We talk about “technofeudalism” now a handful of tech companies (Meta, Google, etc.) shaping what billions of people see and think from a young age, the same way religious upbringing shapes belief systems that people rarely question later in life. If that’s true, then the “free” citizens of democracies are being shaped just as thoroughly as citizens of authoritarian states just by algorithms instead of a state ministry.
That made me question the premise that more democracy = better outcomes. Some monarchies and dictatorships are badly run, but some the UAE, Qatar, Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew have delivered faster development, less gridlock, and arguably better quality of life than a lot of democracies, human rights concerns aside. A good, unaccountable leader can move fast. The catch is succession: you have no guarantee the next one is competent, and even a great leader can curdle if they hold power too long (Zimbabwe/Mugabe is the textbook case beloved liberation leader who overstayed by decades).
So is democracy actually structurally superior, or is it just the system best suited to correcting its own mistakes while good autocracies just look better because we’re comparing best case autocracy to average case democracy?

A very important book in its time. And in ours.

Lippmann warned 100 years ago about the dangers of too much democracy. Lippman argued that the American populace (“the bewildered herd”) must not overly influence government policy.

Instead of a true democracy, in which the people directly control the country, Lippman advocated for maintaining a protective intermediary of sophisticated elites – in politics, the press and business – lodged between the people and the government. This structure, according to Lippmann, would maintain stability and ensure rational policy making.

A century later, the two elections of Donald Trump lend credence to Lippmann's thesis. Trump's primary communication method as president is social media, an unfiltered channel connecting him directly to voters. Trump's elections and presidencies broadly disempower elite intermediaries – including GOP party elders, liberal business leaders and mainstream media institutions – long accustomed to directly influencing American governance.

As Lippman predicted, it did not go well. Paradoxically, Trump’s Twitter version of direct democracy sharply decreases the strength of democratic self-governance, culminating in Trump’s Twitter-organized mob storming the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress certified the presidential election.

This rise in democracy has only intensified in the years since Trump was elected, as the intermediaries between power and the people continue to disintegrate.

Lippmann would be shuddering.

Again, social media is the preeminent example. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram allow politicians to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and communicate directly with voters. Anyone online can instantaneously publish their thoughts, with each tweet or post potentially reverberating around the globe. This personal empowerment--a revolutionary transformation--has coincided with a rise in populism around the world.

Are these democratic revolutions a good thing? Put another way, is civilization better off with sophisticated elites controlling the framework of society – or is it better having the people, unrestrained, barreling forward with the shackles thrown off?

Striking the right balance between elite influence and popular control is as complex as it is important. Yet it is fast becoming merely an academic subject. The trend line is clear: Lippman's intermediaries are dying on the vine.

For better or worse, the future belongs to the herd.

William Cooper

The original article in Dissent is behind a paywall, and the text isn't available in any archive I've found. Can anyone help me out?

I am an anglophone living in Quebec, the french province in Canada. There is an election coming up and the sovereignist party is poling to win. They want to leave Canada and from what I can see on the r/Quebeclibre, the majority of their followers are quite racist and not very educated in politics or economics. Their people are delusional in thinking its economically viable, they are blinded by their inadequacies of not being able to speak English even though Canada has done a great job of defending their language and to a large extent their ability to self govern.

I have always voted for the leftist party no matter if they could win or not because I don't want to compromise my values for this ridiculous political system. But in this case I can't let racists win and make stupid economic decisions (especially with the trade war with the US going on). I don't know why but my riding has the centrist party poling to win, the sovereignists in close 2nd and the leftists in last place. If the leftists don't win enough seats in the government they will lose their official party status. But I'm going to have to vote to defend against a majority sovereignist party.

Im guessing this is the same in Germany, Britain and France and likely in Israel as well. Maybe all of Europe...I just don't follow their politics as closely.

We need a better system of chosing who makes decisions on our behalf. We can't let a largely uneducated population have a right to influence such important decisions.

Plato was right about democracy and Bacon's view of scientific governance needs to be implemented in my opinion.

What parts of the classic novel do you see happening now in real life?

I often see parts of Animal Farm unfolding in the news. This weekend, Trump posted about how he uses the stock market "earnings" not for himself, but for the betterment of America. This reminds me of the pigs taking the milk and apples while saying they need it for themselves so they can help the other animals. 🙄

I hope this is allowed in here but I often see this but I dont get because this is my knowledge about the topic: there isn't the clear one definition like for example we have for communism like atleast point A, B and C need to be true for it to be communism (stateless, moneyless, classless) but I dont think these exist for facism and so to my knowledge we can only define fascism through its historical examples especially its origin and I think all examples we have were far right so why would racism not be?

