Design a new form of government.

[shereads]

You and one hundred friends have contributed equally to the purchase of an island.

Now what?

Someone else go first. I'll be busy looking for a restroom, because I hate the ones on airlines and most boats.

 

[shereads]

Amicus, I know you're out there. Don't be shy. This is your chance to show how it works.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I think its small enough for a democratic comunist government.

 

[shereads]

I think its small enough for a democratic comunist government.

All I know is, there are no clean public restrooms. This island needs help.

 

[comp|icity]

A benevolent dictatorship - the only way to go!

None of this shilly shally democracy with decisions watered down by political correctness. No influencing the ignorant masses to vote for something by owning the media and expertly applying spin.

I'll be in charge and I'll direct things for the good of everyone. Now, start building my palace... ummm and you can all get rid of those clothes for a start too...

 

[sweetnpetite]

All I know is, there are no clean public restrooms. This island needs help.

We'll all build them (and clean them) and we'll all have equal access as needed. Now lets have a town meating to discuss and vote on what plans to use, where to best place them, what materials we will need and so forth.

 

[lewdandlicentious]

Nah, bollocks to all that!

Let's first and foremost, work on population control.

I want it doubled within a year!!!

Now, all the women over there.

Men, you sort out the food. Go foraging, fishing, whatever takes your fancy. Whoever comes back without food, does the dishes.

Ladies, follow me, we have some serious work to do!!!!!

*edited to add*:

"Oh, and some of you men build some restrooms!!!!"

 

[comp|icity]

Originally posted by sweetnpetite
We'll all build them (and clean them) and we'll all have equal access as needed. Now lets have a town meating to discuss and vote on what plans to use, where to best place them, what materials we will need and so forth.

I'm telling ya. You'll all be peeing your pants before you manage to agree on the colour.

And even if you get them built, that Joe, he's a lazy bugger and will skip his cleaning rota. He'll offer David some extra coconuts or something to do it for him, and before you know it you'll have a class system...

 

[sweetnpetite]

I'm telling ya. You'll all be peeing your pants before you manage to agree on the colour.

And even if you get them built, that Joe, he's a lazy bugger and will skip his cleaning rota. He'll offer David some extra coconuts or something to do it for him, and before you know it you'll have a class system...

coconuts are free to all. Take what you need.

This isn't cuba. If you don't want to pull your own weight you can always go live somewhere else.

Until we get the facilities built, everyone will have to take care of their own errr. refuse, away from the water source please.

 

[Weird Harold]

You and one hundred friends have contributed equally to the purchase of an island.

Now what?

Someone else go first. I'll be busy looking for a restroom, because I hate the ones on airlines and most boats.

I don't think there is such a thing as "a new form of goverment." Everything you can think of has been tried before and some of them would even work for a group as small as 100 equal partners.

As for restrooms, the "little girls' room" is right there under that palm tree, just behind the frondy fern-like bush.

 

[overthebow]

How about a government where all political positions are filled by appointment and there are no political parties. If you want to be a political representative, you pass some qualifying exams and put your name forward. Lots are drawn and if you are chosen, you serve in government. You may be picked to be a staffer, not a legislator.

It is not a representative democracy, not a direct democracy.

Government service is mandatory. Citizenship is earned.

 

[Weird Harold]

If you want to be a political representative, you pass some qualifying exams and put your name forward.

I think I prefer Robert A. Heinlein's idea that if you want a political office, you're automatically disqualified.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

A dictatorship would be most efficient, I think.

 

[R. Richard]

You and one hundred friends have contributed equally to the purchase of an island.

Now what?

I wasn't an island, however the situation you seem to be describing was encountered by the Jamestown colony, early in American history.

The solution was communism. All of the colony's tools were shared, out of necessity. Then it was decreed, "Anyone who does not work, does not eat." It worked.

If you check back, as soon as they could the Jamestown colony abandoned Communism and returned to Capitalism. It was an interesting lesson.

 

[shereads]

I'll be in charge and I'll direct things for the good of everyone.

You and what army? If there's a dictatorship, I want a cushy job as one of the prissy, do-nothing toadies who follows the dictator around reminding others to be polite to him. I expect to be handsomely rewarded, or I'll write a tell-all book about you.

 

[shereads]

I'm telling ya. You'll all be peeing your pants before you manage to agree on the colour.

And even if you get them built, that Joe, he's a lazy bugger and will skip his cleaning rota. He'll offer David some extra coconuts or something to do it for him, and before you know it you'll have a class system...

