Thank you. I have been saying this for years (more than a decade now).

Feminism fought for the independence of women from abusive husbands/partners, by making them earn their own money, so they can be free. I would not say that the majority of the population feels particularly free today, because the economic situation strangles them. There is a new dependency created in stead of the old one: The dependency from the employer. Especially with at-will employment, a manager or higher-up can fire you at any moment, which can cause homelessness and despair. These are not good things that we want to have.

The logical consequence of fighting for freedom and equality is to fight for economic equality: People should be able to eat and sleep in peace, without having to worry about their circumstances tomorrow. “Equality” does not mean that everybody has the same amount, but that everybody has the chances they need to succeed in life.

We need a universal basic income, or any equivalent of it such as handouts in various forms.

where are you from, if i may ask?

i think their entitlement largely comes from the fact that they were one of the few generation who actually had very prosperous lifes (things getting better after the war but still no shitty wages we see today) so obviously (to them) they must have done something right. And that’s why they try to share their great way of life (and doing things the right way) with everyone else, so everyone else can live a prosperous life too.

Problem is, their life wasn’t good because of what they did. It was good because they met exceptional circumstances in the world’s development where there was a lot of growth and innovation that actually improved people’s lifes. they just happened to live through it; it’s not their personal achievement.

If such discussion takes place – an increasingly rare thing – there is no need to individually ”differentiate good candidates from bad candidates” and each voter’s intelligence certainly isn’t of consequence. In a functioning democracy, who to vote for, should follow naturally from your participation in public discourse.

yeah that’s what i meant. still, people have to be engaged in a way that i don’t see them being engaged in. And that’s still the central issue, i’d say.

:)

I have come to dislike the word “education” as it refers to plato’s cave analogy in such a way that somebody else leads you out of it.

“Education” is therefore not something that you do yourself, but that somebody else does on you. It is therefore objectifying and puts the humans in a passive position.

Meanwhile, “insight” or “inspiration” is something that you do yourself as it is you who brings up the interest to learn something. Therefore it is a much better word.

Democracy has as a necessary precondition that people are intelligent enough to differentiate good candidates from bad candidates.

The real question therefore is whether the people are intelligent enough. That decides their fate.

Good and bad both exist because we want to go somewhere, or we want a certain development to happen. Therefore, the development that we want to see happen is “good” while everything that stands in its way is “bad”. Yes, it is that simple, assuming you have a clear picture of where you want to go.

But not everyone wants to go to the same place, or reach the same way of living, so it’s more complicated.

Oh and i forgot to mention: If the world existed in perfect balance, with nobody ever trying to change anything, neither good nor bad would exist in the world. The world would just be.