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Humanity is in the early stages of the most significant evolution in its history: learning to think as a species.
This is the linking of human minds, values, information and solutions at lightspeed and in real time around the planet, via the internet and social media, says science writer Julian Cribb.
Global thought is opening the way to solve some of humanity's greatest threats – including climate change, famine, global poisoning, weapons of mass destruction, environmental collapse, resource scarcity and overpopulation, says Mr Cribb, who is the author of 'Surviving the 21st Century' (Springer 2017), a new book describing the ten mega-threats and what can be done about them.
"Thanks to the internet and social media, people are for the first time communicating across the barriers of language, race, nationality, religion, region and gender. While the internet contains much rubbish and malignance, it also contains huge amounts of goodwill, trustworthy science-based advice, practical solutions to problems – and people joining hands in good causes."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:35AM
IMHO, democracy (as conceived in the modern time, entirely different in Greek polis, some people go as far as saying the election method was randomized to avoid cronyism) gave equal vote to everybody so that the easily bought very poor could mess with the difficult to control "i have enough money to get by thanks" crowd. Democracy as the "best system money can buy", not as a joke but as a design goal. The revolution was about the industrial society getting rid of obstacles, not masses rising. After it has done the destruction, in fact, it is being retired.
You seem to skip very lightly over "money for support" aspect. While it is true that wealthy are buying support from the poor, the poor are getting something in exchange, and furthermore, there is a competition among various factions of the rich, driving the price of popular support up. Revolution was no different: the masses got something, the rich commoners got much more, gentry and class barriers were mostly removed, but the pattern is the same: the masses were bought with something. The masses could bargain for an even better deals, if they could organize without their leadership defecting to the other side (which routinely and even systematically happens). The society naturally forms a pyramid of the steepness equal to amount of humans one human can control. Retirement you are talking about is actually a balance between push for change (revision, or even just restoration of the original deal) and an active resistance by the beneficiaries of the deal in its present (d)evolved form. "Nice ... not as bad as it could become life you have in this here system. It would be a shame if it would break down and go to waste."
So, the future is gloom for the masses and their position will be going only to worse, unless there 'd be another new social power looming on horizon, offering a better deal in exchange for their support. Machiavellian A.I. , perhaps?