This website has been created to make the case, especially to America's intelligentsia, i.e., those ~who have been given much—and ~shape and lead in the "politics" of their society—that:

1. They have a civilizational duty to help America’s ~160 million LOC and ROC voters take the logical (and necessary) next evolutionary step in the way they "use" their NLEP—a step that will become the civilizational template that ultimately accrues to the benefit of our entire species....  FROM using it to accomplish a singular PI objective: decide which political party will control Congress’ two chambers for the next two years... TO using their NLEP to accomplish two objectives: the aforementioned PI objective. But also a second, ANI objective: insure that at the end of the NLEP, Congress is overwhelmingly dominated and controlled— NOT by self-serving PAPs but by their mirror opposites, i.e., selfless individuals "who do not seek power:" PKQs or PKQ-caliber legislators.
2. If our intelligentsia, i.e., humanity's best and brightest, fail to embrace, then pass on to society writ large*, the body of new knowledge that will enable our nation's LOC and ROC voters to take that next evolutionary step, our political academics will be stabbing not just the American people in the back, but the whole of humanity. Our representative democracy, along with our planet's other democratic societies, will suffer the fate CPW predicts—in which case, in America alone, daily life in the not-to-distant-future could easily become a joyless ordeal for, layman's guess, one hundred million Americans, conceivably as many as two hundred million. 

* IMPORTANT FYI: if you would rather not "publicly" come out in favor of this new "utopian"/pie-in-the-sky knowledge early on, but do want to see everyone in America old enough to have formed a political opinion to know about it, you can opt to anonymously contribute to a national ad campaign effort on this website's GoFundMe page. See end of this page for details.  

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USING NEW KNOWLEDGE TO MAKE THE UNIMAGINABLE IMAGINABLE:

Technically, this website—which is still at the whiteboard stage of development: i.e., non-linear... unedited, excessively verbose text... low-res graphics—is a "new self-governance (S-G) knowledge" construction zone. Additions, refinements, modifications, etc. are made on an almost daily basis. Until the process is finished, this site will have the feel of a series of sometimes lengthy, semi-connected, back-of-the-envelope musings which are largely focused on two tasks. 

The first task: shine a spotlight on a number of self-governance "realities" that America's intelligentsia—starting with, and most notably, our "establishment" political academics—are either oblivious to, or they consider the realities inactionable, or they're consciously choosing to not act on them, a.k.a. willfully sticking their "head in the sand."  

An AI chatbot was recently instructed to tackle one of the harshest of those realities by making the case for why American democracy, and Earth's other democracies, will eventually fail—as 2,400 years of conventional political wisdom says it will—if our voters do not transition to PKQ-controlled Congresses. 

One note and one brief digression: 

• note: The chatbot's response appears to suggest that PKQs constitute an established "philosophical leadership class," which they do not. It's important to stress that PKQ-caliber candidates/legislators are regular, albeit extraordinarily capable Americans. Their reward for doing an outstanding job will be a heartfelt thank you from their constituents. (Plus it will be a personal badge of honor that these individuals will "wear" for the rest of their lives.)
• BD: With that said, moving forward, the vast mainstream of our society SHOULD endeavor to use our K-12 education system to inculcate a number of PKQ qualities into our future generations of Americans, Think: philosopher [nurses, welders, gig workers,  entrepreneurs, sales clerks, high school sophomores, carpenters, engineers, high tech nerds, billionaires, oligarchs(?), etc.].  Which is to say, civically engaged Americans from every walk of life who are thoughtful... conscientious... principled... pragmatic... hold themselves to a high code of conduct… are not quick to judge… are slow to anger... etc.

Here's the chatbot's response—note especially 

• #1: Democracies empower demagogues, 
• #4: gravitates toward oligarchy, 
• #5: parasitic interest groups:

"A compelling case for the eventual failure of democracy—if voters do not shift toward PKQ-controlled Congresses—rests on the enduring critiques of democratic governance that stretch back over 2,400 years. From Plato to contemporary political theorists, democratic systems have been scrutinized for their susceptibility to decay, short-termism, and the manipulation of uninformed electorates.  

