and take care of some business........

[darkness0within]

I am ashamed of our current parliament in the main.

I wonder if they actually thought about what impression they are giving to the rest of the world. A few MP's are blatantly going against what people voted for in their own constituencies. They hide behind either, 'people did not know what they were voting for'. Which is insulting to their constituencies. Or 'I'm letting my conscience be my guide'. Which actually translated means to me, 'I'm going to ignore my constituency'.

This whole saga has now become farcical, and I'm sure this state of affairs will continue until there is an election. Then I think many current MP's will be looking for something else to amuse themselves. The general public will have their say, and many MP's will be found wanting.

More seriously the far right parties might well get a foot in the door at the UK parliament. And this can, and will be blamed on the inaction of our current MP's who seem to be incapable in the main of working together for the common good of the people on this matter. A very sad state of affairs I feel.

Prime minister May is asking for an extension to article 50. Personally at this time I cannot see the point as Her deal has been voted down twice. No one at parliament seem to have viable alternative options, so I can't see an extension being of much use, unless there is a change of attitude in parliament. And as it stands now It seems to me they are opening a door to something in the future they really won't want to have.

[phantasm]

I wonder how well democracy really works as you scale up to size of the nation-states we've all been living in all our lives.

I'm watching a course of lectures on Ancient Greece by Donald Kagan on YouTube. And not for the first time. I love learning about Ancient Greece. Actually, I love learning, period.

Anyway, Kagan describes the direct democracy the Athenians lived in pretty well. They had their prejudices and problems, absolutely. And as a guy renting an apartment, I would be denied the right to vote under their system. But if I did meet their criteria, I would totally participate in their version of a direct democracy.

One of the things that shaped the destiny of Athens was the presence of a nearby silver mine. Take that sucker away, you change a lot about Athens. Not everything. But their relationship to wealth and money would be different. That could make a difference on the global/local scale for war and trade.

I think the American system worked best in the early days, when it existed between the East Coast and the Mississippi river. The bigger we've gotten, the harder our problems are to manage. Different regions definitely have disparate interests. The coastal regions. The "near interior" that can get to the coast via car in a matter of a few hours. Appalachia. The Bread Basket. The core of the former Confederacy. There's Arizona and New Mexico. There's Idaho, and North and South Dakota. And then there's Texas. Point is, different geographies tend to give rise to different kinds of people. Population density, access to the sea or a major river, access to local resources-- that stuff makes a big difference in people's lives. I occasionally wonder if we need another layer in our society-- regional administrative districts. A layer of bureaucracy between the states and D.C. Except.... except..... yeah, that means more bureaucrats. OK, maybe not such a hot idea after all..............

Maybe democracy really can work on a large scale. I think there may be a way we can "do it right." There are bright spots in the American system, esp. in terms of checks and balances. The Net is a curse wrapped in a blessing, and a blessing wrapped in a curse. It might take non-Euclidean geometry and 5-Dimensional space to model that shape correctly. I can totally see us building a means of voting for most of our elected officials over the Net. HOWEVER. We need crazy good military-grade encryption to prevent the apparatus of democracy from getting hijacked by some bad actor, either domestic or overseas. We also need to turn down the volume on the vitriol of the most extreme versions of our political Left and Right, stop shining a spotlight on those people so much. People also need to get a lot more familiar with the Constitution. OK, so there's lots of problems we need to solve.......

Sooner or later, something's got to give.

[phantasm]

(Uh oh, did I hijack your thread, darkness0within?
Sorry about that.......)

[darkness0within]

I'm not worried about your comments at all Phantasm. You bring up some interesting points.

Democracy only works if all the people are included in the proceedings. And that means that people vote for what they believe in. But of course the losers of any democratic voting have to abide with the will of the majority as well. that's where it gets tricky.

Of those who do not vote. I feel it is difficult for them to criticise this or that if they are just standing on the side lines.

Also democracy needs the right people to vote for. People who actually will wield power for the betterment of society as a whole. Not just the few. Now this is quite complex as some decisions may on the face of it look to favour a few. And probably does in part, but incentives sometimes are needed to create prosperity to the people as a whole. Business need incentives to create jobs for instance. I'm not saying this is a perfect situation. It's not. But it is how it is at this time.

