Scientifically and politically how do we become a people moving forward?

I’ve been thinking for a bit about things. This is one of those thoughts. It is unfinished by a long shot, and I have plenty more random notes about the subject. In fact the whole thing after having read it over once is quite disjointed, grammatically lacking, and never concludes. However, I wanted to post it up anyways. Occasionally I think I will come back to revise it a bit.

We’ve had governments come and go which have used different political ideologies as their building blocks. Two of our favorites have been Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”, and Adam Smith’s  “The Wealth of Nations”. Living in a capitalist society has provided me the luxury of knowing no other lifestyle. I’m not sure of what it would be like to exist in a communism, or in any other state for that matter. I am wholly American in that sense. With that incredible bias in mind I will proceed, but for my part I am not married in any shape way or form to capitalism as it stands.

Socialism theoretically is a perfect way of creating a completely egalitarian system. Essentially the major problem is that in our society we have a difficult time tolerating everyone being exactly equal. So it seems quite natural that in a real life socialist experiment, our case study being Russia’s communism, an upper class bourgeois government would do the same. For my part, I think a traditional socialism is dysfunctional with our innate need as humans to thrive on individuality. In fact it would be a detriment to see everyone equally because we each have quantifiable things one is better at than one’s neighbor.

To return to the case of Russia though since almost no one outside the communist party was rich it became exceedingly important to become a part of it.  The aristocrats in Russia were the government, and this led to some pretty serious issues. Nomenklatura (the elite Russians) enjoyed many perquisites denied to the average Soviet citizen. If you were one of them you almost inevitably would join the Soviet ruling and managing elite. Once in this small group it was in your best interest to stay in that group for as long as possible. The key to living in ‘high society’ was to stay exactly as you were, and to keep others out so that you could continue to enjoy the better life you had. It is a place of general insecurity in the sense that you are continually trying to cling on to what you have.

The problem is that maintaining the status quo inhibits a society from moving forward because the focus is inward. The money trickles very slowly to the lowest common denominator. The core interest of a group at risk is not one of expansion but of retention. Without an ability to gain much more there is no incentive for progress. Russian communism therefore stifled its people’s creativity by not allowing them to rise from where they were. Creativity essentially being the source of change.

Similarly capitalism has a stopping point as well because of its own bourgeois problems. These problems of course deal in dollars and cents. Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth are privately owned. The constant need to advance  occurs because the need of an individual to get ahead of others. It provides a better incentive to grow, but I think still misses the mark in terms of our basic human needs. The similarities in a functioning communist and capitalist government are astounding at times. The innate needs of humanity always shine best in places like these.

I want to come back to changing governments, but first I think we need to look at the evolution of technology to peek around the corner towards the future. I know this sounds slightly bizarre, but I think it will provide a window that we can look back to government with new eyes.

NOTE: Switching gears, I really need to fill in a lot of my logic steps here, and I haven’t yet. There somewhere in my notes I promise.

As a species we tend to progress. Our motives for progression are obvious and elusive in my mind. I’ve heard many times over the same thing. We are bent on survival and therefore procreation. That is the only thing that moves us forward. Over my life I have had a hard time believing this because of technology. Technology moves forward in jumps early on in history many times because of war, and that of course would signify survival. Similarly with hunger we grew agriculturally to allow for larger populations to survive in the same place. We have found that change occurs in spits and starts when a need arises for that change.  The fear of death and the promise of life are therefore the only things that move us forward. I disagree with this though, and I’m trying to understand why. Certainly there are turning points that may be more important than others in terms of time and timing. These points can be seen more clearly in crisis, but I think the underlying motivations have more folds.
NOTE: I really need to fill in a lot of my logic steps here, and I haven’t yet. There somewhere in my notes I promise. Some subjects of discussion here are near death experiences, selflessness versus selfishness, the absences of good and evil, and quantum physics.

The speed at which technology has been advancing is exponential. Our discoveries as a society are coming much more quickly. In the last decade there has been a lot of speculation about reaching a singularity where we are advancing at an infinite pace.

In the time continuum linearly we are progressing forward, but that is just by the nature of our perception. So how far out do we really go? How many eventualities of our existence do in fact exist in space and time? Is our comprehension of the universe as a Gary Larson comic sound? Are we nearing a critical point in our society within the next thousand years?

Personally, I think so about the last two. As to the final question I’d like to go into it with a little more detail. I know everyone has doomsday ideas about 2012, and if I’m proven wrong, I glad accept my mess up. However, I’m not much on that theory personally. Every few years we have one, and then nothing happens. What I think might change in the next 1000 years is the speed of our evolution. I’ll get more down on this later. I have to go have dinner.