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Ideas: Difference between revisions
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== For Your Organizations == | |||
We all get involved far beyond our families, circles of friends, and companies. Through our commitment, we become part of these entities, and through this commitment, we can have an impact on them. However, we tend to take institutions such as schools, universities, clubs, associations, political parties, and even churches for granted in our everyday life, like we do with street signs. | |||
One initial idea is to question these seemingly silent compatriots in which we engage. What do they bring to you? What do they bring to us as a society? What costs do these organizations impose on you in terms of time, money, and other resources? | |||
Beyond the mundane benefits, it can also be interesting to question the operating rules of these organizations. This perspective can bring to light new aspects that may have previously remained hidden for you. What principles guide them? How would you lead? These questions may inspire ideas you could propose to your organizations. | |||
We are often indirectly part of organizations. Consider, for example, so-called intergovernmental organizations. These entities are hidden behind another mask. Take, for instance, the OECD. This is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its famous PISA studies are conducted annually to evaluate the quality of educational systems and compare them with others. The desire is to improve school systems. Therefore, each one can be evaluated individually, and more importantly, how well it educates each individual. | |||
Our ideas for your organizations can bring new clarity and fresh ideas. | |||
You can do it! | |||
== For Democracies == | |||
Our set of ideas for democracies is based on the mechanism by which democracies function. Former U.S. President Barack Obama summed up an aspect of this mechanism in the demand that the state should serve its citizens, not vice versa. Another element of this machinery is the assumption that the participants of a democracy are mature and engaged. | |||
Assuming we accept this mechanism as a given, a phrase we often hear from politicians, such as "Everyone can get involved in a democracy," is clearly an understatement. Instead, it is a prerequisite for a democracy that the citizens get involved. | |||
One of the ways to engage is to vote. However, in all Western states, the electoral process today is still as it was 100 years ago. Voting takes place on election day, either in person at the polling station or by mail, with elections only taking place every few years. | |||
This process is not only very lengthy for the citizens, but it is also inefficient. Citizens vote for a politician, who then makes many decisions. It is clear that the politician doesn't always make the decision that the citizen would have made. The citizen also doesn't have the option to abstain from some decisions or to connect their vote with a petition. | |||
Remembering the contemporary internet platforms we know - where one can click to place an order and have the product delivered straight to their doorstep within an hour, or quickly send a message targeted to one's closest circle of friends and receive feedback to a personal question within minutes - it quickly becomes clear that our voting system - to choose the most polite form of expression - has a significant potential for improvement. | |||
Our idea is to create a New Democratic Evolution. The core of this New Democratic Evolution is to build upon the so-called Liquid Democracy, which provides a solution for our outdated and inflexible electoral system. | |||
Elections can be replaced by votes, where everyone in our society has many more options. Anyone can propose ideas, and anyone can vote on ideas. Anyone can, if they wish, appoint and dismiss representatives of their choice. Anyone can delegate their vote to any other person and grant additional rights. | |||
This allows for entirely new possibilities to reward engaged citizens and hold politicians accountable for their actions. The success of ideas can be measured, influencing remuneration. In addition, voting rights can be adjusted in a much more granular manner. | |||
In addition to the voters, the essence of a democracy is also changing. In the past 50 years, our society has fundamentally changed. Due to the demographic transition, the population has gotten older. Democracies have gradually turned into gerontocracies because politicians are incentivized to be elected. Politicians tailor their strategies to the average age of the voters: investment in the future and youth issues are given less weight compared to the concerns of older generations. However, the youth is our engine of ideas as they view our world with fresh and brave eyes. One of our ideas is to significantly lower the voting age to 14 and introduce an age limit for all political offices at 75. | |||
We can do it! | |||
== For our Countries == | |||
Each of us was born into a country, and each of us is a citizen of at least one country. We would now like to invite you to engage in a little thought experiment. | |||
Suppose, the current Secretary-General of the United Nations were to make an announcement today with great fanfare, completely unexpectedly declaring the dissolution of the United Nations and all nation-states by the end of the year. The successor organization, called 2.UNO, will commence its operations on January 1st of the coming year under entirely new regulations and new technology. He finally calls all people to submit papers to collect ideas for this new organization. What would you wish for from 2.UNO? | |||
This experiment might seem bizarre and reminds some of us of our grand vision. The experiment can only succeed and lead to new insights if you commit to the assumptions. Granted, that is a challenge at first. You now have to imagine something that does not mirror our experiences. This is beyond culture. | |||
