Opinion Piece
Prelude — America 1.0
At the time of the founding of the US, it became known as the land of the free. Something we take for granted now, was revolutionary at the time period.
The stated goals of the U.S.:
“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
At the time of the US’s founding, human misery was accepted as a fact of life. War, struggle, famine, the unhappiness of the masses… these were generally accepted facts. However, the American Revolution, along with the French Revolution, created a new standard in which the voices of the many could be heard.
Concepts that were once relegated to history books of ancient Athens and pre-imperial Roman city-states became new active powers in the world on country-wide scales, proving that what was once believed to be an idealistic and unrealistic pipe dream was in fact the best way to run a country.
It works, it worked spectacularly. Monarchies fell, colonial empires faltered, and self-determination became the word of the day; old monarchies that survived became parliamentary, and the few total monarchs that exist in this day are now labeled dictators and tyrants.
And all was well with the world, steady progress seemed to abound, and reflecting this, we saw the birth of science fiction… many stories abounded sharing idyllic (although somewhat dysfunctional…. as books have to sell) visions of the future.
The Bad update — America 2.0
Then, like Microsoft Vista between XP and 7, we hit the U.S. 2.0 phase. WWII. Having moved from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and playing a massive role in the European Theatre (and pretty much the only role in the Pacific theater), the US literally unleashed the unbridled forces of nature, declaring its military dominance in the world, and the Cold War began. High from victory from WWII, the US looked on top of the world, but like some bad design decisions ruined Vista, some bad design decisions set the seeds of failure for this new U.S.
First off, antagonism with our WWII pseudo-ally, Russia. Like the US, they had thrown off tyrants, like the US, they had dealt with their own growing pains, and like the US, they had their own bloody internal conflict, and like the US, they had help stop the rise of the Nazis. This new version of the US, however, decided to distrust Russia based primarily on “opposing” economic ideals… opposites like Water and Ice, Black and Dark Grey, Carrots and Onions…. the systems weren’t really opposites, in fact, their similarities outweighed their differences, but in both countries, the dominant parties had led for years on fear, war, and power. Peace was anathema to what got them elected. So, fearing for their jobs, the politicians lied, and then made those lies truth, and that spiraled out of control into the Cold War.
Entire generations grew up under constant worry of nuclear holocaust. Having lived for awhile near what was considered a ‘primary target’, one of the schools I attended even had regular nuclear blast drills. However, it was late enough into the cold war that gone were the days of hiding under desks, and the drills involved all the kids running out to the buses as fast (yet orderly) as possible, and then the bus driving as fast as it could away from the expected Ground Zero.
Conversely, the reason given for this fear was the idea of ‘protecting capitalism’. Since Russians elected their leaders (the only real difference being neither their representatives nor president had term limits, while even though our representatives don’t have term limits our president did, and our elections focused on the highest tiers of government while theirs focused on the most local), the economic system was the only thing separating us. It was presented as some irreconcilable difference, an idea that a government providing services and businesses providing services could not co-exist. The government warned that bread lines were a staple in Russia, and would happen in the US if we did not embrace purely capitalistic methods… of course they had to switch to different examples when economic recessions in the US caused bread lines. However, this lead to an era where, at the upper echelons, Wall Street was considered one of the greatest strengths of America.
And like Vista, U.S. 2.0 had more than its fair share of bugs. The middle class began to decline, the idea of the noble statesman became replaced by the idea of the lying politician, and our once-hopeful science fiction became dominated with doom and gloom, with everything from Dr. Strangelove to the final depressing conclusion of the original Planet of the Apes movies.
Glimmers of Hope — Preparing to Upgrade to America 3.0
So… lets put that past aside, and agree never to make those mistakes again. It was bad, it was a mistake. Again, like the windows comparison of moving from Vista to 7, we have a better world shaping up. I keep bringing up science fiction for an important reason. Science fiction has become a litmus test for a society’s views of the world, and glimmer of what’s to come. While many other genres are focused on our present and past, Science Fiction is the one that looks to our future, and people are attracted to what resonates… meaning what the most people unconsciously see as the most relevant is the ones they will flock to in theaters (ignoring, of course, previously established titles… afterall, nostalgia blooms eternal.)
