Tranquil Claw

Secretly grinning over here because I know an explanation that no one from the debate section would believe. This adds more evidence to Michael Newton's discovery ya know!

Personally I see Scootertrix the Abridged to be the best because of it's clever animating, humor, story plot, characters, and a whole running dialogue between Celestia and Luna that drives humor through the roof. Rainbow Dash is now known as "The Bird" and has some very unique social traits that you'll spot straight away. Fluttershy is... weird. Twilight is a control freak who gets frustrated easily. Pinkie can break the fourth and Rarity has a very limited vocabulary as well as the overwhelming desire to "sell a dress". Applejack is pretty much the same except less trusting. All in all it makes for some very interesting moments between the characters. There are some masterfully placed plot twists and sublime foreshadowing put in all over the place. 

Scootertrix the Abridged truly is a must see.

Another thing I can add is that teachers are underpaid most of the time, driving away many of the good ones who go off to better jobs. Teachers are the core of any society, they are the ones who's opinions matter the most because they affect the next generation's knowledge considerably. I personally had a teacher that was the definition of free speech. She used to be the one in class who always didn't care and became popular at the expense of her education. She was the best teacher I've ever had just because she taught everything expressively and believed in student led education.

One problem stemming from the world's education system is that students are taught to believe in whatever the speaker tells them to, eventually growing into a habbit of listening without question to all authorities. This destroy's the populace's ability to make their own educated opinions later in life. This is why I support student led classes as they are just as effective most of the time and also teach social interaction and cooperation with peers to achieve common goals. You can learn more about this by looking up the Independent Project.

Then again what makes a society good is also the people that live in it.

Here are my questions regarding the topic of creating a society in this world that is better than the system it replaces.

Can this be done?

If so then how would you do it?

Are there any flaws with how you would do it?

If so then are there answers that solve these flaws without creating more flaws in the process?

If not then can you change your core idea to exclude or alter that flaw so that it has minimal impact on the society?

If your design passes these tests, how would you make it happen?

My goal with this thread is to bring out the ideas of potentially brilliant people to fulfill the goal of finding fixes to world problems and hopefully inspiring real world innovation.

Now before any of this even happens, we need to know what this theoretical society attempts to improve or solve in the real world. This can be anything from world hunger to preventing the next dictator from rising up and terrorizing the populace.

The specific criteria I want to fulfill in this case are the following:

Create an equal start for all citizens guaranteeing basic needs without stressing the economy beyond operational capacity.

Eliminate or neutralize corruption in both companies and government.

Encourage the implementation of scientific breakthroughs to the country's infrastructure.

Eliminate suppression of individuals and their ideas or discoveries should they potentially improve the world.

Guarantee basic rights unless in conflict with the rights of others.

Support preservation of the world and all its inhabitants.

Be capable of changing to fit circumstance while remaining intact and beneficial to all mentioned criteria.

This is the criteria for the theoretical society I hope to find. Try thinking outside the box. This is theoretical and anything can work with enough time and improvement.

To start off I've been tossing around the idea of needs supplying needs. In return for giving the government what it needs to function,the government gives the people what they need, in this case food, water, and shelter. Going into further details, the government is able to impose a labor tax on the people for a certain time period like once a week or every three days and is then required to supply basic utilities like running water, electricity, food, and shelter to those people. This time period is flexible and depends on the minimum quality of living as determined by the people. Should any individual question the government's timeframe, the government must then show/communicate the process used to provide for that individual using their work. A key principle In this system is that both government and individual remain in communication, which stresses the need for a localized government that doesn't appear too high up for an individual to contact. This goes on to my next idea, which is that government is tiered yet equal, which is my form of checks and balances. As government exercises power over a larger population, that power becomes limited.

On top of this system lies a variation of Capitalism designed to appeal to what an individual wants and how they can get it. Once the community is cared for and given an equal start, the focus becomes on relieving pressure on the average individual. The less things that are enforced the better. Material desire will be the motive for doing more than is required. Caring for your local community will only give and maintain a living. Anything added on to this living will be up to the individual. This is the most dangerous portion because things like greed come into play.

