ConCen

There are quite a number of people that will tell you what to do. They will rarely tell you why. For me, when someone preaches something like anarchism or agorism, a few minutes of thought on the notion expels the merits. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't think about the whys in an non-superficial way, and, so, they end up being followers. And a great many capitalize on ignorance.

Because in all my reading on international relations and social contracts I have not seen a well thought through basis for society, and because the people that tell you what to do like radio broadcasters and activists etc will most likely never come up with this by themselves, I present a foundation for society.

persistence society introduction

Fantastic presentation. I got a glimpse of the site you presented. Very useful info indeed, will read it thoroughly !

Not a bad essay at all. It's a logical take on morality front, kind of reminiscent of Stefan Molyneux's Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB) framework with a bit of natural law in the mix.

The means to achieve this seem to use the current structure is based on the punish/reward duality but based in nationalist empathetic style of context to form the basis of defining that morality. Globalists like to sell their agenda based on this theory but, in practice, it always defaults to a oligarchical hierarchy. This is nicely addressed in the piece.

The big question of Common morals is that, in this essay a scalar, involved, vigilant consensus is advocated in the organizational model to reach consensus morality.

The common pitfalls of the complacent member and eventual hierarchical transition and increased scalar reach and centralization that appears to be evident in the structure of governance are identified. An alternative that would diffuse this inherent flaw from a structural level is one where only a single task is tabled for study/execution by the group.

A committee is formed, public is polled and given a seat at the table and given the opportunity to either defer to an expert with recourse of recall at any time if the representative is not abiding by his covenant to his backers. Once the task (say building a bridge or establishing/defining a common moral) is completed, to prevent project creep, the panel is dissolved. This alternative to direct representation for whatever reason (lack of expertise, scalar issues, time investment..) could be more accountable using this model.

Majority needs to be redefined. 50% seems to be the arbitrary status-quo, in most cases that does not give a mandate to proceed with a plan and is all too often contrary to the public will. Yeah it slows down government, but that's not at all a bad thing.

Vote splitting for a 'majority' is ridiculous. First past the post decision making is best replaced with a combination of direct democracy, time based committee tasking and public recourse but a lot of that is dependant on the culture, the task, urgency, public involvement, public knowledge, quantifiable foresight, morals and values. There is no template but there can be examples put into practice/

Interpretation is an issue with law. Plain language allows for common understanding.

Quote:Rethink the goals. Situations change; the logic of a goal should point towards efficacy, and once the logic doesn't, the goal should be changed.

Good, in theory, but try pitching that to a Constitutionalist. You do run the risk of ending up with that living breathing Constitution (new age liberalism). In practice decisions are situational; the best path is usually honed by vigilance, transparency, accountability, wisdom and evaluated in a context that encompasses dynamic scope and scale.

Or, in short, (un)common sense and sensibility.

(03-19-2012 10:48 PM)TimmyGriffin Wrote: [ -> ]Fantastic presentation. I got a glimpse of the site you presented. Very useful info indeed, will read it thoroughly !

Excellent. Tell me what you think. I will probably be posting on here and my website articles I've written and will write about applying the concept of the persistence society to more immediate matters -> like currencies, health care, etc.

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(03-20-2012 08:22 PM)FastTadpole Wrote: [ -> ]Not a bad essay at all. It's a logical take on morality front, kind of reminiscent of Stefan Molyneux's Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB) framework with a bit of natural law in the mix.

The means to achieve this seem to use the current structure is based on the punish/reward duality but based in nationalist empathetic style of context to form the basis of defining that morality. Globalists like to sell their agenda based on this theory but, in practice, it always defaults to a oligarchical hierarchy. This is nicely addressed in the piece.

The big question of Common morals is that, in this essay a scalar, involved, vigilant consensus is advocated in the organizational model to reach consensus morality.

The common pitfalls of the complacent member and eventual hierarchical transition and increased scalar reach and centralization that appears to be evident in the structure of governance are identified. An alternative that would diffuse this inherent flaw from a structural level is one where only a single task is tabled for study/execution by the group.

