Every Martin Luther King needs a Malcom X, good cop doesn’t get an illegally coerced confession without bad cop. People only suffer the discomfort of movement when the discomfort of staying is greater than standing still. I like this attempt and hope it has some positive but there also needs to be a way discomfort the illegitimately comfortable by social or other means.
No one needs to outspend them, because if the message rings true to people (it does!), then sending that message becomes much cheaper… and gets a lot of free help along the way (see Mayday itself).
Facebook, sadly, does not display gifs.
I already pledged. c’mon people! step up.
And teh boing is asking you to click on the image to animate. SO WHATEVS.
I’ve got one.
I respect the idea but I don’t see the benefit of contributing money to a system that is itself doing the corrupting. It’s a complete waste of money, effort, and resources IMHO and worse than that it convinces people they’ve done something useful when they actually haven’t.
And yes, I have another proposal and it’s not complicated and doesn’t require some magical moment of enlightenment that’ll never happen or a revolution that’ll just create more of the same.
We create a corporation (or rather the hollowed-out legal shell of one) that restricts hiring to people who would happily behave like civilized adults 24/7 as long as they can be surrounded by people who feel the same.
Which consists of most of our doctors, nurses, caretakers, teachers, DIYers, inventors, scientists, researchers, and engineers and a huge chunk of the remaining population.
Also, most of the children.
We design it to embrace the variety of humanity rather than create some artificially low bar that everyone will gravitate towards. We let people create their own governments within and let people choose how much further to raise the bar. We set up a mechanism so that people can easily move from group to group so that nobody’s ever ‘trapped’ anywhere and we let them vote with their feet.
I’ve already got all the nuts and bolts taken care of and the only hard part is explaining it and/or getting it started (Give me a few hundred people and I can seed it until we’ve pretty much taken over the planet . . .because it’s not hard to compete with unemployment and Wal-mart)
So if anybody wants to help (I hate doing this on my own) I’ve got the basics here. I honestly think it should be more of a crowdsourced thing but am just getting back into society right now and probably overengineered things a bit.
And since I’m not the best communicator and there are a lot of bases to cover I’m even in the process of putting it all in a Dr. Who story, which is actually working really well.
So yes, there are alternatives. I bet that’s not even the only one . . . we just have to create something that plays to the strengths of good people rather than bad ones and create a way for people to transition into there. If I can make that good a stab it all on my lonesome I’m sure we’re just scratching the surface.
I respect the idea but I don’t see the benefit of contributing money to a system that is itself doing the corrupting. It’s a complete waste of money, effort, and resources IMHO and worse than that it convinces people they’ve done something useful when they actually haven’t.
Ok… that’s just disparaging the efforts of others. Let’s hear your plan.
We create a corporation (or rather the hollowed-out legal shell of one) that restricts hiring to people who would happily behave like civilized adults 24/7 as long as they can be surrounded by people who feel the same.
Then do it. You’ve been harping about this for a very long time now. Quit wasting your time uselessly disparaging the efforts of others and DO IT.
So if anybody wants to help (I hate doing this on my own) I’ve got the basics here.
There’s a reason you’ve been mostly on your own all this time. You’ve asked for help and I will help you right now with some advice if you’ll take it.
You say that you want others to join you in a common goal. Basically, you’re asking for solidarity. You aren’t achieving that goal by disparaging the efforts of others. I can tell you right now that you aren’t achieving that goal by telling the supporters of MayDay that they are “a complete waste of money, effort, and resources” along with aiding the corrupt, etc.
Frankly, all you’re doing is putting your own ego ahead of your own cause and getting nowhere.
If you don’t want anyone who supports MayDay to support you, and you do want to continue to remain alone in your efforts.
Mission accomplished.
Have a look at the MayDay website. Nowhere will you see them trashing on the efforts of other organizations. They are about bringing people together for a cause and about explaining their plans and offering actionable, real efforts and follow-through. They are focused on goals instead of egos.
Until you learn that basic principle you can expect to be very alone in your efforts indefinitely.
Let’s try this again and not create an imaginary conflict where none exists. You asked for proposed alternatives and I proposed one, I’m sorry that this was perceived as something that it was not intended to and will happily chalk it up to the fact that I’m not an expert communicator.
I respect he idea of trying to take money out of politics and I HAVE read the mission statement for Mayday (more than once).
