EzraNaamah

Elon Musk gave a tasteless Nazi-style salute at the inauguration of Donald Trump. I cannot say that I am surprised, but the technocracy movement must denounce this behavior regardless. We may live in a society where this behavior is rewarded, but technocrats everywhere risk having him distort our movement, since his sympathizers may think Technocracy is something that supports his actions in any way.

For those unfamiliar, Elon Musk has a grandfather that was associated with Technocracy for a time in Canada, but that did not uphold the true ideals of Howard Scott and instead chose to propagate Anti-semitism and framed the rule of experts as a system that would support ideas on the extreme right. His grandfather moved to South Africa because he was a supporter of apartheid. He is also noted to have believed in various conspiracy theories. This kind of ideology and behavior falls extremely far from the principles of Technocracy, let alone any rational and vaguely left-wing ideology. Those associated with extreme right wing ideas are known to hijack or camouflage themselves behind other lesser known ideologies to hide their agendas.

Elon Musk and his grandfather would be considered traitors by the technocracy movement, the people of the United States and even the people of South Africa. Musk is also known to be a union buster and his personal wealth was created through exploitation and oppression of his employees. He is unfit to be in any government position or to guide human progress in any way.

Trigger Warning: If you are offended by discussion of religious ideas or atheism you may not want to read this. I had to explain a lot of things for this proposal to make sense, but my intention is not to proselytize for/against any religion or spiritual ideology. If this scares you, then consider it a work of fiction.

A good handful of modern leftists believe in the Soviet idea that good communists do not have a religion. It is also perceived that any ideology that explains the modern world in enough detail makes religion redundant or that the persistence of religion is an anomaly in a society where oppression and suffering is remedied sufficiently or does not exist. However, the Marxist idea of religion being the opium of the people does not necessarily explain all belief systems that people have.

God building is an idea that to understand why people believe in a religion is to look at it within its context or circumstances. For example, people living in a desert may worship a sun god because the heat and light has such a profound effect on their lives. Another example is how people in Japan may engage in rituals and ceremonies to preserve their culture even without an intentional faith or belief with the deities involved. Modern new age practices around manifesting money can be tied back to neoliberalism’s focus on the individual instead of the system, and can show how in a society where people have so little control over success in life they may actually be more able to endure their challenges when engaging in metaphysical thinking regardless of whether outsiders believe it has an effect or not. Even beliefs in major religions can be analyzed in a meta-religious context, such as the idea that all people need religion to be virtuous is a reflection of thinking people are naturally bad. This is not done to contradict people who engage in the practices, but rather to understand these ways of thinking and be able to make policies that are respectful to all members of the society and their belief systems while remaining unbiased and scientific.

The idea of whether deities exist or not, is entirely irrelevant to us for the purposes of Technocracy. As people of science and progress, we will make decisions based on data and science. Even if a prophet comes down from the sky or the world is visited by an ancient god, that changes nothing in regards to data-based decision making, energy accounting and the application of science to government. Regardless of whatever supernatural entity exists that humans do not yet understand, I will want what is best for humanity as determined by our secular principles. I am not anti-religion or pro-religion when it comes to politics, but religion exists completely outside of Technocracy. Our ideology is so unrelated to religion that even declaring it secular is a bit of a stretch.

There is talk of the president wanting to annex multiple foreign governments, and at the same time there is talk here within the Technocracy movement about appealing to the people of the country by Americanizing our movement and making flags with red, white, and blue colors on them. While this may work in increasing the number of people willing to identify as technocrats, this strategy has very recently led to ideological hijacking such as the patriotic socialist movement that tried to americanize socialist ideas, but instead devolved into an incomprehensible and mostly right-wing frankenstein movement once the patriots joined. While it can be a valid strategy to support nationalism in some countries to increase appeal of an ideology, there are some characteristics about the nation-state of America that make it incompatible with left-wing ideas at its core.