A committee is formed, public is polled and given a seat at the table and given the opportunity to either defer to an expert with recourse of recall at any time if the representative is not abiding by his covenant to his backers. Once the task (say building a bridge or establishing/defining a common moral) is completed, to prevent project creep, the panel is dissolved. This alternative to direct representation for whatever reason (lack of expertise, scalar issues, time investment..) could be more accountable using this model.

Majority needs to be redefined. 50% seems to be the arbitrary status-quo, in most cases that does not give a mandate to proceed with a plan and is all too often contrary to the public will. Yeah it slows down government, but that's not at all a bad thing.

Vote splitting for a 'majority' is ridiculous. First past the post decision making is best replaced with a combination of direct democracy, time based committee tasking and public recourse but a lot of that is dependant on the culture, the task, urgency, public involvement, public knowledge, quantifiable foresight, morals and values. There is no template but there can be examples put into practice/

Interpretation is an issue with law. Plain language allows for common understanding.

Quote:Rethink the goals. Situations change; the logic of a goal should point towards efficacy, and once the logic doesn't, the goal should be changed.

Good, in theory, but try pitching that to a Constitutionalist. You do run the risk of ending up with that living breathing Constitution (new age liberalism). In practice decisions are situational; the best path is usually honed by vigilance, transparency, accountability, wisdom and evaluated in a context that encompasses dynamic scope and scale.

Or, in short, (un)common sense and sensibility.

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Quote:An alternative that would diffuse this inherent flaw from a structural level is one where only a single task is tabled for study/execution by the group.

Single purpose groups can be inefficient depending on what you meant by "task". There is a principle behind this that applies to a lot of things. The expense of starting a group, getting the group on task, finalizing the project, and then stopping the group can be much more than the expense of having a continual group. For instance, a company might find it more efficient to hire a contractor as an employee than to hire multiple contractors each time tasks come up given the tasks were fairly frequent. An extreme example of this principle would be shown in this: say that instead of having a continual group called USPS, there was formed a gov group each time anyone wanted to send a piece of mail. The expense would be ridiculous. And, when you start defining tasks as things which can be perpetual, you get larger groups. But, no time for this now.

Quote:Once the task (say building a bridge or establishing/defining a common moral) is completed, to prevent project creep, the panel is dissolved

Project creep is not necessarily a bad thing. This is reflected in the move from the waterfall engineering approach to the more "agile" programming styles common today. The issue becomes, objectives do change, and to continue as if they did not can be problematic. In addition, it is often more efficient to adjust the objectives of some existing group than to disband the group and make another group with the altered objectives. But, certainly, there are many cases where project creep is simply detrimental.

Quote:Majority needs to be redefined. 50% seems to be the arbitrary status-quo, in most cases that does not give a mandate to proceed with a plan and is all too often contrary to the public will. Yeah it slows down government, but that's not at all a bad thing.

I think more to the point is not the number that agree on something, but the certainty of the logic and the goal of something. The principle of majority serves in part just to affirm the logic of the thing. However, it is not hard at all for the majority to be wrong about something in a directed way.

Quote:Good, in theory, but try pitching that to a Constitutionalist.

Not to say too much, but I will be writing an article on this. I imagine you are referring to consitutionalists in the US. I will be writing about the US constitution fairly soon and hopefully helping those who religously follow it as an idea to rethink their idolization of it. I do recommend two books in relation to this to get a better understanding of the context US constitution (for those who are interested): "The Law of Nations" and "The Social Contract". There are a number of books previous to The Law of Nations, like those by Grotius, but for the most part, they don't present any ideas which aren't present in The Law of Nations. If you aren't talking about US constitutionalists, but more general constitutionalists, then I would say, when a common moral is established, that is, itself, the constitution. Rousseau had written on this. To paraphrase, the morals of the people of a society are the foundation for the society and any constitution or government thereby is only a minor/changeable thing in comparison. Of course, a lot of Rousseau's writing is spawned in ignorance, and he isn't very concise. The US is a shining example of what happens when the members of the society have such mixed, divergent, and often purely selfish morals; it is easier to direct a gas in some direction than a river in a direction counter to its current.