In getting a job the individual must first find the group involved with it such as the environmental, industrial, scientific, or miscellaneous groups. These groups are given a total fund (I have not yet determined how it is set) which will be redistributable as needed to members of that group. These groups will have direct power over the politics in the local government but can only use consensus to enforce such power. Say if the governor was purely an industrialist minded person, the environmental group could throw a hissy fit and either shorten his term or put forth agreed upon limitations to it. If this was a decision by vote, the environmentalists would get no say if their group was smaller. Coming to consensus in difficult situations can also drag in other views that otherwise would never have appeared, resulting in more solutions available. The governor on the other hand, would have control over major projects and regulations regarding the usage of government power and supply. State wide government will deal more with things that do not relate to the people than the city/community/town government.

Human nature is very fickle in that we are both self centered and cooperative. In other words either nature and liberty take hold and people make some world changing mistakes or cooperation becomes encouraged and evolved letting us fix, deter, and improve on individual decisions so that they have less or no consequences. Right now we have a sort of balance between the two, which leads me to believe that the world could lean either way slightly or not at all. As long as this balance is in place, no major things will change for either good or bad, but as soon as either of these two traits become the larger major events start happening.

Of course, one couldn't use this argument effectively because there are so many other influencing factors and details to take into account concerning human nature. It truly is nearly impossible to tell what the future holds, so instead we take both extremes and try to find a median of the two. Extremes representing possible good changes vs possible bad changes.

Here is more or less a rundown of the situation in warp drives. If power becomes a problem you might want to look at what people have been doing recently with magnets and magnetic fields. Plenty of not well known impossibilities going on in the world.

1. A working model for faster-than-light travel. We've got a start, now we just need some of those delicious research grants.

2. A carbon-neutral society

3. An off-world colony, featuring at least one Tim Horton's ( <--- Very important; can't do without)

4. A way to see the afterlife. (check)

5. A cheap source of power that harnesses the earth's magnetic field and generates free electricity. (check)

6. Having at least tested a "humanitopia". (dang that means I'll have to stop procrastinating)

7. Made contact with an alien species publicly. (NASA your attempts at concealment are pathetic)

8. Lack of suppression from government. (that stands for everyone, not just communism)

9. Less crappy presidents in the USA or at least a new type of government. 

10. Better education methods adopted world wide. (more support for dedicated student led classes)

Feel free to add on to the wishlist.

When I look at this I can really tell who's been watching excessive amounts of news compared to who hasn't. Anyways my view of the future is that humanity will continually better itself over the course of time, only the methods seem to change. No matter how many challenges come by, eventually we overcome them. That is a trend that has happened and will continue to happen. With that in mind, it isn't a question of whether or not we will be here, it's rather a question of how well we will have used our time here. People are thinking too much about extremes as those are things that stand out the most to us when we refer back to history in order to find clues, not to mention the fact that modern news programs are inclined to think about extremely bad things as they stand out more than the collective good that happens every day in huge amounts.

This is an example of our current fear-based society in which events are singled out and judged by the collective audience. A fear-based society only progresses by learning from mistakes, and in order to learn from them you have to focus on them. So life starts to seem worse as time goes by, whether or not it actually is.

A curiosity-based society, on the other hand, is harmonious in nature. The best example of this is the ancient city state of Athens. Their religion was in complete support of the pursuit of knowledge, unifying the people in cause as much as belief. It could be considered the median between socialism and capitalism ideals in that the local community as a whole, strove to be better than the competition. When Rome adopted part of this, they went straight to a Golden age, and when Italy copied it, they entered a Renaissance. 

The point I'm trying to make here is that we are going to advance no matter what, it's just how we advance that matters most. 

Pinkie Pie

She simply breaks logic entirely. Discord at least does it with some explanation but Pinkie is simply a supernatural phenomena. Also try to think of a character's power in this show as that character's ability to sway the hearts of others as that seems to be why the good guys keep winning. In that regard Radiant Hope blows the competition away entirely. (btw she is from the comics, which tell much better stories than the show from my opinion) Since this is the show only we are talking about, I'll still go with Pinkie's ability to break logic.