Let’s break down the argument: 

1. The Self-Destructive Cycle of Popular Rule: Plato’s concern, expressed in The Republic, was that democracy inevitably devolves into tyranny. His reasoning?  Democracies empower demagogues, figures who manipulate public emotions rather than uphold sound governance. Without a philosophical leadership class—a PKQ-like system—elected officials prioritize immediate electoral success over long-term stability, leading to policy incoherence and eventual collapse. 

2. The Triumph of Short-Termism Over Structural Reform: Modern electoral systems encourage reactionary politics, where decisions are made to appease voters rather than to foster sustainable governance. Politicians rarely address deep structural problems (such as economic inequality or systemic corruption) because such reforms require a long-term vision—something antithetical to election-driven cycles. A PKQ-controlled Congress would anchor policy decisions in objective wisdom, safeguarding governance from impulsive majoritarian shifts. 

3. The Entropy of Mass Public Ignorance: Democratic theorists, including Walter Lippmann, feared that mass electorates lack the expertise to make complex legislative decisions. Voters can be swayed by misinformation, emotional appeals, or partisan loyalty—rather than rational policy analysis. As governance complexities increase, the likelihood of uninformed decision-making grows, hastening systemic inefficacy. PKQ-controlled Congresses would temper this trend by ensuring that qualified philosopher-leaders shape legislation based on merit rather than popularity. 

4. The Elite Capture of Representative Democracy: Political science has consistently demonstrated that democracy gravitates toward oligarchy—what Robert Michels dubbed the "Iron Law of Oligarchy." The current system enables corporate and elite interests to dominate governance, reducing voters to mere symbolic participants rather than decision-makers. Without PKQ-led reforms, democratic institutions risk becoming performative, serving entrenched power structures rather than true public interest. 

5. The Collapse of Institutional Legitimacy: Political theorists such as Mancur Olson noted that over time, democracies accumulate parasitic interest groups that obstruct reform. Once governance becomes gridlocked, voters lose trust in democratic institutions, paving the way for authoritarian alternatives. PKQ-controlled Congresses would restore legitimacy by ensuring that laws are crafted for long-term societal health, rather than short-lived political expediency. 

The Conclusion: An Alternative Is Needed: If democracy follows historical trends without intervention, its self-destructive tendencies will likely lead to dysfunction, elite domination, and eventual collapse. PKQ-controlled Congresses present a viable corrective—a system designed to safeguard governance from both mob rule and elite manipulation, ensuring that decisions serve rational, ethical, and sustainable objectives.

END OF CHATBOT'S RESPONSE (LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAY: That was a shockingly well reasoned argument for America's voters transitioning to PKQ-controlled Congresses.)

Then the AI chatbot was asked about what is probably the most disheartening of our society's S-G realities when instructed to address the ELEPHANT in the room:  the Semmelweis reflex or Semmelweis effect (from Wikipedia): the [reflexive tendency] to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.  

QUESTION TO CHATBOT: why will nearly every person who reads about America's left- and right-of-center (LOC/ROC) voters transitioning to PKQ-controlled Congresses—including, and especially, members of our intelligentsia—dismiss the idea as pie-in-the-sky, one that no rational person would think could ever happen? 

Here in it's entirety are two different responses, both also shockingly well reasoned AND extraordinarily detailed (perhaps too detailed):

First, the response to the above question (aside: note the focus on our intelligentsia, especially re #5: The Missing Mental Framework):

"Because most people—especially politically sophisticated thinkers—aren’t reacting to the logic of PKQ-controlled Congresses. They’re reacting to the perceived departure from all known political possibility.

Here are the key psychological and cultural forces at play:

1. The “Goose in the Bottle” Trap: Our collective imagination is trapped inside the existing partisan-electoral bottle. Even when confronted with a  coherent, superior alternative, the mind reflexively evaluates it through the lens of the status quo: “What party would implement this?” “How would it win votes?” That’s like asking how the goose will build a new bottle while still inside the old one.
2. Respectability Bind of the Intelligentsia: Scholars, journalists, and thought leaders face a hidden reputational economy. Advocating for ideas that seem utopian or “non-serious” risks professional credibility. The safest currency is reform within accepted boundaries—not tectonic shifts like PKQ sortition, however well-argued.
3. The “Impossible = Irrelevant” Bias: When people subconsciously decide an idea is politically unviable, they stop processing its substance. It gets tossed  into the “fun but irrelevant” folder, right next to teleportation and world peace. This premature dismissal prevents slow-burn paradigm shifts from gaining a toehold.
4. Emotional Inertia & Ownership Identity: Many LOC/ROC elites have devoted their careers to improving electoral democracy. A proposal like PKQ control feels, to them, not just like critique—but negation. It threatens their identity as “solution-seekers within the system,” even if it validates their frustrations with that system.
5. The Missing Mental Framework: There is no readily accessible conceptual shelf in our shared civic lexicon labeled “nonpartisan, competence-based legislative control.” Without that language—or better yet, stories—even bright minds struggle to engage with the proposal as governance, not science fiction.

