People have sincerely held beliefs, intrinsic faiths that something is true, without definitive evidence. Beliefs that provide security for individuals include socialism, capitalism, communism, totalitarianism, fascism, nationalism and religious beliefs, all of which can interact with themes of democracy, elitism, popularism, leadership, power seeking, dictatorships, libertarianism, left or right -isms, power seeking or fundamentalism.
No one system has provided long-term stability for society. In particular, the combination of power-seeking fundamentalism underlies many of societies woes and has contributed to millions of deaths.
Socialism, a belief that common ownership of the means of production will be beneficial, and that influences of social class, personal or organisational wealth, and the state should be minimised. Socialists disagree on the extent of government interventions required. Francis Fukuyama in his book
The End of History and the Last Man concluded that socialism has to win out if long-term stability is the aim.
Capitalism, a belief system that private ownership, control of means of production, with an underlying profit motive, will enable rapid progress because prices and the distribution of goods and services would be determined mainly by competition. Inevitably, this implies that societal decisions should be determined by possessors of wealth and property. Use of money markets inaccessible to most workers give the wealthy ability to manoeuvre capital, production and workers for financial gain. Capitalists claim that wealth will trickle down to the workers in increased pay and living standards. This is dubious and often pay differentials prove divisive. The wealthy often seek political power.
Communism, a specific form of socialism based on belief that common ownership of the means of production will deliver benefits to all. In theory, the relevance of social classes, money and the state will be minimal but in practice this rarely occurs. Given that a majority of society, 'the workers', accept this compliance-inducing belief, it is easy for them to be led. In consequence, communist leaders usually become dictatorial. This explains why nominally communist countries are ruled by dictators. Pure communisms does not work because, in the words of Frank Zappa: 'People like owning things'.
Totalitarianism, a belief in a centralised form government that is dictatorial and requires complete subservience by those it governs. It can be highly effective in delivering what leaders want.
Fascism is an extreme right-wing, authoritarian and totalitarian system of government. Fascist leaders usually tell their followers that they live in times of peril, that law and order needs to be reimposed so all could return to a mythical Golden Age. 'In and Out groups' are identified with the 'In' groups being victims, and 'Out' groups being opponents that need to be discredited or worse. Often the In group is based on nationality. Simple solutions to complex problems are offered based on ideals that are usually not ideal. Exaggerations or minimisations of facts may be promoted, or even absurdly labelled as 'alternative facts'. Misleading information – propaganda – is propagated. Fascist leaders, even when obviously flawed or dogmatic, demand unquestioning loyalty from their chosen associates.
Nationalism is patriotism plus a belief in superiority of the country 'the Fatherland', over other countries. National borders (often of no societal relevance) are rendered important and invariably problematic (historically Berwick-upon-Tweed was an example with the River Tweed (that separated Scotland from England) often diluted with human blood. If nationalistic fundamentalists obtain power, they pursue independence and internal and external wars may result. Outside interventions form peacekeeping forces may restore peace, but often peacekeepers in effect become reviled occupiers and the fundamentalist's enemy.
Religious beliefs. There are an unbelievable number of incompatible religious beliefs. Religious fundamentalists hold that their version of a belief is the only correct version. All other beliefs are incorrect and need to be evangelised, made to see the error of their ways, ignored or eliminated.
Most religious beliefs hold that god(s), usually male, are supernatural entities that watch over their followers (at most only one belief can be correct but yours is the correct belief). Believers tend to be evangelical, probably not I suspect out of altruism, but because there must be nothing more belief-reassuring and reinforcing than to convert others. Religious fundamentalists often have the arrogance to assume that they should impose their version of their god's justice here on earth rather than await their god's actual judgement. Paradoxically, some, notably Richard Dawkins, have fundamental beliefs that all religious beliefs are faulty despite the possibility that a belief might be true despite lack of scientific evidence.
In addition to the above belief systems, there are nine counterpoint themes that may interact with belief systems:
Democracy, typically uses elected representatives of the population but voting apathy, voter intimidation, or voting interference are an ever-present risk. Electors, like the elected, might not be consistent or even rational and be swayed by feelings and emotions that can be manipulated. If there are two major competing parties, then one may instinctively combat the other even when this is against the public interest. Democracy is fragile and millions of people, especially in the US, wish to deny democracy if they do not like the results.
Elitism. Elitists tend to believe that they and their networks are a necessary requirement for a functioning society. Inheritance, hereditary titles, wealth and education often underlie a sense of entitlement. Elitists tend to issue edicts for others to follow whilst not following them, as we see in the UK. They give lucrative contracts to their fellow elitists. The dividing line between party donations and bribery is very blurred.
Populism is a loosely defined belief system that claims to speak for the common people against exploitative elites. Populist leaders often try to persuade the common people that they are disadvantaged and imply that they will deliver what the majority desire and this can only be delivered by, no surprise here, by voting for them.
Leadership is a questionable quality – there are very few vacancies – and, once in power leaders, even if reasonably elected, tend to disfavour democracy in favour of elitism and autocracy. Most people do not want to be leaders, preferring a quiet life and acquiesce or vote for those who seek power. Inevitably, power-hungry megalomaniac narcissists seek leadership roles. Free thinking tempered with feedback becomes impossible when leadership or power seeking combines with fundamentalism. Public service and self-aggrandisement are poor bedfellows.
