Saturday, April 15, 2017

Citizen's Responsibility

Human beings have a right to share in the benefits afforded by natural resources.

We have a right to share in defining limits to how rapidly we use up resources or put pollution.

These rights can only be manifest in reality if we create an effective system of governance that explicitly aims to manifest these rights.

Someday, humans may implicitly assert their right to share in deciding limits to environmental impacts by responding to surveys that inquire about what the limits should be regarding specific kinds of impacts. Until that time, we must say explicitly that we have this right and we must say that government must function so as to manifest the basic principle in reality. We must demand policy that limits impacts on the environment so that rates of putting pollution and depleting resources are in accord with what most people think is acceptable.

Related to our basic right to enjoy benefits of natural wealth is our duty to create governments and policies that enable (an economic measure of the value of) natural wealth to be shared in practice.

We will someday embody our shared right to enjoy benefits of natural wealth by accepting a natural wealth stipend and then spending the money. When the government institutions do not yet exist to collect the fees and disburse the proceeds, the role of the citizen is to SAY that this must be a function of government. We must create the institutions. (Governments will not spontaneously start manifesting the principle of shared ownership of natural wealth in the absence of a demand from citizens.)

Basic moral precepts will only be manifest in reality when people SAY that they should be manifest. Principles must not be mere words or ideas. They must be embodied in practice.


@TallPhilosopher


What do we need to know that news media are not telling us?
- Systemic flaws are not reported

A sustainable and just civilization requires that we use our moral sense

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