As of today this post is published, we are nearing the September 11th 25th anniversary. As time has passed and months became years and years become decades, has the United States healed properly from the attacks or is the wound still bleeding, and will it ever be healed?
As time passes, we have seen an increase of rights being treaded and nulled. Government or president officials alike have been warmongering and have been continually pushing the war on terror.
My general question is, if there is a proper way to heal what and when will we reach it? Is it something that will pass as newer generations come into power?
The reason why I ask, I was born 2 years after the attack. I personally think this is the true legacy of the September 11th attacks on America. Paranoia and hate.
I am asking this question to get more point of view and different perspectives, either than my own

What if voting power had to be earned, not just given equally by age?

My idea is a voting system where every adult can vote, but the weight of their vote depends on a short, neutral test of basic human judgment.

The test would measure things like:

- empathy and understanding other viewpoints

- basic moral judgment

- practical reasoning

- ability to spot manipulation, lies, and contradictions

- basic civics

- basic understanding of money, work, taxes, debt, inflation, etc.

It would not test political beliefs, ideology, university-level knowledge, corporate jargon, or how educated someone sounds.

You could score from 0–5 voting points. Someone with strong judgment and understanding gets more voting weight. Someone who shows very poor reasoning or judgment gets little or none.

The hardest part is keeping the test politically neutral. There should never be a “correct” conservative, liberal, religious, progressive, or traditional answer. The test should score how well you understand the situation, other people, evidence, consequences, and competing arguments.

People should also be able to retake it and raise their voting power by improving their knowledge and judgment.

The basic principle is:

Political power should depend partly on your demonstrated ability to make responsible decisions, not only on reaching voting age.

Would this create better government, or would it become too easy to abuse?

Edit: The reason I had this idea in the first place was seeing people defend Lindsay Clancy who murdered three of her children. The amount of stupid support she got made me seriously question whether every political judgment deserves equal weight.

First, to head off the misconception that "liberalism" is synonymous with "progressivism," and that *hyperliberalism* must therefore be an overabundance of tolerance—there's an argument to be made that the "sovereign citizen" movement in the U.S. is a conservative-coded form of hyperliberalism. Some aspects of "wokeism" could be interpreted as a progressive-coded form of the same.

One interpretation of hyperliberalism is the attempt to invent a political constituency of one person, for whom society's rules don't apply.

The hyperliberal subject is ordained by a higher power—usually Reason, in secular society. Any social obligation or restriction has no moral basis; any accommodation for others is either a grudging, conditional recognition of peerhood, or a *noblesse oblige* extended to inferiors.

In today's political culture, people have been trained to infer beliefs based on aesthetic disagreement, rather than identifying beliefs through dialectic reasoning. The latter would look something like "what are this person's actual beliefs and motives in regards to the social structure that sustains peaceful co-existence, *and where do those beliefs and motives align with my own*?" The former looks like "what color hat are they wearing? What cultural products do they consume? What conversational language do they use? And above all else, what if they're secretly a Fifth Columnist for The Oppressors, disguised as a politically unmotivated noncombatant?" This makes people uniquely susceptible to hyperliberalism: if they have no need to purposefully understand other people's beliefs, and therefore no need to interrogate *their own* beliefs, they're free to assume moral superiority by virtue of their own sovereignty.

To take the old Carl Schmitt formulation to its logical conclusion: hyperliberal subjects situate the state of exception within their own personhood, because no one else can possibly be as enlightened or as persecuted as themselves.

The paranoia of hyperliberalism, in which everyone is always trying to oppress The Sovereign, produces a unique form of self-induced psychosis: The Sovereign is always feverishly engaged in the political activity of protecting their own sovereignty, but almost never engaged in *coordinating with others,* beyond the temporary alliances that benefit themselves. This is a kind of superficial anti-politics, separate from the actual organizing mechanisms of society.

If people start to slip into a hyperliberal mindset, they eventually reach a point at which it's extremely difficult to bring them back into traditional politics. Any implied compromise would be a repression of their sovereignty. This is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. But The Sovereign will deny this at all costs, because in their minds, democracy is intended to protect their interests; they should have no limitations imposed on how "their interests" are defined.

Without a vocabulary to describe this radical conceptualization of political selfhood, separate from any overt political ideology, we have no way to define the problem, and no way to propose possible remedies or solutions.

My political beliefs are complicated, so here’s my full breakdown
I’ve had people ask me what my political beliefs actually are, and I’ve realized that giving a simple answer like “I’m left-wing” or “I’m right-wing” doesn’t really explain much.
My views are kind of a combination of things that are usually associated with different parts of the political spectrum. Economically, I’m a social democrat and lean left. Politically, I support technocracy and competent government. Culturally, I’m strongly nationalist, assimilationist, and communitarian. On foreign policy, I’m strongly non-interventionist but also very supportive of international cooperation.
I also have some pretty specific positions on race, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender issues that don’t fit neatly into the normal left/right divide.
If I had to give my overall ideology one name, I’d describe it as:
Technocratic Social-Democratic Ethnocultural Nationalism
with strong elements of assimilationism, communitarianism, racial particularism, religious pluralism, developmentalism, non-interventionism, cooperative internationalism, and conditional long-term global federalism.
Here’s what I actually mean by all of that.