It's not the departure of a writer that I'm worried about. It's the morale of the show getting broken by pressure that worries me. That last episode made me feel a little queasy, and I only get that way when I sense a struggle in the background. More than half that episode gave in to violence and felt cliche. The best way I could describe it is that instead of the writers coming up with something truly original from their own mind, the popularity of the show drove them to think about pleasing others instead of their own imagination. The two points where outside pressure was most evident, shows clearly in the beginning and end of this season. I would be pressured into doing what I thought others wanted if I were put into positions like that. 

I am truly afraid that if this continues as it has, the show's morale will falter at the points it is needed most at.

I'll use Pewdiepie as a successful example. He never gave in completely to what others wanted and always stayed true to himself. That's why he has made it so far in his career.

MLP has for a long time, stayed true to itself and been respected for that fact. I could even interpret this episode as a way for the writers to say subconsciously, "must stay unique, must stay unique". It's in the main morale of the story. One known fact, is that a lot of writers put some of them self into their characters (Starlight Glimmer in this case) allowing their stories to come out as more unique and interesting. Lauren Faust, created her own characters, shaped their lives, and poured every dream she's ever had into them, so when these stories run out, no one knows what to do and how to do it. It's this indecisive nature that taints the show and destroys its morale. Until someone with a clear picture in mind like Lauren Faust steps onto the podium, I do not see a bright future for the show.

I suppose it's just a factor of lost meaning over time. Something I notice very often, is that things get taken for granted as they age, thus making them seem as if they need something new to make them worth keeping around. That explains why human nature is so good at innovation. Anyways, what it represents is the exact same thing as what it means to humans. When what it means to us changes, what it represents changes.

I can agree that my use of "fear" is a bit extreme, but when I said that, I was referring to the occasion where one loses something or is taught to think of using something as dangerous to themselves. I think you kind of dodged my original question by redefining money's purpose. What I was asking for was, are the added innovations to money like banks and credit a benefit or a deficit to it's original use. 

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the dollar never existed and a different system of exchange was adopted? Could you imagine the average dollar or credit being replaced by something else entirely? Do you think that the age old system used to this day is still the best possible system one could have come up with? 

To answer questions like these I like to return to the foundation our currency is built on, representation. More specifically, a representation of what you are in possession of. After a while money started branching off and taking on new meanings like promises to fund this to get back more of that. Banks sprung up and so did debt. Money had evolved from something useful to something potentially dangerous. Cautions had to be taken to warn others of this danger and fear finds yet another material thing to inhabit. Money turned from a use to a trade off over the course of time. Representation was the initial goal of money, what it represents though, is what matters.

Say money instead directly represented the accomplishments of an individual. How would it change and for good or bad?

Say money instead directly represented the respect an individual received. How would it change and for good or bad?

These are just some examples that I can think of off the top of my head. What do you think?

For a long time I've been wondering whether or not Twilight is fulfilling her role as the Princess of Friendship. Every time I see her, she either gets ignored or ends up subduing somepony else. What are your thoughts on the matter?

I will be giving thanks to three days off school for this Thanksgiving. Other than that I don't have any plans.

Because of recent events I would like to add something to my idea of a utopia.

 

A world where a Christian can tell an atheist "God bless you" and the Atheist would say "thank you" and where people can talk about differing beliefs of all kinds without arguing. A world of Tolerance practically; where we do not see people by their beliefs or skin color, but by a single fact: They are human.

 

Also I like the quote, but famous quotes come naturally not planned.

I was a little lightheaded at the time I do have a few that came off the top of my mind that were not planned. I do like your idea of a utopia as well. Religious freedom is something to strive towards.

     All right it's about time I started releasing everything that's been going on behind the scenes. Keep in mind that this is not a fully worked out system and we as a group are trying to eliminate and make clearer the flaws through discussion. It may appear that some statements contradict one another, but that is intended since this system is ever changing through input of opinion.

