WEBVTT 00:00:04.005 --> 00:00:08.003 [Politicians, Voting And Democracy] 00:00:13.001 --> 00:00:19.004 Politicians are human beings, and like the rest of us are influenced by the environment 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:26.326 So once politicians reach the parliamentary environment they will behave accordingly. 00:00:30.139 --> 00:00:34.930 Human government has been around for many thousand of years actually -sure 00:00:35.023 --> 00:00:41.869 and they've been fighting and killing each other. All human upgraded governments are basically corrupt, 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.852 they serve the 'in-group'. They have to, otherwise they'd never get elected. 00:00:46.944 --> 00:00:52.885 So here you sit back with the illusion of patching up the society, making it good, 00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:00.637 getting decent people in government. All that's delusional. You have to have a government not based on money. 00:01:00.760 --> 00:01:10.495 You have to have a government with machines that distribute goods and services, regardless of race, religion or private beliefs. 00:01:10.603 --> 00:01:16.083 In other ways, people must be permitted to live the lifestyle that they prefer. 00:01:16.221 --> 00:01:18.760 Without you telling them what to do. 00:01:18.868 --> 00:01:24.792 When you come up and you say "this is the right way", it's your way, the way you were brought up, 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:29.264 but that doesn't make it right, it just makes it appropriate for you. 00:01:29.386 --> 00:01:35.249 The future will be very different than the world today, the future will be based upon: 00:01:35.357 --> 00:01:43.417 Does the system work? Does it serve most people? Does it maintain a healthy relationship in sharing values? 00:01:43.556 --> 00:01:49.605 Or does the system damage that? This is how we decide what system is to be selected. 00:01:49.744 --> 00:01:56.620 How well does the system works? That's the final test, that's used in engineering standards, 00:01:56.742 --> 00:01:59.762 that's the only system that's valid. 00:02:00.666 --> 00:02:04.002 Now, is it a democracy? People ask me. 00:02:05.326 --> 00:02:15.007 I put it this way: Is it a participatory democracy? -Well I participate. -Well then come here sometimes. -I want to participate right away. 00:02:15.130 --> 00:02:19.823 -That's good! how would you prevent cars from hitting each other? -I don't know. 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:24.076 -How do you prevent a building catching fire? -I don't know. 00:02:24.177 --> 00:02:30.519 -How do you participate? Did you vote for the space program? Did anybody vote for Vietnam war? 00:02:32.169 --> 00:02:37.555 Did anybody vote for any war? Did anybody vote for the Moon project? 00:02:37.694 --> 00:02:40.001 How the hell do you participate then? 00:02:43.354 --> 00:02:49.263 Half of all american adults understand that the earth orbits the sun yearly 00:02:49.371 --> 00:02:51.185 according to a basic science survey. 00:02:51.309 --> 00:02:55.004 Nevertheless there's enthusiasm for research acceptance on fields like genetic engineering 00:02:55.097 --> 00:03:00.001 and nuclear power, that are viewed with suspicion. Only about 25% of american adults 00:03:00.109 --> 00:03:04.189 get passing grades in the national science foundation survey of what people know about 00:03:04.282 --> 00:03:08.483 basic science and economics. I mean this is singing your song isn't it? 00:03:08.592 --> 00:03:12.233 Well, it certainly is what I'm talking about in "The demon haunted world". 00:03:12.358 --> 00:03:20.141 My feeling, Charlie is not that the pseudo science and superstition 00:03:20.264 --> 00:03:27.527 and "new age", so called, beliefs and the fundamental zealotry are something new, 00:03:27.650 --> 00:03:30.885 they have been with us for as long as we've been human, 00:03:31.001 --> 00:03:38.372 but we live in an age based on science and technology with formidable technological powers. 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:42.823 Science and technology are propelling us forward at accelerating rates 00:03:42.946 --> 00:03:46.932 Thats right! And if we don't understand it, about "we" I mean we general public 00:03:47.055 --> 00:03:50.636 if it's something like "ohh I'm not good at that, I don't know anything about it" 00:03:50.729 --> 00:03:55.631 Then who is making all the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine 00:03:55.755 --> 00:04:00.682 what kind of a future our children live in? Just uh, some members of congress? 00:04:00.775 --> 00:04:05.402 But there's no more than a handful of members of congress who have any background in science at all! 00:04:05.510 --> 00:04:11.620 And the republican congress has just abolished it's own office of technology assessment, 00:04:11.728 --> 00:04:16.006 The organization that gave them by participation competent advice on science and technology 00:04:16.129 --> 00:04:18.374 They say "We don't want to know". 