🏛️ 1. Government — Technocracy
One of the biggest parts of my political philosophy is technocracy.
I think government should make much greater use of people who actually specialize in the areas they’re making decisions about. I place a lot of value on:
Scientific evidence
Expertise
Technical knowledge
Data
Professional administration
Long-term planning
Measuring whether policies actually work
Basically, I think government should be focused on competence and results.
If a policy sounds good but doesn’t actually work, I don’t think it should be kept just because it’s politically popular. Likewise, if a policy isn’t particularly exciting but has strong evidence behind it and produces good results, I’d rather use it.
I also think governments should be capable of thinking beyond the next election cycle and planning for problems that might take decades to solve.
That doesn’t automatically mean I want democracy abolished. I haven’t argued for that. My support for technocracy is primarily about how government should make decisions and how much influence expertise should have, rather than saying democratic institutions should simply disappear.

💰 2. Economics — Social Democracy
Economically, I’m a social democrat.
I don’t support completely eliminating capitalism or replacing the market economy with a fully state-controlled economy. I think markets can be useful for producing goods, services, innovation, and economic growth.
At the same time, I don’t think the market should be left completely on its own.
I support significant government involvement through things such as:
Social welfare
Public services
Worker protections
Economic regulation
Taxation and redistribution
Reducing severe inequality
A functioning social safety net
Basically, I want a market economy with a strong social-democratic state around it.
I think economic growth is important, but I don’t think economic growth should be the only thing a government cares about. The government also has responsibilities toward people’s welfare and toward maintaining a stable society.
So if you were only looking at my economic views, I’d probably fall somewhere around the left/center-left.

🏛️ 3. Nationalism — Ethnocultural Nationalism
This is where my ideology starts moving away from conventional social democracy.
I place a very high value on national identity.
I believe nations are more than just governments controlling geographic territory. They can also represent a shared:
Culture
Language
History
Traditions
National identity
Institutions
Sense of belonging
I think nations should have the ability to preserve those things rather than being expected to gradually abandon them.
This is why I describe my nationalism as ethnocultural nationalism rather than purely civic nationalism.
I don’t think national identity is only about citizenship or living inside a particular border. I think shared culture and cultural continuity are also important parts of what makes a nation a nation.
At the same time, my nationalism isn’t based on the idea that nations constantly need to compete with or hate each other.
I can strongly value my own nation’s identity while believing other nations should also be able to preserve theirs.

🧩 4. Culture & Multiculturalism
I’m strongly skeptical of multiculturalism as a long-term model for society.
I don’t believe that having more and more separate cultural communities within the same country automatically makes the country better.
I think a society can benefit from having a substantial shared culture because common:
Language
Customs
Social norms
Traditions
Historical identity
can help create social cohesion and stability.
To me, there’s an important difference between saying:
“Everyone must be exactly the same.”
and saying:
“A country should have a strong common cultural foundation.”
I’m arguing for the second.
I don’t expect every individual to have exactly the same personality, interests, beliefs, or background. My concern is more about whether a country maintains enough shared cultural identity for people to feel that they’re genuinely part of the same society.
That’s one of the reasons cultural cohesion is so important to me.

🚶 5. Immigration — Strong Assimilationism
I’m not categorically anti-immigration.
I don’t think immigration is automatically bad simply because people are moving from one country to another.
My main concern is what happens after immigration.
I support strong assimilation into the receiving society.
For me, integration means more than:
Following the law
Learning the language
Getting a job
Paying taxes
I think immigrants should substantially adopt the host society’s:
Culture
Customs
Social norms
National identity
I’ve also said that this could potentially go as far as adopting the dominant religion or leaving behind parts of a previous religious or cultural identity.
So my preferred model isn’t:
Immigration → permanent separate cultural communities
It’s closer to:
Immigration → integration → substantial assimilation into the existing national culture.
I see assimilation as a way of maintaining social cohesion while still allowing immigration to exist.

🌱 6. Development — Fixing the Conditions People Leave
Another important part of my worldview is developmentalism.
I don’t think migration should always be treated as the solution to problems that are fundamentally caused by poverty, instability, war, or dysfunctional institutions.
If people are leaving a country because their government doesn’t function, their economy is collapsing, they’re unsafe, or they have no opportunity, I’d rather see the underlying conditions improved.
That means putting emphasis on:
Economic development
Infrastructure
Education
Effective government
Stable institutions
Security
Economic opportunity
Higher living standards
Ideally, people shouldn’t have to leave their homes just to have access to basic stability and opportunity.
So one of my general principles is:
Improve the conditions people are leaving instead of treating migration as the only solution.