As I said I would do here, I have written on some of the problems with the US Constitution: Here

I would be interested to see if any one could refute what I state in that article or if someone thinks I have not included some major point that I should include.

What is your basic thesis?

Quote:Single purpose groups can be inefficient depending on what you meant by "task". There is a principle behind this that applies to a lot of things. The expense of starting a group, getting the group on task, finalizing the project, and then stopping the group can be much more than the expense of having a continual group.

I feel strongly that it would be well worth the perceived cost in most contexts of the "task". The payoff is so huge; the encapsulation and inherent limitation of potential for tyranny. It would stop it stone cold in its tracks, and be proportional to the voluntary assertion of the public will on any and all given "tasks" from bridge building to resource development to education.

Quote:Project creep is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think overrating efficiency is a fatal mistake in the big picture, despite its benefit we need to consider the tradeoff from all angles.

Quote:I think more to the point is not the number that agree on something, but the certainty of the logic and the goal of something. The principle of majority serves in part just to affirm the logic of the thing. However, it is not hard at all for the majority to be wrong about something in a directed way.

Logic is good but Logic + Baseline Consesus Moralityis better. They serve in duality to provide checks and balances against eachother, right or wrong, efficient or inefficient - it would empower the public will. Now given the contemporary public has not honed this will it will likely experience tranisitonal pains at the start but with proper exercise the public will no doubt become more practices in wielding this power sharply and efficiently.

In using logic or consensus alone, more legislated action can come to fruition, and it is not necessarily beneficial to grease the wheels of governance. The either/or approach (public will alone, logic alone) but why not weight both to receive a mandate to proceed/repeal on enacting policy, law, allocations and actions.

If society were to rely on logic and efficiency alone we have the makings of a technocracy.

If we were to rely on consensus alone we have the makings of a democracy or rule by mob.

The current state of political affairs is agile enough to push through an agenda using either approach as it suits the so called 'elite' using their puppet controlled dictator 'representatives' and selective committees.

The key is to get the mob to seek their own logic and experience their own morality, develop their own sense of respect and evolve, over time to wield it all together efficiently.

Empower the people the option of direct democracy OR deferral to a an expert task based committee held perpetually accountable via recall, with a caveat with a logical proof of concept demonstrated on a scalar way,

Hey it ain't efficient, it isn't easy but anything worth doing is worth doing right and anything done right is going to require a bit of participatory effort.

In the end, after a bit transitional mayhem, the philosophical framework can branch out as it suits each task, locale, culture and be applied on whatever scalar level and manifest organically, given a strong foundation.

That foundation is ultimately rooted in participatory vigilance, accountability, transparency, logic, proof of concept, respect and morality working in conjunction with eachother. Efficiency comes with practice wisdom and experience; collated and propelled off of the shoulders of our ancestors; not systematically or compartmentally arranged and templated from the top down but from the bottom up.

Whatever path you choose the means are essentially the ends. Example is a good teacher. Start with your own family, then your community.. then stop there and let the example permeate naturally and voluntarily.

It takes a full society to make a full society.

Quote:I feel strongly that it would be well worth the perceived cost in most contexts of the "task". The payoff is so huge; the encapsulation and inherent limitation of potential for tyranny. It would stop it stone cold in its tracks, and be proportional to the voluntary assertion of the public will on any and all given "tasks" from bridge building to resource development to education.

I didn't mean to say single purpose groups shouldn't be used. The concept here is that by limiting a person's term in power, you limit the person's power, and, that by limiting a group to specific purposes, you further limit the power. However, one of the recognized reasons for nations is protection from other nations. That is, with weak groups internally, you are protected from internal tyranny, but you are probably susceptible to external tyranny. This topic deserves fleshing out, but I will do so in one of my articles instead of here.


I am not apt to depend on majority opinions due to the fact that majority opinions can be wrong in a directed way. Rather, I would depend on some large subset that have proven their ability to use logic, who have an understanding of some basic facts, and who agree with the moral of the society; much like children are not allowed to vote because their vote would likely be unwise, uninformed, and directed towards the most sensational option. This does not amount to a technocracy, but I think your opinion of technocracies springs specifically from the fact that their current use is primarily misuse; where scientist lie or results are skewed for some political purpose that the science doesn't actually support. I will get into my idea of social order later in another article.

