An inquisiive alien visits Earth....and discovers government

Makalakumu

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A very interesting video. Only ten minutes and well worth discussing, especially with upcoming elections looming.


An inquisitive alien visits the planet to check on our progress as a species, and gets into a conversation with the first person he meets. The alien discovers that we live under the rule of a thing called "government", and wants to understand more about what "government" is, what it does, and why it exists.
 
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granfire

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A very interesting video. Only ten minutes and well worth discussing, especially with upcoming elections looming.


then the alien climbs on his spaceship and leaves, warp speed....
 
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K-man

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So much truth. The system fails because of political parties yet without political paries you wouldn't know in advance what a government would be likely to do. And that is because we can't trust individual politicians. Hmm! :hmm:
 

ballen0351

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"Take me to your leader."

Govt sucks didnt need 10 min to tell me that. People are stupid and vote for who looks nice or whos good looking got it didnt need 10 min to tell me that. Whats the alternative? Most people like it the way it is and they have more fun crying about how bad it is. yet they dont want to work to change anything. If people here were really sick of Govt we have the power to change it but they are not they like it, they like having the Govt run there lives its easier that way.
 

Sukerkin

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:chuckles: Aye, it was a very slanted view of government I have to say - amusingly done but clearly more suited to preaching to the converted rather than changing anyone's mind (who is old enough to vote at any rate).

Anarcho-syndicalist-commune is all very well as a theoretical idea but, sadly, as pleasant a state as that might be for an individual, you don't get a civilisation out of it. We are hard-wired for hierarchy and centralisation of authority and our acceding to the 'rule of law' and the tenets of a (mostly) polite society have been hard won over thousands of years.

Without that centralisation of authority and the acceptance of taxation as the fee for living in an administered and 'built' environment, we as a species are going nowhere fast. With 'government', we do have problems it is true when it comes to interacting with other groups around the world. But that is not the fault of government, per se, it is down to the human condition itself which has built into it that acceptance of cooperation with those 'like us' and a rejection of those that are 'other'. It might fade with time and enough generations of peace and intermingling but, for now, we're stuck with it.

At the end of the day, without organised government, 'we' don't get:

View attachment $Giza01.jpg

Or

View attachment $iss-sta2.jpg
 
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Makalakumu

Makalakumu

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Humans are taught how to accept authority as a condition for living in society and I think the video does a good job pointing out the blatant contradictions in our system. I think the video also does a good job in alluding to the fact that these contradictions will ultimately be fatal to society. Nobody invented the mad system that we live in. We evolved into it, just like everything else. We maybe stuck with it for now, but if we are ever to have a hope of evolving a new way of organizing "civilisation" we better start applying some logic and reason in an objective way to what we do. The bottom line is that government is a group of people whom everyone else "authorizes" to steal, kill, and enslave and they invent words like megadeath to talk about how many people they might kill in the future.

The future of the human race is going to be propagated by logic, reason and evidence, not blind faith in any kind of authority.

As to a couple of points in your post, I have a few counter points.

Without that centralisation of authority and the acceptance of taxation as the fee for living in an administered and 'built' environment, we as a species are going nowhere fast.

Every government eventually implodes on itself and creates varying amounts of carnage for people who live within the imaginary lines. Our current society is spinning down this well trodden historical path. How do we break the cycle?

With 'government', we do have problems it is true when it comes to interacting with other groups around the world. But that is not the fault of government, per se, it is down to the human condition itself which has built into it that acceptance of cooperation with those 'like us' and a rejection of those that are 'other'. It might fade with time and enough generations of peace and intermingling but, for now, we're stuck with it.

What if government is a reflection of the human condition? Perhaps people in the future (if they exist) will look back and marvel at how close this technologic barbarism came to bringing about human exinction? My hope is that the coming of the nuclear age caused enough people to look in the future and see the giant balls of light engulfing everything and use some kind of reason to turn away from that path. In my imagination I see future textbooks marking a line during our time and denoting it as the beginning of the pre-logical phase of human history.

At the end of the day, without organised government, 'we' don't get:

View attachment 17276

Or

View attachment 17277

Both of these are inheritly irrational. One is a tomb for a really popular guy who people believed he was descended from imaginary beings. The other is destined to become space junk that will clutter up the orbit so much that it might prevent future people from ever entering orbit. Whilst they may be symbols of the greatness of the human mind, there is a long way to go and much more lasting demonstrations of greatness in our future.
 

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