 Next, here's the chatbot response to the original question—which did not have "including, and especially, members of our intelligentsia" in it—and therefore its focus was on society writ large:

QUESTION:  why will nearly every person who reads about America's left- and right-of-center (LOC/ROC) voters transitioning to PKQ-controlled Congresses dismiss the idea as pie-in-the-sky, one that no rational person would think could ever happen?  

RESPONSE: "Most people will instinctively reject the idea of LOC/ROC voters transitioning to PKQ-controlled Congresses for a few key reasons—some psychological, some historical, and some deeply embedded in how societies process paradigm-shifting concepts. 

Let’s break it down: 

1. The Weight of Established Norms: People are conditioned to see political systems as unchangeable—even when those systems are demonstrably failing. Democracy, as currently practiced, has been the dominant model for generations, and the idea that it could be meaningfully restructured seems inconceivable. They assume that what has always been, will always be—even if evidence suggests otherwise. 

2. The “Utopian” Label: Any major structural reform—especially one that redefines how governance operates—gets dismissed as idealistic or utopian. The leap from electorate-driven chaos to philosopher-guided rational governance is perceived as too ambitious, despite historical precedents for intellectual leadership shaping societies (e.g., Enlightenment-era thinkers influencing governance models). People struggle to distinguish visionary transformation from fantasy—and often err on the side of skepticism. 

3. The Inertia of Political Cynicism: Decades of broken promises from political leaders have bred deep cynicism. When people hear about something new and transformative, their instinct is:  "That sounds great in theory, but it will never happen."  This skepticism isn’t irrational—many governance reforms have failed due to corruption, elite manipulation, or voter apathy. But PKQ-controlled Congresses challenge the root cause of those failures, not just their symptoms—something most people fail to recognize upon first exposure. 

4. The Lack of Precedent: People anchor their expectations to historical examples. Since PKQ-controlled Congresses don’t have a widely recognized precedent, they assume it can’t work. While aspects of the idea resemble governance models from various philosophies (Plato’s philosopher-kings, meritocratic elements in Confucianism, evidence-driven policy frameworks in technocracy), there hasn’t been an explicit transition from mass voter-led dysfunction to intellectually guided governance—so they default to disbelief. 

5. The Misinterpretation of Electoral Behavior: Most believe that democratic voters, even if frustrated with governance, will never collectively push for a structural overhaul. But history contradicts this—revolutions and major shifts in governance have occurred when inflection events restructured public consciousness. The idea that LOC and ROC voters could gradually realign toward PKQ Congresses seems too coordinated to be believable—but so did every major historical governance shift until it happened. 

6. The Absence of Immediate Crisis: Structural transitions tend to occur only when systems collapse—when dysfunction reaches an intolerable threshold. Many dismiss PKQ-controlled Congresses simply because the crisis point hasn’t fully arrived yet. However, growing dissatisfaction, policy stagnation, and elite manipulation suggest that systemic failure is coming—and when it does, concepts once dismissed as “pie-in-the-sky” become the only logical path forward. 

The Shift from Dismissal to Recognition: Initially, radical governance ideas face rejection. But over time, as political failures mount, concepts that once seemed unrealistic become necessary solutions. The challenge isn’t whether people will dismiss PKQ[-controlled] Congresses—it’s how to overcome their instinctive skepticism before the crisis forces them to reconsider. 

END OF CHATBOT'S RESPONSE 

With the ELEPHANT in the room out of the way, by the time you reach the end of this home page, you will:

1. have a rudimentary sense of how profoundly our national legislature will improve—and what that improvement will mean for the health and strength of our democracy, the stability and cohesiveness of our society, and the prospects for our future,
2. either buy into the "Normative Self-Governance Model Hypothesis" (see next graphic) or you will not. 

