Best attributes for human civilization - in your opinion
I have looked around the internet for a list of attributes or rules that define the best possible civilization that would work for humans (or at least a better one) but have not found anything other than discussions on a single or small number of topics. I find this rather confusing as I see tremendous numbers of comments complaining about all aspects of our civilization but almost no attempt to list all the goals we should be aiming for. How can you solve a problem if you don't first define the problem/goals?
So I thought I would ask here and see if anyone has any thoughts on what rules or attributes you would like to see in the civilization you participate in. I would suggest that there be no thought on how to implement them at this time and that they be based on physical limitations only. For example, don't not list an item because you can't answer the question "How are you going to pay for that?" as this is an artificial limitation imposed by ourselves and not a physical limitation.
To start off here are a few of mine:
This is my first time posting here so if this is in the wrong forum or I am violating a rule please let me know. Thanks.
Edit: The simple version is I am just asking for opinions. For example, pull out a blank piece of paper and list the attributes of a civilization you would want to live in.
So I thought I would ask here and see if anyone has any thoughts on what rules or attributes you would like to see in the civilization you participate in. I would suggest that there be no thought on how to implement them at this time and that they be based on physical limitations only. For example, don't not list an item because you can't answer the question "How are you going to pay for that?" as this is an artificial limitation imposed by ourselves and not a physical limitation.
To start off here are a few of mine:
- Freedom. Being an individualist and somewhat of a recluse this is one of my most important attributes. This can be a complicated subject to fully define as it applies to beings but the basic idea is: You can do any thing you want as long as you do not interfere with someone else's freedom.
- No taxes
- Free quality health care for everyone
- 100% employment opportunities
This is my first time posting here so if this is in the wrong forum or I am violating a rule please let me know. Thanks.
Edit: The simple version is I am just asking for opinions. For example, pull out a blank piece of paper and list the attributes of a civilization you would want to live in.
Comments (36)
I wonder if the reason why you can't find a list of attributes for the best possible civilisation is because it depends on the attributes of the specific individuals within it. There is the question of best possible governments, forms of social order and general rules, but a lot comes down to the people in power, and other individuals. It does seem that there have been so many problems in civilisation, and utopia has never been achieved, but this may come down to human nature, and conflicts within social groups.
Your first two are very similiar to what I have,except I'm not a recluse,but a Family man to the core.
I would have a third which is Courage. The courage to compete with oneself and to grow,nurture and be creative.
Welcome to the forum, and I am sure you will get replies which are more optimistic. Your question does give scope to think about what works and what does not. I think that the 4 suggestions you make are important, especially free health care. I live in England, where there is a welfare state, even though there are many people in poverty, but I do believe that it is important to have a system to prevent people being left in dire poverty. I think that housing is also essential. But, so much comes down to the social dynamics.
I'll take a swing at it:
I'm serious about the first two.
Quoting RoadWarrior9
Please explain how you get free healthcare with no taxes.
The slave principle continues to be applied though it's way past its expiry date and hence the clear and present danger of ecological collapse that'll sound the death knell for civilization as we know it. The solution: The partners principle - quid pro quo, nature takes care of you and you take care of nature.
Civilization, for sure, faces other threats such as AI takeover, nuclear war, to name a few but they all appear to be easily solvable if only we adopt the partners principle.
@T Clark
I had mentioned in the second paragraph not to worry about the "how". In my mind this is a problem definition, not a problem solution phase. I typically start with the 100% best goal possible and if that is not feasible then back off until you find something practical.
Thanks for the input. You included quite a bit of information in your first two items. I already included what I would like for health care. My thoughts on some of your other items:
Work and Opportunity
Education
Housing is kind of complicated - my thoughts on it are below. The section on cities includes housing:
[/list]
- This falls under freedom in my mind.
I had not thought about security or nutrition. Not sure what you are looking for with community. On second thought, security would be covered by the laws of freedom.