Did I forget to mention that I harvested the coconuts while you gentlemen were drawing up plans for the maternity ward and the palace? The coconuts are mine. I'll give half to the contractor who supervises completion of my private bathroom with flushing toilet.

Who's up for a game of backgammon and some pina coladas?

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Design a new form of government.

I wasn't an island, however the situation you seem to be describing was encountered by the Jamestown colony, early in American history.

The solution was communism. All of the colony's tools were shared, out of necessity. Then it was decreed, "Anyone who does not work, does not eat." It worked.

If you check back, as soon as they could the Jamestown colony abandoned Communism and returned to Capitalism. It was an interesting lesson.

Didn't they disappear? Or am I thinking of Rhode Island?

 

[Xelebes]

First, I'll make sure there is a plumber, a mason, a carpenter, a potter, a tanner, a fisher, a farmer, a weaver and other basic artificers in the group.

 

[Pure]

well, sher, you've not been reading your Marx lately. government is a set of features a couple levels higher than what's at the base: the means by which the community produces its means of subsistence and reproduces itself.

from that flows, inter alia, the system of ownership of these means.

atop that is government, including the laws and practices that protect and further the lower level arrangements.

i see only Xelebes has mentioned these sorts of issues.

 

[Xelebes]

i see only Xelebes has mentioned these sorts of issues.

Hey man, I really want those bathrooms!

 

[Seattle Zack]

There was a computer game I used to play, called Tropico, a political simulation, where you were the leader of a Carribean island of about fifty people and you had to manage it appropriately.

Awesome game, I highly recommend it (even the soundtrack is great). This game cost me hundreds of hours of sleep and many missed deadlines.

You could be a benevolent dictator, supplying housing for everyone, making sure you had clinics and doctors (which you had to import at a high price from the mainland) and having free and fair elections every four years.

Or you could rule with an iron fist, outlawing emmigration, random executions in the streets, with a highly paid army that terrorized the populace.

As the population swelled, everything cost money, and you had to appease the various factions, such as the religious fanatics (they wanted churches and priests). Lean too far to the left or the right and the US or Russia was likely to invade ... unless you had a diplomat that had already set up a treaty with the commies or the capitalists.

The thing that was cool about the game is your little island inhabitants would marry, have kids ... all could be tracked individually. Piss off the liberals too much and your teacher would leave the island, leaving you with an empty schoolhouse. Time for the martial law edict, before the rabble got too enraged. Because you needed them, after all, for the rum distilleries and the cigar factories, to keep your island in the black. Kill off too many farmers and there's nothing to export.

A great game. Tropico, from Poptop Software. Highly recommended.

 

[snooper]

... Now lets have a town meating to discuss and vote on what plans to use, where to best place them, what materials we will need and so forth.

You can't do that yet. First you need a constitutional convention where you decide on the voting rules, what constitutes a big enough majority for different types of decisions.


Wait a minute, before that you need to decide on the voting rules for the constitutional convention and who will chair it.

Oh dear. You should have sorted all this out before you bought the place.

Never mind - there is a solution.

Find oil - oppress a minority - harder - harder - GREAT.

Now GWB will invade and impose a system of government - problem solved.

 

[R. Richard]

Re: Re: Re: Design a new form of government.

Didn't they disappear? Or am I thinking of Rhode Island?

Roanoke Island was the site of the 'lost colony.' Roanoke Island is in North Carolina. The fate of the colony is still not know. The only trace they left was the word 'Croatan' carved into a tree.

The Roanoke Island colony predated the Jamestown settlement.

Of ciurse, neither had anything to do with Rhode Island.

 

[OldnotDead]

Sher,

Since we just got this island I'm thinking it's one no one else wanted. So it probably doesn't have any natural source of fresh water. Perhaps the land may not even support anything more than palm trees. What are the resources?

You say you want bathrooms? One or two holer, my dear?

"I thought you said the cabin had two bedrooms and a bath?"

"No, you stupid Yankee, I said two rooms and a path!"

 

[shereads]

well, sher, you've not been reading your Marx lately. government is a set of features a couple levels higher than what's at the base: the means by which the community produces its means of subsistence and reproduces itself.

from that flows, inter alia, the system of ownership of these means.

atop that is government, including the laws and practices that protect and further the lower level arrangements.

i see only Xelebes has mentioned these sorts of issues.

I was taking it for granted that we'd all be helpless without our laptops.