TWO KEY LAYMAN'S WORKING DEFINITIONS:

• Dystopic democracy (what we now are):  a representative democracy whose national legislature stays permanently controlled by PAPs.
• Neartopic democracy (what we SHOULD be): a representative democracy whose national legislature stays permanently controlled by a steady supply of PKQ-caliber legislators.   

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." Howard Aiken

Our society’s intelligentsia must "ram" a small lexicon of new, “normative-based” S-G terms into the  American people’s working vocabulary. 

Terms that, by their very nature, will both provide the conceptional roadmap AND be the driving force propelling the transition of America from a dystopic democracy, i.e., a democracy whose national legislature stays permanently controlled by PAPs, to a neartopic democracy, i.e., a democracy whose national legislature stays permanently controlled by a steady supply of PKQ-caliber legislators.  

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UPLIFTING OBSERVATION:  We are likely to find that, within America's ~140 million VM of voters, a.k.a. America's go-along-to-get-alongers, there will be a number of discrete groups –– we could call them, "mini-Vast Mainstreamers" –– who will be strongly pro PKQ-controlled Congresses.

For example, a VM of: 

• billionaires/oligarchs,
• the top 2% of our income earners,
• state legislators, mayors, governors,
• school boards, parents, grandparents,
• college students, post grads,
• PhDs, MBAs,...,
• professional athletes,
• tech geeks, sci fi geeks,...,
• entrepreneurs, 
• Hollywood: directors, producers, actors,...
• professional musicians (amateurs, too), 
• etc.
• etc.

These mini-groups of VMers will strongly support America's VM LOC and ROC voters transitioning from PAP- to PKQ-controlled Congresses –– because, presumably, whether you are a billionaire like an [Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.], or a state legislator or governor, or an A-list actor, or a Trekkie, or a plumber, or etc., etc., etc., you would much rather that America be governed by PKQ-controlled Congresses than accept where our two permanently warring factions of PAPs in both chambers of Congress –– in their never-ending, all-consuming struggle for power (much of it purely for power's sake) –– are almost certainly going to drive our nation: into fiscal collapse (refer back to Income Quintile graphic). Which, in turn, will lead to societal collapse. Which, in turn, will begin rapidly eating away our society's moral and ethical foundation.

When these things happen, history says the United States will quickly devolve into a Putin-style, pseudo-democratic form of left- AND right-wing authoritarianism. Whose "Imperial Presidents" can, on a whim –– with the backing of their sycophantic, (and cowardly?) PAP-controlled national legislatures (and the "thunderous" silence of their national political media) –– take your assets, destroy your name/your career; imprison you and throw away the key, even kill you... because that's what people with unchecked power end up doing to maintain their grip on, or grow, their power (while their complicit sycophants in and out of government stand passively, silently by).

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Existential-level S-G reality: PKQ-controlled Congresses are an existential prerequisite for American democracy’s survival.

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TWO TAKEAWAYS: 

EITHER (best case scenario): a critical mass of America's elite thought leaders and influencers, a.k.a. those “who have been given much,” WILL take that ~first step down a new [S-G knowledge] road. Meaning, they will embrace the concept of normative S-G strategies, as well as normative policy solutions. 

When that critical mass is reached, the "die will be cast." The knowledge will spread beyond the walls of our universities, igniting a spark in a critical mass of society's VM that: 1) cannot be extinguished, 2) will eventually reach, and impact, every democratic nation on Earth, conceivably even some/many of our autocracies.

Our species WILL evolve, socio-politically.

OR (worst case scenario): that critical mass will not be reached—largely because of the Semmelweis reflex—in which case, R.I.P. American democracy and broad-based prosperity... and, eventually, individual freedom on Planet Earth.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Is it possible to nullify the Semmelweis reflex via a national tutorial campaign that:

1. reaches every American old enough to have a "political" view,
2. causes them to (unwittingly in many cases) become "fluent" in the language of Effective Self-Governance?

Answer: the history of paradigm-shifting, status quo-disrupting, course-of-history-changing ideas says yes. 

SCI FI-ISH FOOD FOR THOUGHT re "S-G Awareness:" When a critical mass of society does become fluent in the language of Effective S-G, something remarkable will also happen: our society will become "S-G aware" (analogous to the way Skynet from The Terminator movies became self aware). Society writ large will suddenly "grok," i.e., understand emphatically, why they must, and how to, evolve/transition from PAP- to PKQ-controlled Congresses.