And while America 2.0 was filled with doom and gloom, America 3.0 was heralded by a return to the hopeful: Star Trek. Visions of a Utopiac future. This was also filled with Star Wars, one where the evils were external, and everyone working together could make a better future happen. Later came the Matrix… fear that computers would dominate our lives in ways beyond our perception but that we could still overcome… not by rejecting the technology, but by accepting our symbiosis with it while not letting it control us. However, all of these were set with far distant futures… glimmers and worries and hopes… things we could see on the horizon but couldn’t quite reach. Now, the dawn of America 3.0 is upon us, and our Science Fiction reflects it… gone are the distant vistas of far off worlds where Earth is barely more than a memory.. the Science Fictions now seem to primarily take place on Earth. It’s here. It’s now. It’s our home turf is what is resonating with us. And the current Science Fictions are a different breed yet again. Instead of the fanciful dreams of pre-WWII, or the depression doom against unstoppable forces of cause and effect of Cold War Science Fiction, or the optimistic but detached Sci-Fis of the transition between periods… we are now seeing an age of Heroes. From characters like Tony Stark who work hard with the tools they have to make a better future, to Alita: Battle Angel who looks on a dark world but takes the efforts to start improving everything into her own cybernetic hands.
These are symbols that people can grasp of what they already feel to be true: The future can be promising, but it’s going to be a struggle through a rough time to get there. As the destructive behemoths of America 2.0 continue to trudge around — Russia/US rivalries, crony capitalism, climate change due to the earlier US’s dependence on fossil fuels, and much more, we can feel like the forces against us are massive. However, also thanks to the advent of the internet connecting us together, beyond being able to see the damage they do, we’re also feeling empowered to make a difference at the same time. Leaks of shadowy America 2.0-esque government programs like the NSA and Guantanamo Bay can no longer safely hide in the shadows. The secrets and lies of the powerful are laid to bare. As many have said throughout history, Knowledge is Power, and Americans are equipped with it more now-so than ever before.
Further, this ability to overcome is beginning to be see in a new way we do commerce. As minimum-wage Wal-mart gives way to $15/hr Amazon at one end of the spectrum, on the other end sites from Etsy to Medium to Kickstarter to Patreon are giving way to an entirely new form of commerce.
And here is where we start getting to the meat of the matter: America 3.0
It’s still shaping up. America 2.0 was decided by powermongers, those with the influcence… but America 3.0 is shaping up to be something altogether, a future made by our own hands. The black and white enemies and self-proclaimed ‘goodguys’ of the Cold War are past, gone are the spies and communist sympathizers and the ‘do it for pie and mom’.
The new features — America 3.0
Today, the metaphorical landscape is dominated by names like Occupy and 4chan and Anonymous and protests and leaks and mass resistance and group action. Traditional centralized money is being challenged by bitcoin and many other decentralized currencies, and political voices like Warren, Bernie, Stein (and even Trump) ring louder than the hollow-sounding names of old such establishment Bush and Clinton. To succeed, rather than ‘saying the right things and ‘greasing the right hands’, they have to resonate with the people. They have to really sync with them (for better or for worse). Gone are the days of “us vs them”. You can just as easily converse with a Bernie or Warren supporter as you can a Trump supporter. And with the internet, rather than just spouting a few angry words back and forth, you can actually see their points, if you’re open minded, and can’t help, but to some degree, feel sympathy for plight of ‘the opposition’. And this community focus, this ‘swarm-thinking’ rather than the required “us vs them” of the cold war, is the key to our future in America 3.0. Everywhere the collective whole is empowered, things thrive.
But, as reflected in our Science Fiction, we know we’re at a crossroads. The question comes… how can we survive and make it to that bright future.