I think that you are really talking more about the ideals for civilisation because if, for example, you are talking about free health care, but with no taxes we are talking about ideals. This is not intended as a criticism of your thread, I just think that for your thread discussion to work you need to think about the difference between ideals and practice. I am idealistic myself, but I try to balance this with practical living. Also, I do think that any ideas about civilisation have to take into human weaknesses unfortunately. If people had the thoughts of others in mind most of the time it would be a very different world indeed.
If we are talking hypotheticals anyways, the ability to never have been born into the society in the first place. True freedom right there. Anything else posing as freedom is absolute bullshit. If you say that is impossible, then you already have your answer for the possibility of a better civilization.
Definitions are fun. Oddly enough I stumbled across a mathematical definition of the word Civilization. Some of her/his assumptions may need to be defined better but it was an interesting read. I had not mentioned equality except with respect to job and education opportunities.
I'm not quite sure what your point is. My high level statement on freedom was for beings that must work together in some type of civilization so they can achieve more that they could alone. This requires some limitations on freedom as far as I know and I tried to maximize it as much as possible within those limitations.
My "it's not as simple as that" reply would be that everyone who answers that question is a product, one way or another, of the society they were born into. We shouldn't assume that people's ideas of a perfect society are unanchored from their own society.
That said, I'd say the following:
1. Communities: we are social animals and, while there's obviously always exceptions, I think that individualism is a prime example of how our culture has worked against us for the benefit of the few. Investment in local resources and shared utilities would help this. It might sound horrifying to our individualist selves, but I think people raised in that environment would be happier, less stressed, and more socially conscious.
2. Universal Basic Income: I think this is owed. You cannot walk into a field and hunt an animal to eat. You instead have to pay a guy to give it to you. Money equal to a living wage is therefore an essential, not a perk, and all because of nothing less than a historic great theft of lands from the people who lived on them to a minority of (let's be honest) slave owners. UBI seems like a good way of compensating people for that crime. It would appeal to our egalitarianism (once other counter-empathetic measures are eliminated), eliminate poverty, make welfare administration much less costly, reduce crime significantly, etc;
3. Modernised democracy: It strikes me as odd that we have social media rife with outrage monkeys spitting about one political story or another, but absolutely no systematic means of overseeing government on our phones. Someone needs to get on this. In most cases, voters are better people than politicians, and now we're technologically in a good place, I think more democracy is a good idea. (However there are some things, like climate change, which should not be in the hands of voters.)
4. Integrated recruitment: Get rid of redundancy payouts and jobseekers' allowances, instead make recruitment the joint responsibility of the individual, their employer, and the state. When you leave school/college/university, the state would have a duty to find you good employment and, if it cannot do so in the private sector, it should do so in the public sector. For people with disabilities, or carers or parents, or people close to retirement age, this should be entirely optional on the individual's part. Once in employment, if the individual wishes to leave for something other than e.g. parenthood or caregiving, they have to have another job to go to to revert back to UBI. If an employer wishes to let someone go, they have to pay their wages until they, along with the state, have found the employee equivalent employment elsewhere. Education should be considered as good as employment.
5. Scientific justice: The current system, wherein two people tell contradicting, misleading stories to a bunch of randomers who then, on the basis of those stories being backed up by contradictory, misleading witnesses and experts picked by the two storytellers, have to decide which story is true, is rubbish. We need to excise outdated practices and embrace scientific approaches.
6. Therapeutic custodial sentences: Prisons don't work. Most of the people in them have mental health problems. Throw it away and replace it with a system designed around therapy, with the inmate's access to society dictated by their ability to cope with it, not by their crime or a sentence.
That's enough to be getting along with.
I normally have a blanket ban on 'I agree' type posts (I'm a stingy bastard when it comes to praise), but have to say you've selected an excellent set of principles and reasons for them.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
and...
