Michael Blowhard writes:

It isn't often that I run across a political quote I can get entirely behind, but I think I may have found one today. I'm still kicking it around, but the more I do the solider the thinking in this quote feels. Benjamin Disraeli:

In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, the traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines.

A little before that Michael wrote:

I'm thinking about politics' place in life. I'm prone to such feelings as, "Sheesh, if only we could do without." And the people I'm temperamentally prone to be most suspicious of are those who approach politics with gusto. What's the matter with them?

In any case, as far as I'm concerned, politics is best viewed as a dirty necessity that, sadly, does require some attending-to.

So, as Michael says, in that "patooie" spirit here is yet another example of the sort of political efforts by people that clearly have something the matter with them that require some attending-to.

... the idea behind ISPO does raise an interesting question. People have been thinking for some time about how technology can democratize and streamline governments; how can we democratize and streamline the politics between governments?

Streamline? What does streamlining have to do with governance? Ah, it must be the sort Disraeli spoke of; "abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines" that pay no attention to the manners, customs, laws, or traditions of the people. Dictatorship in other words, operated by whim for the sole benefit of dictators.

Nonetheless, the International Simultaneous Policy Organization, ISPO, has a plan, one which appeals to the likes of political activists such as Noam Chomsky.

There is no shortage of sensible solutions to our global problems, such as those in the column at the left. What the world lacks is an effective means to cooperatively implement them everywhere, simultaneously. Individual nations cannot tackle the challenge of global problems alone or even in limited alliances or unions. Other nations, alliances or unions would still be free to ignore or exploit problems like global warming, cheap labour, and corporate tax shelters to gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Enter the Simultaneous Policy (SP) – a peaceful, yet revolutionary political tool that empowers voters everywhere to compel our politicians – at the point of a ballot box! – to commit our nations to implement global solutions simultaneously.

There used to be grave concern about unaccountable, non-democratic powers subverting national governance by dictating voting behavior to believers. The Vatican with its influence on Catholics and the USSR with its influence on gullible leftists aren't a big worry anymore. More people worry about the baleful influence of Islam or even Israel these days. The Green Death is more of a worry than the Red Death. The ISPO is a sort of cross between them, Red + Green Death... Brown Death. They are an unhappy blend of the worst aspects of each delusional system.

It isn't streamlining that is needed, it is deliberation, and, not surprisingly, that's what the world is always already doing. Political activists hate deliberation. Very, very few of their fever dreams can withstand close scrutiny in the sunshine of open debate. Of those an even smaller percentage are feasible and an order of magnitude fewer are desirable by any but the most fanatic and anti-humanist elements. The reason their ideas fail is that they are dumb ideas that will at best do nothing though at great expense, and more probably make things worse at even greater expense.

But the true believers can't accept that no one wants their nutty ideas, they prefer to believe that they just aren't getting their message out to the oppressed "masses", or that the "masses" are prevented, somehow, from expressing their true desire for global dictatorship.

Good ideas sell themselves, they don't need pimps. Good ideas are fractal, good at every scale and so don't need laws or treaties. Laws and treaties can make them better, by providing extra mechanisms to punish cheats, and such laws and treaties are quick and easy to negotiate because they are good. The Montreal protocol on CFCs is an example of such a good-at-every-level treaty. See Treaty Foo for a fuller explanation.

The treaty worked because the big players, such as the US, would benefit in excess of their costs from their own efforts even if no one else cooperated, and alternatives to CFCs were available. All the treaty did was add international legitimacy to what the US and other developed nations wanted. It allowed them to bully smaller nations and so gain even more than they would have on their own.

The ideas championed by ISPO are not good ideas. They are "abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines that pay no attention to the manners, customs, laws, or traditions of the people." They also cost a lot and empower lunatics.

The net is being homesteaded by the usual suspects; pornographers, scam artists, organized crime, religious nuts and political nuts. They are much alike. All the crime and insanity of meat space is migrating to cyberspace because, as the bank robber said of banks, that's where the money is... and the potential converts and activists. Nothing is new but it is a bit faster and larger scale so we must up-tempo our OODA cycles to govern effectively against these threats to progress. The sword has two edges and we may be better able to fight them in cyberspace than in the streets, induce Error Catastrophe, force the rate of mutation to become so high that no organization can reproduce itself faithfully, and so crashes. These social predators hope to steal a march on society using ICT to cheaply spread their infections, but they may find that they just catch an infection themselves or have to duck, dodge and modify themselves so often that they disaggregate.

As Michael said: "politics is best viewed as a dirty necessity that, sadly, does require some attending-to." Patooie! It's a nasty job but we'll just have to thwart the nutters.