This is a really tricky one. I can understand why people in the government would think that this is a good choice, for reasons of “safety”. I remember reading about the In-N-Out in Oakland which shut down recently because of rampant car break-ins in their parking lot. If we could detect that a crime is happening and then alert the nearby patrol as to the perpetrators’ whereabouts and heading, that would make those areas safer and less crime prone.

But the benefit is only worth the cost if the benefit is actually real. It might stop a car break-in in select locations, but the need for resources is still there. While it’s tempting to lose myself in the anger of a person who is being robbed, I can also see that so many people are committing robbery at the Oakland In-N-Out because so many in that area feel disaffected from society. That they were failed, so they’ve crossed the line of trampling the human rights of another for their own gain. Not saying anything a thief does is justified, just that rampant thievery is only a symptom of a deeper problem.

The world is heating up. We will have to adapt to growing crops in climate controlled environments as conditions get worse. Homes will continue to be expensive and coveted. Water supply will become ever more critical. All of this entails resource consumption, and none of these things (food, housing, water) are guaranteed as a human right in the US, as well as many places in the world.

While some nations show strides in progressivity on human rights, many places are far worse off than the US and those in the south will surely create many more refugees when the equator heats up further.

There are real concerns about how many people are crossing the southern US border each year. But also, everyone in a democratic nation should be granted their basic human rights by definition of what it means to be a democracy.

We should be protecting people who dine out from having their property stolen while they are eating. But also, enabling the government to track us and all of our actions using AI recognition software may not be a great idea for salvaging a “democracy” currently in the pocket of corporations.

We should be granting a wide variety of human rights to every person across the globe and are prevented from doing so due to a cabal of ultrarich oligarchs. But also, if we took down those oligarchs and spread their wealth evenly across all people like butter over toast… it might not go as far as you think.

These are not dichotomies but important facets of multifaceted problems. Centrism is not a good approach, because approaching every problem as equally severe and every side as equally incorrect leaves us in a standstill with the status quo at an advantage. Picking no side is equivalent to picking the side that’s in power. But to change who represents each side, we have to give the time and resources it takes to get involved.

But who has that kind of time when we’re all struggling to keep hold of our human rights? If income inequality was abolished and all the wealth of the upper class were divided evenly among the world, it might be upsetting to get only a few thousand dollars and be expected to keep working. Income is so unequal because of the results of taking small amounts from millions of workers. We should absolutely demand better pay for all workers, but we should also evaluate what efficiency gains capitalism purposely prevents us from making.

Even if we took control of all the corporations, we still have to solve the problem of how to run the companies collectively, making decent informed decisions that lead to good results for everyone. Capitalism bought us a cheapened world where every corner is cut as long as it’s still marketable. Where could humanism take us instead? How do we fairly get local gardens into every community, at a scale where everyone can be fed without the need for mass transport? How do we create a platform that connects us all in such a way that we the people can make that kind of wide-sweeping decision rather than requiring a representative government to do it for us?

These problems aren’t easy to solve and we will need to do it together. Those of us who have enough resources and spare time to start the process need to figure out what a digital forum would look like as a public utility. How feasible is a society where all operation costs and profits are shared among everyone? Where productivity can be measured and those who did the most to make something happen can be fairly rewarded for their effort, without dismantling the overall basic income that provides for our human rights. And if we end up with a surveillance system for the safety of the people, making it in a way that’s open source and alerts the community as well as law enforcement when a person is in need of help.

Fairness is intangible. Hard to define. Hard to maintain. Often argued about. There’s no agreed-upon standard of what’s fair. And to make a system that determines fairness fairly, you have to train an AI to take varied opinions and select for the most voted upon answers. We have the potential to make a true democracy where every voice is heard. But is that the ultimate goal?

If we can make it to a world where everyone is fed, they all feel safe, and no one lacks for education or socialization, our democratic society could be beautiful and productive. But if we give the current world this same tool of democracy and propose that we work together to build that ideal world… would those of us who grew up in this world be ready to guide us into that future? Or would our societal flaws just get baked in and become impossible to remove? I try to have faith that there are enough of us who would do the right thing. But that’s just faith. And relying on faith makes me scared. That said, if there’s a time to act, it’s probably now.