[Keith]

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

Thread was begun here, but I think Keith's right about splitting it off. I don't think that even moderators can branch a thread like that, though, so I'm just making a new one and linking back.

It's possible with phpBB. Vbulletin seems more fully featured, so it's probably possible.

I would not say that an Anarchic society such as I envision is infeasible or inevitable. I do believe it's possible.

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

Lao-tzu may have written about codes of morality and justice, but that is not entirely what laws are. Laws are statements of agreement. It might be as simple as saying, "George will do the laundry every Friday." I'm not convinced that even a society comprised completely of aware and conscious individuals would be capable of functioning without such agreement.

The difference is that law is proscriptive. Certainly two responsible, Conscious individuals could enter into an agreement in the sort of society I envision. The difference is that there isn't a 3rd party standing over them to enforce the agreement. This idea is kind of terrifying, and that's because we're used to dealing with irresponsible people. We've forgotten what it's like to live in a community of fundamentally decent people. When agreements sometimes fail (as they do now), the parties involved will resolve it like adults.

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

So scale is the first problem of anarchy, and it's not one that I think can be addressed by the consciousness of its citizens.

I actually envision that some of the issues of a successful Anarchy cannot be solved at our current level of thinking. These issues would have to be addressed 'on the ground' by more Conscious individuals than I. ie. I probably can't even envision the solutions the populace would come up with.

For me, at my level of Consciousness, I think the key phrase is 'paternalistic leadership'. Certainly an Anarchy would still need people to serve as Coordinators for big projects, but this needn't be a leadership role as we understand the term ; the Coordinator would just be a person doing their job, the same as everyone else, not a class apart.

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

The second problem is the one KevinG brought up, and it's the fact that despite the drastic increase in conscious people, I think they are still very much a minority in the world. What, really, is the likelihood that anyone could bring them all together? Wouldn't their instinct to help others more likely spread them out? Sure, they'd band together to achieve things, but it's so that they can reach a larger population, not for any internal reasons of forming a separate society. To withdraw from the world is, in many ways, very selfish.

Very good question/point, Michael. (Stop doing that! )

Assuming a successful outcome, I see it going one of two ways:
(1) A bunch of Conscious people 'break off' and form their own society (note: it doesn't have to be all of them); or
(2) The number of Conscious people in an existing society grow until they become the majority.

In practice both would probably occur; If #1 happens first, some members of the society will inevitably leave to join a more 'mainstream' society ; thus increasing saturation. Conversely, as #2 approaches saturation, the likelihood that a number of them will want to form their own community (for their own benefit and to work on larger scale projects) will increase.

This answers your comment re: selfishness: a society of Conscious people could form precisely because it has greater potential to solve world problems in never-before-seen ways. And I can't envision such a group of people not wanting to share the fruits of their labours (though, like Steve, they would probably seek some reimbursement to help the society continue and grow).

The big advantage to #2, is that with #1, you always have to factor in a "lowest common denominator" mentality; ie. your plans always have to factor in "what if someone does something irresponsible?". (This will occasionally happen in a (primarily) Conscious society too, of course, but as an occasional exception rather than a general rule - the common denominator is high rather than low).

The big disadvantage of #2 is that such a society becomes 'them' rather than 'us', which is always dangerous.

BTW, I note that what Steve has started here is similar to #2. There are differences; it's open to all, many of us aren't highly Conscious, and it overlaps contemporary society rather than replacing it or standing alongside it. But it is suggestive that Conscious people like to form likeminded societies.

Originally Posted by Stephen

I believe, Kevin, that that statement might be disputed by more than a few people.

Yup.

Personally, I suspect Australia of 20 years ago might have been the greatest democracy to exist (but I grew up then and there so I may be biased. ). People tended to be more compassionate and invested in things of obvious public good like universal health care and education. Over the last 20 years things have become much more "me, me, me!" and I don't think it's an improvement.

Re: Democracy, one thing that people (except the politicians) frequently forget is that it only works well when you have a responsible, informed populace. When you have people that are generally (a) too time-pressed and exhausted from working their 2-3 jobs to study the issue, (b) informed primarily by a media that is interested in popularity (ie. ratings) rather than informing and (c) are so mired in basic survival needs they have difficulty becoming Conscious and responsible, then Democracy tends to break.

(Hmm, maybe that bit should be back in the original thread).

Originally Posted by KevinG

When "aware and conscious" people make a decision as they did, how do you answer that anarchy would work perfect amongst the "aware and conscious?" Already, aware and conscious people are disagreeing with each other, or forming what we call, political parties. I'm sure you see where this is going.

The US Founding Fathers did the best they could to found the best nation possible with the resources they had available. The Founding Fathers may have been Conscious and aware, but they established guiding principles for the nation because they knew that the majority of the populace was not (This is not an indictment, BTW ; in that time, as in ours, the highly Conscious people were generally those who could afford to be).

It all boils back to my original point ; an optimal nation needs to be composed of primarily Conscious and Aware people. Any less, and you get in the situation where (a) you need to tell people to act in a Conscious and Aware way, (b) you need to enforce that they do and (c) they rebel against your enforcement.

Ultimately the quality and culture of a nation is that of the citizens who compose it.