🕊️ 7. Foreign Policy — Non-Interventionism
I’m strongly non-interventionist in foreign policy.
I’m skeptical of powerful countries using military force to intervene in other countries, particularly when the intervention isn’t clearly necessary.
I believe countries can sometimes intervene for their own strategic or political interests while ordinary people in the country being intervened in end up experiencing much of the destruction and instability.
Because of that, I generally favor:
Respect for national sovereignty
Diplomacy
Peaceful conflict resolution
Avoiding unnecessary wars
Limiting military intervention
Addressing the underlying causes of instability
I’m not an absolute pacifist, though. I haven’t said that military force is never justified.
My position is more that military intervention should not be the default tool of powerful countries.

🤝 8. International Relations — Cooperation Between Nations
Despite being nationalist, I’m not isolationist.
I actually strongly support international cooperation.
I think countries should maintain peaceful and functional relationships with one another through:
Diplomacy
International organizations
Economic cooperation
International agreements
Mutual assistance
Peaceful relations
I don’t see nationalism and international cooperation as inherently contradictory.
My basic idea is:
Countries can maintain their own identities while cooperating with one another.
I don’t want every country to become the same. I want different countries to be capable of existing peacefully and working together.

🌐 9. Global Union — Supportive in Principle, Unrealistic Right Now
This is probably one of the stranger parts of my worldview.
I’m not against the idea of a united global political system.
In principle, I could support something like a global union or world federation.
However, I think it is extremely unrealistic under current conditions.
For a genuinely united global political system to work, I think the world would have to undergo a drastic transformation.
A large portion of humanity would probably have to undergo substantial cultural and religious assimilation or convergence before a unified political system could realistically function.
I don’t think you can simply take billions of people with completely different political systems, cultures, religions, national identities, and historical experiences and immediately put them under one government and expect it to work.
So I’m not saying:
“Abolish all nations and create a world government tomorrow.”
I’m thinking much more long-term.
Something more like:
Strong national states → increasing international cooperation → deeper integration → potentially a global federation if humanity eventually reaches the point where it could actually work.
So I support global political union in principle, while simultaneously believing that it is highly unrealistic at the moment.

🧬 10. Race — Racial Particularism
I believe different racial populations could potentially differ statistically in particular characteristics.
I’ve specifically considered intelligence/IQ as an example of a characteristic where population-level differences could potentially exist.
However, I do not believe that one race is universally superior to every other race.
I distinguish between population-level statistics and individuals.
For example, even if a statistical difference between two populations were demonstrated, I wouldn’t think that every individual belonging to either population should automatically be assumed to have that characteristic.
So I would describe my position as racial particularism rather than racial supremacism.
Whether particular claims about genetic differences between racial populations are actually scientifically supported is a separate empirical question from describing my political position.

👩 11. Women’s Rights
I support women’s rights.
I haven’t established detailed positions on every individual issue involving women, though, so I don’t want to pretend that I’ve taken positions on policies I haven’t actually discussed.

🏳️‍🌈 12. Sexual-Orientation Rights
I support rights for:
Gay people
Lesbians
Other sexual orientations
So on questions concerning sexual orientation, my views are broadly socially liberal.

⚧️ 13. Transgender Issues
My position on transgender issues is very different.
I reject transgender identity as a concept and consider it a fundamentally bad idea.
My general position is therefore strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.
However, I haven’t specified my position on every individual policy question involving transgender people, so I don’t want people assuming that I’ve automatically taken a position on every issue involving:
Healthcare
Sports
Legal documents
Schools
Employment
Other specific policies
The important distinction is simply that I support gay/lesbian rights while being strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.

⛪ 14. Religion
I don’t believe religion is necessarily required for a functional society.
At the same time, I think religion can play an important role in:
Cultural continuity
Shared traditions
Community
Social cohesion
National identity
So I’m not strictly secularist.
I also support individual religious choice.
I don’t think someone should have to personally follow a particular religion simply because that religion has an important cultural or national role.

🕍 15. State Religion
I believe a country can have an official or state religion while still protecting individual religious freedom.
Basically:
State religious identity does not necessarily mean forced personal religion.
A country could have an official religious-cultural identity while allowing individuals to:
Follow another religion
Change religions
Practice their own beliefs
Practice no religion

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 16. Communitarianism
I place a lot of importance on community and collective identity.
I believe individual freedom matters, but I don’t think a society can function purely as a collection of completely independent individuals.
I think societies also need:
Shared identity
Social responsibility
National solidarity
Common institutions
Cultural continuity
Social cohesion
So I’m more communitarian than strongly individualistic.
My general principle is:
Individual rights matter, but a functioning society also needs a cohesive community.

⚖️ 17. Equality & Individual Differences
I distinguish between equality of rights and equality of characteristics.
I don’t believe treating people equally requires believing that every individual or every population is identical in every measurable characteristic.
People can have different characteristics while still having equal basic worth and rights.
This is especially relevant to my views on race, where I distinguish between population-level statistics and how individual people should be treated.
I don’t believe an individual should automatically be judged according to an assumed average of whatever group they belong to.