Quoting Kenosha Kid
...particularly.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
One idea I floated once was continual mandate requirements. There's no elections anymore, the government in power remains in power until any time its mandate drops below 50%. We each have an app by which we can remove our mandate at any time. The idea is to both increase democratic involvement, but avoid the lack of long-term strategic policymaking that regular elections promote. Governments would also be more wary of doing unpopular stuff mid-term. Possibly might bring about daily changes in government and be an absolute disaster, of course.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Brilliant idea, like UBI but for livelihoods.
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So, to complete the set (for me), I'm going to add my own number 1, but a really contentious one.
1. Stop treating children like second class citizens. Children should have the same rights as adults. That means neither parents, teachers nor anyone else gets to tell them what they can and can't do any more than they would with an adult. Children are neither pets, nor dolls, nor slaves and should not be treated as such. Nor are they idiots who'll jump off a cliff if they're not told not to (Yes, I raised my own children this way, and yes, they're fine). At the risk of inciting the hatred of every parent here, if you think your kids are likely to do something monumentally stupid if left without instruction you should ask yourself where they got the idea from.
There. That should do.
Good food.
Think on it for a bit. Access to fresh and wholesome food is indicative of environmental health. A varied menu indicates not just wealth, but also social cohesion as those many national dishes get mixed and matched. Good food need slow cooking, which in turn means time for talking with friends and building relationships. A healthy diet means a healthy populace. The list goes on.
Judge the quality of a civilisation by it's kitchen.
Unfortunately there are people who interfere with my freedom by undermining the authority of the party on whose stable and firm government all our freedoms depend. Eliminating opponents of the governing party will be good for civilisation and promote true freedom. Special camps could be introduced for this purpose. Ta-da!
Among the best attributes a hypothetical human civilisation could exhibit is respect for science as an understanding of reality. If technology were applied as suggested by a scientific understanding of reality, the world could be a paradise. Assuming only sustainability as a value, a scientific understanding of reality implies a rational series of measures one could take that would allow for a prosperous long term future.
The key is harnessing vast heat energy from the interior of the planet to produce limitless clean electricity, to meet energy demand carbon free, and power hydrogen fuel production, carbon capture and storage, desalination and irrigation, and recycling. These would be globe spanning technologies applied on a monolithic scale powered by a virtually limitless source of energy, drawn upon lavishly to balance human welfare and environmental sustainability.
Hypothetically speaking, totally possible!
Have you been to Italy? ;)
I live in Italy, and can confirm that they are better than the rest of us...
In terms of civilization and sophistication, I tend to agree with Banno that food is a good indicator. By that indicator, my own nation France has gone down the drain, with supermarkets now offering the same no-taste shit everywhere. Italy remains true to its agrarian roots; you can still find amazingly diverse and tasty vegetables and fruits everywhere here.
FORZA ITALIA!
(for this Sunday's euro final :-) )
I was in Venice recently and tourism has made it not a great place at all. I love Rome but honestly first time I'd be stuck in traffic I'd be attacking someone's windshield with a golf club. And every time I go to Napoli it's full of uncollected garbage and kind of stinks, though not as much as Berlin. Oh and the Mafia. And Berlusconi.
Always wanted to retire to Florence though. If the place was permanently on fire, it'd be worth it to walk past the Duomo campanile every day.
Where are you btw?
In Venice, it's very hard to find good food, you need to look for it in guides etc. because tourists are nearly everywhere and make up most of the actual population. Still, some popular neighborhoods in Venice still have traditional joints serving predominantly locals. Or you can spend a little more in the restaurant of a luxury hotel, where they have some incentive for serving good quality food.
My point about Italian food is broader, about the culture and economic structures, eg the strength of local farmers markets, short value chains with much produce diversity. The slow food movement is primarily Italian, and it's a whole philosophy of life, an economic and societal vision for a more sustainable agriculture and more equitable food markets.