The first thing any decent leftist group will tell you about the United States is that it is a settler-colonial nation. This means that when White colonists came from Europe, they violently displaced the original population of this continent and engaged in genocidal policies to limit the well-being and population growth of any person who was not white. They had an idea similar to what Nazi Germany had with Poland, that over time they would breed out or exterminate any ethnic group in the country who was not their own, and eventually be able to claim the entire landmass for their group. I’m not saying this to cause discomfort to any person, but I think it is important to be aware that American national identity was always defined by this history, and even minorities in this country have a lot of culture based on resisting this and we even see the spirit of settler-colonialism reflected in modern day gentrification of black communities and the theft of Native American land which continues to happen to this day. Many portrayals of the early US are romanticized or heavily biased because only White citizens would have been able to leave official accounts or even been allowed to be literate. Many citizens of this country read about these events in history books but the significance of them is downplayed or a cognitive dissonance develops causing them to not fully realize what it means to the society they live in.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that technocrats take on an anti-american stance either because that would be alienating to most people. However, keep in mind that this country had its entire military declare on oath to defend its constitution from both foreign and domestic threats, which could very easily be technocrats one day. We are advocates for a futuristic and more progressive government system than the world has seen yet, and giving technocracy an American aesthetic is comparable to revolutionaries against a monarchy wearing crowns and sitting on thrones. I believe that the people who choose to follow us will do so because they realize that the old ways do not work, and want to try something new.

In the US. they cannot get enough people to use public transport to make it profitable, so it does not happen and the process is self-reinforcing as the lack of quality public transport. However, I am imagining that placing social housing units in transport hubs like subways, bus stations, train stations, or maybe even airports would encourage people to use other forms of transport besides cars, and also help the economically disadvantaged people to access the forms of transport literally outside their front doorstep. The ideal layout I imagine is large hexagonal food courts with passages to subways or whatever transport is present in the area, or exits to the surface.

At first I thought subways should have entrances at the top and trains at the bottom with housing in multiple floors in-between, but I realize now that is likely to cause inconvenience for those trying to use the subway without living there. The subway should have a hexagonal food court or hub with shops and services, and the social housing should be on floors above it with balconies looking down and some kind of glass ceiling at the top to allow sunlight in, maybe with some kind of greenery or art in the center at the bottom level.

Crime may be an issue, but police are typically located in these areas. However, police brutality or community mistrust of law enforcement can also negatively impact satisfaction of those living in transport hubs, who may feel they are always being watched. The large amount of people and witnesses that can see the subway from their units is likely to discourage more serious crime, but property crime and vandalism would probably happen often just like in other high-traffic places. The large amount of traffic through the hub where people are living may also negatively affect their satisfaction there, but it would be similar to a big city and they would normally be above all of the higher traffic areas which makes this issue less severe. People who are not used to city environments may be intimidated or less comfortable in a housing project like this, but it would be better for the planet, public transport, and it can help the issue of homelessness. This ideas also assumes construction of a new subway or transit facility designed for living, not the currently existing ones.

The Technate should of course be democratic, but I think we need to think about ways to exercise democracy and what systems are best suited to meet the needs and desires of the people. Democracy in these times is synonymous with electoral systems and western-style governments, despite in reality these systems being unfair, harmful to minority groups who have less population to vote in their interests, or in many cases outright corrupt with lobbying of politicians being completely legal in The United States. Elections and electoral systems have become completely divorced from any traditional sense of democracy and are used to exercise plutocracy. The fact that lobbyists need to exist for issues such as gay marriage or trans rights is especially dystopian, because it means vulnerable people realize they live in a plutocratic system but then decide the best course of action is to raise more money than their political opposition just so they can have civil rights.

Many people recoil when I say that I am not fond of voting. They think that in a society without voting or some other form of participation in government, they would be politically helpless and subsequently treated badly or have no recourse against tyranny. I perceive that to already be the reality for most people in the current society we live in. Even if the majority of people support something, lines are drawn for districts to suit the results the elites of society need to get their legislation passed. If that fails, they just outright change the rules of the elections. Here in Florida, a law was passed that changed the necessary majority for votes from 50% to 60%, most likely to stop the citizens of the state from passing certain legislation as law.

Besides these obvious political schemes, there are also issues that never have elections to allow input from the citizenry and are decided by political representatives with no input from the society. These are issues such as international policies such as support of the US government towards Israel or even wars, such as its invasions of Vietnam or Libya. People have even been arrested for protesting these issues and the media tends to fall in line with whatever the regime needs the people to believe, with protesters being suppressed violently. Imperialism is a huge red flag for any society that considers itself democratic, because it complicates the narrative they are attempting to create about their society being more advanced or progressive than others that do not cause death and destruction abroad, sometimes even despite being oppressive dictatorships themselves.