Another article exploring, briefly, alternatives to persistence as a societal moral: here

Caveat: I preemptively apologize if I take any of your conceptual ideas out of context - I'm doing my best with what has been provisioned to me to analyze. I real eyes this is a work in progress and am only inserting what I can to build off of what is presented .

Quote:I would depend on some large subset that have proven their ability to use logic, who have an understanding of some basic facts, and who agree with the moral of the society; much like children are not allowed to vote because their vote would likely be unwise, uninformed, and directed towards the most sensational option.

I preemptively apologize if I took this statement out of context you had intended, but let's attributed that to the detached medium for now. So what follows is a critique on the particular statement, nothing personal against you. This is an exploratory discussion to provoke and delve into the fundamental platform of the conceptual paradigm you are advocating.

You come across as a deep thinker, and I respect that so I am investing my invaluable commodity of time into this critique; not to oppose, but to develop, and through directed questioning my intent is to evolve your basal thesis through my style of cut-to-the-point critique, pulling no punches.

Quote:I would depend on some large subset that have proven their ability to use logic, who have an understanding of some basic facts, and who agree with the moral of the society; much like children are not allowed to vote because their vote would likely be unwise, uninformed, and directed towards the most sensational option

Suppose a 'basic' understanding of the ruleset and responsibility is required to qualify a valid opinion. For a person to be able to drive on the road one had to be knowledgable of the rules of the road. Maybe a basic knowledge should be demonstrated to exemplify a basic understanding of the responsibility and comprehension of what it means to be a member of the electorate, free of arbitrary age or status restrictions and solely based on basic competence.

Does this apply to any given subject? Is it solely based on an arbitrary age or base compliance with the current doctrine (e.g. under 18s, visa workers, prisoners and mental patients cannot vote).

The subjective definition of "basic" is open to interpretation and is framed by your context. There is a bias judgment placated upon youth just as it is in the current system. Let's meet halfway.

Quote:I didn't mean to say single purpose groups shouldn't be used.

I didn't intend to imply that SPGs were the do all end all but I thought that had to be addressed as an option. Perhaps time limited single purpose groups are the key to enacting publicly advocated tasking. So upon further consideration maybe SPGs are the ideal model, when considered in proper scope and scale to an informed public. Maybe that is too optimistic on my part but would the public not be forced, or at least be encouraged to bring their direct opinion to the table in a system that empowered them. Eventually, would the public not embrace this and prioritize this responsibility to their fellows and to themselves. Current evaluations of apathy would prove me statistically wrong but a provoked evolution triggered by the public realization of the combination of empowerment and responsibility is not only a possibility but a probability. Don't assume consensus apathy, address it at the core.

Quote:..I would depend on some large subset that have proven their ability to use logic..

Now that can be deferred voluntarily as described by my post upthread but not assigned as a power by default. In qualifying a subset, however discerned, we would be going on assumptions in both a "large logically competent subset" and "logical competence". Your thesis seems to have glossed over the wisdom and moral thresholds in favour of the logical qualifier for a right to/evaluation of the idea/action brought up for debate.

There is a few points you have not addressed in your response so before we continue I'd ask you to do so to enable us to move forward in this discussion to prevent it from becoming a monologue riddled with glancing blows and move it towards more of a dialogue and address eachothers' points head on.

I/we/you will appreciate it. Don't rush it, but I know you will bouce us back a little somthin' somethin' later or sooner, as your base addresses a potential root solution that we can all build upon. Proactive Solution Based -- that's what brings me and most of us effective mofos to the galley.

In respect to fact that you are new to new to ConCen and new to myself, I'll offer up some of my own Break the Chains/ConCen Originals to give you a slice of where I am coming from. If you don't take it up at least I've done a personal inventory, which is the selfish original reason I joined ConCen .. to interact with minds off of the beaten path and augment my own understanding .. but since then its developed into a real think tank that is applicable to the meatspace. It's evolved from a curiosity to a mission because we can enact our will, big or small, contrary to what the so called 'elite' dictate - if directed intelligently, effectively and to the right peeps.

