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Why Plethus? Many people have asked about the origins of the name Plethus. In naming this movement we wanted to express the wisdom of ordinary people. Plethus starts from an assumption that politicians and government officials don’t have a monopoly on wisdom. Yet our political systems still rely on a handful of people having all the ideas and making all the decisions. Ordinary people – that’s you and me – are anything but ordinary. We conduct scientific research, we write novels, compose symphonies, perform surgery. We tackle crime and save lives. We teach children to read, plant trees, drive buses and keep the sewers flowing. Ordinary people do everything that’s worth doing, and in the internet age there is simply no need for politicians to work blind. Plethus provides a mechanism for the very best ideas to emerge, great ideas which can inform and illuminate the work of our professional politicians. Ideas which spring from the daily experience of the very people who are affected by political decisions. So where did we look for a name? Being more than a little geekish, we started with Proto Indo European, the language which is believed to have existed roughly 5,000 years ago and to have given rise to most extant European languages and some from farther afield. The Proto Indo European root we found most useful is pleh1dhweh1s, meaning (the mass of) people, from which we have the Greek plethus – throng, crowd, common people - the Latin plebes (plebeians, the general body of Roman citizens), and – via a few twists and turns over the past 5,000 years – English folk and German teuteh (people under arms). So this is us. The wise throng. Plethus. Come and share your wisdom.
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