Tranquil Claw:

So the core of many systems so far has been to find the best possible government there is. There is just one problem with this, the world constantly changes. The focus of my model is flexibility over practicality, since flexibility often leads to temporary practicality either way. The only way that such a model can be a utopia is by maintaining a balance of good and bad. Money in this system is secondary to a primary communist centered "resource" currency (more on that later). The social model could be described as a partially flooded house with people inside, on boats, and on the roof. The people on top represent the government, the people on the boats are the wealthy, and the people inside represent the common populace. The government acts as the voice for the people trapped inside, telling the wealthy how to help and where to find them. So the government is a branch of the common people aimed at keeping the wealthy happy but in check while encouraging them to outdo one another, causing growth almost by accident.

Lil Pip:

How does growth get promoted by having the wealthy try to help the poor/middle class and what is their motivation or incentive to do so?

The Down Trotten:

Also what does is wealth represented by. If money. What does the money represent? 

Tranquil Claw:

The wealthy will benefit directly from having more people on their land (which means more taxes to get) which stimulates competition to have the more attractive and better land in one's possession. Since most of the good land is taken and city states would be the norm, this will lead to improvement of the existing land through acquisition of effective and healthy methods, which are the universal way of appealing to the council (the ones both supporting and keeping governors in check) who are the ones capable of rating the local quality of life and who appeal to citizens of their like-minded "social groups" (that is another subject). Essentially the desire to be popular is used as motivation or incentive. 

Wealth is only measured in money if you are at the social status of a governor. It is essentially a form of trading cards in this society. Other than that you will have "universal contribution credit" which is like having a score based on how much you contribute to others and generally help out.

The Down Trotten:

Of course this could lead to conflict amongst the wealthy to acquire land through force and thus force local common people to have no choice but to stay on their land.

Tranquil Claw:

Very good point, do you see a way to give the wealthy something to accumulate without harming the people beneath them? Actually I just remembered something, the wealthy are supposed to cause problems as long as they do not affect the system as a whole. That actually helps progression and stimulates solution oriented thinking from the people as a whole.

Lil Pip:

Well truth be told I don't know what goes in in different governments. So we could simply look to the essentials of governments which are successful and in what way. Sweden heavily taxes the rich, and everyone has a higher quality of life and is happier and more educated. Whats makes them not Utopian? With higher education comes less violent crime. More fraud, but if there's a proper government system in place no one should end up homeless from fraud, so the cheater feels like he won, and doesn't need to cheat exponentially more. And the inconvenienced person is only temporarily inconvenienced, its like 1st world problems.

Tranquil Claw:

By the way I was looking for flaws in the Swedish government and found that they are mostly having a hard time remaining unified. Basically they are splitting up into smaller and smaller political groups which have a harder time remaining coordinated.

The Down Trotten:

But you do still have the problem of wealth. In order for some one to have more of something, someone has to have less. The person with less is normally unhappy, complains and leads to revolt. The common idea is to heavily tax the wealthy to make it "fair" however too many taxes leads to the wealthy being unhappy. It's not the loss of wealth that causes this unhappiness but it is the idea of being penalized for often times there hard earned success. Whats the point of working hard and doing well if someone is just going to take it away? 

Tranquil Claw:

I have an idea for taxes. So I mentioned this "universal contribution credit", this is where it comes into play. Universal Contribution Credit or "UCC" for short, is a communism inspired idea for personal monetary gain. It works like this; You make a monthly/weekly contribution directly to the community goals/resources which is your tax. If this is done then you are free to pursue your interests and make UCC off of documentation of success in your interests. This, then allows you to withdraw resources from stockpiles that you helped fill during your tax payments based on how actively your pursuit of interests was. This supports the rise of automation commonly found in 1st world countries. 

The Down Trotten:

What about people who can't contribute? The elderly? The infirm? And so on? How do they acquire the needs to live and how do they contribute to earn their UCC?

Tranquil Claw:

Part of the weekly/monthly contributions to the community is supporting those who have no ability to contribute. The current day economy seems to struggle only slightly with these burdens. I don't see many significant problems stemming from it. The simple answer to this is a minimum and maximum work age that is agreed upon by the local council of representatives and the governor.

