Self Governance is a great idea...and among like minded people, it's realistic on a small scale, I suppose. Occupy Camps are/were a modern version of it...and communes are/were another. It takes work though. Self-Governance isn't for lazy people, as odd as it sounds..but the alternative is having others do the work for you. That means a government..and I agree, isn't it staggering how quickly it reverts back to that when people realize the fun is over and work sucks..they want to return to normal life.

First, the oligarchs need to put down their guns. You cant voluntarily participate in a thing when there's a gun pressed to head encouraging your participation.

Second, we need to trust our neighbors. Too many people seem to believe that without that gun pressed to everyones head their next-door neighbor would turn into a flesh-eating child rapist over night.

Third, we need to stop pussy-footing around the ones who are in fact flesh-eating child rapists. Exile or termination.

Once these fear hurdles are jumped voluntary cooperation with trust can begin.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Self-Governance isn't for lazy people, as odd as it sounds..but the alternative is having others do the work for you. That means a government..and I agree, isn't it staggering how quickly it reverts back to that when people realize the fun is over and work sucks..they want to return to normal life.

I agree, self-governance isn't for lazy people. I see involuntary governance like we have today as lazy, as people are willing to live with everything on a plate for them, such as healthcare (in Britain anyway) and benefits. Could you picture today's society having to actually do some work, such as their own farming and building

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
First, the oligarchs need to put down their guns. You cant voluntarily participate in a thing when there's a gun pressed to head encouraging your participation.

I agree, but the question again, how do we get them to do that? If we went near them, then the guns we're talking about would be fired at US

Political correctness could surely be easily sacrificed if EVERYONE is getting the fair share of everything, with free energy, and total freedom?

Start with your neighbourhood, the only way something grassroots can be implemented is from the grassroots. Working examples need to be evidently better than the system they are trying to replace for more people to wanna adopt it.

Start neighbourhood co-ops - things like everyone growing vegetables in the backyards, those who are unwilling or unable to do so themselves, giving permission for others to work their land. If a whole street did this, most of a streets fruit and vegetables could be grown locally and for free (or very cheaply) - the income liberated from this could then be directed to buying solar panels in bulk for example.

And when the streets surrounding the co-op street begin to notice the transformation they too may wish to adopt it.

The only way any of the changes that need to take place will actually happen is by leading examples.

But direct democracy for the most part is only good on a local/communal level - once it starts getting larger in scale problems arise. Experts are needed in the 21st century to make decisions on specific areas, not everyone is capable of understanding every thing.