It’s broken. What is ‘it’? Well not to be all doom and gloomy about it but pretty much everything. Democracy, government, the news media, the nhs, the economy, the list goes on.
Corrupt politicians look after their own interests and those of their sponsors, honourable ones are simply not in a position to be effective across the vast spectrum of issues. No single MP could hope to effectively satisfy the needs of all of their constituents. The ‘do something now’ expectation upon government and its representatives ignores the fact that societal management is one of the most complex tasks in the world – getting it right for the long term needs planning that looks decades ahead and deep into the structure, not just to the next election and across the emotive topics that always hit the headlines.
Everyone has issues that are a personal priority which trigger both conscious and unconscious bias when consuming the media . Our view of the world is coloured first by the editors of the media we consume and then further by our own politically tinted glasses.
I saw this TED talks a few month ago and on watching it again I’m taken by the idea of sortition as a way to address the disproportionate distribution of power and corruption that inevitably follows.
Combine direct public responsibility for policy along with a way to objectively inform people of the critical issues (not the knee jerk emotive ones) based on data the likes of which Gapminder produce, and there is hope that we could significantly change the tone of discourse and the effectiveness of government.
Over simplistic? Well yes, clearly it’s a 300 word blog post, but worthy of discussion none the less. Comment below if you have something to say, I would love to hear what you think.
Hoping for a better tomorrow
Donovan