And now for something completely different.

So I was going to post a story part, but I also watch a podcast called “Deep Fat Fried”. And Paul decided to do a world building episode in this week's patreon, which is actually something I thought about as a Philosophy major and Poli-Sci minor. So instead of finishing this part this week, I’m playing along and attempting as best I can to follow the rules as they were laid out. Also, full disclosure, I am answering AFTER listening to the answers given out by each contestant (Scotty and TJ, in this case.)


Premise #1: “What common interest would bind people to one and another in your society?”

Answer: It’s perhaps foreshadowing the rest of the post I feel like my answer is between TJ and Scotty’s. In a single term, the first amendment. Build a society around the idea that there are no common ideas. And that that is not only okay, but necessary to this way of living. Teach people that that person disagreeing with them is using the same right that they are. Teach people that the fascist, for example, is protesting with the same right as the socialist. Explain to the society that every idea, no matter how much they hate it, is so inherently tied to their own ideas that not defending the right to say it seems like a death sentence against themselves. And in doing that you will build a place almost forced to defend its own freedoms.


Premise #2:  “Likeness and difference?

Answer: TJ, takes this one in my opinion, but I feel my answer differs from both. And while I to some extent agree with Scotty, I don’t think the solution needs to be “tangible”. I think “fulfillment” is the keyword to focus on. It may be the suffering of working the job I do. But ultimately, if people are happy, truly happy, where they are rocking the boat is going to be too much of a gamble. Sure people could question those not pursuing any hobby, but that means stopping space travel, law analysis, teaching others, etc. Will there be people not working? Most likely. But most people will seek out an interest that can advance society, and as long as those people can feel fulfilled and happy with that life, questioning large chunks of the system just isn’t going to be worth it.


Premise #3: “How would people need one and another?”
Follow-up Question #1: That person taking too much aka “entitlements” aka “handouts” :
Follow-up Question #2: “How do you deal with the ‘new poverty’?”
Answer: Post-scarcity is kind of the only answer economy-wise, so moving on from that. Call me an optimist here, but I think my answer here is a bit beyond Scotty, and somewhat accounting for what TJ couldn’t answer. I volunteered in a non-profit for a while, and I worked in a retirement home “on-call” for a fair amount of time. No one, I repeat. NO. ONE. is willingly contributing 0 dollars and 0 cent to society. Utah (of all places, somehow) is a prime example of this. Give people the food and empty housing that no one is buying, and 99% of people will go get a job and try to keep their new standard of living. Were we talking, ideal, long term, society I’m not sure that should even matter, but assuming it does. People get bored, and would rather try than not. And those ideas and trails are what fuels us. Encourage people. Give them a reason to try, and then harvest that. REALLY harvest that, and so few people will give more than they take from society that the question itself is pointless. 


Premise #4: “What is the binding cultural morality in your society?”
Follow-up: “What do you do with people causing political dissidence?”
Sort of a TJ approach with a Scotty judgment system here for this one. The promoted culture is one of philosophical individualism, which is a distinction I make to separate from the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” political individualism of the United States. Effectively the most important aspects of society are the differences in most people’s thoughts, small as some may be, and maximize ability to live out and pursue their own life choices. Explain to people that is ONE right, which despite its diverse use is the same right you are using. And then explain the historical, and very real, dangers of taking this right away from even one person. Promote debate, and discussion. Promote educating each other and an educational system embraces the difference in learning and thinking over the increasing bottle-necked education system most of the world is using, and I think most of ideas that come from that will overall benefit society. 
And now, of course, we cover the million dollar question, what to do with the troublemakers? Law is a bit iffy in this society. I’ve been defying it as “Guideline Law” in my own head. Which is not to say there isn’t a law, but rather that there isn’t precedent. The actual written down laws are simple principles that most citizens could basically memorize, or at least know the spirit of said law. Breaking these laws most likely brings you to a public trail where you can argue, just for a basic example here, that you only killed a person, because they were trying to kill you. And well self-defense is not technically on paper, the standards that enforce something like self-defense are. Why the anti-law/lawyer bias? Because tradition slows down change, and making law as advanced as it’s become only forces a hierarchy. Because men are routinely denied as caretakers of children with horrible mothers, blacks and men are often given harsher punishment than women for the same crime. Rape, sexual hassarment, and several other crimes get held up in court for years or buried in internal investigations. Public defenders are infamously overworked, plea bargains left and right, and the list goes on, I’m sure. On the plus side of making everyone able to defend themselves. People are consistently exposed to a different point of view, and are forced to understand each other more. And before this answer drags on too much longer. For the more extreme cases, let’s call a spade a spade, and just admit there’s some reducate camps. With cameras recording, and footage always available to the public on some site somewhere. Not so much for the purpose of watching the people in said camp, but so the public understands what is going on in these camps. An assurance that they’re being treated well, and efforts to talk to and understand them are being made. And people are allowed to be openly sceptical when say the camera for an entire floor of a supposedly maximum security prison use to store terrorists all suddenly turn off at the same time that a guy you could very easily expose a number of powerful people for what they are hangs himself in a room literally built so you can not hang yourself… just for random example, of course. How each case would be handled requires detail I do not have, but the main point is punishment comes only after all rehabilitating options are exhausted.


