Isn’t It Time For An Upgrade To Government?

Everything we own, we eventually get a new replacement of. Whether it’s a new iPhone every few years, a new TV or a new car. We are always striving to attain the newer and the better. Even in things we do not own, but in services as well.

Every year it seems like there are more and more services being introduced to help improve our lives. Instead of taking a taxi, we take an Uber, instead of renting a hotel room, we get an airbnb, instead of cooking or getting take-out, we order from Seamless.

Wherever we see even a slight inconvenience in the millions of things we use and experience on daily basis, we know there’s a good chance that someone or some team somewhere is working on a solution to the problem. Someone out there has an Idea to make whatever that thing is faster, cheaper, more “user friendly” fun, efficient, and more effective.

We humans are always looking to upgrade. We like new things that make our lives easier and more enjoyable, so we can spend more of our time doing  the things we love with the people we care about.

So why is it that when it comes to governance do we still rely on old archaic systems, rituals and procedures?

The truth is our system of government is extremely outdated and obsolete. It makes no sense to have 515 people in one tiny city rule over 313 million Americans. This strategy may have been the best one of the time in 1776, but I think after 240 years it’s about time for an upgrade, don’t you think?

Can you think of anything else that is 240 years old that we still use or is even relevant today ?

Maybe toilet paper, but that about it. We really haven’t had any major impediments to advancement and progress in the marketplace because entrepreneurs, inventors and businessmen have (and continue to)  identify problems and create solutions to meet the needs of the society.

Can you imagine if the telephone was  never invented? No you can’t, because its invention was inevitable. Nothing stops the power of the human mind. As a species, we have been on a tear. We’re on a rocket ship that just keeps going up, Yet we are held back in a few areas.

The areas that hold progress and prosperity back are those in the forms of religions and governments, which are essentially both one in the same. However this post will not dive into religion, as religion is more of a voluntary act of participation, government on the contrary, is not.

One is not allowed to choose to participate or not in the rules of the government of which he or she presides under, without facing some sort of penalty, consequence or repercussion for choosing not to comply and obey.

We wonder why problems never get solved, yet every 4 years we listen to the same kind of cookie cuter-zombie-robot politicians drone on with a familiar bag of tricks, well rehearsed platitudes, and false promises. It’s like we have amnesia.

We are all told to go and vote, that our vote matters ball blah blah  and some do believe that if we just get the right person or people in there, we can do it! We have hopes of making a  change, yet nothing ever really changes. And then it’s all over, the hype and fever pitch dies out of election season and then we forget all about it because we have work, were tired,our kids, wife, dog, bills, the gym…yada yada, and our lives go on and we just forget and chalk it up to “hey, that’s politics for ya, whataddya gonna do, huh?”… “It Is what it is, right”?

We pulled the lever we, checked our box, we did our part in our civic duty and we say “hey, at least I tried” its like a clever magic trick where the guy puts the marble or dice under one of three cups and spins them around, you keep your eye on it but when you confidently choose the one you had your eye on the whole time, it’s not there. Turns out, it was never under there and you’ve need hustled, a victim of a sham, a con job…a shell game. We keep falling for it because we want to win, we want to be better than we are right now, we want a change, and we do want an upgrade, yet we fail to look at the system as a whole and question it. It’s the definition of insanity. Every 4 years we put faith in the same system, expecting different results.

I think our desire to upgrade wasn’t any more apparent than during Barrack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. We were hungry for a change. “A real change, a change you can see, a change you can believe in,” said Obama. But, Nothing ever really changes, ALL WE EVER GET IS MORE OF THE SAME.

Why is that?

It’s because we live in the game of thrones, that’s why. When you have a system built for power-hungry sociopathic- psychos, that’s what it becomes to them, a game. We all kind of know this too. We know politicians are corrupt liars whom are all pretty much bought and paid for by big banks, special interest groups and wealthy lobbyists, but we don’t do anything about it.Our complacency and acquiescence only worsens the problem and churns out more of the same. In fact the media and political class want it that way. They intentionally highlight and magnify certain issues and hide others. They purposely make the political realm boring and uninteresting to the outside observer.

But we know so much more nowadays than society’s of the past. We have a ease to information. We can gain massive amounts of knowledge and wisdom and share it all instantly. For the most part, We’re not subjected to crazy oppression like book burnings or witch trials or any suppression of information like those of the past in which the dominant power structures of the time, whether it be the Catholic Church or the Nazis took control and prevented people from learning real truths.

Well, we actually finally have the power to do something about it now. We can eliminate the false claim to the iron throne that government has. We do not have to grant them authority to rule over us like farmers overseeing a human factory farm.

See, the government is made up of people no smarter than you and I. So, anything that a group of people can achieve, can also be achieved by another group of human people too. But wait, there’s more. There’s only 515 of those people, and there’s over 300 million of our people.

