No, no, come back! It'll be interesting, I swear! I have theories, so many theories! Most of them incredibly dumb and outrageous, so much so that they are definitely worth your time. Please stay!
Alright then, those of you not scared away by the very prospect of this ominous topic probably want to know my stances or something. First, a bit about me. I don't know if this is a common thing but as a child, I always found politics to be one of those mysterious "adult" things that I would never grasp, a little like things on high shelves (I still have trouble with this one) or the idea that anyone would voluntarily eat olives. I did, inevitably, get older and as I did I began to really embrace the- I took an interest in- I still had no fucking clue.
Sure, I watched the news and read the papers, sorta, and aged twelve we had a class debate on "The Lisbon Treaty". No one understood it but I exploited the hell out of it because I love the sound of my own voice convincing other people they are wrong. I didn't know why they were wrong, I was just sure they were. Politics. I used shaky metaphors to confuse and attack my young audiences' senses (though I can't remember who won the debate, maybe not a great sign). I liked this. I liked coming up with stuff on the spot and selling it with clever wordplay and comparisons, despite realising I was n fact mistaken halfway through my spiel. I liked the fact that most other people could not do this quite as well as me. This was one incident, after this my political encounters died down for about four years. Then came the hotbed of teenage snarkiness, lust and drama that is....The Model United Nations.
Some recap for foreigners: in Ireland we have this thing called "Transition Year". It is basically the year after your first set of "big" (and by big I mean, totally pointless) exams, equivalent to the British GCSEs but much less influential to the rest of your life (I'm given to understand anyway). Transition Year is the year after that, where you take a break from the "stress" of the previous year and gain valuable experience in areas that aren't necessarily academic, ie. not showing up for school, getting royally pissed/high/both and losing your virginity. Yay, experience! (Disclaimer: I part-took in only one of these listed activities. You can try and guess which)
Anyway, this being the year that's in it, there were many more extra curricular activities offered by the school. One of these was the FOTHERMUCKING MODEL UNITED NATIONS. I know, I'm a total badass. Remembering my former debating "prowess", I signed up. To start, I have to be honest, I sucked. Can't confidently say I don't still suck. I use the same razzle dazzle empty words as before except this wasn't as effective because, could this be? People actually knew what they were talking about.
This led to me having to properly educate myself of not only world politics (which I probably dislike most because it can be so policy based from the get go, with little room for swaying people) but the politics of life. Issues like abortion, internet censorship, religious conflicts, gay rights, female equality, drugs, corruption, journalism in conflict zones (most of which I will probably rant on at a later date). Of course, I had been aware of these before but this made them more real. Felt like people gave a crap about what I had to say on subjects, enough even to make up long speeches on why I'm wrong. It is truly flattering when someone take the time to slam your opinions with such force, and often humour. I have learned a lot from MUN and I'm sure I will continue to learn from it. But the most life changing thing I've learned is... I should be in charge of everything.
Allow me to explain. When it comes to politics, I've always been a great believer in the idea that "People who are best suited to power are those who don't want it." I realise that my previous statement contradicts this completely but bear with me. People are selfish. People are stupid. People have a tendency to hate other people. This is why our world is so utterly fucked one hundred percent of the time. People are too involved, always working their own agenda. I like Douglas Adams' idea in "Hitch-hiker's" about the guy who governs the universe living totally isolated from everything (except his cat, named God) and having few actual opinions. Of course, human nature doesn't work that way. Everyone has an opinion. The solution we've come to on this is Democracy: a bureaucratic slushy mess of too many cooks spoiling the world. The alternative is fairly efficient oppression (usually). Rock and a hard place. But, as my dad likes to say (quoting Winston Churchill) "Democracy is a terrible system. The only thing worse is everything else". He also likes saying that "Socialists are people with nothing who want to share it with you". I love my dad, he's hi-lurious.
