The Information Rule
Treat individuals as they are, not as you are, and to do that takes individual information.
Love is defined as universal love and respect for everyone defined as practicing the information rule. New Democracy is founded on this universal love and the intended audience are people who practice universal love.
Welcome!
Captain Malcolm Reynolds: You know what the first rule of fight club is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I’m about to say.
River Tam: I do. But I like to hear you say it.
Captain Malcolm Reynolds: Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought’a fall down. Tells you she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keels. Makes her a home.
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Okay, I changed that first part of the Captain’s dialog from flying to fight club. I’m going to try and keep this book light and breezy.
New Democracy is a boat. The first rule of New Democracy is love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a social plan into the world that you don’t love and she’ll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the waltz.
New Democracy is a love for me. I’ve been working on it since I was a kid. Of course back then I was just making observations about social failures and inventing solutions. It took over a decade before I considered turning those inventions into a coherent plan.
Another one of my favorite lines from the 2005 movie Serenity:
“We’re all just folk now.”
We are one people, one Earth. I love people. I see everyone as my brother and sister, my fellow traveler.
If anyone is interested in New Democracy then these first two rules are mandatory: the first rule is love and second rule is being one people. Welcome to New Democracy where we are going to talk about a love plan and how to implement this plan of being one people.
Let’s talk about love in this context. How do you love eight billion people? Well, one thing is for sure, we are not talking about having good feelings about eight billion people. So what is love for billions? It is a commitment to treating everyone with respect.
The Golden Rule:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
There are no exclusions to the golden rule. There are no terms and conditions that apply. The universal application of the golden rule is how our love for billions takes place.
The golden rule is one of projection though, assigning our wants and desires on others so philosophers have updated this to the platinum rule.
The Platinum Rule
Treat others as they wish to be treated.
I find the Platinum Rule to be a little dodgy though. How people interpret “they wish” can be easily construed as the golden rule if you consider yourself part of “they”. Also, the “they” can lazily be construed as dodgy stereotypes and not person specific. This is why I made the information rule.
The Information Rule
Treat individuals as they are, not as you are, and to do that takes individual information.
So the information rule is how we love billions of people. We demand respect for all people and everyone to be treated as individuals. Love. This is an intellectual practice and not based on emotional feelings about all people.
Besides the information rule, another universal love is to acknowledge that we are all minorities in some setting. For example, I’m six-feet tall. I do not fit in commercial airline, cattle car seats. Should I sue airlines for discrimination? The founders of the U.S. debated this question. In Federalist Paper no. 10, Madison argues that to discriminate against minorities is to discriminate against ourselves eventually. This argument was used to argue against direct democracy of popular, majority vote.
Acknowledging we are minorities in some setting is another way to love everyone as individuals. We need to acknowledge that with any social plan there comes a time where our losses have to be cut resulting in minorities being oppressed. However, we should forever diligently work towards minimizing the oppression of minorities. As a six-feet tall person I’m not suing the airlines for discrimination because the cost is too high to society.
Love then is the information rule of treating people as individuals and also understanding that we are all minorities in some way and that with limited resources minorities will always be oppressed.
A third way to love everyone is to acknowledge that we can’t solve a problem that we choose to ignore. Ignoring problems is a fundamental problem with the concept of justice. Punishing violent criminals does not reduce violent criminal behavior. Instead putting violent criminals in prison just a.) amplifies criminal behavior by hardening criminals in an environment of concentrated criminal violence and b.) ignores any new possibilities for managing criminality.
In New Democracy we don’t throw people in prison with other violent people and make them victims of violence. That’s unethical on the face of it. The social plan is to manage all human behavior, good and bad.
I’ve just described three ways in which we can love everyone.
- The information rule
- We are all minorities in some setting
- Ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away
These are all intellectual exercises. These are all about mutual respect because we want mutual respect ourselves. This is love. Love is desire. As New Democracy people we desire a world where “we’re all just be folk now”. We want a classless society.
New Democracy then is about loving everyone in this intellectual way. We will all personally fall short, and some people will completely fail. That’s life. However, New Democracy is a commitment that we try to do the best that we can to love everyone.
Love you all!