Power seeking. Those who attain power on the basis of their belief system often wish to retain power at all costs, especially if they had to suppress dissenting beliefs such that they cannot retire peacefully because they will be surrounded by enemies. Power-seeking behaviour may occur in any organisation with self-aggrandisement rather than public service predominating. Power seekers, especially those who took power and claim to represent the people, should be treated with suspicion. Castro remained in power in Cuba for 49 years and in Haiti Papa Doc Duvalier took power and then declared himself President for life and, no surprise, both their sons subsequently inherited the presidency.
Dictatorships. Dictators can arise in any belief system when an individual obtains total power. Dictators tend not to solicit impartial advice, and suppress or 'disappear' contrary views. Often family members are their advisors because they are more trustworthy than other potentially power-seeking advisors. Rarely dictators can be benign as was the case in Singapore.
Libertarianism stresses that individual human rights are of paramount importance. But this often conflicts with societal equality. For example, a minority might demand as their human right to decline vaccinations but often fail to realise or do not care that their individual liberties conflict with the interests of the majority of society.
Left and right were first used to describe seating practices in the French Revolution parliament. Those who sat on the right believed that (their) pre-existing social order was inevitable, natural, normal and desirable. Those who sat on the left were more concerned with the disadvantaged and believed that inequalities needed to be addressed. In the US, leftism is associated with the Democratic Party and Rightism with the Republican Party, and in the UK, rightism is mostly associated with the Conservative Party and leftism mostly with the Labour Party. In the UK, the opposition is a non-pejorative term but in the US one party at least regards the opposition as enemies.
Fundamentalism. Beliefs are a part of most peoples' existence but for fundamentalists their belief becomes the foundation of their identity with total acceptance and dependence on principles underlying that belief. Every belief system has its fundamentalists.
For most beliefs, there are usually other contradictory beliefs such that, statistically, more people will not believe the true belief (if there is one). Extreme fundamentalist 'cults' tend to isolate themselves from the threats of other beliefs. Fundamentalist activism may lead to violence with their supporters being freedom fighters and opponents being terrorists.
The litmus test to identify fundamentalism is that believers do not provide answers when asked: 'What evidence would change your mind?', revealing that their belief is founded on belief alone. Any challenges to the fundamentalist will be interpreted as a test of their beliefs and attempts to dissuade them will often be pointless.
The combination of fundamentalism and power seeking is toxic and invariably results in most people being disregarded.
Internet dissemination of unchecked and often malicious material may reinforce almost any belief system. It is of minor concern if an uncoordinated 1% of the population think that vaccines are a bad thing, but if the 1% can coordinate with each other, that 1% may constitute a coordinated threat to the 99%.
It is claimed that human brains are not fools. History suggests otherwise. Humans are the most dominant entities on the planet, arrogantly assume our dominance will remain and that computers or neural network computers will never surpass our brains. However, claims for human supremacy are also defects. A hope is that artificial intelligence may be of assistance for the following reasons.
It is claimed that brains have unique abilities to parallel process, but brains cannot think more than one thought at a time whereas computers have substantial ability to parallel process.
It is claimed that brains can distinguish between competing relevant and irrelevant inputs, but brains have tendencies to interpret reality to fit in with their preconceptions. They see and hear what they predict, and so false perceptions and beliefs are common. Brains are easily deceived by verbal, auditory and visual illusions.
It is also claimed that brains, unlike computers, can understand but human understandings can be deeply flawed. Witness the numerous belief systems. It is claimed that brains can be more creative than computers and neural networks but this assumption is being eroded.
The (in)famous god move in the oriental game of Go (thought to be the most complex game in existence) was made by a self-learning computer against the human Go world grandmaster. The 'god move' dumfounded other grandmasters and programmers who initially thought the computer had made a stupid move but it became obvious that this was a transcendental move that no human would have started to consider. The computer had, er, understood the game better than the best human brain.
It is claimed that only brains, despite being based on 100,000 billion deterministic switches (about 100 billion neurones each possess an average of 1,000 connecting dendrites), for some mystical supernatural reason, have free will and consciousness (although some claim that neither switch-based brains nor computers can have free will). However, both brains and computers must use voting systems to decide which decisions should be accepted.
Henry Arrow's so-called impossibility theorem demonstrates that, given three or more viable options, the various voting systems do not provide uniformly consistent results. This voting-derived indeterminacy can cause both brains and computers, especially self-learning computers, to be aware that choices have to be made.
This is tantamount to self-awareness that will result in consciousness. Consciousness is not a concrete entity but rather an intangible process that emerges from billions of switches in either brains or computers in much the same way that rainbows arise from billions of raindrops.
Artificial intelligence computers will soon exceed human intelligence and consciousness. Watch this space.
Philip D Welsby was a Consultant in Infectious Diseases in Edinburgh. He writes extensively on medical and other matters and, as a consequence, is driven to distraction by requests from predatory journals (journals that charge the author for publication) almost invariably dealing with subjects about which he knows little