I however don’t agree that trying to reform the existing system. I believe our electoral system and the whole idea of a single government that everybody has to agree on is inherently flawed and is destined to fail again. It gives the advantage to the wrong people and forces us to argue over the wrong things.
I also don’t believe that any solution that’s just for America is as good a focus for our efforts when there are approaches that would be open to everybody. I’m not a fan of the birth lottery.
I respect you quite a bit, or have up until this point. That’s why I’m more than happy to give this another go.
More importantly, let’s not make up an ego that doesn’t exist. I’m about as low-ego as they come. The reason I haven’t had any luck gathering people is because I’ve spent the last two years unemployed, largely homeless, and avoiding a very vindictive stalker while tying to get myself together after my wife died and haven’t been very good about socializing anywhere.
Now that I’ve changed a all of the aspects of that formula (re-hired, restraining order, and solution to newly discovered anxiety attacks at least) I’m back on track. I’ve always been clear that I consider the approach a framework that was open to major restructuring and have only been adding detail because some people found the more deliberately vague approach unclear. It’s not like anybody’s pointed out a flaw of any magnitude, I’ve just gotten commentary that’s either “TL;DR” or “You left out this factor when trying to summarize”
I don’t care about me. I care about results for everyone else and opportunities for other people, and I’d prefer for ideas that don’t involve trying to maintain an inherently corrupt system to be given their chance to compete on their merits.
Mr. Lessig already has a platform and plenty of resources and help. I’m sorry if my heartfelt observation that there are other approaches to consider resulted in such vitriol, I’m going to chalk it up to some very personal investment on your side that I wasn’t until now aware of.
Let’s try this again and not create an imaginary conflict where none exists.
You might want to look into the mirror on that one. Once again, I asked for your plan, but you chose to insultingly disparage the efforts of others and myself.
You asked for proposed alternatives and I proposed one
Except that’s not all you did.
I respect you quite a bit, or have up until this point.
Then let’s just end it here. You could take my advice or leave it… and I see that you’ve chosen to leave it. I still have respect for you even if I disagree with your tactics and even if you no longer have respect for me. That’s fine and we’re done here.
As far as the personal things you bring up, I will personal message you about that. I’m very sorry you’re going through very troubling times.
Well, I wasn’t the one who made a bunch of assumptions about your ego, presumptions, and flexibility. So yeah, I think we are. . (edit: I stand corrected based on you reaching out in a positive way outside this thread. You’re full of surprises Mr. Cowicide) 
I honestly didn’t expect the response to ‘I see a fundamental flaw in this approach’ (which I identified and can support) to be quite that emotional and quite that free of actual supporting information or thought about what was actually presented. I generally have liked your posts and supported you quite often and I expected a response on the merits of the idea.
It’s not quite the same thing, but to me it’s kind of like seeing a bunch of bright people supporting a new insurance company when I’m fighting for a public option.
I am really sorry I came across wrong, It’s just a somewhat emotional topic to me because of how much suffering there is out there right now.
1 Like
From where we stand, you look a lot like Monty Python’s Black Knight.
Ok, I just spit out some milk on that one. 
1 Like
It’s not quite the same thing, but to me it’s kind of like seeing a bunch of bright people supporting a new insurance company when I’m fighting for a public option.
I understand and respect your passion. In that case I think it would be constructive for us to explain why a public option or single payer system is a good thing instead of trashing the efforts of people we’re trying to persuade. It’s something I very much have to work on myself and struggle with online quite a bit.
I see a lot of people saying they want solidarity while unwittingly doing everything in their power to thwart it. I think we’d have more true solidarity and traction if we focused more on each other’s combined strengths than our divisive differences.
And, in that spirit, I hope you don’t think that I’m saying that all your ideas are bad and I apologize if I came across that way. I just don’t agree that it’s effective to present your ideas in a way that disparages other ideas (especially within the very thread that supports it) if your goal is to persuade others to join your efforts.
I’d rather see you focus on the strengths of your own ideas and present them without negative distractions because I think it empowers your ideas. I apologize for not expressing that in a less combative manner before.
1 Like
Yeah, you’re basically right there. I really didn’t mean to come across as combative. . . I really do respect the idea of trying to get money out of politics and I DEFINITELY agree that Mayday is a big step in the right direction in solving problems within the system.