00:04:18.466 --> 00:04:22.063 There's two kinds of dangers, one is what I just talked about, 00:04:22.171 --> 00:04:25.621 that we've arranged the society based on science and technology 00:04:25.713 --> 00:04:29.292 in which nobody understands anything about science and technology 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:35.293 and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later 00:04:35.401 --> 00:04:40.495 is gonna blow up in our faces, I mean, who is running the science and technology 00:04:40.587 --> 00:04:43.085 in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it? 00:04:43.209 --> 00:04:47.355 And the second reason I'm worried about this 00:04:47.495 --> 00:04:53.107 is that science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking 00:04:53.215 --> 00:04:56.450 a way of skeptically interrogating the universe 00:04:56.603 --> 00:05:00.251 with a fine understanding of human fallibility. 00:05:00.375 --> 00:05:09.009 If we are not to able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true 00:05:09.147 --> 00:05:14.311 to be skeptical of those in authority. Then we are up for grabs 00:05:14.421 --> 00:05:19.108 for the next charlatan political or religious who comes hobblling along. 00:05:19.248 --> 00:05:25.679 Have we (the point is made and maybe by you), anyway when was the last time a president made a speech about science? 00:05:28.186 --> 00:05:34.744 It is this notion that, science is not a great interest to us, in some sense, 00:05:34.883 --> 00:05:37.606 that somehow we dont wanna learn. 00:05:37.713 --> 00:05:42.062 You see, people read the stock market quotations 00:05:42.200 --> 00:05:44.822 and financial papers, look how complex that is. 00:05:44.960 --> 00:05:47.327 They know the direct connections to their own... 00:05:47.434 --> 00:05:50.790 There's a motivation, but they are capable of it, large amounts of people. 00:05:50.929 --> 00:05:55.707 People are able of look at sport statistics, look how many people can do that! 00:05:55.862 --> 00:06:01.362 Understanding science is not more difficult than that, it doesn't involve greater intellectual activities. 00:06:01.501 --> 00:06:11.783 But the thing about science is first of all, it's after the way the universe really is, and not what makes us feel better. 00:06:11.905 --> 00:06:17.216 And a lot of the competing doctors are after what feels good 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:19.911 and not what's true. 00:06:21.684 --> 00:06:27.846 It's not politicians that can solve problems, they have no technical capabilities, 00:06:28.001 --> 00:06:32.263 they don't know how to solve problems. Even if they were sincere, 00:06:32.386 --> 00:06:34.139 they don't know how to solve problems. 00:06:34.278 --> 00:06:38.942 It's the technicians that produce the desalinization plants. 00:06:39.066 --> 00:06:43.311 It's the technicians that give you electricity, that give you motor vehicles, 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.232 that heat your house and cool it in the summer time. 00:06:46.371 --> 00:06:49.309 It's technology that solves problems 00:06:49.417 --> 00:06:55.113 not politics, politics cannot solve problems cause they are not trained to do so. 00:06:55.236 --> 00:07:01.466 And writing your congressmen is fantastic, they tell you to write your congressman if you want something done. 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:05.496 The men in washington should be at the forefront of technology, 00:07:05.633 --> 00:07:09.233 the forefront of human study, the forefront of crime 00:07:09.388 --> 00:07:14.185 all the factors that shape human behaviour. You don't have to write your congressmen 00:07:14.324 --> 00:07:18.294 What kind of people are they that are appointed to do that job? 00:07:18.431 --> 00:07:22.923 Instead of putting up a sign: "Drive carefully, slippery when wet" 00:07:23.047 --> 00:07:26.636 put abrasive in the highway so its not slippery when wet. 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:31.123 And if a person gets in the car they are drunk and the car oscillates a great deal, 00:07:31.261 --> 00:07:34.297 there's a little pendulum that swings up and back and that would 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:38.513 pull the car over to the side, not a law, a solution. 00:07:38.667 --> 00:07:43.000 Put sonar and radar in all auto mobiles so they can't hit one another. 00:07:43.139 --> 00:07:47.730 Man made laws are attempts to deal with occurring problems 00:07:47.884 --> 00:07:51.588 and not knowing how to solve them, they make a law. 00:07:53.002 --> 00:07:59.465 So you live in a managed world, and your kids in the future will say to you, wasn't it obvious? 00:07:59.605 --> 00:08:04.341 That you paid off senators, you paid off governments, you paid off different people 00:08:04.479 --> 00:08:09.325 to get your will? Isn't that obvious? I guess not. 00:08:09.448 --> 00:08:19.931 And so, if you do away with the money system, you can't have the sale of drugs. You can't pay off senators. You can't buy people. 00:08:20.038 --> 00:08:24.252 You understand what I'm saying? As long as you've got money, no matter who you elect. 