OK, so a promise is a promise.

The world and mankind. Where did I decide on such a massive subject?

Someone said that whenever a problem is too complex, you have to cut it into small parts, and as you address the small parts, you reduce the complexity. I think it was Fermat, whose last theorem was solved recently - the riddle was: x high n + y high n cannot be equal to z high n, if n is more than 2. Fermat wrote this in 1637, and it was solved in 1995 by Andrew Wiles, using a very unusual way to actually prove it: he cut the complex problem into smaller problems, and then went sideways to solve it.

Anyway, so talking about humanity and the world is complex. As I alluded in my first blog, nobody has time to read more than 5 minutes a day (what a pity!), so the only option is to slice the issue into small portions, like ham or sausage.

So, today, I'll talk about politicians.

The people we are electing, and who are deciding on so much stuff that affects us every day: voting new laws (ever heard about a law being repelled????), deciding on all sorts of stuff from immigration rules to retirement age to new taxes (mmmh new taxes especially!).

Politicians are elected by the people, normally on majority vote system (in some places like the US, it can be via a secondary majority) .  The idea is to vote for people that will defend your views and represent you.
Now, where does the system come from: Ancient Greece invented democracy, which means "the rule of the people", and it basically involved 30 to 60,000 "citizens" (out of 200 or 300,000 people), a citizen being one who partake in the wars, and hence earned the right to vote. The system then went to Rome, via emperors, was forgotten for ages, and re-invented over time, culminating in the French revolution of 1789.

We are now in a situation where a citizen is anybody who has citizenship, whether he or she contributes to society or not (the old concept of partaking in wars), and his/her vote is worth the same whatever the origin/education level/contribution to society. So, a complete moron and a highly educated person, someone paying millions in taxes, and someone paying nothing carry the same weight.
Politically incorrect? Yes. I warned you, but it's a bit of a problem having imbeciles voting, as they seem to be a majority... And imbeciles vote for politicians, getting pretty much what they deserve.

Ancient Greece had less than 100,000 persons voting. It's a lot of people, but it's not that many compared to today. The US has about 135,000,000 voters (I'm not counting the people who go fishing on that day, many on purpose, another topic to come). By the way, the candidates of the last US presidential election spent some 1.2 billion dollars in the process...

Now, me and my wife have a serious problem agreeing on some very basic issues. That's 2 people.
I have been in organizations where 50 or 60 people have an opinion (school boards for instance), and it's very hard to agree on anything. How can 130 MILLION people agree on basic issues?

Democracy works in relatively small groups. It does not work well in large groups, for the reason stated above, and because "serving" the people now requires full time attention, i.e. is a full time job.

So, over time, we have developed a specialized breed, like ants develop soldiers, and workers, we've developed politicians. A new profession.

Any professional wants to do well. In the case of a mason, he wants to build a good wall. Unfortunately, in the case of a politician, he wants be re-elected, otherwise he's out of a job.

There was a time (long past), when politicians came from normal society. They used to be masons, or doctors, or businesspeople, and maybe had a vision, wanted the best for mankind, and took risks to get their ideas across (example are the declaration of the rights of man of 1793 see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_Citizen_of_17
93)
Now, we have professional politicians, who most often have held no other job, or at best have not been instrumental in creating value in society. Their job is to get elected. They have gone through a very selective and gruesome path in their party, elbowing others, and doing what it takes to be the one standing for election. Money spent is often huge, and the investment has to pay off...

What drives these people? Vision? Power? Money?

I've had the opportunity to meet quite a few elected politicians. They usually have a very strong ego, some have a conviction, but foremost they all have the will to stay alive in the system. And when your job is politician, the way to stay alive is to be re-elected, whatever the means.

OK, it's more than 5 minutes, sorry.

I'll continue on this topic next time. And will draw some conclusions.

Comments are most welcome.