Thinking Out Loud or, Oooops!

In Air Water Ground, I state early on in the section on Creative Instability that:

“I make the following assumption; It is good for my species to survive in a complex social form. I do not found this assumption on any fact, theorem, or belief. The root is purely desire.”

Correction?:
I make the following assumption; It is good for my species to survive in a complex social form. Wherein some semblance of individual liberty exists. I do not found this assumption on any fact, theorem, or belief. The root is purely desire.
Granted, a Creative Instability inspired process could give rise to any number of governance formats, I realized that:
In writing AWG, I am doing so as a child of the Enlightenment.
And
“…my species to survive in a complex social form…” may happen just fine, even on our current world line. Part of my own prejudice that kept me from seeing this is  my liking the concept of liberty.
Discussion
With the current world line (Increasing economic disparity, Increasing structural unemployment, decreasing government funds, decreasing government regulation, declining quantities globally, of usable fresh water, rapid climate change) complex social forms can exist, and probably will exist for hundreds of years at least (assuming that a general nuclear weapons exchange does not take place in future water wars).

Chinese Fascism may have a good survivability value (as is well laid out in  The Oreskes and Conway, Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (2014)). But another route is the following. The United States is obviously well into a transition to being a plutocracy. But a plutocracy under biogeophysical pressure, could itself then transition into a form of  Neo-feudalism .

You take the following things:

Vertical Dominance Socially Obligate Boundary Condition
Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition
Plutocracy
Cloud based tech and continued computer/communications tech
CNC (computer numerical control machines)
Frank Luntz style public relations work techniques
3D printing
Robotics
You could develop a structure of, say:
Elite/plutocrats
Artisans/Engineers
Security
Poor/underclass.

The last category would be involved in a strenuous struggle to work doing what was left to them with increasing structural unemployment due to increasing automation, (my American readers may find this familiar). Given that struggle, social outliers among the poor could be handled by the Security class. Assuming the Elite could maintain the cooperation of the 2 middle classes, this model could be driven forward in time for a long time, even under very adverse biogeophysical conditions.

We have historical precedent of sorts.

Athenian democracy simplified into more autocratic forms. The Mediterranean republics (Rome, Carthage, etc.)  became a plutocratic empire, only in the west, to “simplify” into feudalism.
Hmmm. Need to update AWG I guess?

"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."*

Texas "text book" standards:

Double Plus Good! 1

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/texas-approves-disputed-history-texts-for-schools.html?_r=0

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=365686593&m=365762059

* George Orwell
1 To say that something or somebody is the best in Newspeak

Air Water Ground version 1.6

I hope to prompt examination and discussion about government and society. Governments at this time are conceptually based on the leading ideas of the eighteenth century. Likewise the most successful expression of complex reciprocal altruism today, is capitalism, or market economics. It too, is a child of the eighteenth century.

Since that time we have experienced the development of the bulk of modern science. That development has not only broadened our horizons, it has also it has profoundly changed, for those conversant with the sciences, the experience of reality. While the development of modern science has transformed nearly every area of human endeavor, two crucial areas remain immune to it. They are the practice of government and social structuring itself. Past attempts to incorporate "science" into these two areas have been based upon deep misunderstandings of the science involved.

We are animals, and we are primates. With the challenges our specie faces, most of which are the result of our own behavior, it is more crucial than ever to internalize the last few hundred years of learning into our manner of governance and social structuring. The time has come to use what we know to govern, to structure, and to redesign.

I discuss governance in its broadest terms, that being the relationship between each other and our specie and its planetary environment. With dominance of a planet comes responsibility. I will not argue that It is responsibility to other life, I will argue that it is responsibility to our specie. What is at the “top” is dependent on what is “below” it. Ignoring this will only increase the suffering of our progeny.

Nonetheless, I do not believe that what appears herein would have success in direct applications or implementations. This writing embodies a significant departure from our path dependence. The material about the Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (ESOBC) may be of use in understanding the difficulty we have in coming to grips with big “abstract” problems though.

The origin in my brain of the Creative Instability concept was in the late 1970’s. That along with the work of  Gerard K. O'Neill and my learning what bar code could do, resulted in a piece written in 1978 entitled Orbital Polity Model. That piece is in this document’s appendix. My later understanding of the ESOBC, hyperbolic discounting etc. has delegated the Orbital Polity Model to a curiosity or humor piece. It is the product of a youthful optimism that I no longer suffer from. But if we were moving along a different world line, who knows?

PDF
 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3H2LxHTQJ2mZ0RhajNxbzY2bm8/view?usp=sharing

The danger of not studying history

Received on Facebook:

 

"I somehow have gotten on Scott Walker's supporters email list. On Tuesday evening he sent me his victory message. I thought I had heard this saying before so I did a little research and found this photo. His quote was "helping move people from government dependence to true independence through work."

OK, perhaps a mistake by a young staffer, but perhaps...

Curiouser and Curiouser

Exit polls yesterday in the 2014 U.S. elections revealed that 60% of voters were very disappointed with the Republican Party leadership in Congress. The majority of voters also gave the Republican Party majorities in both houses of Congress.

Found on an index card of mine

Ginsberg’s Theorem

The three laws of thermal dynamics can be restated as:

1. You cannot win (conservation of mass energy)

2. You cannot break even (entropy increases)

3. You cannot get out of the game (impossibility of reaching absolute zero)

Freeman’s Commentary on Ginsberg’s Theorem

1. Capitalism is based on the idea that you can win

2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even

3. Religion is based on the assumption that you can get out of the game