00:08:24.390 --> 00:08:29.001 You say, "Well, maybe if we elect decent people in government..." No way, even if you had 00:08:29.109 --> 00:08:33.838 the most decent people in the world, taken from the best churches you like 00:08:34.001 --> 00:08:38.885 If you ran out of resources, be lying, cheating, killing, stealing. 00:08:39.031 --> 00:08:45.067 It's resources that people need, not money. Access to resources. 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:51.001 But we have more than enough resources. Have you considered the money spent on world war II 00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:54.267 you could have wiped out the slums all over the world, 00:08:54.405 --> 00:08:58.269 educated people, built the best universities free of charge. 00:08:58.408 --> 00:09:00.340 Why do we do it free of charge? 00:09:00.464 --> 00:09:03.838 Because the smarter the kids are, the richer all of us will be. 00:09:03.977 --> 00:09:09.246 Every kid shooting up drugs, hanging out in malls. Why? They have no place to go. 00:09:09.384 --> 00:09:16.096 There should be art centers, music centers, cultural centers, theater groups, where people can go. 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:20.992 They hang out in malls and coats stands because there's no place to go. 00:09:21.131 --> 00:09:27.710 And the government, I would say this, the government than entry, doesn't give a shit about people. 00:09:27.848 --> 00:09:36.607 Proof, now. They would not outsource. I have a big factory: if I pay my help more than the minimum wage, 00:09:36.730 --> 00:09:40.932 I can't stay in business, if he outsources to China. Do you understand? 00:09:41.055 --> 00:09:47.620 You're not going to invest in the company that builds playgrounds for the women's children that work in the factory. 00:09:47.743 --> 00:09:53.327 You want the money spent on products advertising so the income is greater. So you invest in it. 00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:56.371 So we're all sons of bitches in the monetary system. 00:09:56.494 --> 00:09:58.414 It makes us that way. 00:09:58.538 --> 00:10:03.586 Well I say if you're not... consult your bank account and see who you are. 00:10:08.818 --> 00:10:13.682 But there's a reason, there's a reason... there's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, 00:10:13.806 --> 00:10:17.822 it's the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed. 00:10:17.930 --> 00:10:22.046 It's never gonna get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:25.481 Because the owners of this country don't want that. 00:10:25.574 --> 00:10:30.630 I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners: the big wealthy business interests, 00:10:30.753 --> 00:10:33.543 that control things and they make all the important decisions. 00:10:33.665 --> 00:10:38.855 Forget the politicians, the politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. 00:10:39.001 --> 00:10:41.558 You don't! You have no choice. 00:10:41.681 --> 00:10:47.869 You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important lands, 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:49.573 they own and control the corporations, 00:10:49.698 --> 00:10:55.030 they've long since born to pay for the senate the congress to stay down as their city holes, they got the judges in their back pocket, 00:10:55.107 --> 00:11:00.015 and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get here, 00:11:00.138 --> 00:11:05.619 they got you by the balls! They've spent billions of dollars every year lobbying, 00:11:05.727 --> 00:11:09.353 lobbying to get what they want! 00:11:09.476 --> 00:11:13.683 But we know what they want, they want more for themselves and less for everybody else! 00:11:13.791 --> 00:11:18.984 But I'll tell you what they don't want: they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking, 00:11:19.108 --> 00:11:23.002 they don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking, 00:11:23.109 --> 00:11:27.174 they're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. 00:11:27.297 --> 00:11:28.430 That's right! 00:11:29.295 --> 00:11:31.572 They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table 00:11:31.741 --> 00:11:33.961 figuring how badly they are getting fucked by a system 00:11:34.084 --> 00:11:37.947 that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? 00:11:38.085 --> 00:11:42.247 They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. 00:11:42.371 --> 00:11:45.297 People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paper work 00:11:45.420 --> 00:11:49.969 and just dumb enough, to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs 00:11:50.077 --> 00:11:53.893 with the lower pay and the longer hours the reduced benefits the end of overtime 00:11:54.002 --> 00:11:56.715 and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, 00:11:56.838 --> 00:12:02.401 and now they are coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money. 00:12:02.524 --> 00:12:06.653 They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on wall street. 00:12:06.761 --> 00:12:10.124 And you know something? They'll get it, they'll get it all from you sooner or later, 00:12:10.231 --> 00:12:16.202 because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. 