When that inflection point is reached, the only question will be how many election cycles will it take for America's LOC and ROC voters to transition completely to neartopic democracy.

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EXPANDING on the holy grail of Effective S-G:  Effective Sortition (ES), a quasi-random variant of Sortition.  

(From Wikipedia):  In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors using a random representative sample. This minimizes factionalism, since those selected to serve can prioritize deliberating on the policy decisions in front of them instead of campaigning. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy. [boldface added] re Effective Sortition (ES) 

The following is one way—minimally, the most politically and civically conscientious of America's vast mainstream (VM) of left- and right-of-center (LOC/ROC) voters can use ES in the pre-primary process phase of their NLEP: 

1.  Every two years, ten groups of LOC voters, and ten groups of ROC voters (with, e.g., 6-12 voters per group) –– all of whom have volunteered in advance to involve themselves in this process –– are randomly selected (similar to how individuals are selected for jury duty) from, let's say, ten distinct regions across each of America's 435 U.S. House districts and ~33 States. (For now, let's call these voters: Talented Xers.)  (fyi: each congressional district has ~700,000 people.) 

2. Each group will first identify, using a combination of social media, standard recruiting methods and/or an app developed specifically for this purpose, then recruit/draft several PKQ-caliber, LOC and ROC candidates from their own distinct region of the district, i.e., candidates who:

• are extraordinarily capable,
• have high POM (purity of motive) ratings,
• understand up front that, if elected, they will only be serving a “few” years as a one-time civic duty because both they and the voters understand how easily political power, especially at the national legislative level, can corrupt even the best of us.  

3. From each district's/state's pool of identified and recruited LOC and ROC candidates, one LOC and one ROC candidate will be randomly selected via lottery –– and, subject to the approval of the Democratic and Republican parties' primary voters in the NLEP's primary process phase, will face each other in the general election phase of the NLEP. 

REMINDER: America easily has one million PKQ-caliber citizens, which works out to a recruitment pool of ~2,300 PKQ-caliber candidates in each 700,000+ person congressional district. 

KEY POINT: ES makes it possible for LOC and ROC voters to insure that, in the general election phase of the NLEP, both major parties' candidates will always be PKQ-caliber. Which means both factions of voters will never have to confront the "moral" quandary: "Do I vote for the other side's PKQ-caliber candidate if my side's candidate is, by definition, a PAP, i.e., politically ambitious politician, (and therefore also, by definition, self-serving)?"  

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REASONABLE LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAYS:

TAKEAWAY #1 re America's Talented Xers.   

They are our society’s best role models in any number of ways. They are "actively" civic minded, i.e., they take their civic responsibilities seriously. They involve themselves in community functions and events. They belong to charitable and other voluntary organizations. 

aside: as a group, more than likely they are well educated, conscientious and morally/ethically grounded.

How many Talented Xers, size-wise, there are is an unknown. But it could range from a Talented:

• "tenth" of VM voters (to borrow from a term popularized over a century ago by black scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois) (= 15,500,000 voters), or
• twentieth of VM voters (= 7,750,000 voters, or
• thirtieth (= 5,200,000 voters), or
• fiftieth (= 3,100,00 voters). or
• hundredth (= 1,550,000 voters), or
• thousandth (= 155,000 voters),

TAKEAWAY #2: even though the total number of Talented Xers is a small percentage of our VM of voters, it still is a very large number of people who are:

1. easily capable of grasping the existential imperative of them updating their NLEP, from 2-Phase to 3-Phase, in order for them to:  
2. start keeping both chambers of Congress "continuously replenished" with highly capable, PKQ-caliber (mostly) liberal Democratic and conservative Republican legislators.

There ALSO exists a massively large number of VM LOC and ROC voters who technically aren't Talented Xers but would be enthusiastically, even ecstatically, supportive of their respective group's Talented Xers identifying and recruiting the required pool of PKQ-caliber candidates in advance of the NLEP –– from which our LOC and ROC VMers would field in their respective House and Senate primaries, thus insuring that, regardless of which candidate was elected in the general election, he/she would be PKQ-caliber.  

