the dream of better education and a better society

There ought to be experimentation in terms of what can be taught children at which ages. How early can they be taught to read? How early can math be taught and how complex can we get how soon? But not just that -- children really ought to be taught about health in much greater detail and as soon as possible. Things like psychology, the biology of the human brain, the biology of the body and how it is affected by diet --and all these things taught alongside the current most common issues in terms of health and their causes. The same for politics, political history covered alongside current events-- and in order to keep it unbiased, covering pure policy of elected officials as well as the platforms that they ran on (if, in this imaginary scenario, a similar political system to the US is in place).

The education system ought to at least teach history, writing, reading, basic math, and health -- as it currently is supposed to, but frequently fails at doing so with much efficacy. Beyond that, I think government ought to be taught more often, more thoroughly, and with greater emphasis on current events -- and probably not just to children (currently, news sources are awfully selective, with little focus on actual policy changes -- it is functionally propaganda for the ruling class).

Philosophy ought to also be taught and discussed, lest anyone lose their sense of wonder at the world, lest the hubris of man be allowed to continue flourishing as it has. We ought to understand the limitations of human comprehension and we ought to grapple with the problems no one has been able to solve, it builds character and guides development -- both socially and individually, and in terms of scientific advancement.

I think the evolution of man ought to be assumed and self-guided. We currently fail to guide people in any meaningful way about how they ought to live their lives, all education exists with the true aim of making better working class citizens -- we care not for the health of the population and we are feeling the effects of these failures constantly. (Living in the Trump era). What is the point of voting if most of the people voting have no real idea what they are voting for? (As a separate issue: even in the best of cases, there is no accountability for elected officials to hold true to their platform.) Most of the population tends to be uneducated and uninformed on the true matters of policy writing and changes. Voting is little more than a contest of superficial ideology or image in general.

Even if people were educated on policy, that is not enough without some education on psychology-- if we aren't aware of common logical pitfalls, how can be sure we are using good judgement? It's something that has to be tested for thoroughly, and the best we can do requires for us to understand the human mind as best we can.

Increasingly, I'm with Plato, I believe some sort of educated aristocracy might be the only way to utopia (which means it may never actually occur) -- but I think it's more complicated than he thought it was. Leaders can't be born of a generalized education, and people ought to specify as soon as they are able. The extent of general education ought to depend on the extent of general power -- people only need learn what they need to know. It isn't a bad thing to let people study specifics sooner, though. Consider science-- the sciences really ought to be represented in government in a lot of cases (remember, our goal here is self-directed evolution, so consider how the world might be different in regards to global warming, for example, if scientists had more of a say in governance). The government ought to allow people in as much as possible on the merit of their education and intelligence, I think. But it also ought to be broad, and as all-encompassing as possible. There should be situations in which the government functions more like a college than a government, we ought to structure government so that knowledge can be gathered and used as a form of guidance for policymakers. The constituents are important, but they also will display illness if policy is poor and voting means that illness will lead to further illness (as is the case with Trump, in my opinion) rather than treatment of said illness. The government should make its business creating healthy citizens who honestly don't care whether or not they get to vote and if they do would by vast majority agree with the current policy-- because that would be a sign of really good policy, which ought to be the goal.

Obviously, the main problem with the idea of this sort of system is the problem of who is going to hold policymakers accountable? But the answer lies in diversifying and spreading the choices so thin that it is in everyone's best interest to vote accordingly (voting being done by those most educated on government and health). Essentially, the government should be large- but not so large that it can't be understood by a small group of people. (It would be a balancing act of ensuring the government does not scale so far out of control that it couldn't be reeled back in if necessary).

Honestly, if there was going to be an election of any kind, it ought to be on what kind of government we should have. Each proposed should be actually tried-- perhaps in smaller -- but not too small -- groups. I'm not sure how this would ever be achieved, maybe through simulation it could be achieved someday. Ideally, I think we ought to choose our systems based on how they actually perform, and that also involves giving other forms of governance an actual chance in some way. (noting that if we did find some way of simulating these things, it would be a good test for aspiring rulers to give them a simulation game and see how they do)