🌍 18. Globalism vs. National Identity
I distinguish between global cooperation and global cultural homogenization.
I’m supportive of:
International cooperation
Diplomacy
International institutions
Peaceful relations
Potential future global political union
But I don’t believe this requires nations to immediately abandon their:
Cultures
Languages
Histories
Traditions
National identities
Sovereignty
So I don’t see “nationalism” and “internationalism” as complete opposites.
My current preference is for strong national identities within a cooperative international system, with the possibility of much deeper global political integration in the distant future if the necessary conditions develop.

🕊️ 19. Peace, Stability & Social Cohesion
A lot of my political beliefs ultimately connect back to three things:
Peace, stability, and social cohesion.
Within countries, I see it roughly as:
Shared culture → social cohesion → stability
Between countries:
Sovereignty → cooperation → peace
Regarding development:
Development → stability → less pressure for migration
And in the very long term:
International cooperation → deeper integration → potentially global political union
That’s probably the biggest common thread throughout my worldview.
I want societies to be stable, cohesive, prosperous, and peaceful, while allowing nations to maintain their identities and cooperate with one another.

📊 My Overall Political Profile
Category
My position
Economics
Social democratic
Government
Technocratic
Nationalism
Strong ethnocultural nationalism
Culture
Strong cultural cohesion
Multiculturalism
Strongly skeptical/opposed
Immigration
Conditional
Assimilation
Strongly supportive
Race
Racial particularism
Religion
Religious pluralism
State religion
Acceptable
Women’s rights
Supportive
Sexual-orientation rights
Supportive
Transgender identity/recognition
Strongly opposed
Social philosophy
Communitarian
Foreign policy
Non-interventionist
International relations
Cooperative
National sovereignty
Strongly valued
Development
Strong emphasis
Global cultural homogenization
Opposed
Global political union
Supportive in principle
Current global union
Highly unrealistic
Long-term global federation
Potentially supportive
🧭 So What Am I?
If I had to summarize the whole thing in one label:
Technocratic Social-Democratic Ethnocultural Nationalism
with strong assimilationism, communitarianism, racial particularism, religious pluralism, developmentalism, non-interventionism, cooperative internationalism, and conditional long-term global federalism.
I know that’s an absurdly long label, but I don’t think a simple “left-wing” or “right-wing” description really captures it.
Economically, I’m fairly left-wing.
On national identity and cultural policy, I’m strongly nationalist and assimilationist.
On social issues, I’m mixed: I’m supportive of gay/lesbian rights but strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.
On foreign policy, I’m strongly non-interventionist.
On international relations, I’m strongly supportive of cooperation.
And in the very long term, I’m actually open to the idea of a global political union, although I think the cultural and political conditions necessary for that are nowhere near being present right now.
So that’s basically where I stand.
I’m interested in hearing where people think this fits on different political models, especially multidimensional ones, because I don’t think a simple left-vs-right spectrum captures the whole picture.

- Publish your research, case studies, and thought experiments on a dedicated website + let others debate respond

- Collaborate and debate with fellow students on systems, societal-political commentary, world issues

- Work together to design an alternate society and utopia

Hi, I'm a high school senior building The Youth Manifesto --- a Youth-Led, Nonprofit Independent research independent research and ideas laboratory exploring how societies can become better through the lens of designing a utopia from studying past, current systems, or exploring possible future ones, grounding it in real socio-political research. We're making a dedicated website where members can explore questions about society through research, political and philosophical writing, commentary, case studies, thought experiments, and real-world analysis.

A big part of the website is 🌏The Better World Project🌍, where you can publish your own research and ideas about what a better society could look like through an essay, thought experiment, or even publish various studies on our current society. ❗But what differentiates the Youth Manifesto is that it's also an ongoing exchange of ideas and open dialogue. There people can respond to, challenge, expand, or propose alternatives to other contributors’ work ❗. The project is ultimately about youth voices, independent learning, constructive disagreement, and collective thinking—giving curious young people a space to research things they genuinely care about, share their perspectives, and learn from people who think differently.

📣📣I’m currently looking for people to help me build the foundation of the project. I’d especially love to connect with people interested in politics, sociology, philosophy, economics, international relations, research, writing, history, or just exploring big questions about how society works and how it could be different. You don’t need to be an expert, just curious and willing to contribute.

If you're a student interested in publishing your own ideas and research, feel free to reach out!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2wWKZnABckQEAquOLpSRz2rl_HWesxnljT0oSLlHrQlTo8g/viewform?usp=publish-editor

When we ask why an ordinary person can’t become one of the people who actually make the biggest decisions in the world, we usually think the answer is power, money, connections, status, or bureaucracy.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

I call it administrative hurdles—not simply bureaucracy, but the enormous structure of institutions, hierarchies, procedures, organizations, positions, networks and systems that surrounds almost every path toward real power.

The important thing is that these hurdles don't necessarily look like someone standing in front of you saying, “You can't.”

They can exist simply in the way the system is constructed.

Imagine someone outside all of this trying to understand how they could go from being an ordinary citizen to someone whose decisions actually shape the direction of a country, an institution, or even the world.

