A man called Steve wrote the following on Facebook. Have a read:
Citizens of planet Earth, I have a suggestion. Why in this day and age of technology do we need representation of our views by politicians most of whom are upper class millionaires who have absolutely no clue how we plebs have to live?
These politicians worldwide are only in it to enrich themselves and their corporate owners.
So my suggestion is to remove power from these governments and seize it ourselves.
We could have a system whereby if an online petition gains enough numbers it is put up for the vote by everyone. Most people these days have a computer or smart phone and those that don’t could go to a library or somewhere similar. We could remove these leeches and govern ourselves!
I will call this concept techno anarchism and look forward to comments and hopefully shares to spread the message. Of course they will not give up their power willingly due to their vested interests in austerity to rob the poor to give to the rich, but the revolution has to start somewhere and with social media we the people are empowered!
So, I engaged with Steve, pointing to a few issues I had about, well, mob rule, and wondering out loud how such a system could be protected from abuse or stopped from being used to gang-up on people. I picked the word Muslim and asked, not really of Steve, but into the air, what if a petition was started and then voted on that demanded that every Muslim be killed.
Of course, the word Muslim could be any word. If enough people voted for the elimination of, say, left-handed people, then all left-handed people would have to be killed. (This would particularly piss me off, being left-handed in a world dominated by right-handed idiots who have no idea how hard done by we are already.)
So, I’m slightly at a loss as to how to offer protection to minorities or those who might become the victims of this new system of techno anarchism. Mobs are cruel, lynch mobs doubly so. Mobs kick off without facts, without full understanding, but are so easily manipulated by those who are clever at choosing what the mob thinks. Heck, that’s how advertising works. People buy shite because the marketing tells them to. Not because they actually need or want it. And, heck, this is why most people are perpetually broke.
I’m not having a go at Steve, but peppered in his presentation is a lot of class-war shite. Hatred of those who ‘have’ could even lead to the techno anarchist system voting they all be put to death, removing their knowledge and expertise from the gene pool, leaving only those who are brain dead enough to appear on Jeremy Kyle. There is far too much volatile hatred out there, and it would surely bleed over and render the new voting system for self government pretty damn useless, weaponizing it. Even those responding on Facebook brought their bias and ‘hatred’ to the table. Would they be the first to use it as a weapon?
But, here’s the thing. You suspect I am outraged and in disagreement with Steve. You suspect that I put no value on his idea. However, you are very wrong.
It seems to me that Steve has an absolutely brilliant foundation of an idea for the way we, as a collective humanity, go forward. It’s just the thing of how to stop it being abused or used as a weapon until we grow up.
Don’t get me wrong, using such a system to vote for Boaty McBoatface is a truly beautiful thing. But when the alt-left or the alt-right start their petitions of hate against who or whatever, how will we protect the innocent?
England's England 