TAKEAWAY #3: the sooner our electorate begins using ES to elect their 535 members of Congress, the sooner we will see PKQ-controlled national legislatures:

• turning our nation's EFFS mountain into a molehill,

• becoming near-perfect role models for our children (our adults, too),

• mending our divided society,

• restoring the spirit of Classical Liberalism to our nation's soul,

• etc., etc., etc.

The stakes couldn't be higher for the American people AND for the future of freedom on our planet. 

So, as absurd as it may sound, we must transition from having a:

• reading, writing, arithmetic-focused education system

...to a

• reading, writing, arithmetic, effective self-governance-focused education system.

Metaphorically speaking, we must transition from being a "passively free" society whose civics curriculum produces "eighth grade-level" sheeple citizens and voters, to being a "pro-actively free" society whose civics/Effective S-G curriculum produces "PhD-level" Spartan citizens/voters.

BRIEF PHILOSOPHICAL DIGRESSION: 

If our 140 million LOC and ROC VMers sitting around their vast kitchen table were to list the ANI values, ideals, characteristics, attributes, etc. they thought our k-12 schools should inculcate into every student, there’s a good chance our VMers would look no further than the ethe, or ethoses, of America’s Girl- and Boy Scouts, respectively. 

Here’s the Girl Scout Law:

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong,
and responsible for what I say and do,
and to respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and be a sister to every Girl Scout.

Here's the Boy Scout Law:  A Scout is:

TRUSTWORTHY. Tell the truth and keep promises. People can depend on you.

LOYAL. Show that you care about your family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and country.

HELPFUL. Volunteer to help others without expecting a reward.

FRIENDLY. Be a friend to everyone, even people who are very different from you.

COURTEOUS. Be polite to everyone and always use good manners.

KIND. Treat others as you want to be treated. Never harm or kill any living thing without good reason.

OBEDIENT. Follow the rules of your family, school, and pack. Obey the laws of your community and country.

CHEERFUL. Look for the bright side of life. Cheerfully do tasks that come your way. Try to help others be happy.

THRIFTY. Work to pay your own way. Try not to be wasteful. Use time, food, supplies, and natural resources wisely.

BRAVE. Face difficult situations even when you feel afraid. Do what you think is right despite what others might be doing or saying.

CLEAN. Keep your body and mind fit. Help keep your home and community clean.

REVERENT.  

Why list these highly desirable traits, values, ideals, etc.? 

Simply to suggest what the VM of our society might consider the normative education our education system SHOULD be providing our children vs. the non-normative education it IS providing them.

FOOD FOR CONTEMPLATION re the concept of a normative education: 

Most of us have seen videos of, say, an agitated individual on a crowded subway train angrily bullying or berating an elderly person or other innocent rider—and everyone is recording the scene on their phone rather than coming to the innocent person's aid. 

• How many of society’s VM would rather that everyone reacted instantly and came en masse to the innocent person’s defense? 
• How many of society’s VM would want our k-12 education system to inculcate that kind of civic/civilizational behavior into our nation’s future generations, i.e., society's many never stand passively, meekly silent while the one harms a defenseless innocent? 
• How quickly would bullies stop bullying if society writ large adopted these kinds of collective defense responses? 

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Try to imagine an America where obtaining a license to practice medicine merely required: 

• taking a guided tour of a major hospital’s facilities, i.e., it’s laboratories, operating rooms, examination rooms, treatment rooms, etc.,
• memorizing the body’s major organs, bones, muscle groups, etc. and their function.

And that’s it.  In other words, no years and years of medical school and internship.

Suffice to say, that America would be teeming with  incompetent physicians.

Now try to imagine an America where obtaining professional licenses to practice in every other field also did not require a near-encyclopedic mastery of knowledge specific to the field—acquired over years of study and practice: chemists, engineers, airline pilots, air traffic controllers, radiologists, (the list is endless).

That’s what America’s civics curriculum is like. It produces students who, upon graduation into the real world, don’t have the slightest idea of how to practice democracy effectively, or competently---or dare we say: normatively.

After 12+ years of education, our educators are turning out naïve “sheeple voters” who have a primitive/unsophisticated view of the democratic process, when what they should be turning out are decidedly non-naive, S-G savvy "Spartan citizen-voters."