Myself, I'm not against Democracy (I like the voice of the people aspect as I am one of those things) but I do think other things might be more effective (I kinda like the tribal King/Rí system they had in pre-platations Ireland, but that might be over romanticised in my head). In fact, I have many ideas for really out there political systems that would never be given a chance because there's too much risk involved.
My plan is this: I want to get someone to design a virtual reality in which these highly experimental systems could be tested with minimal chances of another world war and/or running the global economy further into the mud. We'd get a test group of, say, five hundred people from different backgrounds, with different skills etc and govern them with the decided system. Each would last six months or until the system fails and they'd get paid and stuff. It'd be like a way more inconvenient jury duty. Oh, it should all be televised, people love that shit. Also, great source of funding. (I credit George Carlin in part for this idea, his "four groups that have to go" bit was awesome.)
So, without further ado, I will now share my ideas for governing systems. This is what I would do if I ruled the world. It would be so much fun. Don't expect anything too groundbreaking:
1. Give control to the internet: Basically, every time a decision has to be made, start a feed on some forum or on twitter and everyone chip in their little words. Chaos would probably ensue but I think I trust the internet much more than I should, I like to think people would do me proud. But it'd probably fail. Horribly.
2. Design a robot to rule over us: I know, I know, sci-fi has made the very idea of giving the slightest bit of power to them inhuman creations a taboo. But honestly, it think they'd do ok. Yeah, in things like "Space Odyssey" and "I, Robot" it is this idea that becomes our downfall but if it was designed well the system could effectively be free of human weakness and selfishness. There is still the problem of "How could a human create something free of human weakness" but hey, if we get somewhere close, it could work. Or we could all be enslaved. At least we wouldn't have to pay taxes, haha, am I right?.......I'm seventeen. This means nothing to me.
3. Give power exclusively to one, highly specific group of people: This one is really just to see what we would learn (because it's all televised, it'd be one helluva behavioural study). The concept is simple: Take turns giving power to one demographic. Women, Black people, Christians, Children (I like this one a lot), you name it, we try it. People could take bets on which one would last the longest. It'd be spectacular chaos.
4. Give power to (good) comedians: This one is slightly similar to the previous one, but I personally think this'd be fascinating. They say that humour is the enemy of authority... so what happens when you merge the two. I would entrust the entire nation of Ireland to someone like Dara O'Briain or Ed Byrne. Graham Norton (though I do know he's Irish), Jack Whitehall and Sarah Millican, you take the UK. We'd have to ressurect George Carlin, give him America, along with a lot of the good internet comedians (TGWTG.com, looking at you). And even if it fails, great TV.
5. Get conspiracy theorists to run everything: This one would be fantastic simply because of their reactions. Imagine, you're a fanatical conspiracy theorist, convinced the government is up to no good, and two big guys in suits show up at your door and go "You're the government now, come with us." That momentary look on the person's face would be totally worth the almost immediate collapse of society. And, these people would learn a valuable lesson.
6. Govern by the "Siblings dividing food" principle: This idea is based on this thing my dad used to make me and my sister do whenever there was a fight over dividing food. He'd get one of us to break the thing in half and the other one to choose which half they got. Resulting in fairness (mostly, Maeve used to always insist that I do the splitting). This idea is to have a "buddy system" among nations, let's use China and the US as examples. China rules the US but the US also rules them. China does something shitty to the US, the US fucks them over equally. Eventually, a balance would be found. Or everyone would die because it's a hugely optimistic, naive idea.
7. Equality: This one is my last idea and probably the most outrageous. What if everyone had their basic needs catered for (things like enough food, shelter, clean water) and other luxuries were earned through work? Ha! I'm sorry, it's just so ridiculous, like, how could that even work?
There we go, some ideas as to how the world should be governed. Put me in charge, people. It'd at least be funny. If you know anyone in power, show them this, please. It's not meant to be serious, but it'd be epic if someone who actually does have a say in stuff read them. For a laugh. I'd make the best Overlord ever. Because I am a lazy shit and I hate responsibility. Perfect CV, right there.
Embrace the Madness
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