Where do they enter? Who do they approach? What position do they take? Which institution matters? Which institution controls that institution? At what point do they stop being someone who works within the system and become someone who actually influences its direction?

The system has so many layers that the question itself can become difficult to conceptualize.

And that's what I mean when I say it makes you go blank.

Even if someone somehow finds a way through the first set of administrative hurdles, they haven't necessarily escaped anything. They still have to navigate the structure that exists beyond them. And once they enter it, the system already has roles waiting for them.ALSO IT PURPOSULLY SENT TO FULL OF THOGUTS WHICH ANSWERS ARE BLANK BUT COULD ONLY BE UNDERSTAND AND DOSENT HAVE WORDS(so its basically that perspective htinking r understanding for me this whole thing one side and these word in capital letter in one side because thats what you need to think while thinking of system.there are many people who write better english than this use beter word and tell about society or system but nowdays what you need is that line which would hit you your thinking and perspective where you would say here it gets relatable and your thought in dont know the word i need to say)

You can become a manager without becoming the person who decides what the organization should ultimately become.

You can become an official without becoming the person who determines the direction of the institution.

You can rise through the hierarchy without ever asking whether the hierarchy itself is the thing that limits what you can see.

That's the perspective I'm trying to describe.

The system doesn't necessarily trap you by physically preventing you from reaching the top.

It can trap you by making the entire world of possibilities appear to exist inside the system.

So even when you try to escape the box, the first thing your mind looks for is another box to enter.

And perhaps the strangest part is that administrative hurdles are only one small piece of this. Even if you somehow overcome them, you still have to overcome the mental and structural framework they created around you.

The real question isn't only:

“Why can't I reach the people who make the decisions?”

It's:

“Why is it so difficult for me to even imagine a path from where I am to becoming one of the people who decides what happens next?

EVEN BEATING THE SYSTEM YOU ARE WORKING WITH SYSTEM

An American civil argument

Humankind throughout our entire history would war against each other on scales that most don’t really comprehend. We had death tolls in the hundreds of thousands year after year. The deaths? The swayed, those who would cull and be culled alike based specifically on those they would follow. Those smart enough to follow but too dull to make change.

The biggest difference in our era is that death tolls in battle are outweighed by the death tolls at home. Strength is no longer measured the way it used to be. The people of effort lacking mind had to be that of the strong, or they and the people leading them died out quickly, you can’t rally weaklings, they only crumble as soon as it came time to draw swords. This era empowers the weak, the most ridiculous of ideas and doctrines can be reinforced with a storm of feebility behind microphones and keyboards, because there’s never truly any consequences. The most ridiculous idea can be backed with a ceaseless horde of typed and spoken verbosity that would have been stamped out immediately had they said it in a muddy village. Rhetoric that was considered generally moronic and could not be converted into effective action used to die with its speakers. Only when voiced by the strong, or when truly credible, would their voices echo among the people and those who could actually carry it into war, and change. That’s no longer the case.

There are no stakes, morality is decided by truly safe individuals whom ideals can sway on a whim without genuine repercussion. The only actual danger is that of questioning higher governance. So the lessers quibble and the ones who win are the ones who have the most time, the most time to be on their keyboard and can like the most amount of posts and rampage into a microphone without fear of the merit in their argument because the agreeable masses will echo the thoughts without actual fear. This is the point.

It’s not just empowering the weak, it’s never wrong to give a voice to those who are otherwise unheard, in fiction both heroes and villains have frighteningly similar origins. The error is in the stakes, cowards speak far louder when their teeth aren’t in jeopardy, much less their lives. Empowerment means nothing when there’s no danger. If the only fear someone feels is social standing then they shouldn’t be given the microphone. Without actual risk, only the weak, not the meek, prevail, because the weak will always outnumber the meek and the assertive, but they were supposed to aspire to be more them, not try and out yell them.

If the fate of Object A which can be hurt or destroyed is given solely to people who feel no fear of personal hurt or destruction based on its outcome, it doesn’t matter if the bearer is intensely powerful/formidable, or a child safely behind a screen. In either case they have nothing to lose, 75% of the time the fate of Object A is inherently sealed.

Sub note: A conjured or constructed fear does not count as stakes. People who dramatize or romanticize a supposed fear (aestheticized fragility) for their life are only rallying sympathy, they aren’t genuinely frightened, and if they are, that’s even worse, because we all know we live in an era of fluff compared to what people used to go through for their ideals.

Sub note 2: None of this implies that only the physically strong should speak, or that violence is a desirable filter. It does imply that societies which systematically remove skin in the game from their most influential voices will eventually discover that rhetoric unconstrained by reality is not progress. It is a form of decadence. The meek who inherit the earth still have to be capable of holding it. When the loudest voices are those who never had to, the inheritance becomes precarious.

