Name: Winters
EU or NA?: The Western Hemisphere
Are you aware that the position of Community-Community Representative is one of trust and confidence, and do you understand you can be punished for breaking that trust?: Absolutely
Why should you become CCR?: I'll try to keep this short.
What is virtue? Virtue, in the classical sense, is excellence. What kind of political regime is best at promoting virtue or excellence? If virtue as excellence is ultimately identical with evolutionary perfection, then virtue is ultimately identical to whatever leads evolution towards a higher state of perfection. Virtue as excellence is thus ultimately inseparable from evolutionary ethics. Evolutionary ethics ties virtue or morality with whatever is conducive to evolutionary progress. If politics is control over evolution, then is virtue the values that best steer political control over evolution?
If a superhuman artificial intelligence does evolve out of the hyper-change of “progress”, what reason is there to think that it will be, in moral terms, the realization of God, and not the realization of Satan? The Singularity poses unprecedented possible extremes of “good” and “evil”. There is every reason to believe that human moral choice will impinge directly upon the character of the AI created. Human moral choice will determine whether the AI created will merit the distinction of “God-AI”. A 'Saxonist' approach to things, you could say.
A strong strain of the ‘Saxonist’ political tradition, exemplified by Jefferson, is the valuation of a feminine, passive role for the state. The government is there to be like a mother who makes sure her children play nice with one another and not kill each other. She makes sure no one pilfers his or her neighbor’s property, especially if one owns an unequal amount of it. Aside from this, the only thing that government should aspire to is impotence. Senility is a virtue of good government; government that is weak, emasculated, easy to push around, and manipulate if it gets out of line. Somehow, along the way, this formula for political weakness produced the greatest superpower in world history.
The bonds of the normative patriarchal family evolved on the basis of kinship. A biological father, like a biological mother, has a common investment of half of their genes in their children. Kinship forms a biological basis for shared genetic interests that generally blunt the extremes of slave and peer; total hierarchy and total equality. However, without that bond of kinship to govern the relationship, there is not necessarily anything else that will.
So, what are we to make of this?
Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:
The idea that humans are privileged above nature underlies the modern premise of human rights. It is the idea that each human life should be valued as a political constant, and not as a political variable. It is undergirded by the assumption that conscience should put breaks on a complete abandonment of human beings to the vicissitudes of the natural world, i.e. natural selection. The original idea of human rights was built upon an assumption of mind/body dualism; a double standard between “humanity” and the larger natural or physical world. I believe we must return to these assumptions of ourselves in order to better our situation, rather than sit and stagnate under a thin veil of self pity and apathy.
It is with these assumptions that I believe the people of the community can follow a new ideal. With these conceptualizations, we can lead our species to a newfound era of prosperity, a technological utopia if you might. These fundamental core concepts can help us out of our endless pursuit for materialistic possessions, and instead lead to humanity to a new era of cooperation, camaraderie, and self-improvement. To give fulfillment to the mind and spirit, instead of pleasuring the body, is the right path for this enlightenment.
What are one or two things you commit to doing as CCR this term?: REBUILD THE MIDDLE CLASS.After decades of largely flat wages and exploding household costs, millions of families can barely breathe. For generations, people of color have been shut out of their chance to build wealth. It’s time for big, structural changes to put economic power back in the hands of the American people.
That means putting power back in the hands of workers and unions. It also means transforming large American companies by letting their workers elect at least 40% of the company’s board members to give them a powerful voice in decisions about wages and outsourcing. And it means a new era of strong antitrust enforcement so giant corporations can’t stifle competition, depress wages, and drive up the cost of everything from beef to Internet access.
As the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, we can make investments that create economic opportunity, address rural neglect, and a legacy of racial discrimination–if we stop handing out giant tax giveaways to rich people and giant corporations and start asking the people who have gained the most from our country to pay their fair share.
That includes an Ultra-Millionaire Tax on America’s 75,000 richest families to produce trillions that can be used to build an economy that works for everyone, including universal childcare, student loan debt relief, and down payments on a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. And we can make a historic investment in housing that would bring down rents by 10% across America and create 1.5 million new jobs.
ALLOW PEPPERONI PIZZA TO BE FREE REGARDLESS OF LOCATION, ETHNICITY, GENDER, OR SOCIAL STANDING. Superintelligence, superlongevity and superhappiness, that is the long term goal of my vision for the future. The best way to accomplish this in a widespread method, is by allowing pepperoni pizza to be free for all.