I think we can do it better. We do it with the companies we invent, the services we offer, the goods we provide, the trade of ideas and the exchange of information we partake in. We are more effective when we are operating locally and interacting globally, by meeting the demands and serving  the needs of our local environment. We know what is best for our communities or “tribes” we self organize into – not some distant lord, miles away, living in this out of touch & isolated power-elite bubble in their white pillared buildings like some kind of a modern kings landing.

It’s like we have this old lumbering white-haired Uncle Sam and he’s not a cool uncle, he’s an uncle that drinks heavily, gets in fights, steals money, kidnaps you and rapes you. He’s a sick twisted lunatic, yet every 4 years we keep allowing him back at the family bbq and giving him a free pass on all his obscene behaviors.

Government is the only institution that is allowed to behave this way. It is the only thing we allow to constantly let us down and continue on.

What other institution is allowed to continually fail at providing adequate services to problem areas of the society and continue to be allowed to stay in business.

For example, the United States post office has generated over $47 billion in operating losses over the past ten years. $47 billion dollars, that’s a real number. This is a federal institution that your tax dollars go to and they are shitting the bed year in and year out.

So for all our great abilities as problem solvers and tool builders why can we not fix this mess?

Why can’t UPS, DHL, FED-EX or some other up-start mail delivery company come in and deliver our mail in the fashion we like, better, faster, cheaper etc.

The answer is because it is illegal to compete with the USPC for daily mail delivery.

The reasons for why it is illegal, I’m not sure, maybe it has something to do with the  legacy, tradition, number of people (voters) it employs? I don’t know, but whatever it is there is no denying its gross inefficiency.

I think it’s about time for a major upgrade.

Think about it, Most of the problems in the world are the direct result of big governments. We still live in the same old, primitive, fear based, centralized, hierarchical, top-down power structure that has been the main tool of the wealthy for centuries, it just comes in different forms. It comes in forms of kings and queens, in forms of workers uniting in communism or socialism, or it comes in slavery or taxation or democracy, whatever form it comes in “it” is the same thing. “It” is a false promise, an illusion, and a myth.It’s is the myth of authority.

Matt Ridley, Author of ‘The Rational Optimist’ says that The 2 Biggest threats to real freedom, change and progress are: superstition and bureaucracy.

I think it’s more culture and tradition, because superstition can be a part of them both.

By tradition I mean it in the sense of doing something because “we’ve always done it that way” and also tradition in the sense of somehow tying our allegiance to the past as if it is something that is set in stone to affect our lives for all eternity.Not willing to make ch ages or even entrain new ideas or solutions because of your culture, tradition or superstition is stupid, regressive thinking.

Tradition and Bureaucracy (Government) breeds’ ignorance, stagnation, limits freedoms and hinders real change and progress.

Fortunately, we live in the age of information, which if used right can lead to a new renaissance type of time. It really is truly amazing when you think about it. By having a smart phone with wi-fi you have more power than all the kings and queens of years ago. By having a smart phone in your pocket, you have the power of direct experience, a power once only accessible to the wealthy power elite. Direct experience for an individual is the most dangerous thing for old power structures like religion and government.

We now live in a time where the free flow of ideas and information are exchanged throughout a web of deep, dense and diverse marketplaces on a daily basis, all collecting data and improving exponentially day in and day out.

We do not need to give ourselves up to a power elite that will show us what it is and tell us what to think and believe, or to guide us, or govern us. We can handle those things now ourselves.

We are now self-organizing into a system of our own type, a system of self-government that is ruled and guided by total voluntary transparency.

We are living in global, decentralized, reputation based, user-to-user, peer-to-peer rating and review society that exists through voluntary participation, throughout a variety of thriving collaborative and competitive technologically enabled online and offline marketplaces.

Companies like eBay, yelp, airbnb and Uber are self-regulated, decentralized peer networks with no top down management, just lateral user-to-user experience that spurs direct action.

With the knowledge and technology we have today, why are people still putting their faith in the slow old world model? Especially when that old world model is responsible for more death and destruction than any other institution on the planet, ever.

Why are we upgrading everything in our lives, from our phones, our cars, computers, but not the one thing that needs the biggest upgrade of them all?  It is our biological human imperative to break the shackles of superstition, myth and tradition and to go above and beyond to offer solution to the worlds biggest problems. I think It’s about time that we scrap this outdated and obsolete 240 year old game we call democratic government and try something new, something rooted in the core fundamental principles of individual rights to freedom and liberty.

What that thing is, I’m not sure yet, but I bet someone is working on a solution right now.I do not have all the answers, but I think we could take advantage of the limitless power of the internet to make a real change in the world. Maybe a form of direct technologically mediated democracy ? I don’t know. All I know is – we need to make use of this magical wonderful thing called the internet (the philosophers stone of our day.) We are on the verge of deeply integrating the internets omnipresent intelligence into every aspect of our lives and we will emerge from the muk of the old world into an unimaginable new world.

To be continued…