[Bradley_A_Pliam]

The impossibility of the Arrow Theorum is not dealt with in a society that has maximized freedoms of the individual, based on pure volunteerism. Virtually every other type of society has a way of dealing with this limitation with large numbers of people. The solution has been government that either uses coercion or enticement to overcome this problem of diversity of wills.

[PaulHoule]

But neither the market nor elections gets the right answer either in terms of "correct" or "legitimate".

this book covers the head space you are in ("homo sap has gotten in over his head") and you should read it now:

https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706...

[Bradley_A_Pliam]

That book looks quite fascinating but it advocates change through each individual (within a class of engineers), therefore it is not placing the urgency that is needed right now for change in our society, banking instead on long-term changes that will be too little too late.

FWIW, it is not that implausible that the world moves toward authoritarianism. This is the most crude but effective path toward achieving coordinated responses to a centralized mandate. I'm hoping for a different solution, think pervasive messaging without the force of the law. Not as with the Matrix, but as in "Life is Beautiful" the dad protects and elicits advantageous life-saving behavior from his son.

Also I wanted to mention Joseph Merz argument (https://www.planetcritical.com/p/urgency-action-and-ethics-j...) that it is too hard to go down the educational route, he wants to focus on direct influence of human behavior. Sound evil? It's basically trying to do what advertisers have done to us for decades or more.

[PaulHoule]

Livingston is far from the "lifestyle anarchism" that Bookchin warned about

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-soci...

that is, Livingston provides answers (that can be applied at the workgroup level) to the problem of people being over their heads with technology aimed specifically at technologists who are in the belly of the beast and are facing the problem directly.

If you want some top down answer to the problem you might as well pray to God because that's as likely to work as the alternatives.

[Bradley_A_Pliam]

If there isn't a top down effort, it will be a sluggish, "I'll get to when I feel like it" approach to dealing with existential threats to the human race. We have to come to terms with the fact that utopian dreams must be, to a large extent, deferred in order to do what is right for the planet with an every shrinking window of time. That means utilizing existing power structures. As I said, authoritarianism is a present reality that gets things done, though freedom-loving Americans fail to notice this. I don't want authoritarianism, I'm hoping for a signaling and messaging from influencers and power-brokers to coalesce a national response to urgent issues.