Mass representative democracy https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/9069.html

Have lots of representatives (one per thousand people or so). Have a hierarchical system for small ad-hoc committees to consider issues as they come up, which percolate up through the hierarchy competing with other proposals so the one with biggest enthusiasm wins. Use the internet.

Interesting mention of “rational ignorance”, the idea that the average citizen has limited information about any given issue but is capable of making rational decision-making.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/vaccine-hesitancy-covid.html

It’s class, the lower groups having been increasingly left over the past few decades to fend for themselves. And specifically the idea that government increasingly shifts health care onto individual choice. So as a result you don’t get vaccinated for the common good, you get it so you don’t get sick. And this doesn’t work.

Episode 16: From Owing to Owning https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/episode-16-from-owing-to-owning-58d7874c803b?source=rss—-355679162549—4

eand.co/why-everything-is-suddenly-getting-more-expensive-and-why-it-wont-stop-cbf5a091f403

People who won’t take vaccine shots to help fix the pandemic are whiners.

People who turn in pregnant women for $10,000 are snitches.

An artist made this in response to Texas banning abortion from Astuff

Still digging. …

https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/30/david-graeber-was-right-a-debt-free-world-is-possible/

My friend Dave Winer (haven’t actually met, but I feel like we have a conversation going) asks for a simple explanation for why the pharmas won’t release the IP for the Coronavirus vaccines to the public domain, to alleviate the shortage in supply,

It’s clear that this is needed. But my understanding of why it’s not in the companies’ interest is: the tech behind the new mRNA vaccines is potentially much more general, to be applied to all sorts of disease. It’s taken years to develop, and the COVID vaccine is just the first instance of its being (fabulously) successfully applied to a real world problem.

Companies are concerned that, by teaching anyone to make it, they’re effectively foregoing any ability to make a return from future applications of the same tech.

Health, south wind, books, old trees, a boat, a friend

Ralph Waldo Emerson