The answer is simple, and even better, it could be achieved by one person.
Upgrading America to 3.0 — the lynchpin.
If there’s one resounding lesson of the processing of moving to America 3.0 has made obvious, it’s that things are generally better with less heirarchy and more voice for more people. Which, it makes sense. Each person has their own brain, and the more brains you get on a task, the more ideas you can come up with, and the more ideas you get, the better chance you’ll be able to find a winner. Although there’s many failed attempts at many startups, Etsies, etc., the successes manage to keep going, and we’ve seen our new economy spring up like never before.
Honestly, it’s time to do that to our political system.
First some background is important. It will come as a surprise to noone that the electoral college is unbalanced. A person’s vote in rural Montana can be up to 30 to 50 times a vote from San Francisco. If those votes were spread out appropriately proportionately, our current political landscape would look radically different. (Estimates could hint that not only would have Trump not won the election, he wouldn’t have even made it past the Primaries. Interestingly, neither would have Hillary. Our election would have been completely different.)
Now, some people will back this existing system saying “It’s what the founding fathers intended, to keep rural voices from getting drowned out.” And well keeping less populated voices drowned out was a concern of the founding fathers, they had a built in solution: The Senate. That is literally it’s purpose — to be a voice to territory, not people. Hence why every state has two. The House, on the other hand, is meant to be the voice for the people, and be nearly perfectly proportionate to the population.
The problem, however, is that it’s not. It’s MEANT to be (and in fact, its guaranteed in Article II of the constitution. The constitution guarantees the US to be a republic… and as per documents of the time, a republic was a form of government that contained direct representation or direct vote of the people.)
The problem is one single (and very unconstitutional) law:
The apportionment act of 1929.
This law capped the number of representatives to 435, as opposed to the original constitutional suggestion of one representative for every 30,000. (With each state getting a minimum of one in both systems.) With the original constitutional system, as the founders intended, the house would currently number 10976. We’d have literally 25 times as many representatives as we do now. And the thing is… most of those representatives we should have had were stolen from high density population areas, the places with the most voices. And with that many representatives (the House would need to build a sports stadium for their meetings…which is fine, the US builds sports stadiums all the time) it would be 25 times harder to bribe congress. It would be 25 times easier to get the congressman you vote for to listen to you (after all, only about one in a thousand actually call their representative, if they have only 30,000, you’re literally 3% of the influence when you call, which no politician in their right mind would turn down.) And that means instead of just jumbling together statistics of who called about what, the congressmen would actually listen to your ideas… and of all the people they talk to, they would be able to pass the good ones around their party in congress, which would in turn, like so much other social aspects of the emerging America 3.0… would grow strength from our collective awareness.
So this is it: How YOU PERSONALLY can be the one to change America for the better for everyone. Here is how to be the Hero.
If the apportionment act of 1929 were overturned, states would rush in the next election to get their maximum seats (otherwise risk having less influence in congress compared to the other states). It’d be a huge boost to actually both running our country as our founders first intended, AND bringing forth the ideas of the new version of America that’s trying to emerge.
However, challenging a federal law is tricky. It requires a thing call “Standing”. It means you can’t go around willy-nilly challenging federal laws, you have to show a way it’s hurt YOU. And not the generic “you” but you PERSONALLY.
So, pick several elections where the popular vote and the electoral vote didn’t match up. Now find every single law that was signed, every act passed, by the unpopular elected. Find every single one that hurt you in some way. Attach a dollar amount to it. It’s a lot of paperwork (hence why I have yet to do it myself) and the challenge The Apportionment act of 1929 as violating Article II of the constitution in court and win. (You’ll do a lot better if you can find a constitutional lawyer to help you.) If you challenge the law, win, and get it overturned, you will have single-highhandedly saved the future of America and ushered in it’s future. And, in America 3.0 fashion, if a thousand of us try, the chances of one of us winning gets even better.
