Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Party or Foundation?

As it unfolds, the 2024 American presidential campaign reveals increasing dysfunction in the existing party system, which has produced the anomaly that the presidential candidate of each party would be unpopular with the majority in both the other and his or her own party without the current noise of created meaning.

I used to advocate for a third party on this blog but recently stopped because...well, it's not going to happen. The vested powers would rather drag out the life-span of our antiquated political structures to the bitter end than invite new energies and definitions into the fray.

Why should we care if we have access to political engagement? One reason is that there will be people somewhere, probably unelected, making decisions about the impact on our lives of advances in AI and biotech. Without representation, and especially if instability and war continue to spread, "the voting public" will be too preoccupied with survival to monitor what promises to be the total refashioning of our species.

This refashioning is likely to include a fast moving transition of the outgoing human model (us) to corporate-designed bionic workers and soldiers, but changes to the species will go far beyond production of obedient workers and battle-bots. We are commandeering our evolution to modify our sexual, reproductive nature, with possibilities such as a baby with four biological parents, or a mother or a father only, or humans with a mating season instead of the constant season we have now. Our classification of humans into historic "races" or "ethnicities" will be rendered obsolete, as we genetically mix-and-match to create new racial types (see Quo vadis, sex?, below).

Can our version of democracy function in the face of these potentials? Without a party that concentrates on the biological revolution, instead of treating it as a side-issue for a committee, how can we express our will towards it?

My suggestion here is that we do an end-run around parties by developing something like the "foundation" in Isaac Asimov's epic science fiction novel of the same name (reviewed below: Gaian Mentalics Unite!). The task of this foundation (as in the novel) would be to influence the future of the species with knowledge and advice, preserving memory of traditional human traits and helping to identify those we wish to retain.

What might we view as a valuable human trait, that we would not want to de-evolve? One of our distinctive features is a rebellious intellect, which we at times revere as critical to our survival, and other times disdain as self-absorbed laziness. Revered or disdained, our rebellious intellect might be obliterated in a transition to a humanity of robot-like workers. An effective foundation could monitor expressions of traditonal human intransigence, looking for elements that should be preserved in the revised species (such as the will to interpret reality according to one's perceptions, even if the conclusions are not sanctioned by dominant parties) while discarding others (such as longing for conflict and destruction as ends in themselves).

Regarding reproductive changes, it's difficult to envision a democratic vote on whether people should be allowed to clone a baby from a skin cell. If today is an indication, the politics will be out of control. A foundation could at least offer rational feedback on opposing views.

A viable foundation would need funding and political support, plus the will to represent the interests of millions of people who, if nothing changes, will soon be without representation in the world's biggest democracy.
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