Bofferbrauer2 said:
Jumpin said:
As a representative of the extreme left. There are a few things that we do want.
1. Liberty for everyone.
2. Peace.
3. Fair business ownership - if you work for a business, you should have a share in its ownership, rather than a bunch of corrupt stock traders.
4. Technological advancement.
5. An end to authoritarian regimes - both in government bureaucracies, and corporate bureaucracies.
6. Sustainability - both environmentally and financially (which ties into the energy sector and eliminating many of the inefficiencies).
7. An end to overreaching government powers where they are unnecessary and undemocratic - eliminate things like "executive orders" and government-mandated minimum wages.
8. A sustained effort to end the crisis of climate change and corporate abuse of third world nations.
9. An end to government and corporate corruption: take the money out of politics, an end to anti-scientific lobbying (like climate change denial, sales of weapons to warlike theocracies such as Saudi Arabia), right down to advertising dangerous foods that clueless people gorge on, and haven't an idea as to why their bodies are ruined, and no one wants to fuck them.
10. A sustained effort to liberate people in nations like Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, African countries by peaceful supportive means. Democracy always works better than violent revolts (which almost always end up badly).
11. An expansion of our civilization beyond the scope of our planet - we are already prodding the final frontier, but by 200 years from now, it would be an accomplishment if we had secure, permanent, self-reliant extra-terrestrial colonies capable of growth.
Eventually, we would like to see technological levels to a point where nature can thrive on earth alongside large-sized human populations (whether we're mainly here, perhaps in arcologies, or elsewhere - and expanding nature in other regions of the solar system, or beyond). Global technological levels are at a point where food production, construction, and and clothing production are largely automated. A post-scarcity society where the sum of humanity has shifted focus from survival to prosperity; many in the Western world are already there. Where people are provided with ample opportunity to explore the greatest potential of their abilities; again, many well-off people are already doing today, Youtube and the Patreon platform is a good example of a platform that supports this sort of thing, but mainly, I am looking at the next level - where society will be in 50 or 500 years rather than 5 years. Ultimately, scientific technology leading to longevity treatments would be interesting - allow people to live as long as they wish.
I am against the right and conservatism in general. If the conservatives had their way, the progressive golden ages of civilizations would have never occurred, the rennaissance and modern era would never have occurred, and humanity would mainly still be living in theocracies and authoritarian monarchies with relatively terrible living conditions.Any peep of science and new technology would be considered "fake news" as much of the right classify it today (and historically), and chances are likely most people in these forums (were they born into such a world) would spend their life toiling in a field or quarry, losing fingers and toes, and dead of pneumonia, typhus, or consumption before the age of 28.
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As a adherent of the party of the left in Luxembourg with connections to the leftist parties (all 3 of them, pretty easy in Luxembourg due to the small territory), I concur to all those points, and the last one is even part of the future vision for Luxembourg (currently with space mining, but no doubt with the intention to grow past that point at a later date).
As a historian however, I can't agree with the last part as most of it is false cause. Theocracies as they are known today are newer than you'd think. Historically, there has been only one in Europe: The Vatican. And even then their anti-tech and anti-science stance is also pretty new, that came mostly in the 19th and 20th century when people started to not believe in religions anymore due to tech disproving much of the concept.
For instance, Galileo didn't get into trouble with his heliocentric views (The catholic church was already shifting towards that stance as it had been increasingly obvious by that point), but because he argued that the bible had passages that could be considered geocentric and ordered the pope (who was supporting Galileo until that point) to change the texts, which is considered heresy. He backed out of it, only for years later, when he got support from the next Pope, he made an utter caricature of him as a dumb fool who argued in favor of geocentrism without listening to reason. Naturally, the Pope was furious about that, and considering what Galileo did before, considered him an unsalvageable heretic. Alienating the scientists who came ho his aid (Schreiner by stealing his work and declaring himself the discoverer of the Sunspot, right down to plagiarizing his entire work, and Grassi because Galilei insisted his observations on comets were wrong (they were correct and Galilei was wrong) naturally didn't help matters, and so got put under house arrest - in a mansion and with a manservant to boot, so not exactly all that bad. Oh, and he never got tortured, though he did got threatened to (which was common practice back then. In fact, any secular court would have tortured him).
At the time of the Spanish inquisition many cursed just to get under their jurisdiction, as they were the most progressive court in all of Europe back then, and the only one who considered anybody innocent until proven wrong and forced the accused to prove the misdeeds of the accused and not the other way around. One also couldn't just go to them and tell them "She's a witch", as that would have landed you into prison (since you just proved to them that you believe in witches, and thus the heresy of witchcraft), not the person you wanted to accuse. The Inquisition got it's bad reputation from Calvinists who wanted to show the Catholic church in a bad light. In fact, most of the worse misdeeds in Catholic countries and the catholic church in particular just boil down to Calvinists painting them in an extremely bad light.
While the Monarchies were Authoritarian in nature, they were very much in favor both of science and technology, some even on their deathbed (As an anecdote, Louis XVI. has for instance perfected the Guillotine while he was imprisoned and learned that he will get killed by it. But as a passionate engineer he immediately saw some flaws in the design and improved it with a straight blade weighted to one side instead of the ax-like curved blade it had until then.). They were constantly advancing technologies. There was no Dark Age, technology did move on faster during the medieval ages than during all of antiquity. What did change was it's Schwerpunkt: Rome was only able to afford all those monuments and bathhouses due to massive slave labor and because Rome itself wasn't threatened. But serfdom gave the former slaves a least some rights, and with feudalism there was some constant threat from the neighbors present. Hence why most early medieval technologies were more architectural and in context of weaponry, but the technology of the Romans wasn't lost - just rarely used as nobody could afford it anymore. Alchemists didn't get burned for new technologies, but because most of them called, like Galileo, to edit the Bible if they didn't outright called them liars. That, of course, if the Alchemists in question weren't charlatans (many tried to sell worthless things to the people under the guise of alchemic essences during the Renaissance). That at a time when the tensions between Catholics and Protestants were at their highest made both churches very twitchy. Alchemy is also much older as many think, having it's roots in the Roman Empire. One should also note that they din't just research technology, but also Philosophy and Mysticism.
Also, on a more general note, how could the church be anti-knowledge when the clerics were the teachers in every western country until the early 20th century? There were parts they didn't back at first, but in general they were never against new knowledge. Monasteries were copying all kinds of books for centuries until the invention of the book press became widespread. I am not religious at all, but credit where credit is due, please.
Besides, you write the Renaissance wouldn't have occurred. Do you even know why it's called the Renaissance? It's because the dominance of the heavy cavalry was broken and the infantry saw it's rebirth (or renaissance) as the mainstray of military tactics. It has nothing to do with enlightenment or any other such movements.
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