The Infrastructure of Democracy

 

A Thousand Small Sanities

When it comes to considering "governance" in a utopian society, we don't usually see anything like the real complexity of society. Liberal Democracy is not just about voting or "government."

For example, the following institutions need to work together:

  • Public projects and infrastructure;
  • Banks;
  • Education;
  • Courts;
  • Police;
  • Libraries;
  • The "Cloud;"
  • Communications;
  • Travel;
  • Materials distribution;
  • Human knowledge, science, history
We govern ourselves in complex, multi-layered systems:
  • World;
  • Federal;
  • Provincial;
  • Regional;
  • Town;
  • City;
  • Neighborhood (Zoning);
And then there are all the other ways we get together, including:
  • Work;
  • Clubs;
  • Families
All of this turns on the atom of society: the individual. As an individual, you connect with others in the context of the above structures and through your language, education, and history.

This all seems a bit obvious, but it can be disassembled. The ultimate goal of a totalitarian government is to get you to self-censor your own thoughts.

All of this has implications for the physical structure of Utopia. In my optimistic scenario, we don't need a bloody revolution. We just need healthy institutions.

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