From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 19:18:08 MDT
On Monday 12 August 2002 14:17, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
...>
> It is obvious that some types of businesses ( record and motion
> picture industries but especially the former very much among
> them) have tremendous political clout for ramming through
> legislation that is seriously counter individual rights and even
> (Berman proposal) seriously and obviously unconstitutional. As
> both an Extropian and a cyber-utopian of many years it utterly
> disgusts me that those who are supposedly protecting our rights
> and looking out for our future would sell us out for a handful
> of campaign contributions. When some congressperson actually
> proposes that some citizens be given legal leeway to attack the
> property and tools of other citizens on mere suspicion with no
...
> - samantha
It is appalling, but it was also predictable in advance. Centralizations of
power attract those who are more interested in power than in the ostensible
job that the power was centralized to perform. As far as I can tell, this
rule is invariant. The extant counter examples of which I am aware merely
demonstrate that those who wanted to get the job done were both motivated
enough and sufficiently convincing to access the controls of power before the
psychotics. This never maintains over time. Fortunately the children of
such a psychotic are not always themselves such psychotics, but even normal
power lust can cause one to be more eager for power than responsible.
In this context, an analysis of the recent elections (last 20 years or so)
would show that as the elections became more expensive to win, the winners
tended to be less sane (they had to promise more and more to their supporters
to extract the cash from them). This matches what I have observed, down to
the Senator from Vermont being the sanest member of the Senate (he didn't
need to over commit himself to his supporters in order to win). It doesn't
explain such abberant cases as Senator Hollings (S.C.), but I suppose that
even lacking a requirement for extreme commitment wouldn't keep someone with
such a temperment from seeking the office.
I certainly hope that someone can punch holes in this analysis, because II
find it quite depressing. And it seems to indicate that without immense
improvements in social dynamics large groups of humans will inevitably be
psychotic or Monarchy/Aristocracy based. (Random selection of the political
candidates and final choice by election would bypass this, but I can't see
any way in which such a government could develop, bar armageddon.)
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