I’ve Tweeted about how the ISS shows the enormous degree of inter-relationship and cooperation between…

I’ve Tweeted about how the ISS shows the enormous degree of inter-relationship and cooperation between countries, at historically unprecedented scales. So why (climate stalemate on TV right now) do we seem to be constantly in political impasses, such as at the UN? /1 https://t.co/EdhcVG1oVg

Pretty simple. Because the leaders of our nations are competing populist tribes, like gangs in high school. What they say and do has almost no relationship with the operational reality of the world, it’s the tiniest veneer draped over the top of it, suffocating it like cling…/2 https://t.co/tYwJUnPnDO

…wrap held over a person’s face. The monumental technological and social complexity of the world has almost no connection with these populist representatives at all. But because we have a fundamentalist faith in election-based politics, which makes popularity the route…/3 https://t.co/XVVcy233v8

…to power, all of that extraordinary complexity is beholden to these tinpot popularity gods, shuffled and changed every handful of years, tearing the complex fabric of actual life asunder as they beat their ideological drums to stir up their gangs. /4 https://t.co/7HQ5SGdqYw

This isn’t a plea for ‘technocracy’ either, that’s an idea the populists invented to make it seem like they’re essential to us. The enormous social and technological complexity of life isn’t just an experts thing, it’s our actual lives, run by billions of people in their…/5

…daily work. Nearly all of that work knows what needs doing. But it has to negotiate these popularity orgies we call elections and polling, to get anything done, with all key decisions re-routed through the popularity gods. As I’ve also Tweeted about, anthropologically…./6 https://t.co/BFG220Oe0t

…(not just by analogy), this is because we rolled out the cultural model of high schools to all of adult life too. The popularity pollies are the influencers and bullies from school, now able to ply their trade in adult life. The perception we have that the world is falling…/7 https://t.co/l1OFfr1BUB

…apart is true, but at the same time the actual problem is just that tiniest veneer of cling wrap suffocating the complexity of our lives with ridiculous popularity politics. Get rid of that and most problems will sort themselves in very quick time. Get rid of elections. /8

And don’t be fooled that this would be the end of democracy. That’s populist propaganda again. There are many ways to replace elections, to involve people in decisions more directly than the mono-dimensional popularity festivals we have now. /end