>>Jay Hanson wrote: >> Current assumptions: >> >> #1. The scientific community is correct -- that we have now >> exceeded the carrying capacity of our planet, and that >> continued "business as usual" will result in a global >> population crash in less than 35 years -- billions may die >> untimely deaths. [ http://dieoff.org/page5.htm ] [snip] >Robert Neunteufel wrote: >I am quite sceptic, that experts without the necessary responsibility >can create a better future. > >How should those experts be educated and how can they be controlled? These experts would be employees who would have degrees in systems sciences, have explicit employment requirements, ethical standards, and objectives. Like any employee, the job comes with "responsibility". If they perform well, they would be financially rewarded. If they lie or steal, they would be cained, fired, and barred for life from public service. For example, the IPCC is a United Nations-sponsored scientific committee (2,000 investigators), managed to reach a consensus on global warming. ------------------ Brad correctly says that: "... scientists can only give us certain 'constraining conditions'. Science can never dictate policy *qua science*." While this is true, there is no a priori reason why scientists will make "political" decisions that are less "just" than anyone else. Moreover, there is no a priori reason why an autocratic government will make decisions that are less "just" than a democratic one unless one defines justice as the "process" itself instead of the "outcome". Indeed, to avoid the worst scenario, we must switch from "process" politics to "systems" politics: "[In the US ] we practice 'process' politics as opposed to 'systems' politics (Schick 1971). As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just -- or at least the best the system can achieve. By contrast, systems politics is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends." [1] This is where "process politics" (democratic politics) inevitably will lead us: -------------------- In many ways, the next hundred years will be the inverse of the last hundred. As fossil fuel dwindles, and societies de-develop, muscle will gradually replace machinery. "Home grown" will replace "imported". Obviously, large cities -- especially where temperatures drop to freezing -- will be largely abandoned. We will see feral children mining the dumps for plastic to burn (Pampers) so they can heat the holes they are forced to live in. Roadside Warriors gone mad, killing, raping, and torturing. Pandemics sweeping the world, punctuated every so often by explosions as abandoned nuke plants go critical. Leaking dumps, tanks, chemical fires, blowing garbage and trash, genetic mutations, filthy water, cannibalism ... A couple hundred thousand years from now, as the new radiation- hardened species of humans emerge from the caves, they will elect a new leader. Evolutionary theory can tell us a lot about the winner. He will be the best liar running on a platform to end hunger by controlling nature. How could it be otherwise? ------------------ Here are a two ideas for a new systems-oriented political structure: #1 Establish a new global "bill of rights" for individuals. #2 Establish a new global "political" structure -- an "Earth Council" with global police and taxing powers (World Federalism under the principle of subsidiarity?). Jobs on the Council itself would be based upon explicit measures of merit -- not popularity contests. The Earth Council would enforce global human rights, issue physical directives, and levy sales taxes on nations who violate its directives. The physical directives made by the Earth Council will be based on SCIENCE, and be in the form of explicit physical benchmarks and targets. i.e., by 2010 the US must reduce greenhouse gases bla bla bla ... If the US failed to meet the targets, a sales tax would be levied on Americans to pay others to reduce gasses elsewhere. So it's up to the US's CEO (remember we got rid of elections, we hired him instead) to see that America cuts its greenhouse gasses on time. Economic tools would be used by America's CEO to coerce people into reducing greenhouse emissions. What choice do we have? Jay -- http://dieoff.org/page1.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] p. 242, William Ophuls, ECOLOGY AND THE POLITICS OF SCARCITY REVISITED; W. H. Freeman, 1992. ISBN 0-7167-2313-1