In the culture, food is everywhere. People speak about it all the time, what produces they brought back from a passagiata, what they cooked yesterday, what their Mama used to cook. Said Mama is frequently checking on her grown up kids diet; some call daily to ask what their adult sons and daughters ate today. You cannot visit a medical doctor without her telling you, usually while writing your drug prescription, what sort of food you should avoid given the ailment you have.
1. Limited Population!!!!!
2. Everyone invests part of their income to health care.
3. A nature based Religion (Non-Abrahamic!)
>>. I personally don’t feel we can function with everyone worshipping different gods (total secularism is better but tuff).
4. Everyone invests in RESEARCH (Science).
5. Limits on how much people can economically exploit others (Capitalism with reigns).
6. Euthanasia!! We are intelligent enough to die gracefully.. wink wink, nudge - Abrahamics would have someone suffer indefinitely because taking your own life puts you in Hell!! And Christians don’t understand how scary it is to live under Christian laws)
7.
So how would you implement this civilisation?
What would be the case with people who disagreed with your laws?
As far as enforcement of this doctrine: well, individuals who fight for this new society would have a lot invested and probably would want to keep it. But they would be totally free to leave the society anytime
And you say abrahamics are savage,yet you suggest war!
Yes historically religions have started wars.
So your solution is to start a war?
How you plan on implementing your idea is a big issue.
Not,whatever dude.
Open to non violence!
This is real life not some hippy utopia!
Well your answers reveal a lot about you.
I've bolded some important words/concepts and what I feel is the essence of all your recommendations. These words/concepts are FREE & MONEY. You want to give people money (employment) but you want to give away one of the reasons they need money (health) for free. It seems a bit confused at first but I guess you want people to be able spend their money for other stuff like buying luxury items, recreational activities, etc. Not a bad idea at all.
Nonetheless, it seems possible to do away with one of the two recommendations completely i.e. we can make everything free or give people all the money they need. I'm not an economist and my knowledge of economics is almost nil; so I don't know how feasible my suggestions are but you did say to ignore the practical aspects of the problem.
I suppose a case can be made that making some things free and also put in place a functional wage system is having the best of both worlds but it definitely feels more complicated than the aforementioned options I presented. I guess my proposal would be met with, "sigh! I wish it were that simple."
Regarding freedom, I'm all for it. The money and "free" stuff you believe are attributes of a (good) human civilization would be pointless without freedom of some kind. I second the motion without the slightest doubt.
I'll leave you with a short clip from the animation movie Kungfu Panda.
and a song
We form increasingly complex communities (eventually aggregating into "society" and then "civilization") in order to meet our basic requirements for life and to fulfill our extended wants, like a system of meaning, new stories to hear, read, or watch; more complex forms of self-expression; safety; security, enterprise (business), and so on.
There are various ways of putting together a complex civilization. Whatever works.
Quoting RoadWarrior9
What does a reclusive individualist need freedom for? You are holed up in your apartment. Freedom is more important for the socially engaged person who put's himself/herself into the daily give and take of normal life.
No taxes. Well, this goes well with being a reclusive individual. Presumably you won't ever be asking for any assistance from civilization, so civilization has no need for income to provide you with any services. How do you support yourself in your secluded room?
It was noted above, but free health care without taxation is extremely problematic. Providing health care costs money. How is the health care system supposed to pay for the services you wish to be provided for free?
100% employment opportunities? I suppose you mean that everyone can have a job of some sort, whether they like it or not. Who is going to oversee employment? No taxes means no government.
No taxes, no government, no services... Suppose your apartment building catches on fire. Are you and the other recluses living there going to put it out? Or are you going to call the fire department? No taxes, no fire department.
Suppose a local gang beats you up every time you venture outside. Who will protect you? No taxes means no police.
You might want to go for a ride in a car. No taxes means no roads.
No taxes and freedom are, basically, incompatible. This will sound very counter-intuitive to you.