How do we allow the world to be like this?

I have a pretty decent life and so do most people I know so things can't be as catastrophic as you make out. How have the things you mention upset you so much? Seems like a load of rant over nothing....

Reminds me of...

Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good ********
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet :D
 
How do we allow the Governments that supposedly look after us to be controlled by large businesses. The Governments are supposed to be looking after us, what's the point in having a democracy if it only applies to certain people with lots of money?

They are not controlled by large business, they are influenced by large business which is a key distinction. A democratic system allows everyone to lobby the government for changes and policies they believe will benefit them and as is inevitable for anything like that the more money you have the more you can spend on lobbying and the more you can exert influence.

This is less of an issue in the UK as we do not have lobbying on anything like the scale the USA does.

As for why 'we allow the world to be like this' I don't know if you've noticed but we don't live, work or vote in the USA so it really isn't our fight. We live in the UK, where despite what tinfoil Youtube might want you to think we don't actually have a government controlled by big business at all.
 
[TW]Fox;27344744 said:
A democratic system allows everyone to lobby the government for changes and policies they believe will benefit them and as is inevitable for anything like that the more money you have the more you can spend on lobbying and the more you can exert influence.
That doesn't sound particularly democratic to me.
 
Steps to improved democracy:

- Max individual donations to political parties of £5000, and 1 donation per person, per year
- Ban donations from organisations/companies
- Ban access to MPs via payments
- Ban second jobs for MPs
- PR voting system
- Public only recall bill (at the moment MPs decide)
- Elected second chamber

It's never going to be perfect but the above steps would help a lot.
 
It hasn't gotten much worse, it always was this bad. We simply know more about it due to ease of communication.

People are corruptable, and they always will be. It's a survival instinct.
 
Personally I find capitalism is the stupidest thing ever - its like a dog chasing its tail - in the rush to enrich itself it destroys the very value of what its using to enrich itself :S if there are any other civilisations out there they must laugh at us for how stupid we are.

The unfortunate thing is every other system humans apart from an agrarian batter economy back in the day ended up worse.

Until we can build benevolent machines to run the planet for us, we're stuck with being governed by very flawed humans.
 
Steps to improved democracy:

- Max individual donations to political parties of £5000, and 1 donation per person, per year
- Ban donations from organisations/companies
- Ban access to MPs via payments
- Ban second jobs for MPs
- PR voting system
- Public only recall bill (at the moment MPs decide)
- Elected second chamber

It's never going to be perfect but the above steps would help a lot.

They tried passing the first two recently. Labour said no because it would involve time not receiving stacks of money from trade unions and people having to actually opt in to paying the political levy to the unions they are part of.

No no no to an elected second chamber. The second chamber should be a technocratic chamber that actually know how stuff happens in the real world, rather than another bunch of party political idiots...
 
Personally I find capitalism is the stupidest thing ever - its like a dog chasing its tail - in the rush to enrich itself it destroys the very value of what its using to enrich itself :S if there are any other civilisations out there they must laugh at us for how stupid we are.

If we survive long enough and evolve past it people will look back on our time like we do cavemen times.

We kinda had the right idea in the 20th century where electrical items were repaired and lasted decades, nowadays longevity is a dirty word and everything is designed to be replaced within 2yrs to keep the GDP/company profits ticking over.
 
No no no to an elected second chamber. The second chamber should be a technocratic chamber that actually know how stuff happens in the real world, rather than another bunch of party political idiots...

At the moment about 100 members of the upper house inherited their position, over 50 are on permanent leave or absence or are long term prohibited from serving and 26 are spiritual peers nominated by CoE. It's not as much technocratic as just plain weird.
 
That doesn't sound particularly democratic to me.

It isn't, but it's the nature of the world isn't it. The more money you have the more effort you can apply to a cause and the more you'll be heard. Yes, it sucks, but... that's how most things work.

Anyone can stand to be an MP for example, from any background - that is incredibly democratic. You or I could both stand tomorrow. Nothing at all stops us... except the fact that we'd need financial backing if we were going to quit work in order to dedicate the effort required to make sure we got elected...

If it wasn't money it would be something else, number of goats perhaps or amount of land owned. It has been this way for thousands of years and will be this way ever thus, the idea that we can all get angry about it on the internet or that its some sort of modern injustice just seems a bit weird. The internet has empowered everyone to think they know the 'right' way of doing everything these days.
 
[TW]Fox;27345629 said:
It isn't, but it's the nature of the world isn't it. The more money you have the more effort you can apply to a cause and the more you'll be heard. Yes, it sucks, but... that's how most things work.

Anyone can stand to be an MP for example, from any background - that is incredibly democratic. You or I could both stand tomorrow. Nothing at all stops us... except the fact that we'd need financial backing if we were going to quit work in order to dedicate the effort required to make sure we got elected...

If it wasn't money it would be something else, number of goats perhaps or amount of land owned. It has been this way for thousands of years and will be this way ever thus, the idea that we can all get angry about it on the internet or that its some sort of modern injustice just seems a bit weird. The internet has empowered everyone to think they know the 'right' way of doing everything these days.

This^ in a nutshell.

All the haters - feel free to put together your own bullet proof manifesto and run for election. In our country you are completely free to do this..... However I'm not sure how you plan to get noticed and get mass public backing without having a large amount of cash to back your campaign. Money is used to buy stuff... Like political advertisement, go figure. Unless we lived in some sort of backward anarchist state where people only traded in goods and favours this will always be the same.

I for one like being able to post on these ocuk forums which are only here as a direct result of capitalism. A computer tech company that has become incredibly successful due to middle class kids buying expensive new parts for their PC upgrades. :p
 
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