The Down Trotten:

So who controls the goods and wealth that are given to people after they fulfill there UCC? If its the government whats stopping that from become corrupt? If the government controls the output of these things whats stopping them from overworking people and holding food over there heads? 

Tranquil Claw:

The government does not stockpile things for itself, that is no longer it's job. The local council and governor are the ones in charge of resource safekeeping and usage. Only after personal needs are met can the government withdraw resources for their own personal use, however that is another more complicated subject.

The Down Trotten:

The point I suppose I'm getting at is that power corrupts. So the question is who has the power? And more over what is the moral foundation of this government if there is indeed one.

Lil Pip:

I suppose it makes sense the greedy ought to stockpile stuff but the thing is they won't hand it up so easily then they would hide it to avoid warrants or move out of country.

Tranquil Claw:

The power is supposed to fluctuate between the people and the governors. The basic moral of this government is to accept and incorporate change whenever possible. Innovation from agreement among the people and order derived from competition among the ruling class. It may seem very impossible at first, but look at the effect someone holding power over others has in America alone. Many people are actually very suppressed by this structure. So if we introduced the same method on a smaller and more spread out scale a sense of power through community emerges as it requires much fewer to decide and work together on improvements and fixes to otherwise overwhelming problems. I decided on city states because of their relative internal stability from correct sizing. One problem with city states are the external pressures applied to them. This can easily overload their traditions and cause systematic malfunctions. This is where media comes into play.

Media will be the main external stabilizer for city states in that it controls how one views another. As long as media is in the hands of responsibly chosen people, there should be relatively few collapses from external reasons. How to filter out these kinds of people from others is the job of a system of natural selection modified for this purpose. That is for another time though and is currently very loosely defined. 

For your question Lil I will give the following answer. In that case I would provide a legal way for them to do just that. People with greedy personalities have a tendency to like gambling, so why not tell them that having positive effects on the community will earn them promised UCC proportionate to those contributions while creating problems reduces it in the same way. In retirement from office these accumulated UCC will then pretty much be cashed in. By the way I don't think anyone would be running off with raw resources when committing such an act wouldn't really benefit them greatly. They would still have to have the support required to turn these materials into usable things.

The goal is to make it so that the people who are in possession of these materials are unable to use them for themselves, but can shift them around and allocate them to where they are needed or not needed.

Lil Pip:

'Responsibly chosen people'

You cannot trust they will be responsibly chosen to be technical. If its voting in people can be bribed, or if its a massive poll they can be tampered with. Or they could be bribed after getting in. We need to see where the plan is weakest to test how strong it is.

Tranquil Claw:

'System of natural selection' is neither of the things you mentioned. Think of it like a test to eliminate until only the strongest are left. Yes it appears you have identified the "weak link" in my system. That is who manages the media. The sad fact is we need to somehow balance the power of the media with everything else, an extremely difficult task. I feel the first step to doing this is bringing out what "everything else" is into the light.

The Down Trotten:

If I may throw my two cents in here. The major problem with any system is the people themselves, there is always the Stalions, the Hitlers, the Rockefellers. No system can prepare for the unpredictability of humans and humans be they base or righteous will always mess up the system. No amount of checks and balances or government regulations can fix the human nature. So I suppose I should ask what is the goal of your utopia? What does it seek to accomplish for its people or itself?

Tranquil Claw:

I want this utopia to focus on providing a stable route for people of the "negative" type that satisfies their needs without toppling the system. One way to accomplish this is to increase what I call the "grey zone" between black and white. It doesn't focus on maintaining perfect balance but instead must make sure that any imbalance will bound back from whichever area it flows into. If you were to exclude the badly oriented from society, you end up with an ever more flawed future simply because of a lack of flaws. I could describe this as a create, destroy, mend method. It is in this formula that Hitler tested the claim to "the war to end all wars" by creating one just as bad to make sure that humanity learned it's lesson and for a long time. No significant wars have stemmed from greed for land since. It is exactly the people you describe who change the way we think in order to improve ourselves in a different way. 

