Nightrunner rides again

So it occurs to me, as I am jogging back to my flat from Batchwood to keep warm, that there is far to little personal and social responsibility in this world. The amount of trash I came across during my jog and elsewhere a prime example.

As far as I can recall, this world works on the principle of you do your part, I will do mine, and the rest will sort itself out. Kinda like Starship Troopers. I'm doing my part, are you? In fact, this is one of the foundations of society. We all come out better off if we work together. Therefore we give up some of our freedoms (e.g taking what you want by force, killing, speeding, basically the things there are laws against) so that the group as a whole benefits. This idea is all well and good, but what I have found in my travels are that people are by nature selfish and, well stupid really. Of course you could say this is just genetics, the organism is driven to reproduce so it only focuses on itself. But that argument can only account for so much.

The way I see forward of this, and it is a solution many I know agree with, some do not, is one of universal national service (or global, depends on how ambitious we are being), a centralised and compact leadership group, intensive surveillance, and full transparency throughout. I know what you are saying now. You cant do that, thats facism, communism, a police state, everything we fought against in the past. But thats the thing, in the past, these ideas were driven by corrupt dictators who wanted control. Put into place properly, my idea is a form of socialism. Everyone is a part of the system, from leadership down to the unemployed (who now work for their country). So everyone is doing their part (obviously bar those who are incapable of any form of work at all), everyone reaps the benefits. With everyone earning, people will still be spending, which would get rid of this recession business.

more to follow