About

Dictator ~will

I'm a fan of bio's and about sections that enumerate partisan points. Tell me your echo chamber and let me know if you're part of my tribe. That's not sarcasm. Identity politics are satisfying (as more of us discover year over year). We'll list cliche signifiers to build a prefabricated hen-house and "anesthetizes a portion of one's brain." I'm here for it! But maybe I shouldn't be.

I have an alternative: an answer to "what would you change given absolute power?" This comes with obvious caveats and disclaimers. My opinions are derived from "common sense", ie. uninformed, and are US centric. Dramatic change is the least effective way to improvement. Still, it's a fun question. My thoughts in order of perceived audaciousness:

• Prohibit all inheritance. I can buy into Meritocracy, but the baseline cannot be stochasticly distributed. All mom's unspent money and dad's big house die with them (and are maybe recycled into UBI, see below).
• Replace the senate with a sortition. Limit the lottery to 100 capable and willing sampled across the country, maybe proportional population from "American Nations". They'll serve short terms with career staff providing support.
• Compulsory service. After secondary school, former students have a required year of service to programs like teach for america, peace core, etc. Service and cheap labor is important, but so is the forced travel. Help people and expand your world and empathy.
• End factory farming of livestock. Few would be comfortable even watching, let alone performing, the animal slaughter that brings meat to our plate. At scale, it's cruel to the livestock, dangerous and harmful to workers, terrible for the environment, and not healthy for the consumer.
• Institute UBI. Poverty is solvable, we just have to pay for it. And I expect a guaranteed income to incubate creativity and entrepreneurship that'd pay dividends -- a luxury not just for those with a trust fund (which now expire with the death of the originator)
• Legalize all drugs. Use some of the excess tax revenue to treat addiction and it's upstream cause -- like poverty if that's not already solved.
• Pass the ERA. Guarantee protection for all folks. But not professions (blue isn't a type of life) or politics (no one's entitled to force anyone else to hear their opinion).
• Reform justice. We should prioritize restorative justice and rehabilitation. Imprisonment should be rare and restricted to likely-to-repeat violent offenses (and those few prisoners should still be treated like humans). No part of the justice system should make a profit. No action should deprive a person of a vote. Capital punishment is only appropriate for those who'd choose it for themselves. Property (or crime to) is not more valuable than a person. White collar crime should be disproportionately costly -- but everyone should be given the same right to find responsibility, repair harm done, and otherwise enjoy a speedy rehabilitation.
• All citizens should get an equal vote. Make DC and PR states. Also see "dissolve the senate"
• Rigorously avoid gerrymandering. Maybe votes should vote on the borders of their district.