The country into which we were born influences us. It has shaped our language and customs and has thus shaped our reality. However, countries are imaginary constructs. The existence of nation-states presupposes that people believe in them. You can touch your passport, but you can’t touch your nation-state. When you realize how similar we humans are to each other, in comparison, for example, to a brimstone butterfly, it becomes apparent that the efforts we put into these imaginary lines, the country borders, is bizarre. Nation-states have always provoked conflicts rather than resolving them. Identifying with a nation-state- nationalism- artificially delineates one group from another. At this point, one could also consider why brimstone butterflies do not recognize borders between nation-states. As soon as you participate in this thought experiment, a host of questions arises: How would current outstanding obligations be settled? How would voting rights be regulated? | |||
To the idea of the thought experiment, we would like to add another idea. This idea builds on the experiment: the New Local Globalism. | |||
The idea is to shift the attention within the laws of a nation-state from thinking within borders, artificial limited thinking, to a global mindset, a borderless thinking that is at the same time natural and local. Decisions that can be made locally should also be made locally as much as possible. This aspect of our Local Globalism is the principle of subsidiarity, once prevalent in politics but progressively forgotten. | |||
New Local Globalism is a free pass for all secessionist aspirations, where communities want to break away and become their own organ. | |||
The latter also leads us, in biological language and perspective, to perceive interstate conflicts as unhealthy conflicts between the organs of an organism. | |||
Another idea is to deliberately establish free trade zones where different private cities can emerge, or existing cities can gain greater autonomy. | |||
In short: Nation-states can be improved. We are one humanity, and we still live on one planet. Instead of 195 different countries, we want one that includes everyone. | |||
We can do it! | |||
== For Migration == | |||
As soon as we think without borders, migration also appears as a natural movement and not a problem, or would we speak of migration if a red blood cell happily moves from the heart towards the kidney? | |||
Migration is thought of from the country's perspective. Migration polarizes and binds. The media often repeats phrases like: | |||
“The proportion of foreign population has increased over the last 50 years.” | |||
Conservatives perceive this increase as high, seeing it as a source of conflict within society and a reason for less prosperity. Progressives view this as a natural evolution and a sign of an open society. | |||
Now let's put on our glasses and read the sentence out loud once more: | |||
“The proportion of foreign population has increased over the last 50 years.” | |||
It becomes clear: This sentence contains no information! | |||
It is as if one were comparing the average temperature in Vladivostok with the energy consumption of an energy-saving lamp. The only information this sentence provides is that our population is changing. So how can this naivety lead to such significant polarization that divides our society? | |||
To resolve this, let's examine the interpretations of the political poles in more detail. | |||
To the "migration is bad" camp, it can be opposed that if no migration in the form of arrival had taken place in the last 50 years, the respective population would have declined. One of the subsequent models establishes that population growth and prosperity correlate. | |||
But also the "migration is good" camp has an incomplete description. It is not good or natural that a tribe that settled a valley 10,000 years ago, would immediately welcome a new tribe that has just joined with welcoming dances. | |||
To untie this Gordian knot of thought, it is first necessary to remove the blinkers. The polarization's solution is so simple that it is frightening that this triviality causes such a significant uproar. | |||
If the new tribe - to stay with the historical example - brings a great gift, or if the new tribe, since they have no gift, serves the old tribe's cause, things start looking different. There won't be any welcoming dances, but also no fighting. | |||
That is the New Global Localism: thinking globally and acting locally. | |||
Just like there are global price discrepancies, we can also globally find a price for what we call re-establishment or moving. Just like the price for goods is determined by supply and demand, a new local index can be determined from a range of factors concerning movement: the reason for relocation, the price index of the new country, and the value the newcomer brings to the old society. | |||
Example: If a young man is fleeing from a war-torn area, he undoubtedly cannot bring a gift. Therefore, the gift does not have to be as substantial as if he were coming from a country where there is no war. If he serves the cause and compensates this small deficit by doing something for society, then all is well. | |||
The thought model 'migration' is based on a country. We want to overcome exactly this reality. Every human is a global citizen. The question now is, what does this global citizen have, what does he want, and why - i.e., what social, economic, and symbolic capital has he accumulated, where does he come from, where does he want to go and why. On the other hand, there is the local community, which also has something and wants something. | |||
Our idea is to understand migration as a process and steer migration as we steer all other processes. | |||
Undoubtedly, this is much more complex than a binary good and bad. We live in a complex world with complex questions, and we are capable of answering these questions. But to do so, as initially mentioned, we need more variety instead of more polarization by increasingly louder ideas. | |||
We can do it! | |||