🧵 a sketch of a political platform for my ideal party, which doesn't remotely exist in Canada. (inspired by reading @HFreinacht's excellent 2nd book The Nordic Ideology, combined with a recent federal election in Canada in which I felt really dissatisfied with all the parties)
Sketch of a political platform for an ideal Canadian party
28 tweets · October 2021 · 39 likes · 2 retweets · read on Twitter
The main idea I had for this before was totally meta—a Dialogue Party, whose local candidates would host extended conversations among other local candidates and the public, to encourage perspective-taking and win-wins & clarify local priorities.
But I think I have a few strong object-level opinions as well, and that it would be also worth articulating my best guess for policy in other areas. In other words, what party platform would I love to vote for? (This is gonna assume Canada, but lots would generalize ofc 🇨🇦🌎)
My longest-held policy-level opinion is still pretty meta, which is the need for electoral reform. At BARE MINIMUM we should simply switch our riding-based voting to be ranked choice / STV instead of 1-vote first-past-the-post. This encourages independents & attuned newcomers.
My latest clarity is the need for UBI (Universal Basic Income) Trying to force companies to pay better doesn't work as well as giving citizens way better BATNAs, which would necessitate companies to get *creative* about making their jobs more attractive!
In addition, re UBI, it's important to help people understand how wealth is created, so they aren't fixated on the redistribution part. I don't know how I'd do that as far as policy goes, but I'd explore possibilities there.
Policy 3: decriminalize all drugs. Three elements/reasons there: 3A. The opioid crisis is kind of a health issue but moreso a social infrastructure issue & can't be treated effectively while drugs are illegal. Prohibition has failed.
3B. Let people have whatever experience they want to be having, if they're not harming anyone else. People are surprisingly good at self-regulating when given the chance, but this isn't obvious because of what's in their way. = the right-to-qualia argument against prohibition.
3C. Psychedelics...? I don't know (does anybody?) what a sane trajectory looks like on that front but there's clearly some magic (=advanced technology) there & Canada could be at the forefront of both academic & citizen research into the power of intentional relaxation of priors.
Policy 4: another meta thing, except globally: formally adopt Simultaneous Policy (SimPol) and encourage other countries to do the same. Solves, distributedly, the race to the bottom from international competition without international regulation. twitter.com/jim_rutt/statu…
Policy 5: more meta: Starting with experiments on small scales like cities, adopt systems like pol.is to encourage citizens to design & critique creative win-win solutions to problems.
Policy 6: Climate. Solving thoroughly may require SimPol, but in the meantime... I don't know the details here but it seems like the thing to do in terms of betting on a sane future is investment into R&D + manufacturing of green tech. Maybe subsidize installation more?
6B: Obviously, in Canada, to do anything major with Climate, gotta get Alberta on board (major oil exporter). Not sure how to do that; would seek ideas from climate-concerned Albertans. Maybe build plastic factories in Alberta so the oil gets made into stuff instead of burned?
6C: Nuclear power. We've got lots of relatively uninhabited space that's safe-from-tsunamis-and-earthquakes on the Great Canadian Shield… I'm aware of some other tail risks to nuclear power stations but it seems probably good. +fusion actually imminent?!
Policy 7: Education... separate credentialing from teaching. Teaching should be a mix of using the top free online resources (go at your own pace!) and small-group high-touch vibing. Ratio depends on subject. Mixed-age groups good for sanity—teach to learn.
7B Find ways to make schooling less coercive... programs like Responsible Thinking Program based on PCT seem to be a majorly good patch on the existing system, allowing kids space to learn while minimizing the extent to which they have to constrain themselves to arbitrary rules.
7C I'm genuinely not sure what the leverage points are here as a government that still has to deal with: - parents needing their kids to be out while they're at work - the value of public education for getting people out of poverty (& providing safety for abused kids)
7D Since my teens I've been stoked about the idea of instituting a 1-2year apprenticeship break for students around ages 12-14, where instead of trying to pay attention to classes while being obsessed about the politics of sexual status, they find a way to contribute to society🚀
7E I'm very open to a better proposal here about how to approach education policy. I haven't researched possibilities and am mostly reasoning from first principles. (Also aware education is primarily a provincial mandate, but eh)
Policy 8: Increase Resilience in supply chains. At the start of covid, I read that a lot of Canadian raw produce (wheat, cows) is shipped to the US to be processed (bread, burgers) then shipped back to Canada to be packaged & sold. We can do more of that locally.
Policy 9: Entrepreneurship & Feral Free Agency: Empower more people to start businesses via grants & making self-employment taxes even lower (they're already way better in Canada than USA afaict). Maybe UBI enough here, but probably more that can be done.
Policy 10: Dental care is health care & should be covered 🦷 But also probably we are very confused about dentistry. Poor teeth alignment are a sign of bad chewing & mouth posture. Braces strain teeth & weaken roots. But incentives align for govt to solve that if paying for it.
Policy 11: Learning from covid. Prioritize vaccine manufacturing capacity & related technology, so we're not waiting on other countries the next time there's a pandemic. Have extra PPE of various kinds, and manufacturing capacity there.
11B: Take air quality seriously: various regulations and incentives, and potentially even creating a whole manufacturing plant to outfit millions of homes and businesses with better air filtering systems. These systems should also detect mold and too-high CO₂.
Policy 12: Explore ways to use prediction markets to make better decisions. I haven't looked into this in depth but it's related to the covid thing—the citizens collectively can sometimes figure out things leading experts can't, due to blindspots or career investment.
Policy 13: @StartSocieties —encourage more experimentation re cities & society more generally. Make it easier to apply for special economic zones or other programs. Support experimentation with cryptocurriencies and other alternative currencies.
Policy 14: Get indigenous communities+wisdom thriving. Less land acknowledgement lip service, more experiments. This 👇 seems like a great move. Probably many more similar & different moves to make. theguardian.com/cities/2020/ja…
Policy 15: Land Value Tax! This probably belongs near the top. I'm just starting to investigate it, but if it checks out, it's the no-brainest no-brainer ever. Solves 5+ problems at once (housing, labour, inequality, stagnation➔innovation, govt debt) astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-re…