Does a society of sheep deserve a government of wolves?

[Stephen D. Williams]

On 4/20/14, 10:58 PM, Luther Blissett wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Apr 2014 17:38:08 +0200
> rysiek <rysiek at hackerspace.pl> wrote:
>
>> Dnia niedziela, 20 kwietnia 2014 09:12:36 Cypher pisze:
>>> On 04/20/2014 03:39 AM, rysiek wrote:
>>>> Dnia sobota, 19 kwietnia 2014 18:25:08 Cypher pisze:
>>>>> On 04/19/2014 08:45 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:
>>>>>> The question is:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> === Does a society of sheep deserve a government of wolves?
>>>>> If we, who know better, don't help the sheep raise out of their
>>>>> bondage then we become the wolves.
>>>> Or get killed by the wolves, so that we can't help the sheep
>>>> anymore.
>>> That is a better fate than joining the feeding frenzy.
>> Still, I think we can put up a fight and try to do something about the wolves.
>>
> We sure can do something, but there maybe some terribly failed attempts before we put some fire in the middle of the pack.
>
1) Be the enlightened humanist humans holding the wolves at bay. It's great we can generate the most badass attack / defense 
military and police, but they have to have boundaries and limits.  Compared to various historical precedents, they are effective and 
aren't terrible overall, but they do not live up to the ideals that are appropriate now.

2) Uplift the sheep.  The elites are failing the sheep, which isn't good for anyone.  We've left it to those who have the 
responsibility, but many of them are sheep too: shallow functionaries happy enough with the status quo and too scared to fail worse 
to tinker.

Elites (of a certain range: educated, makers, hackers, thinkers, freethinkers) have the power to change the world.  That includes 
some who are now considered with the wolves in various senses.  A few smart people changed civil rights, etc.  Don't assume that 
everyone who is part of the system agrees with it.  People are far more pragmatic than that.  Which generally includes not breaking 
laws, but can include transparency, dialog, and moving toward improvement.

The greater population have the power to swarm the wolves in various ways, if only they were knowledgeable, motivated, enabled, and 
led. Some progress has been made, and there are plenty of chinks visible now.  The trick is informing, directing, and/or leading 
that potential energy through a transformative path that is not more destructive than what you're trying to cure.

Sometimes it means letting groups make fools of themselves long enough for everyone to get tired and aware enough to shun them for 
long periods after.  The end result of the "moral majority" minority and religious / public power grab and related surge for social 
freedom/sexual oppression was: free and open porn, negating of nearly all sexual blue laws, momentum for same-sex civil rights, 
nearly complete change of attitudes, dissipation of religion-in-government and general defeat of religious fundamentalists, an 
educated liberal probably-atheist black president, etc.  They spent money and time defeating themselves, permanently, and they don't 
even know why it happened. Sociopolitical judo.  On the other hand, for a long time Rove et al were frequently successful reframing 
things with clever rebranding of terms: "death taxes" etc.

What is the equivalent for the things you care about?  What are the key embarrassing and enlightening missteps that would clarify 
the problem and solution for your average sheeple.  If it could be proved that some agency knew about and used Heartbleed while 
knowingly exposing all of the worlds people and companies to compromise due to hoarding key information and inaction, that might 
qualify.

sdw

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