In other words the end goal is to create a stable template that will replace nature's own. The goal of this test system in particular is to appeal to human nature and amplify it's ability. Why I think something like this will work is because human nature by default is more progressive than regressive. Human nature is particularly progressive in the sense that it uses both the process of elimination and the process of creation simultaneously to create a cycle of improvement. What this system will accomplish I cannot predict yet. Both nature and previous governments have shown that limiting one part of humanity only plugs the hole. Eventually pressure builds up and the cork, no matter how strong, pops out.

Lil Pip:

Like the media, what if each region wanted their own instead of accepting bribes? Then they would all just copycat the current strongest method.  If we give the competers more interconnectivity it would prevent them from trying to take the others down through media to give themselves an advantage. Also because they are competitive they actually have more incentive to look for advantage than a system that is neutral in that regard.

But what if the cork that pops out had a pressure release valve to let off built up steam. Hm.

I see why communism tries to make everyone seemingly equal, and fears other media use so they need to have that government controlled. 

But I don't think taxing the rich is too bad an idea. Like in America our richest 1% own 90%, thats probably more extreme than other countries, and what if we just allowed that but got more taxes to patch all the holes with the system? I suppose the richest guys could try to move out of the usa, but the usa is a consumer nation. Oh right, our country isn't isolated either we need to see what its world 'job' is. Like usa is to consume and stabilize other countries and be the peacekeeper in a way. Like which countries are we trying to fix, all of them or just the problem countries? The plan would need to be enacted different based on country, but its possible to add country jobs. Like exporting goods. It really depends on alot of world knowledge I feel, not just national knowledges.

(btw this message is 11090 characters long)

@Lil Pip

Yes I can confirm that you are that ship. Anyways right now I am feeling ashamed, curious, sad, evil, zoned out, speculative, neurotic, tired, and conflicting.

Thank you for accepting Lil Pip. All you need is a character that fits in with the theme and you're set.

I'm feeling used to the point of breakage, stretched to the far corners of the world. I feel like I am dying on the inside and there is no hope. I am desperate for a reason unknown to me. Lost on a voyage through the Atlantic, lost in space. I feel in need of something to hold on to, some shred of sanity in this cruel and uninviting world. And there it is, a beacon of light along this never ending abyss, I see something ahead, it grows brighter, wait, it's another ship. As I get closer this ship becomes more detailed. I realize it looks just like mine. It is like a mirror of my own at an hour of need, company to the dark times ahead, but what is this? I see the second half of the compass broken long ago intact in the hands of another. With some work, maybe it will lead me to the shores I so desire.

     That is a very descriptive representation of my feelings right now. 

I actually predicted those exact cutie marks ever since the CMC episode with Trouble Shoes. I imagined their cutie marks as shields with some way of presenting their unique talents. Can't believe how much I nailed it.

Me and a friend were sitting next to each other in technology class while having a conversation.

Friend: "At least we don't have any bronies here."

Me: "I'm a brony."

Friend then proceeds to face plant into his keyboard.

I love being a brony. 

Sir, you are more than qualified to do whatever the heck you want in this role play. I really want you to challenge my ideals to better them. This'll make for some good chemistry. The actual purpose for this RP is testing my utopian theory against as many opinions as possible. Jump in whenever you feel ready to, the current time of day at the first post is morning if you haven't already noticed.   

Perpetual Motion machines cannot exist because energy is always lost as heat and friction so unless you can make the whole thing out of a heat-proof and friction-proof materials, such a thing cannot exist.

 

No machine is 100% efficient. Not even an electric heater as even that loses some energy as light from heating the coils

Magnetic fields retain their energy as long as the object emitting them retains it's shape. These fields are indeed heat and friction proof, however the materials tied to them are not. So it is possible to have continuous motion using magnetism as long as there is an external force acting on it. In the case of both engines I showed there is such a force. The first is mechanical/electric and the second just works for some baffling reason. The fridge is obviously leaking energy, it just harnesses the lost energy and uses it. Of course a tiny amount cannot be recaptured, that is the way things are.

Black hole? I think that would fit nicely.