Visionary inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk revealed in an interview that his thoughts on society are at least somewhat aligned with anarchism. On September 24th, 2015, at an event by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin, Musk was asked about his perspectives
Musk, is of course, the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity. He is also the founder of SpaceX and a co-founder of PayPal.
During the interview, Musk said, “Well I guess ill start off with the principles in regards to society, or you know, how to do it differently. I think probably direct democracy is better than representative democracy, so if you are trying to represent the will of the people we are better to have direct votes which would not be possible in the old days because you had to mail things around and information moves very slowly. But in an electronic society where information moves instantly you can very directly represent the will of the people and I think that diminishes the ability of special interests to influence things in a way that is contrary to the will of the people.”
He goes on to say,
“Laws have an infinite lifetime, so I think it’s probably a good idea to have something in the voting system that accounts for the infinite lifetime of laws and the inertial effect of laws, so perhaps it would be good to have all rules made with an inherent sunset provision, so they would automatically expire unless they were revoted as being correct. Then maybe in order for something to become a law it maybe it would require 60% of the vote, but at any point 40% or more can remove the law. This sounds kind of anarchist I suppose, but I’m kind of pro-anarchist.”
“I think generally, fewer rules are better than more rules,” Musk concluded.
Although Musk’s comments about a decentralized future are refreshing, it is important to mention that there are many drawbacks to democracy that are not often mentioned in mainstream circles. As many scholars have pointed out throughout history, democracy is a sort of mob rule, where people can make laws that justify the use of physical force against their neighbors if they happen to be in the majority.
While, in its purest form, voting on how things are done can be a fair way of handling decisions, it becomes a tool of oppression if people begin voting to legalize the use of force against peaceful people. Additionally, people should have the ability to opt out of specific social arrangements and decisions if that is what they chose to do, and this type of opt-out option has never been offered in a democracy.
One point that may have wrapped up Musk’s speech perfectly is the fact that laws should not be able to be created if they justify the use of force against peaceful people.
This is content that I created for a website that I write for called The Free Thought Project:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/elon-musk-im-kind-pro-anarchist-talk-rebuilding-society/
(sources for article are hyperlinked at the site above)
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John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. John is currently battling cancer , and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments consider subscribing to his podcast to support at https://www.patreon.com/johnvibes
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I hope he is heading in the right direction. I haven't seen much evidence he has thought through his politics, but this at least seems promising. Musk would be a great guy to have "on our team".
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may be i reasteam your post
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please do :-)
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ok
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Thank you for Using #promo-steem tag, Promote steemit by inviting your friends and your family!
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Something seems disingenous about his words.
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You took the words right out of my mouth! I was thinking something like that read the first part.
Traditionally the solution is to have more than one house of government that keeps the other in check, you'll find this in different forms in many democracies. We know now the multitude of ways that this fails now even in the representative democracy system.
But the idea of giving a strong voice to minorities in a system of majority rule still makes sense and in my view is ethically required. We just always have to factor that in.
It's the same on Steemit. We have a kind of wealth rule but separate those powers a little by having witnesses as professional policy makers (AKA politicians) so it's the same as representative democracy but instead of one-person-one-vote we have one-dollar-one-vote. I've argued before that Steemit is not a nation so government analogies only go so far, but still we do have governance.
In light of what you say above, how do you reflect on the system on Steemit? Would you have any opinion on improving governance here?
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it's rare to find someone in business that dreams like elon. i think he's great regardless of what people think of him as a person, his determination to do things is boundless.
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anarchy forever bb
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Interesting to learn more about Elon Musk. I know very little about him and assumed he was bad just cause hes super rich. BTW John Vibes, this is Wil Massey from facebook. Follow me if you would cause Im trying to build myself up on steemit. My wife is on here and doing well (her name is marxrab I believe), but Im just getting started.
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