The ultimate societal system

[Noticer]

In a world where no society can suit everybody, the fairest way to play things is to tailor society to each individual.

How? You conduct a nationwide quiz, a bit like the census, wherein people give their opinion on various things (i.e. Yes or No, or to what degree), such as:

Death penalty
NHS
Benefits
Conscription/NS (keeping it topical)
Responses to certain events, like Ukraine
Immigration
Etc. etc.

Your answers (which can be revised whenever you like, unless you've already been affected by them) are tied to your identity. The law is then applied to you, and other people's actions upon you, based on your answers. Basically boiling down to 'if you're for it, then you're subjected to it'.

So, you don't agree to the NHS for anything past emergency care? You must pay for anything that isn't emergency care; however, you do pay proportionally less tax as a result.

You think the UK should give aid to, or militarily intervene in Ukraine or Gaza etc.? The aid pot is made up of expropriations from the people in favour, and they're first in if war is declared, regardless of their age.

And so on. As an experiment I think it would be fascinating to see how things change when people become personally liable for the things they believe.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
YANBU if you agree, YABU if you don't; though please do tell me why, if not.

On a practical level, the sort of system you are proposing would be an administrative nightmare for policy makers. What if people change their minds on various issues, how will that work? The government would not be able to set budgets as it would be difficult to determine future tax receipts.

Imagine running a family like that (let alone a nation) - it would be chaotic.

It’s so much simpler for parties to put forward their manifestos and you just pick the party closest to your beliefs, giving them a mandate. The government should be free to change course and take action based on clear facts that they have access to via science, statistics etc - for example picking a policy that would save the most lives e.g pandemic response.

I'd go further. No-one rational would opt in to it.

I don't expect I'll ever murder anyone. If I opt in then:

• In the very unlikely scenario that I'm convicted of murder (I guess everyone has a very small but non-zero chance of being wrongly convicted), I lose
• If I'm not convicted of murder, I don't gain anything.

Unless of course not opting in puts will itself someone under suspicion - but that sounds incredibly hellish!

The death penalty thing doesn't have to "work". Indeed, none of it has to necessarily achieve a goal. It's just an expression of beliefs and standards to be held to.

The question is then about what choices people would end up making in these cases, and where the country would go as a result.

Your national service thing expresses the whole point really. It isn't practical, but then perhaps that person shouldn't be in favour. What right would they have to compel others to go and do these things if they won't, for whatever reason?

You need to look at optimal strategies in biology and prisoners dilemma/gamification.

Red Queen hypothesis ""Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
Humans will want to optimise their own chances; everyone doing that changes the game.

Interesting idea though. I need to come back to it in the morning.

Ok, let’s try another one. I’m going to opt out of the nhs entirely. Plus paying towards the social safety net. I’m now sick and homeless and quite literally dying on the street. According to the rules of society, I can’t be treated or helped because I chose to opt out of the system. I am fine with that choice. You however, have to watch me slowly die.

Good one 😱🤔

Yes.
Or I've opted out of paying taxes, but now I'm pregnant. I can't have an abortion due to not paying for NHS but I don'twant the baby. Like many women in my situation I abandon it. Who picks up the bill or do you leave the newborn to die?

It's the kind of thought experiment that makes you realise how taxes came about. Its an imperfect solution, but probably the best we will get.

People underestimate how many really challenging people the NHS and housing systems deal with. It seems great to tell them all to bugger off, but can you imagine the crime, social issues and, the really serious one.

If you house the nice people, say a single mum with trauma, and don't house the nasty people, say an abusive man who induces trauma, all that happens is that the latter preys on the former. You still deal with the issues, just without any real say over the initial arrangement.

The UK national average reading age is that of a 9 year old

People are as gullible as fuck so would make stupid decisions based on bollocks information from social media - brexit bus being a prime example

This would never work.

Nice thought though

Really interesting reading. Great thread and so thought provoking. Also highlights how hard it is to find a policy that works for all

Alas Brexit showed that many of the voting public are v gullible and will fall for lies and liars, bollox on buses, and show little analytical ability.

Like the Brexit quiz? Because that worked out so well.

As a retired civil servant, I shudder to think how many more civil servants your system would need. I spent a good part of my career trying to figure out how a policy could be delivered. I think I'd have thrown my hands up in horror if I'd been asked to develop a way this could be put into operation. I'd send the policy back to you, ask if it had been costed, and for clues as to how it could possibly be operated.

on a more philosophical level, your idea seemed to negate the need for society.... And I cannot even finish that thought because years of trying to develop plans to make a strategy operational means I just keep running up against the impossibility of your hypothesis. So before any interaction, I'd need to know what your particular decisions were? What if you, for an extreme example, believed anyone who looked at you should receive the death penalty?

You think the UK should give aid to, or militarily intervene in Ukraine or Gaza etc.? The aid pot is made up of expropriations from the people in favour, and they're first in if war is declared, regardless of their age.

First in what? The queue to go to war? Many of us believe aiding Ukraine means our armed forced won’t have to go to war if Russia invades a nation to whom we’re obliged to fight Russia.

This is genuinely stupid.

That is not true. The average reading age is not nine.

And this is why the whole premise is silly. Do I think we should gave aid? Yes. Tied aid? No. Aid to places with corruption? Maybe, with oversight. Aid to places at the wrong time or the wrong type? No. I don't know enough so I have to trust someone does their homework.

I work in housing and the amount of well-meaning amateurs, politicians and public who want to impose their reckons on a complex system, with no clue how it works, is already staggering. If our funding relied on them? Nope.

https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/knowledge-library-services/improving-health-literacy

Apologies, it's 1 in 4 rather than average

If you think that our actions in Ukraine are actively leading us away from war with them, then you are the stupid one, my friend.

I've not spoken to a single pro-Brexiter whose main reasons weren't 'lower immigration ' or 'national sovereignty'.

It's not their fault that the Tories stabbed them in the back by intentionally screwing it up and letting in even more migration from elsewhere.

If you want to talk about lies, how much of the Project Fear nonsense has come about?