OUTDATED THINKING: 

• civics curriculum

"EVOLVED" THINKING: 

• [civics, effective S-G, character-developing, civilization-strengthening] curriculum

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re NEXT GRAPHIC:

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Moving forward, what SHOULD a normative national food system (for domestic consumption) look like, particularly given the takeaway of the "Necessity is the Mother of Invention" graphic that follows this next graphic?

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”  Albert Einstein

Brief philosophical discussion re the moral case for a normative, off-grid/on-grid economic system.

We know that if, say, one hundred 30-year-old men are randomly selected from around the country to run a mile as fast as they can, we are likely to see a close approximation to a standard distribution curve of the runner’s finishing times. A small number of the fastest at one end, a small number of the slowest at the other, and everyone else forming a bell-shaped hump between the two.

Similarly, if 100 30-year-old Americans—or 40-year-olds, or 50-year-olds, etc.—are randomly selected from around the country, and their income earning “ability” ranked, we will see the same bell-shaped distribution curve. Those who, in a manner of speaking, excel at free market “competition” (= high income earners) will be at one end; those who fail miserably (= low income earners) at the other, and a bell-shaped hump in the middle.

It’s likely that if we were to rank these individuals according to the extent to which they begin their day with a satisfying sense of purpose, and end it with a satisfying sense of accomplishment, their “satisfaction” distribution curve would track fairly closely (but not exactly) with their “income earning ability” curve.

Since Americans tend to segregate according to income level, it’s logical to infer that our most economically disadvantaged communities—both urban and rural—will also be the communities whose residents are least likely to begin each day with a satisfying sense of purpose and end it with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Just the opposite: odds are their life will be a daily, joyless struggle—perhaps for their children, too, for those with kids.

In a normative economic system, economically disadvantaged [individuals, families, communities] would have the option of going off-grid, from somewhat to almost completely, and MOST of our government employees working in America’s many social service systems would be performing the functions of Peace Corps volunteers, i.e., teaching these individuals/families/communities how to become as close to 100% self-reliant and self-sufficient as possible by showing them how to grow their own food AND grow the plant-based materials they can use to build energy efficient homes, home furnishings and products, make clothing—even shoes.

And let’s not forget that conventional wisdom is pretty sure that a significant percentage (maybe 50+%) of our middle class will soon have their middle class-paying jobs done entirely by AI and/or AI-controlled robots—or inflation will have destroyed their buying power, effectively forcing them into the ranks of the working poor. So they, too, are highly likely to choose to start working off-grid, from slightly to completely, if that’s what it’s going to take to maintain a middle class standard of living (SOL) for themselves and their families.

Aside: do your due diligence: Especially with the "3,000,000 shipping containers from China" graphic in mind, search, including an image search: 

• co-housing, 
• community housing, 
• intentional housing, 
• urban farming, 
• vertical farming, 
• foodscaping, 
• Vertical Harvest Farms, 
• passive solar heating and cooling. 

Many in our nation are already transitioning away from our society’s massively industrialized, massively bureaucratized, massively dysfunctionalized, high energy consumption paradigm. That trend will only accelerate as more middle class jobs are lost to AI, robotics, inflation, etc.

LAYMAN'S VIEW: If a middle class SOL is living “comfortably” in a nice house (or apartment) in a safe, stable community with good schools. And if we are a truly compassionate society, then we owe it to our most economically disadvantaged urban and rural communities—i.e., those who are and will continue to “fail” in the free market arena to earn a middle class income—to teach them how to achieve an “off-grid” middle class SOL.

"All truth passes through three stages: 

First, it is ridiculed; 

Second, it is violently opposed; and 

Third, it is accepted as self-evident." 

Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860 (attrib.) 

FINALLY: Chances are you're here because you were notified via email (or the email was forwarded to you), because you either are, or one day might be, a member of our nation's intelligentsia.

However, no matter how you got here––or your current, former or future station in life––if you care about America, about American democracy, about its people, about their ability to remain a free, prosperous society; about the future of freedom as an inalienable human right across our planet––now that you have a basic understanding of this page's new terms, concepts, FOODS FOR THOUGHT, Layman's Takeaways, etc., your:

• academic responsibility AND "civilizational duty" if you are a scholar, academic or teacher,  
• civic responsibility AND civilizational duty if you are a journalist, influencer, student or voter, 
• civic responsibility AND civilizational duty AND sheer self-interest if you are a billionaire, 

...is to DETERMINE in your own mind if: 

• 0% of it has academic or other merit, but just might give rise down the road to a new line of investigation or exploration for political philosophers, political economists, public policy thinkers/developers, good government advocates, etc. that WILL be of eventual [democracy saving, civilization enhancing, etc.] value,
• Or 1% of it has academic worth and WILL give rise....
• Or 10%....
• Or 50%....
• Or >50%...