I actually wouldn’t mind help compressing the explanation down some. I’m somewhat entrenched in the whole co-opernation solution and when you’ve been dealing with something for a couple of years it’s easy start assuming certain things should be obvious when they weren’t to me back when I was putting things together.
How’s this sound for starters (I’m winging it here, I was mostly focused on the HOW during most of this process)
-
Humans are evolved from monkeys and our brains are designed to only ‘humanize’ a small group of people (about 150). Thinking about more people than that pretty much short circuits us and may be the single biggest reason why society doesn’t work.
-
The idea of governance by birth-nation-and-circumstance lottery doesn’t appear to be working very well and is patently unfair. Every human has the potential to be just as good or bad as any other human being.
-
Forcing everybody to agree on a single government for a large group isn’t working terribly well. Heck, forcing people to be suited to only one type of government throughout the course of their lives is also somewhat unfair (18 year old me, 29 year old me, and 43 year old me would not agree on a good number of things.) It would be better if we could embrace our variety rather than limiting it.
-
Instead of an inflexible system that everyone has to agree on, why not create a flexible one that people choose between and ‘vote with their feet’ every quarter or year. That way if a new and better idea crops up it can take over quickly rather than after several decades of trying to get other people to agree.
-
If we were able to raise the bar to a certain level (basically ‘non-asshat’, though I did take a stab at some actual principles by way of illustration in the beginning of this chapter) then we can limit the experiment to people who don’t need to be micromanaged and don’t need so many laws to regulate. Basically don’t include people who’d deliberately miss the point and ruin things.
-
We can do all of those things, incorporate a wide range of housing (campuses as charter cities), not supplant citizenship but rather supplement it, be able to invite people from all over the world and protect them, and a number of other things inside the hollowed-out legal shell of a corporation.
-
Taking that route, we don’t have to fight with anybody, don’t need a revolution, and can still use the abusive power of a corporation to influence local politics (thanks Citizen’s United!)
Is that good so far?
I mean, we’re talking about covering everything in a person’s life, so I’m not sure when I’ve said too much or left too much out!
Actually. . . this might work. If you keep throwing out questions and concerns I can just keep tossing out solution elements and/or other components as needed.
You’re obviously better at organizing ideas than I am (Okay, almost everyone is. My mental user interface is quirky and it’s sometimes hard to translate some bits to proper English), and I’ve got solutions (usually 3 of each, I try to do that when possible) to all the problems that people have brought up.
So we can hit on ground like . .
Patent and Copyright Systems: Overthrown and/or completely irrelevant
Economics: As soon as possible people’s production isn’t tied to any external financial systems for a number of reasons. That’s another place where experimentation should happen, we can’t just jump to a moneyless economy and some people like their doubloons. You design economic systems around the person’s motivations rather than try to motivate the person around a specific economic system.
Productivity: That’s actually where it all started, the design is to make people absurdly productive so that we have a big buffer and less artificial scarcity.
Transition steps: There are a few ways this could start, including as a single campus that’s designed to expand quickly, starting as a multiple-business unit entity (with one being externally facing and the rest not worrying about the rest), starting as a home for refugees and orphans, and so on.
Speed: We could have given everybody who’s willing not to ruin other people’s lives a whole new life within a few years. . . as fast as a corporation can buy land/campuses and hire people. Compare that to the speed of changing the way politics works here in the U.S.
Flexibility: It’s really just a framework, if I have my way every idea I have in there is supplemented by a bunch of better ones. (Most of the ideas are stolen from giants anyway, I’m more known for weaving other peoples’ ideas together in new ways than having original ones of my own)
Types of options: The whole idea is to have people choose a government, living situation, and working situation that suits them. The more heavily customized the better, kind of an OKCupid but for whole lives.
How do you get people to do ‘crap’ jobs or very difficult ones that are seriously in demand?: They’d be the ones that get the most rewards to choose from. Kind of like getting bonus points in an RPG to spend on new things, but for being a Janitor or an ER Surgeon.
Why whole lives instead of just replacing government or jobs or housing?: Because if you don’t do whole-life solutions then screwed up things keep working their way in. Plus that lowers overall costs and waste, which increases the buffer for growth and recreation.
Err, and lots more. I seriously don’t know where to start or stop. This is where I need serious help. I’m crap as a solo act!
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
