Umair: I’ve been following you for a year. I would say that you are one of many Medium writers accepting of the catastrophe/collapse if not looking forward to it.
Other than platitudes, I really haven’t seen you offer much in the way of a practical solution.
Well actually you have, I’ve read your Eudonomics articles and found them to be useful. But you are not teaching your readers much about eudonomics much in your daily rants. What gives?
I have a solution. We have to build a new democracy.
Well this democracy won’t be built by current politicians, aspiring politicians, the wealthy elite, the media, political pundits, the celebrities, the majority, or even a significant minority. All the previous mentioned have absolutely no clue what is wrong, so they have no solution that will work.
Rather this new democracy will be built by the 1% of average citizens who recognize the system is broken and it cannot fix itself. These citizens are willing to put about 10 hours a month into this project.
I’ve been working on this concept for 23 years, which is longer than Umair has been ranting. Every few years, I come up with a different way of presenting this “new democracy” concept to the world, put it out there, and see what happens.
So here, Umair readers, is my new approach.
I have written a novel about the early TDG Builders. The main character is Len Pash. Len was quite happy with his factory job, earning a lower-middle class salary, raising his family, and enjoying his recreation. He had plans of staying with that company until he retired. But the factory shut down. Spending 14 years at the factory, Len doesn’t have a lot of great job experience to do other work. He is worried about his future.
Then one of his neighbors, Rich Riddell barges into Len’s house, really excited. Rich, who also lost his job at the same factory, used to be an insider for the Republican Party at the local level. He no longer believes the Republicans have the working man in their interests. Rich is excited because he has found a new democracy (invented by some guy in Canada) and he wants to start building it.
Len is not so sure. But he has lots of free time. So he takes in a few of Rich’s meetings — and starts seeing how this new way will work. Len, with his unassuming manner, becomes an influential member of this new movement.
One of the more important points of this novel is that it shows how people of differing opinions can learn how to work together.
So Umair readers, are you interested in this kind of story?
I really don’t want Umair’s dystopic world to happen. And I don’t think Umair and Umair readers want this world either. But many of us have been inculcated into believing that western democracy is the highest form of governance humanity can ever attain. It’s time for a new way.
If we don’t start working on this new way, Umair’s predictions may indeed come true.