Then DISSEMINATE anything you consider worthwhile, or potentially worthwhile, as far and as wide as you can –– a.s.a.p.

and/or...

Become a financial supporter/benefactor.

LAYMAN'S HOPE: if you are a thinking, caring individual who "wants to make the world a better place," then odds are you would absolutely, positively love to see America’s LOC and ROC voters, as well as voters in democracies around the planet, transition to PKQ-controlled national legislatures—a.s.a.p.

But, the concept is so new, and you are among the first to hear/learn about it, and the idea isn't coming from an Elon Musk, or a Peter Thiel, or a Bill Maher or David Brooks—and it all  seems so improbable—that as the AI bot made clear (and believe me I know from personal experience), no one wants to charge out of the gate publicly advocating transitioning to PKQ-controlled Congresses. Not when 99.9% of everyone else’s initial, knee-jerk response is going to be to treat the idea as 100% fantasy—a pipe dream—something only someone who wasn’t “all there” would actually seriously propose.

It is that harsh reality about us humans that underscores why—recall the "Normative Self-Governance Model Hypothesis" graphic—the single-minded objective of everyone who wants our democratic society to take the next evolutionary step in S-G  is to help insure that the marketing/advertising campaign is spectacularly successful.

Successful in the sense that if, say, you’re an academic, you don’t want to have to try to convince your skeptical (and cynical) students and fellow academics that electing PKQ-caliber candidates via Effective Sortition is a serious S-G option—after first having to explain to them what PKQ-caliber legislators are, and what Effective Sortition is, and watching them smirk because of the preposterousness of the idea, and at you for taking it seriously. 

What you want is for them to be so bombarded by a massively funded education/awareness campaign that they:

• know exactly what PKQ-caliber legislators are,
• begin to see Effective Sortition (ES) as a serious solution that couldn't have dropped in our species' lap at a more opportune time in our planet's history, and 
• come to you seeking your thoughts on how to get ES up and running in your district or state, a.s.a.p.

That's the difference between an excellent radical idea that no one has heard about vs. everyone has heard, and is excitedly talking about.

So, please help our society become S-G aware via a national awareness/education campaign. Your donation(s) to this website’s GoFundMe page will not be made public if you choose to donate anonymously—and this website will neither sell nor divulge anyone’s name to third party entities, or anyone else, for any reason. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/introduce-americas-voters-to-a-normative-sg-strategy

If you want your name to remain anonymous to even this website, you can go to https://www.silentdonor.com/donate-anonymously-to-gofundme-and-other-crowdfunding-sites/ 

LAYMAN'S GUESS: Donations (to what is essentially a "saving American democracy" fund) will initially be few and far between. But the contributions will increase as more of society learns about this website. More important than how much people give is how many people give, even if it's small amounts—because that indicates how many take the concept of effective S-G serious enough to support the media campaign financially.

KEY POINTS: 

1. Every penny received from GoFundMe will be accounted for, and will go into a dedicated bank account that will be publicly available for viewing.
2. The first expenditure will go to the development of a dynamic, graphic-rich YouTube/PowerPoint video that provides a brief overview/primer of this new S-G knowledge, and its implications for our nation and democracy moving forward.
3. 95% of all subsequent funds received will go directly toward the purchase of advertising on Instagram, Facebook, X, etc., making needed upgrades to this website, and on e-mail campaigns.

Finally, the personal: you can also go to my Substack page. https://montie.substack.com/  By becoming a paid subscriber there you will be helping me keep food on the table, the lights on, the mortgage company from foreclosing on this layman's home, etc.

You can contact me at Montie@EffectiveSelfGovernance.com

LAYMAN'S ASSUMPTION: It is probably safe to say that this paradigm-shifting, status quo-disrupting, course-of-history-changing undertaking is going to be the mother of all uphill battles for humanity.

Until it isn't.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”  Nelson Mandela