Of Humans, Nodes, Evolution, Beliefs, and the Nature of Reality.
This is something I wrote in an IM to a friend not too long ago. It only includes my side of the conversation for privacy reasons. It is a conversation about beliefs, society, and hierarchical network structures I call “Transcendental Sets”.
(07:07:08 AM) fred: I suppose I am less interested in what motivates people, because in a sense, I already understand that in a general sense.
(07:08:24 AM) fred: People are “nodes” in a massive self-organizing dynamic quasi-hierarchical network I call “transcendental sets”
(07:09:09 AM) fred: Individual nodes receive programming by the memes they are hosting, and act accordingly.
(07:09:47 AM) fred: The memes themselves evolve because they exploit the “instruction set” of the nodes.
(07:10:12 AM) fred: The “instruction set” of the nodes are basically the same, but with variations.
(07:10:51 AM) fred: The “instruction set” of the nodes — the humans — are what you would generally refer to as “emotions”
(07:11:04 AM) fred: But there’s more to it than that.
(07:11:39 AM) fred: Evolution has shaped what we human nodes are today. The question is, of course, what kind of evolution?
(07:12:35 AM) fred: It has gone beyond the biological. Indeed, biological evolution in humans has itself been subsumed by higher-order evolving systems, of which memes is one.
(07:14:26 AM) fred: So, my view on this is not just from the individual perspective, but how the individual is influenced and controlled by the higher order systems the collective of individuals gave rise too.
(07:15:33 AM) fred: So then, I am more focused on understanding the bigger dynamic, the “big picture”, to use a hackneyed cliché
(07:15:53 AM) fred: (I know, clichés by definition ARE hackneyed!)
(07:17:35 AM) fred: A “feature” of complex dynamical systems with a substantially large growth rate is that they tend to organize themselves to states of criticality.
(07:18:14 AM) fred: When they reach those states, you have the avalanche effect, where a small disturbance can bring about great change.
(07:18:58 AM) fred: We have seen this many times in the past with great political movements that brought about sweeping social change — for better or for worse.
(07:20:07 AM) fred: The trick here is to predict when those moments of self-organized criticality are coming, and what to do to trigger the avalanche.
(07:20:23 AM) fred: Great sweeping change with minimal effort.
(07:21:58 AM) fred: So, the big nasty institutions of power that you might regard as a futile effort to bring about change, I do see possible ways to do it with effort levels in our grasp — but with much planning and observation to see the critical points coming ahead of time.
(07:23:08 AM) fred: The downside of this is, of course, is that there is the avalanche effect. You can trigger an avalanche, but it is damned near impossible to control it once it starts.
(07:24:33 AM) fred: How many revolutions and upheavals in the past were kicked off by a small group of individuals, but then got out of hand afterwards? The French Revolution is one fine example of this.
(07:28:13 AM) fred: So the other half of this is not only to be able to predict the exploitable critical points, but the avalanche afterwards.
(07:29:50 AM) fred: [Shelly] should pat herself on the back for being part of the effort to raise awareness of vote fraud issues and the need to have reliable audit trails, etc. — lately I heard congress was going to vote on a bill mandating paper ballots and the like.
(07:30:06 AM) fred: Hopefully that will take the form she hopes.
(07:30:36 AM) fred: You and I have given up on the voting system, but for slightly different reasons.
(07:32:45 AM) fred: I see voting as a highly ineffectual means to control the powercrats — that the main problem is the power itself being concentrated in the hands of a few who manipulate that voting system and are not truly concerned about “the needs of the people”.
(07:33:42 AM) fred: The voters themselves vote typically for silly reasons, and so become easy to manipulate by the politicians.
(07:34:10 AM) fred: And the choices given are poor at best.
(07:34:37 AM) fred: And the media effectively locks out any party that is not democrat or republican
(07:35:03 AM) fred: And that “party politics” itself is sub-optimal.
(07:35:57 AM) fred: Your approach — and I am with you on it — is to create alternatives. We definitely need that.
(07:36:47 AM) fred: While I’m all for that, we at the same time need to keep an eye on the 500-pound gorilla in the room with us that is the entrenched system of the powercrats.
(07:38:18 AM) fred: Whenever one of our alternatives start to become successful, they always try to shut it down. And they come at us from so many angles — both subtle and gross — that it’s all we can do to keep up with it, let alone what to do about it.
(07:38:39 AM) fred: Eventually, we have to take on the 500-pound gorilla
(07:39:34 AM) fred: And that’s where my focus lies. How do we keep the 500-pound gorilla from trouncing all of our efforts to create alternative systems that actually *work*.
(07:40:15 AM) fred: Anyway, I’ve given you enough to read on this — ironically — Independence Day.
(07:40:58 AM) fred: Even the meaning of this holiday is lost, as many now refer to it as “The 4th of July”. The original meaning and intent is completely lost.
(07:42:21 AM) fred: I don’t think for even an instant as millions chow down on smelly barbecue ribs and chug beer do their thoughts even go in the direction of what *Independence* is all about and how it applies to our lives currently.
(07:43:44 AM) fred: Today we are *far* more controlled by our own government than our “forefathers” were in their time when they decided to break away from England.
(07:45:02 AM) fred: The system of voluntary economic servitude that is now in place keeps the minions too busy to care, and gives them a carrot to grasp for so that they don’t revolt.
(07:45:36 AM) fred: The powercrats are loving it, of course.
(07:46:07 AM) fred: Well, enough of me already. Enjoy the holiday!
On slashdot, i believe you said you wanted to create a new system of Govt from scratch. I’d be very interested to see what your coming up with, or even what you’re suggesting.
I believe that democracy has been the best form of govt created so far by mankind. I put forward one (and perhaps the main) measure of success for a govt is how little blood is shed when change to that govt is required. But that measure is probably too long term. Perhaps it is better generalized as ‘how easily it adapts to the will of the people’ and how well it survives succession.
Communism and dictatorships will always suffer from corruption when you only have to answer to the person above you. And the problem with a benevolent dictatorship is that they can not be succeeded indefinitely with more benevolent rulers.
Democracy, while to some extent currently hijacked by big business, is certainly not finished as a successful political system. While it may not be quite able to morph itself into radically different new system, it is still capable of self healing and adapting as different (particularly negative) pressures are brought to bear.
That’s not to say things can’t go horribly wrong - e.g. Hitlers rise to power occurred in a democratic Germany. But it’s worthwhile noting a basic safeguard, the freedom of press, was brutally destroyed first. Scarily enough - just like what is happening in Russia at the moment.
In the end, govt is about balancing rights with limitations for the greater good. I’d like to say the slave trade was finally ended by people who woke up the majorities sense of compassion on fellow human beings. And certainly that was part of it, although it appears that they also had to break the financial stranglehold of members of parliament by companies that greatly benefited from the slave trade & slave labor.
So any government system that uses humans as the cornerstone, needs to ensure that people wielding power for selfish gains, can be exposed and removed (without the shedding of blood ideally
as easily as possible.
And democracy allows that with freedom of press, and political parties that can curry favor by exposing ’selfish (and stupid) decisions’ of the current party in power.
How best to do that? How about Reality TV - Prime Minister (I’m from Oz) / President style
But seriously - what cornerstones would you build a new system of govt on?