While I am very disappointed in the results of the systems that exist in the western world and continually fail to stop oppression, poverty, and imperialism, I am not advocating a Singaporean-style approach where the will of the people is simply suppressed and brute force is used to keep technocracy in power. People should participate in government, but they need to understand certain things about how the government works, the ideologies behind current systems, and the reasoning behind various laws. In the western world where people are spoon fed politically biased information and then sent to vote are set up to screw themselves. However, political parties are not their allies in this system, which brings me to my next point.

In a technocracy or a society where the economy does not create conflicting economic interests, there will be a lack of conflicting political interests as well, allowing society to be more cohesive and progressive that can function logically. The reason for different parties and political ideologies goes back to the economic system, and that is why communist societies consistently produce better results for their citizens’ well being and quality of life despite being one-party systems and being perceived as corrupt dictatorships by those in the west, who believe that multi-party democracies are ideal. This means that if we want to create a democracy, we need to think about the reasons that people have different ideological goals and preferences and adjust the system according to it, and remove any possibilities of an upper social class hijacking the system as they have in the US. In the absence of economic interests, many hate groups or kakistocracy groups such as flat-earthers would most likely disappear, since the masses would get education, psychiatric care, and there would not be a sense of competition that the ruling class creates to make us more productive workers for their interests.

You may be asking what the party for working class people is in the United States, but there exists none because that would be the communist party, and anyone who tries that ends up as a political prisoner. The best you see in the US are center-right parties that act in the interests of the middle class. The further right party in the US benefits the elites of society, but a lack of education and religious and nationalistic appeal is used to make this party palatable to the more conservative minded population of the society. It may seem the US system was once a genuine attempt to be democratic at one point and then corrupted, but the reality is that the entire system was rigged by the people who created it, and only included non-landowning white men when not doing so would cause the entire system to collapse in a violent revolution. Every citizen may need to be entitled a right to vote to stop a large revolution, but that is exactly why the ruling class is so subtle with the ways that it manipulates and distorts the desires of its citizens as well as how their votes affect the system. It is also why liberalism, despite appearing progressive on the surface, is so afraid to do anything that goes against the system, the economy, or the ruling class.

As a technocrat, please do not buy into the narrative that the United States was ever a model for democracy at any point in its long history of brutal violent oppression.

Society may not have reached the level of cultural and political development yet to achieve technocracy, but there exist many ideas now that reflect the ideals and spirit of technocracy even if they do not necessarily come from the technocracy movement.

The first one which is obvious to most people is to take the money out of politics. Even the liberals do not like money being the basis of politics. There are various propositions for this. Most want to end lobbying, others want to increase political education because they believe that will cause people to take actions that will prevent it from continuing. Even though they would kill someone for advocating against plutocracy or spreading political education in the United States, it remains possible and can be made easier through the internet. While a technate would take money out of politics in a different way, the removal of money from politics would allow society to progress and bring humanity closer to achieving technocracy without a ruling elite sabotaging their progress.

Participatory planning is a policy where every person provides an estimate of the products they will consume, so that production of them can be matched. While obviously this is never exact, this policy helps prevent waste and stops the excess production of resources such as food, clothing, or other amenities. It is efficient and pro-environment and would change the functioning of the economy to suit actual needs as opposed to excess production for profit leading to waste and invented scarcity.

Universal Basic Income is another idea that has gained attention, but struggles to become reality in some parts of the world. Some may even advocate giving more UBI to more productive citizens which defeats the purpose and is against the spirit of UBI. People struggle to think that every member of the population would get a certain amount of income just for their basic needs or whatever else. In the modern era where work is scarce and there is not a large amount of labor needed this will be a requirement. Even under Technocracy, it will be difficult to find outlets for all of the human labor that society can produce as well as with the technology that will make it more efficient. This would also allow the population to explore other ways of contributing to society that they can appreciate or to cope with disability if they suffer from it. It’s not energy accounting but it seems to be the closest that a non-socialist economy can get to it.