Premise #5: What forms of corporation would be most essential in your society? & How would a  person make a living, or would they even need to?

I gotta say I didn’t think I’d be the biggest leftist voice in the room on this one, but here we are. A basic living can be and is provided for all citizens, and from there we turn our focus to fulfillment, science, and education. We started planting and building towards the wild ideas. Let the trans-humanist explain themselves, let explorers talk about the benefits of space travel, listen to the growing number of people talk about the problems of the looming problem of automation, and then we use these things and discussion to our advantage. We start advancing towards this trans-humans society exploring the stars with robots handling the basic needs. We may never actually get there, but we’d make something pretty awesome either way.


Premise #6: What mechanism would solve conflict in your society, and how would you ensure the fairness of that process?
Follow-up: How would you handle international conflict in your society? Would it exist or do you intend to build a global society?
This one was kind of a series of questions about how this society responds to various levels of conflict, and how solving them world arise. So I’ll start by explaining what kind of conflicts could even arise, and how one would address increasing extreme situations. 
So I’m starting off with taking the Scotty plan here. Slowly produce a global society by ultimately outshining everyone else. Demonstrate openly and actively that people are just better off here. That said I’ve built a society, much like TJ’s, openly promoting ideological diversity. Which is also why I establish the educational systems, and enjoy peaceful discussion to the best of my ability while it was being built. I think eventually however, groups are going to start to form around certain issues or ideologies. Their primary goal at that point is convincing people or coming together as a large enough group that they may select their one person to be added to the councils. These are the people primarily responsible for hearing people out, and openly debating among themselves and compromising on the more extreme civil matters. If people feel strongly enough they may threaten to remove, or just remove their endorsement from their spokesperson. To balance out the majority taking all you need X numbers of endorsement to be appointed, and a some number less than that to be removed. The more violent matters will be left to, something both Scotty and TJ agreed on as well as myself, an mostly unarmed police force. De-escalation to a maximum effort before any weapons get drawn barring of course matters of self-defense. People, if only for selfish reasons, ultimately don’t want a world where there’s a good chance they get killed, so I think convincing them to attempt to discuss and debate peacefully is not as hard as a lot of people might think.


Premise #7: What is the craziest entertainment your society would have?
This is more a personal guess, so I’m just typing out what I think here. There would eventually be a drug I call “scrapyard” which is a mixture of literally every drug, so I'm pretty sure it could pull off something insane if you’re not used to it and such. Scotty does bring some I didn’t think to be up in this section, but with as much ideological difference as there so movies would get crazy.


Premise #8: What makes you the best leader, assuming you are the leader in this society? (answering this asap, so it goes up before my drunk self forgets)
Cliche as may end up sounding, my hope. My belief in humanity potential, and as a result my need to tap into it. My hope that that ideological battle humans are going to face anyways leads to the best society possible. My hope that this uprising can be as pacifistic as possible. My belief that we can, should, and could, under the right circumstances getting to a place where all humans have as much happiness as we can produce with as little bloodshed as possible, and my hope and desire to prudence those circumstances. It sounds cliche yes, but has anyone ever really sold it to you? Has anyone really even tried to do it? I can, I do, and I will try. So if we fail, then at least this time we gave an honest attempt. At least this time we dreamed big, and I think even that is worth something.

My Vote (TJ or Scotty):
Look I voted before Paul gave his answer, and I wouldn't change my tjonia vote. But that ending was lame af TJ and I use the 1st amendment as a standard in one of my questions. But honestly Scotty mask it better, but if it comes to an iron fist solution that what's happening. So for me it came down to where I could be built some trans humanist utopia in the fastest time possible. And as for as long we don't engage in needless violence, TJ would let it happen, or at least be the guy we turn against if we had to. "kicking it down the road" is a safer bet fair enough, but to make where I want to live you would probably have to risk it for a biscuit. So I gotta go TJ here, because at the end of day, he is more controllable if nothing else. Strange as that may sound.