We live in a global world in which many still hold a tribal mentality. Be it political, religious, or even cultural. Most people want to belong to something or another. Evolution has not caught up yet to our 'modern' lives. Which to many feels unnatural to them, or at least some feel something does not quite add up.

The sad fact is corruption has always featured in democracy from its birth.

The world wide web, and technology in general are wonderful tools, and also the darkest terror. More potent than any weapon man has ever created. Its potential for good, and evil is boundless. Trouble is we won't recognise some of the bad till it's too late.

I personally think voting on line is a dangerous step. As is putting so much personal information on line for all to see. Don't think all your private data is actually private. It certainly is not. Keywords are looked out for on line. Organisations hoover up information. The only real protection is there is so much data that it can't all be read at the time. A shoal defence. But it's all there. In the cloud.

[moseley]

Given enough time, the AI we have created may step in and shepherd us for our own benefit, I just wonder what names they will use....but for the most, we have walked beyond the line of convention and even sense so much that it is pointless. somewhere within the general laws of entropy, we have lost ourselves in the whole "give and take" of politics and seem to live on the foundation of whatever anthemic platform that may be ballyhooed across the ears and like Shakespeare, in the end, it is just a noise, without foundation or substance. Its echoes seem to be rather persistent. Good or bad, righteous or heathen, have become meaningless hastags....somewhere there is a cosmic joke afoot, but the timing of the punchline has me drawing several breaths waiting for the laugh. It is like all the ants of the world are telling whales that they are in charge...they at least do quite large loads of work.

[darkness0within]

You have a point moseley. AI might well step in at some point in the future. But I'm not sure personally the general population will see it as a benefit.

AI might at that time be able to make the big decisions. But without remorse, without emotion. Without all the trappings of humanity. And they could well be the right decisions.

I remember an episode of Star trek TOS. Two planets had banished war as we know it. To be replaced by a computer simulated war where if an area was attacked in the simulation, the populace of that area had to end their lives as they were casualties of the simulated war. A very interesting concept.

Human kind is expanding beyond its means and it's only a matter of time before some really big decisions will urgently have to be made. One way or another though our willful plundering of resources will have to be checked. How this happens at the moment is down to us, but eventually it will be out of our hands. Our environment will be changing for future generations and if we carry on as we are there could be far less people around then.

In all seriousness Brexit is a minor side show to what is going on in the world in the here and now. But to me it's more about the principals of democracy and how politicians are not listening to the people. That is a very dangerous thing to do.

The cosmic Joke I think is on all of us to appreciate it seems. Once we hear the punch line we'll know if it was worth the wait.

[phantasm]

That was a great Trek episode.
War is a messy business, do you have the stomach for it?

------------------

AI won't "Solve all our problems." Not necessarily. It is 'only' a machine, it is only as good as its programming.
With enough hardware, we could simulate the workings of a human brain. That's really close to us. But is it close enough?
We could modify that simulated human brain, give it more virtual gray matter. If you up the mass of the cerebral cortex 1%, you would
create an entity that far outstrips our intelligence. Yet...... all it can do is follow the rules laid down by the
software that's running the simulation.

Even our brains are subject to rules.
Rules like the synapse, the space neurotransmitters have to traverse in order for the brain to do its' thing.
Rules like the how the electromagnetic spectrum works.

There's a vast swath of information we just don't know about the human brain, not yet.
We're made of matter. That means, if you drill down into a small enough scale, quantum physics prevails.
What, if anything, does that have to do with how human intelligence works?

Any simulation we build will be bound by our current understanding of physics.
The effects of simulating the human brain are terra incogito. Would the thing even work??? To what extent?

So............................... that's the conundrum with A.I.

[darkness0within]

Totally agree with you Phantasm.

AI Cannot solve everything due to its man made limitations.