15-minute cities are cities where every amenity or necessary shop can be accessed within 15 minutes of walking. Infrastructure designed around cars exclusively is harmful both to the environment, those who cannot afford cars and those who cannot drive cars for whatever reason. Cities tend to naturally develop in walkable ways, and the idea of exclusively car-dependent cities is unique to the west. Car-exclusive infrastructure is also used by authoritarian regimes to make it more difficult for people to gather and protest against them, or to segregate neighborhoods so that only those who can afford cars can enter them. I could go on, but in summary a technocracy naturally strives for eco-friendly and human-friendly ways of public transport or walkability. This is basically a less radical restructuring of cities than turning them into urbanates.

So while technocracy seems very far off, these ideas show that people want various kinds of changes in society that reflect technocratic ideas. If we can push for these ideas or use them as examples of how technocracy functions, we can show the power of science and data in policy making.

The black and white checkered flag associated with racing is an apolitical symbol, but technocrats should adopt it even if just as an alternative to the current one. We should keep our gray and persimmon historical flag, but in contexts where it is absent or there is no practical way to obtain a technocracy flag such as when buying them online, using flag emoji or with flag patches, a checkered flag could be a very useful substitute. It is already commonly used and it also follows one of the design principles behind the technocratic flag, which is that both colors share even amounts of space to represent equal amounts of production and consumption. The Monad symbol itself causes some confusion, but I believe it should still be kept.

Of course if we’re displaying a flag online or the internet where physical flags are not needed we could make the colors gray and persimmon to stay consistent with party colors, but until the technocracy movement is popular enough to have flags widely available this can be used as a symbol of the movement. If it’s too ambiguous we can also modify the checkered flag in some way such as painting red, black or gray stripes on it at the base, or other simple modifications to it that allow it to be accessed by technocrats. I find the checkered flag to be very aesthetically pleasing personally but other ideas are welcome.

Pacifism is great, but as technocrats we most likely believe in energy accounting or other kinds of economic ideas that are incompatible with capitalism. This would make us all targets for surveillance and even assassination assuming you live in the United States. Martin Luther King was a pacifist, de did manage to change society, but he died as a martyr. and government documents exist suggesting he was psychologically tormented by the CIA until his death, even with letters being sent to his house encouraging him to commit suicide.

We are people that look at data and make decisions with logic free from influence of other systems, so from this point of view I’m sure some of you noticed how society works against any person that threatens the social order that exists. We are encouraged to be pacifists in a country overrun by gun violence and police brutality. When people defend themselves, suddenly there is a rush of sympathy for the oppressor. “They have a family” but so do the oppressed. “They are wrong for using violence” but the oppressor can do it with impunity. “They could have voted or protested peacefully” but the elections are rigged and peaceful protests get brutalized by the police. What am I supposed to think? I believe pacifism has its validity in certain situations, but the regime has turned it into a default mode of thinking to make dissent less of a threat to the system. If we truly want a technocracy or even a change to the system, will it just happen one day while we are all sleeping, with a peaceful transition out of a system that has been maintained through violence and colonialism for hundreds of years?

To be clear I am not telling you to commit violence or encourage people to commit violence, but when an oppressor in society is the victim of violence, sympathizing with them is egregious. If we do not disqualify people from sympathy due to being oppressors then by that logic we can literally argue sympathy for slave owners who were killed in revolts, or war criminals who suffer from harsh consequences in trials. If you think about what people are actually saying when they express sympathy for those kinds of people, it’s not a good look. If any leftist political movement starts taking positions like this, they are contradicting themselves ideologically, assuming they believe what they say they do. Sympathy is great and it is our natural human response, but manipulation through empathy is a tool used by various abusers. It’s why victims of various crimes by various organizations are so difficult to help. Politics is just like our personal lives, there are times to be sympathetic and there are times to be cold and calculating.

The better thing to do is to be honest and say that you are personally uncomfortable with violence. There is nothing wrong with you opposing violence itself, but some reactions that come from discomfort to violence can be disrespectful to the people defending themselves and supporting one side. An example is during Israeli-Palestinian conflicts where less informed commentators condemn the violence “On both sides” which condemns Palestinian self-defense. The recent shooting of a healthcare CEO is another example where the working class people of a country were being oppressed by an organization, one of its high ranking members was killed, and now there is no sympathy. Sympathy for the man almost feels ridiculous considering how many people suffered, were unable to receive medical care, or died due to his company keeping the money that would have been used to care for them. Having sympathy for this person almost feels like a dismissal of all the harm they have done. If we start going down the path of giving eulogies to people like this, the technocracy movement will die out fast.