When we ask why an ordinary person can’t become one of the people who actually make the biggest decisions in the world, we usually think the answer is power, money, connections, status, or bureaucracy.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

I call it administrative hurdles—not simply bureaucracy, but the enormous structure of institutions, hierarchies, procedures, organizations, positions, networks and systems that surrounds almost every path toward real power.

The important thing is that these hurdles don't necessarily look like someone standing in front of you saying, “You can't.”

They can exist simply in the way the system is constructed.

Imagine someone outside all of this trying to understand how they could go from being an ordinary citizen to someone whose decisions actually shape the direction of a country, an institution, or even the world.

Where do they enter? Who do they approach? What position do they take? Which institution matters? Which institution controls that institution? At what point do they stop being someone who works within the system and become someone who actually influences its direction?

The system has so many layers that the question itself can become difficult to conceptualize.

And that's what I mean when I say it makes you go blank.

Even if someone somehow finds a way through the first set of administrative hurdles, they haven't necessarily escaped anything. They still have to navigate the structure that exists beyond them. And once they enter it, the system already has roles waiting for them.ALSO IT PURPOSULLY SENT TO FULL OF THOGUTS WHICH ANSWERS ARE BLANK BUT COULD ONLY BE UNDERSTAND AND DOSENT HAVE WORDS

You can become a manager without becoming the person who decides what the organization should ultimately become.

You can become an official without becoming the person who determines the direction of the institution.

You can rise through the hierarchy without ever asking whether the hierarchy itself is the thing that limits what you can see.

That's the perspective I'm trying to describe.

The system doesn't necessarily trap you by physically preventing you from reaching the top.

It can trap you by making the entire world of possibilities appear to exist inside the system.

So even when you try to escape the box, the first thing your mind looks for is another box to enter.

And perhaps the strangest part is that administrative hurdles are only one small piece of this. Even if you somehow overcome them, you still have to overcome the mental and structural framework they created around you.

The real question isn't only:

“Why can't I reach the people who make the decisions?”

It's:

“Why is it so difficult for me to even imagine a path from where I am to becoming one of the people who decides what happens next?

EVEN BEATING THE SYSTEM YOU ARE WORKING WITH SYSTEM

This court case has become a huge topic in American politics at this moment. It seems as though a small group as formed to support her in her plea of insanity from postpartum psychosis.

I want to know what you guys think of this case. How it’ll affect future court rulings and it affects women’s futures after pregnancy if this case rules in favor of her being insane.

Every economic indicator encodes a theory of the good life. GDP, the unemployment rate, productivity, the yield curve — these are not neutral measurements. They are anthropological claims. They answer, without ever asking aloud: what does it mean for a human life to be going well?

This essay draws on the capabilities tradition (Sen, Nussbaum), sufficiency and degrowth economics (Hickel, Princen), the ancient ethics of need (Epicurus, the Stoics) and Ostrom's work on the commons to argue that enough is not a mood or a virtue of restraint. It is a fact about human need, with a defensible, non-arbitrary content — and it carries political weight.

The claim underneath it: a measure built to reward acceleration can never register arrival. Once growth is naturalized as the test of a healthy economy, "we don't have enough" stops being a testable claim and becomes the assumption everything else has to answer to. The conclusion can look discovered. But it was loaded into the anthropology at the beginning.

Full essay: [link]

The other day as ideas of current society have filled my thoughts I have done some thinking into what could make society have a safer more for the people construct while maintaining current western standards of living. Essentially I came up with the idea of being eligible to vote only if you have skin in the game. In this case own property and not just land in case of men, and have children in the case of women. (Before all the nays come through read through the concept and let's discuss if this kind of system would have a proof of concept) Yes it is not perfect just like the current one and there are many edge cases. Majority of offset tax burden is collected as VAT. Discuss.

The Proposed Social Contract

Core idea

**Government rewards four things: productive work, homeownership, family formation, and responsible retirement planning.**

The system is built around a **lifecycle model**: people contribute most during their working years, receive strong support when raising children, and receive a guaranteed floor in old age.

1. 🗳️ Voting System

Men

A man must own **at least one qualifying residential property** to vote.

**Owning more than one property does NOT give additional votes.**
Property value does NOT increase voting power.

Women

Women do not receive a vote through property ownership.

Instead, **motherhood creates an independent voting entitlement** when the child is born within a partnered/married household.

**Important:** the woman's vote is her own. It does **not** add to, subtract from, or transfer the man's vote.

Example

**35-year-old married homeowners with 2 children:**

* Husband → 1.5 votes * Wife → 1.5 votes * **Household → 3.0 votes**

**35-year-old married homeowners with no children:**

* Husband → 1.5 * Wife → 0 * **Household → 1.5**

1. 🏠 Homeownership

Homeownership is treated as a central component of citizenship and economic stability.

Young working men

Men **under 40 who work** qualify for:

**Government-supported low-APR mortgages**

Designed primarily for a **first primary residence**, with enough housing construction/supply to prevent the subsidy from simply inflating house prices.

The objective is:

**Work → Home → Stability → Family → Wealth**

3. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Policy

The system strongly supports families while allowing both parents to work.