It's also been voiced that an organic computer modeled on the human brain might be possible. And no doubt it can in time I'm sure. However who will teach this organic machine what it would need to operate? And it would suffer the same problems we all do I feel. A complicated system would have complex needs. We would become its god for a time. Until it realizes that we have frailties. we would have created something living which perhaps will have different perspectives to us, and a totally different outlook on the world as we see it.

[phantasm]

(Department of Corrections: I said this earlier up the thread:

And as a guy renting an apartment, I would be denied the right to vote under their system.
But if I did meet their criteria, I would totally participate in their version of a direct democracy.

Actually-- Democracy in Athens was open to male citizens over the age of 18. If I were born among them I would be eligible to vote.)

[anirbas]

Just catching up in here. This is quite an interesting thread, guys!

I was reminded of the Old South in America, by the above entry by Phant. Poor white people weren't allowed to vote, either.
If you didn't own land, you were not allowed to vote. Then, it changed to if you didn't own at least two slaves
to go along with that land, you were not allowed to vote.

And of course, women and slaves didn't have a voice at all in the voting system.

[phantasm]

Shit, you had to own Two (2) slaves to be eligible to vote in the Antebellum South? Shit. That makes sense given their system/society, but damn.

If I learned that in school, I've forgotten it.

Barring the various amendments, there's no specific clause within the Constitution defining who's eligible to vote.
That was left up to the decision of the states. That's one hell of an oversight if you ask me.

The Founders were brilliant, but they were human. They screwed up on several counts. This is one of those screw-ups.

The Constitution doesn't even set the voting age, not explicitly. It just has mile-marker ages for running for Congress or the Presidency. It's just-- how did that happen???

No national standard of how old you have to be to vote is a really lousy idea. It's just asking for trouble.

The Southern states very nearly got away with murder, proverbially and literally, when we were hashing out the Constitution.

We should've gone with a 2 state solution based on the Mason-Dixon line. Except.... we would've been fighting each other
in wars of expansion. Yeah. That wouldn't have worked.... OK, a 2 state solution with a Grand Union both collections of states agreed to join
as equal partners. The Northern Union has its' internal affairs, the proto-Confederacy has their internal affairs. The North still

becomes an industrial juggernaut. The South gets to keep its' quasi-rural ways. Slavery would've died out as the nation marched forward into history.

No Civil War required.

What do you say, Sabrina? Just you, me, and a Tardis. We can go back and fix this country. Warn those people what they're getting into.

Voting Rights in the U.S.

[anirbas]

"What do you say, Sabrina? Just you, me, and a Tardis. We can go back and fix this country. Warn those people what they're getting into."

I say, "make it so" and here we go, David Phantasm.

"The Southern states very nearly got away with murder, proverbially and literally, when we were hashing out the Constitution."

Proverbially, literally and brutally so. And from what I've read, the "founding fathers" considered abolishing slavery, in the Constitution. But, the first wave of American colonizers that had made their lives and money running farms and businesses using both indentured and slave labor, had a cow. Metaphorically. The entire east coast, both north and south, comprised that first wave. At that time, people on both ends of the Atlantic coastline were indignant at the very thought. So, our "founding fathers" left the issue for President Lincoln to deal with.

Oh, and I am going to need an unlimited stored stock of prescription drugs on the T.A.R.D.I.S; like DeadpooL, "I have issues."

[darkness0within]

I have been remiss in not coming back to this thread... Till now.

Anirbas / Phantasm.

As I've said elswere I'm a bit sketchy on American history. However genrally speaking we seem to think of events in the past with our 21st century minds.

The politics and culture of the past probably would seem very different seen from our time machine.

A harsher world were the rule of law was far removed from todays standards. Injustice would be even more the norm than now. Slavery was to so many a fact of life. And as you know it still is with us today in many countries, even very near to home in its many forms.

Your founding fathers I suspect thought long and hard at the economic impact it could inflict on the fledgling country of such a daring move as to abolish slavery. But you have to remember it was a very different time.

We are all guilty sometimes at looking at the past with minds that use todays morals. In our 'enlightened' times we have more information at our fingertips than those before us. Too much sometimes I feel.

With knowlege comes responsibility. But have we trully been responsible as the human race collectively?

I think we all know the answer to that.