The Orville & True Democracy

OK, I can hear you thinking, “what on earth is The Orville?”! Well, it’s an American spoof series based on Star Trek, and it’s very silly at times LOL!

“OK, so what has that got to do with democracy?”

In the episode we watched last night, they were going to a planet to find two humans who were carrying out research there, but hadn’t been heard from for a while. The planet was practically the same as earth and occupied by human beings, but not so technologically advanced, similar to our current time but without space travel at all.

Their society was based on true democracy, everybody had a vote on everything. Everybody wore an interactive ‘badge’, and if you did something good people could press the green side, and if you did something bad they could press the red side. If somebody received 1 million down votes then they were arrested. Their jury was, of course, the people – all of them! The accused went on tv and had to apologise, if the people didn’t think them sincere then they voted to dislike. If they received 10 million dislikes then they were basically lobotimised. No facts or proof that they were in the wrong was needed, just whether or not people liked you!!

Anyway, of course one of the crew did something wrong, got arrested, got over 9 million dislikes so was put in the ‘chair’ ready and waiting for it to hit 10 million. In the meantime, the rest of the crew had found an ally and taken her up to the ship. There they hacked into the feed, flooding it with info suggested by their ally, to help save their crew member. They said that he supported his grandmother, that he was overweight as a child (and provided a made up photo), that he was a veteran, and created a video of him in uniform greeting his dog, you know the sort of thing. All emotional points. Well of course the likes grew and dislikes diminished, stopping just 6 votes short of 10 million! So of course he was set free and they all lived happily ever after!

What’s my point?

So, why am I writing about this here, and under politics?! Well, it just reminded me of our current political situation, where everybody is wanting to have a ‘people’s vote’ and are shouting about unelected bureaucrats because they personally didn’t vote for them. However, too many people vote with their emotion, not logic, and this is never a good thing.

You just need to listen objectively to things that are being said about the EU and brexit. I’ve watched a few of the ‘meets’ of Nigel Farage and, frankly, all it is is hype. He rarely says anything of value at these rallies, but merely gees the people up, getting their adrenaline going, making them emotional!

Listening to the shouts of, “we want democracy”, I have to wonder exactly what those shouting it actually mean, and even if THEY know what they mean!

Our political system is that we very rarely get to vote on a matter, but instead vote to elect representatives who vote and make decisions on our behalf. But it goes further in that there are people in power that we have never voted for, such as the House of Lords.

Is this a good system? NO! Indeed it is far from being a good system, but that is purely down to the politicians that stand, and to whom we give power to. Personally, I would never trust any politician as far as I could throw them!