You can make a fine addition to the ConCen community capob.. Fucking Bring it On!

The article can be found here: http://persistencesociety.com/articles/ifNotPersistence

It seems a somewhat defeatist or victim attitude, this one. However, the path seems to be one of determining what's going to be best for our descendants. It seems just to say that such a methodology, when applied intelligently and benevolently, worked just fine decades ago. But societies have been changing and shifting, it seems, with more vigour and dynamism than in times past. So, under this scenario, how would a society make choices that best suit future generations when we are unable to tell what those future generations will need?

What methodology would best provide for the present and future? Or is it at all necessary to concern ourselves with the future, and instead only serve our current tense of circumstances, and allow future generations to mould what we've created into something that works best for them? Then, wouldn't it be possible that these changes would eventually balance themselves out and provide a foundation that works best when applied to the generations thus far?

In other words, do societies grow and evolve in a paradigm of natural selection as species are said to?

Many times over the past decade or so, engineers have used genetic algorithms to have machines construct devices that serve particular uses. It's kind of complex (relying on trial and error rather than logic to allow a machine to produce a result), and I've employed it on a minor basis from time to time (not having enough computing power to generate anything I would consider significant), but NASA used it to construct a specialised antenna at one point faster than any of their engineers could devise one. One report I read even had a computer create a signal filter of some sort that worked better than anything devised by man, but how it did what it did remained a complete mystery.

Quote:It seems a somewhat defeatist or victim attitude, this one.

This was certainly not my intention. Essentially, what I was getting at that, in pretty much all cases, (excepting those in which nature has no chance of persistence), the alternatives to a persistence of nature based society are rather lackluster. Even the alternative that people might take by default, the alternative of a goal of benefiting all current and future members, is a problematic and indefinite alternative. I think I will partially rewrite this article to make my intent more clear.

Quote:Many times over the past decade or so, engineers have used genetic algorithms to have machines construct devices that serve particular uses

Yes, there are many things we have learned and can still learn from nature; it is quite an interesting subject.

Quote:and I've employed it on a minor basis from time to time (not having enough computing power to generate anything I would consider significant

I didn't know any such algorithms were publicly available.

Quote:Does this apply to any given subject? Is it solely based on an arbitrary age or base compliance with the current doctrine

Mental competence is not something strictly adhering to age - so I don't see why age would be used as a restriction. There is certainly a potential for any sort of testing like this to be exploited for the purpose of serving some divergent goal. Ensuring compliance with the current doctrine could be a form of this kind of exploitation and I would attempt to avoid this. Of course, however, there is some degree of this compliance to the current doctrine going on by the test by the fact you would be testing - testing itself being the current doctrine. It is a tug-of-war between "asserting anything is the foundation of stagnation and corruption" and "we must assert things to progress".

Quote:Now that can be deferred voluntarily as described by my post upthread but not assigned as a power by default. In qualifying a subset, however discerned, we would be going on assumptions in both a "large logically competent subset" and "logical competence". Your thesis seems to have glossed over the wisdom and moral thresholds in favour of the logical qualifier for a right to/evaluation of the idea/action brought up for debate.

In order to meet the goal of a persistence society, it would seem necessary that humanity acts in a concerted effort. The occasion of people who are not logical or have dominating contrary morals can not be ignored. It would be like the US building a spaceship by calling for a general donation of parts, and then not testing those parts. Potentially, some of those parts would not work. Potentially, some of those parts would be designed not to work, or even designed to disrupt/destroy the spaceship. Without a footing of a logical and generally directed, (directed towards the persistence of nature goal), citizenry, if any thing does get built, assuming there would be resistance by the members with contrary morals and members with questionable logic, there is a higher probability that the product of the society would be subverted towards some other goal.

Quote:In respect to fact that you are new to new to ConCen and new to myself

I am not new to ConCen. I am as new to ConCen as it is to itself; it used to be conspiracycentral:6969 until some inner squabbling.

I have rewritten the article

Article on government as a tool for the persistence goal: http://persistencesociety.com/articles/p...Government. As always, opinions and critiques are welcome.