Topics in Development Now

1.  The experiment in democratic government, what have we learned in 200+ years and what will become of the experiment now?

• Tyranny of two party systems, how did political machines (parties) get control of government and then stop it’s functioning. What happened to the citizen-political independent?
• Fake democracy in the western democratic countries. Traditional Values as a substitute for real issues about government
• Money, media, speech; the corrosion of democratic process by greed and money.
• Can a democracy have meaningful priorities, if so how are they established?
• What can legislative bodies actually do that is constructive given the skill set they possess? What is a law and how to tell if it will work. (Also quantity versus quality, and precision versus scope.)
• How does the educational system support and interact with democratic government?
• Why do governments need to be bigger, corresponding to the size of markets, and corporations which require supervision?

2.  Capitalism is both a social and an economic experiment that has progressed for over 200 years now. What has it demonstrated other than it’s inherent instability, and where will it take us now if we continue?

• If capitalism is really inherently unstable, and potentially unfit for use in the future, why is that so, and how can it be fixed?
• “Banksters” just follow what business schools are teaching, why is that a bad idea?
• Wealth versus Consumerism and the fraud that created a new under-class.
• The social contract (should there be one now) versus the income imbalance. The mythical retirement.
• If this is capitalism then why do we have corporate welfare and bailouts, and then attendant austerity for the voters?
• If capitalism were transformed to become a stable and sustainable system, would it then become “Conscious Capitalism”?
• What would economic democracy plus social democracy look like?

3.  Education, what is it’s purpose, who is it for, how is it provided/delivered, who pays for it?

• Education that is meaningful and relevant for everyone. How hard is that?
• Lifetime education, and clues about early life education.
• What kind of education can support a democratic and capitalistic system?
• The relationship between education, work, and economic vitality.
• How must education be changed, does anyone have it right today?

4.  Social systems versus physical systems and the relationship to laws and regulation.

• Is there a professional and scientific way to handle systems that are needed for government and social purposes?
• Is the scientific discipline that applies to social systems a deterministic one or a probabilistic one? Why does it matter?
• The rules of system functional behavior and performance.
• Predicting what a system will do once it is engaged, and what about monitoring?
• How are physical systems defined, developed, tested, released into production and then maintained over time?
• Where can we see examples of systems that are managed professionally?

There are several more categories for development of the theme of our blog.  Coming in the next post.