00:12:16.325 --> 00:12:19.544 You and I are not in the big club. 00:12:19.652 --> 00:12:24.249 By the way it's the same big club they used to beat you over the head with all day long and they tell you what to believe. 00:12:24.356 --> 00:12:26.375 All day long beating you over the head and the media's telling you 00:12:26.482 --> 00:12:29.046 what to believe, what to think and what to buy. 00:12:29.138 --> 00:12:35.916 The table is tilted folks, the game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. 00:12:36.024 --> 00:12:40.575 Good honest hard working people, white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on, 00:12:40.682 --> 00:12:44.389 good honest hard working people continue, these are people of modest means, 00:12:44.481 --> 00:12:48.731 continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don't give a fuck about them. 00:12:48.823 --> 00:12:53.293 They don't give a fuck about you, they don't give a fuck about you, they don't care about you, 00:12:53.401 --> 00:12:56.924 at all! At all! At all! 00:12:58.465 --> 00:12:59.530 You know? 00:13:01.001 --> 00:13:03.854 And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. 00:13:03.961 --> 00:13:08.560 That's what the owners count on: the fact the americans will probably remain willfully ignorant 00:13:08.667 --> 00:13:13.230 of the big, red white and blue dick that's been jammed up their assholes everyday. 00:13:13.353 --> 00:13:18.093 Because the owners of this country know the truth, it's called the American dream, 00:13:18.201 --> 00:13:21.001 cause you have to be asleep to believe it. 00:13:28.384 --> 00:13:30.727 [Alternative Solutions] 00:13:37.730 --> 00:13:41.278 Decisions must not represent personal opinions, 00:13:41.371 --> 00:13:45.324 but an action as result of scientific research. 00:13:45.416 --> 00:13:50.185 Politicians have no technical understanding, and thus provide no value 00:13:50.293 --> 00:13:52.419 when arriving at a decision. 00:13:52.803 --> 00:13:59.369 The nearest thing that I know, is to arrive at decisions, rather than make them. 00:13:59.476 --> 00:14:05.867 Arriving at decisions meaning: put all your decisions to test, see if they work. 00:14:06.001 --> 00:14:09.238 Use scientific scales of performance. 00:14:09.361 --> 00:14:15.881 And in that manner, we can probably arrive at closer agreements with nations. 00:14:16.002 --> 00:14:19.683 I believe that all nations need the same things: 00:14:19.807 --> 00:14:25.021 clean air, clean water, arable land, 00:14:25.099 --> 00:14:28.193 and medical and health security. 00:14:28.301 --> 00:14:32.061 And access to food, and the necessities of life. 00:14:32.184 --> 00:14:38.524 If we fail to work together, attempting to solve these problems, 00:14:38.631 --> 00:14:44.325 I feel the problems will continue, in much more vicious ways, 00:14:44.448 --> 00:14:51.434 because we are not touching or not addressing the actual manifestation, 00:14:51.557 --> 00:14:54.435 how these values come into being. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.559 So when I say, decisions have to be arrived at, 00:15:00.667 --> 00:15:06.746 first you have to study the carrying capacity of the planet, what it's capable of supporting. 00:15:06.823 --> 00:15:12.820 Then you design your cities, and population densities so that they correspond 00:15:12.928 --> 00:15:15.901 to the carrying capacity of the environment. 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:22.083 That's what I mean when I say: people do not make decisions, they arrive at them. 00:15:22.191 --> 00:15:26.978 And how do you decide how much oxygen you carry on the submarine? 00:15:27.085 --> 00:15:30.156 Well, depends on the amount of people in the submarine, 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:33.960 and how long you wish to be submerged. 00:15:34.083 --> 00:15:35.584 That determine that. 00:15:35.738 --> 00:15:38.855 How do you know how much water to carry on the submarine? 00:15:38.968 --> 00:15:43.341 How do you know how much food to carry? How do you know how much electrical power? 00:15:43.434 --> 00:15:46.960 Depends on the performance you want of that submarine, 00:15:47.083 --> 00:15:50.617 then you put in the proper electrical power 00:15:50.725 --> 00:15:53.526 for operating the submarine. 00:15:53.619 --> 00:15:57.403 You have to put enough food, and refrigeration equipment 00:15:57.511 --> 00:16:04.819 to feed the crew. If you don't provide for them, the technology may work, but the crew won't. 00:16:04.956 --> 00:16:09.965 So you have to not make decisions, you have to arrive at them 00:16:11.001 --> 00:16:18.452 Wants are irrelevant. Necessities are paramount, and they must be related to planetary resources. 00:16:19.386 --> 00:16:23.604 But the whole idea is in contradiction with the monetary system, 00:16:23.712 --> 00:16:26.452 so we need a different system. 00:16:51.388 --> 00:16:55.134 Reality is reality, and there can only be one, 00:16:55.257 --> 00:16:58.761 and it is best defined by scientific observation. 00:16:59.151 --> 00:17:01.322 Humans can only observe, 00:17:01.445 --> 00:17:05.503 actions or decisions are taken in relation to observations, 00:17:05.611 --> 00:17:08.387 and not some erroneous opinion.