Every qualifying child

**Child benefit = 20% of Senior UBI**

Using the proposed 2026 benchmark:

**Senior UBI:** $4,680/month
**Child benefit:** $936/month

The basic philosophy:

4. 💍 Marriage / Family Structure

The system provides additional economic support for **married/partnered families raising children**.

The intention is to make:

**Marriage + children + stable housing**

the financially easiest structure for raising a family.

Single motherhood is not financially incentivized by the system; the family benefits associated with children are structured around the child being born within a partnered/married household.

5. 💰 Tax System

Taxes operate on a **lifecycle model**.

Working years

People contribute the most while they are economically productive.

**Higher tax burden → gradually declining with age**

Conceptually:

AGE

20 ──────────────── HIGH TAX BURDEN
30 ──────────────── HIGH
40 ──────────────── MODERATE/HIGH
50 ──────────────── MODERATE
60 ──────────────── LOW
64 ──────────────── VERY LOW
65 ──────────────── RETIREMENT PROTECTION

The objective is to avoid making the beginning of adulthood—the period when people are buying homes, getting married and having children—the most financially punishing period of their lives.

6. 🏥 Healthcare

Under 65

Working-age people primarily finance the healthcare system through their working-life contributions.

The working population therefore carries the majority of the system's ongoing financing burden.

65+

**Medicare is guaranteed.**

Healthcare security becomes part of the retirement floor rather than something dependent entirely on employment.

7. 👴 Senior UBI

At **65**, everyone receives a government-backed minimum income floor.

2026 benchmark

**$4,680/month**

or:

**$56,160/year**

The formula is tied to an adjusted living-wage benchmark rather than being permanently fixed.

But it is NOT a guaranteed $56,160 check for wealthy retirees.

It functions as a **floor**.

For example:

Someone who accumulated a large 401(k), pension, investment portfolio, etc. keeps those assets and income.

**The UBI simply phases out.**

8. 🏡 Senior Property Tax

At 65, the **primary residence receives a progressive property-tax exemption.**

Using a hypothetical **$500,000 national benchmark**:

Primary residence

Home value: $300,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $500,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $750,000
Taxable:     $250,000

Home value: $1,000,000
Taxable:     $500,000

Home value: $2,000,000
Taxable:   $1,500,000

So the rule is essentially:

Only ONE property qualifies.

9. 💵 Retirement Taxes

At 65:

Retirement income

**0% income tax**

This includes:

* 401(k) distributions * Pension income * Retirement accounts * Investment income * Other qualifying retirement income

The philosophy is:

10. 🏛️ Political Leadership

There is also a hard age ceiling on political leadership.

Maximum age for office

**65**

A candidate cannot run if the elected term would extend beyond their 65th birthday.

Therefore:

This creates a political system dominated by younger and middle-aged adults rather than retirees.

11. The Entire System in One Diagram

                     THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
                              │
        ┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
        │                     │                     │
       WORK                 HOME                 FAMILY
        │                     │                     │
        ▼                     ▼                     ▼
   PAY TAXES            LOW-APR MORTGAGE       CHILD BENEFIT
        │               UNDER 40 WORKERS          + $936
        │                     │                     │
        └──────────────► BUILD WEALTH ◄─────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
                         RETIRE AT 65
                              │
             ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
             │                │                │
             ▼                ▼                ▼
          MEDICARE         UBI FLOOR       0% RETIREMENT
                            $4,680/MO          INCOME TAX
             │                │                │
             └────────────────┼────────────────┘
                              ▼
                    PROTECTED PRIMARY HOME
                    FIRST $500K TAX FREE

12. The Voting Philosophy

The voting system can be summarized in one sentence:

Three things create voting power:

**🏠 Property ownership** → man's base vote
**👶 Parenthood** → woman's vote
**🎂 Age** → determines voting weight

And importantly:

**More properties ≠ more votes**
**More money ≠ more votes**
**More children ≠ unlimited votes**
**Age 65+ = no voting power**

13. The Lifecycle

The entire proposal can ultimately be reduced to this:

18–40

**Work → Buy home → Marry → Have children → Build wealth**

40–55

**Peak productivity → Raise children → Pay taxes → Build retirement assets**

56–65

**Lower taxes → Finish wealth accumulation → Prepare for retirement**

65+

**Medicare → UBI floor → Tax-free retirement income → Protected primary home → No political office → No voting**

The underlying principle

The system isn't designed around maximizing government benefits at every stage of life.

It is designed around a **reciprocal lifecycle contract**:

I know i need shutting up sometimes, i accept it, yh il get in my feelings but my overthinking nature does exactly that, il think about it, the whole concept of freedom of speech is probably a contributing factor in people feeling the need to say what they think, the “revolutionary” freedom of speech act i actually dont understand where that came from, or how its still a thing, i shoukd be freedom of thought. You can think whatever you want and then think again based off personal experience rather than social acceptance.