ReWriting the Human Story - Chapter 12

"Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest – forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries." Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism "Power over the rules is real power. That’s why lobbyists congregate when Congress writes laws, and why the Supreme Court, which interprets and delineates the Constitution — the rules for writing the rules — has even more power than Congress. If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules and to who has power over them." Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems Politics is the story of rules. The rules of how we live and do things together. It frames and regulates the relationships among people. It is the foundation on which we transcend being individuals and become a community, a tribe, a nation, or a civilization. It is what allows humanity to be more than the sum of its parts. That is why we might get all other stories right but if we get politics wrong we are unlikely to survive as a civilization, perhaps even as a species. And sooner or later all stories become political. Take technology. Technology drives change. And, by definition, change turns the world upside down. So it takes a blue-blood nobleman and turns him into a pauper. It takes a king and makes him a ceremonial figurehead with no real power. It takes a shepherd and makes him a laborer, a member of the middle-class, or, occasionally, a capitalist. And so, in the end, technology, as a bringer of change, is about politics. Read the rest here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/politics-story/