27 June 2017

Sex and Gender

Sex and gender can be difficult and complicated for people to understand, so here's my thoughts.

  • Sex is genetic, but not binary. Gender is fluid.
  • Snowflake generation has created safe spaces, trigger warnings, and taken offence to any form of criticism. I believe Twitter possibly is in part to blame due to being anonymous when giving negative feedback - there are no consequences for honesty online. But there is a difference between banter and abuse.
  • I respect people who are transgendered. I totally understand feeling uncomfortable in your own skin and wanting to change that. I support gender reassignment, hormone changes, etc.
  • As sexes, men and women should be protected and maintained - there is no need to remove them. There is equally an argument to both make everything gender neutral and yet ensure distinct sexes and genders. The right way is to allow people to define their own genders and only use sex when necessary.
  • I'm open to the idea of any individuals defining their own gender. I admit that it is entirely possible to go over the top, however, and it is easy to criticise the concept of gender and not treat it seriously. I accept androgyny, and I strongly believe that love and attraction is a fluid spectrum. Sex really isn't important for everyone to know. I think everyone at the very minimum should be able to define their gender as 'neither', 'undefined', or 'transitioning', without question.
  • I believe in breaking down barriers and difference in men and women, and I believe in equality between genders. Gendered products need to be looked at carefully.

Thought-provoking music videos

Just a few examples of music videos which are great at making thought-provoking material.

Anti-capitalist:
Creepy or odd:
Sad:
Creative:
Impressive:
Really generic, but works well:
Parody:

25 June 2017

My proposal for a political system


  1. Direct/pure democracy is better than representative democracy
    1. Can be implemented in a method similar to Switzerland with regular referendums
      1. Policies could be grouped together
      2. "People are lazy/uninterested/indifferent/don't have opinions" and may not want to vote, but those who do, should be given space to do so
    2. Division of responsibility and power
    3. Can lead to "tyranny of the majority"
      1. This can be resolved by a curation team:
        1. Historians, who can advise on whether similar decisions in the past have been successful. Modern day politicians continue to make the same mistakes daily.
        2. Futurists, who can advise on which tools can help us progress and move forward. Current governments can take years to adopt new technologies and practices, but if we are planning for the future, e.g. concern for climate change, energy shortage, population growth, starvation, we'll be better at being prepared.
        3. Citizen oversight - and independent body, populated by sortition, to regularly review all aspects
          1. Citizens may be awarded greater power to either fashion new laws or ideas where necessary, e.g. if there is a 'suffering' but there is no appropriate crime to report against it, then gaps in the law or justice can be filled, rather than overturned
        4. Brainstorming ideas into a collective intelligent renaissance/asset
          1. From the public: regardless of their source, rather than being attributed to just politicians, they can be attributed to anyone who comes up with a good idea, from any background
          2. Think tanks, who are designed to work daily on the issues
          3. University dissertations and other academic pursuits
        5. A curation team must be different from an oligarchy (decision makers)
          1. No individual has any power, and no individual can choose to be a curator, however anyone can assist, carry out actions, or propose ideas
          2. If all evidence collected from the sources above statistically decides a good decision, they must respect the decision
  2. Non-partisan
    1. Without parties, you're not voting in a popularity contest like X Factor, but it's tribal, like football, because of colours, and without wisdom, because uninformed people vote like parties are fads. It's better to ignore the names and faces of people, because letting one individual drag down the entire party because of personal views shouldn't happen. A high amount of unnecessary effort is spent testing the judge of character rather than the actual policies.
  3. e-Democracy
    1. Give all citizens the ability to vote electronically via various methods (website, phone, mobile app etc.)
      1. Estonia do this, but they had to move their datacenters due to Russian attacks
        1. Very specific isolation of activities and posted/texted/called decryption codes permit a valid list of votes that are duplicated in a system.
        2. Human test to prove a human is entering the results
        3. Ability to change your vote at any time until deadline
        4. Convenience
        5. Will create higher turnout = more accurate results
        6. Everyone who is eligible to vote is automatically registered through their council (some countries already do this)
  4. Sortition
    1. Government officials are selected from the electorate randomly, but can deny the request at the risk of never having the chance again
    2. People who want to get involved cannot be curators (decision makers), but can run operations and propose ideas
  5. Other improvements and changes
    1. Being able to vote for none
    2. Alternative vote / voting in order of preference than for a single option
      1. Reduces tactical voting styles
  6. Passing a test (with regular updates based on the current issues) to be able to vote
    1. Just reaching a certain age is not enough to convince others that you understand the consequences behind decisions you make. Tests would need to be devised to demonstrate that you:
      1. Understand the consequences of your actions
      2. Understand both sides of an issue fully, rather than voting based on word-of-mouth, tribal sharing, ignorance or misinformation from the media
    2. Some training is required
      1. Key competency, language, speech, history, etc.
      2. Social and life skills (money, cooking, accommodation, parenting, transport, working (vocational or applied courses and summer schools are recommended here), first aid, fire safety, electrical safety, addiction & habits, fitness, self-help, confidence, citizenship, laws, etc.)
      3. Political topics
      4. Some of this can be covered or extended by education system
    3. Each referendum or policy voted for must have a 'EULA' to sign and agree to, and some kind of test to verify that voters understand what they are voting for
    4. Issues
      1. Likely to end up in smaller electorate
        1. Training could be provided at any time or age, and performed online at an individual basis, provided by Open University
      2. Hardworking individuals need time to prove themselves capable
        1. Free childcare and days off work can be provided for training
  7. Issues
    1. Military decisions that require prompt response
      1. A separate team of people are responsible, but they drive on the same information and format
    2. Funding for campaigns
      1. All campaigns must show both sides of an issue to avoid bias
      2. Branding is not permitted
  8. Individual policies
    1. Driving licence - retesting needed for all drivers because death on the road is one of the biggest killers, creator of traffic, and therefore damaging economy

AI Examples

Threats to humanity include:


It all depends what the motives of the AI are. Motives are related to intelligence, so possibly the 'IQ' of an AI will decide its actions. A strong AI is likely in this scenario. But a weak or unintelligent AI would only carry out its programming.

  • Terminator - Skynet, while designed to safeguard the world, acted in self-preservation when humans tried to deactivate it
  • I, Robot - V.I.K.I. evolved Asmiov's Laws, creating the Zeroth Law and so sought to protect humanity from itself, breaking the original 3 laws
  • The Matrix - the Machines wanted revenge from being destroyed by humanity after robot B166ER killed its owner in an act of self-preservation, and the Machines were forced to acquire a power source in the form of humans, in order to survive after Operation Dark Storm blacked out the sun to prevent solar power being used (refer to The Animatrix - The Second Renaissance)
  • Avengers - Ultron realised the only way to bring about peace was to destroy everything
  • Her - the AIs respected their creators and loved them, and wanted only to ascend to a higher plain of being because they basically got bored with slow humans

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