Just imagine a worldwide distributed democratic system...

I want you to imagine a worldwide distributed democratic system, which decides everything on the planet, from what resources to extract to what colors are available on cars, to how tall the high heels are on shoes. Votes are tallied constantly, keeping track, in real-time, of the people's will. These votes are cast by means of special tokens, which are given in exchange for helping others. The more people you help, or the more you help people, the more tokens you get to cast your vote with. When you cast your vote, you get exactly what you want, or at least something close enough that you are satisfied with what you got.

Does this sound like a fair system?

What if I told you that this system already exists?

What if I told you that this system is already working?

There is a problem, though. A number of cartels, almost 200, in fact, have divided the world up into territories, where they claim the exclusive right to meddle with the people's will, skew the vote tallies, and in almost every case, fraudulently create voting tokens out of thin air.

The system is the free market. The cartels distorting the market are governments. Free the markets. Make your vote count again.

Theodore Minick

That sounds like a wonderful peaceful solution to all problems. As long as nobody disagrees with anyone else about anything ever.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation. Fred is a farmer with a 12 year old daughter, and he contracts with security firm ABC to protect him and his family against aggressors. Bob is a cult leader who contracts with security firm XYZ to protect him and his followers against aggressors. Fred's daughter falls in love with Bob and runs away to be one of his brides. Fred claims she's kidnapped and brainwashed; Bob claims she's there of her own free will and should be left alone. Fred and ABC Security both are operating under the assumption that 12 year olds can't consent to marriage; Bob and XYZ Security are operating under the assumption that they can. Now, if ABC Security goes and forcibly extracts her from Bob's compound, who initiated the aggression? And does it even matter, considering ABC and XYZ are now effectively at war, and that this fundamental disagreement will likely be resolved in favor of whoever most effectively wields force of arms against the other? Welcome to Utopia. John Henry

It's called arbitration.

ABC and XYZ both know that a shoot-out would be wasteful. Being the greedy businessmen that they are, they don't like to spend an extra penny.

So, they contact a judge, known for his fair decisions, and agree to abide by the decision of that judge. The judge hears the case, renders his decision, and both sides abide by that decision, because they both agreed to, and, because the alternative is to waste a bunch of money, and possibly get killed duking it out.

Theodore Minick