I would have been more accurate if I said that “consensus would require communication”. Consensus I see as existing amongst thought-forms such as safety and objectivity. They represent ideals which can be worth working towards, but can never be ultimately attained. Worse - they are often put forth as excuses for closing off communication and debate. In reality, my input would count towards any consensus. But instead, people more often use it as a convenient shorthand for “it has already been decided by the rest of us, so your opinions are not desired”.
Protocols are great. But I think that for them to be properly practical, they need to be made explicit. Much of human communication I encounter, in contrast, is primarily about implied protocols. Not unlike some proprietary computer protocol which people are supposed to subscribe to, but only an elite understand. That makes the protocol useless for those who those who don’t swallow the bait, and discourages users from devising new and better protocols. But I think that protocols for self-organization are probably the best kinds.
I haven’t. I have heard of these, but don’t know anything about them.
I am skeptical that either have much of a future to them.
Check out Dunces, it is a great read and I think you will greatly enjoy it.
We are on exactly the same page here. If you are ever bored I can give you a list of encounters that fizzled or blew up precisely because of that.[quote=“popobawa4u, post:21, topic:72297”]
That makes the protocol useless for those who those who don’t swallow the bait, and discourages users from devising new and better protocols
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I disagree, and I’ll bet five bucks history will support my position on this. New protocols are not discouraged. (Adoption can be a pain, but that’s a different problem set).
I stand by my assertion that consensus is lame, communication is generally haphazard, and strong centralized leadership and direction is best.
Yes, I am. I should probably said “Community of practical significance”, but the focus upon relationships between participants, rather than towards inanimate objects, could be seen to imply that.
I know, I was trying to be clever, and avoid being long-winded. I probably failed by both standards!
What I was getting at was that Westphalean nation-states are based upon the violent control of territory, resources, and populations. But a civil society maintaining a military is hardly a “given”. Countries focus upon controlling elements which are more static than modern networked society leaves them stodgy and maladaptive.
Where there are borders, there is violence - either blatent or latent. This may or not be a societal compromise which all participant find acceptable.
I am so insufferable, that I am going off-topic in my own new topic!
Truth be told, what I am obsessed about is not the philosophy of property, but rather the practice of property. I struggle with the constant accusations that I am mainly dealing in “abstracts” or “philosophy”. As I have explained to @enso and others countless times, anything only remain a philosophy so long as it is not put into practice. Personally, I think it is a defense mechanism people use in attempts to de-fang activism which they find controversial, or even unthinkable.
No, I don’t think that people should hang about in salons discussing the philosophy of property, or egalitarianism, or liberating technologies. They are interesting to put into practice, because they are pragmatic, every day things. If I was in a maker forum, and suggested we pool our efforts to designing and building some gadget, hardly anyone would insist that I was engaging in a philosophical exercise. From my perspective, it is very much the same with discussing societal structures. It is not a fan-club to celebrate those aloof strangers who actually do something. But rather, it is a way to organize us actually creating and implementing such things ourselves.
Saying “GFYS, I’m not going to stick my neck out and do that!” does not make it an unapplied philosophy for me, or others who might be more open-minded.
I will only tell the truth if we agree to never play scrabble.
And you bring up an honestly good thought experiment that I think proves my point. How is the consensus of scrabble built?
Well, that’s a stupid question on its face–there is no consensus or communication in scrabble. Game members do not agree to Just, Equitable, or Fair rules.
Either you acquiesce to the supreme rule book of spellings (which isn’t even oxford worthy), you cheat, or you play a game that isn’t scrabble.
So therefore there is a) never consensus since the rules are handed out by a sky wizard, B) never communication because subterfuge is an advantage, and c) never a formal game in the first place because it is impossible to truthfully tell what game you are playing.
Wait, the key when playing in person is communication. You calculate the most effective subtle lies to tell based on probabilities from letters played, letter distribution, and letters left to dissuade others from using the doubles/triples. This is a key part of the game.
Were we to meet, I think we shouldn’t play Scrabble in person.
I mostly play online now (and usually have a few games running), so the dictionary (CSW is way better than the crap US one) and rules are enforced by the hands of robot overlords and everyone’s on board with that. Is that consensus? I can’t tell. I also chat in the online version a lot, and met interesting people that way.
In the meatspace version (which nobody in my family will play with me since they recognize they can’t win) I’m pretty sure the consensus is established when you choose to play the game at which point you accept the rules, and when someone does their math wrong they have consented to the rules and will acquiesce when you point out that a P’s not worth 4 points. The rules were decided by a Sky Wizard (or really Al Butts), and we agree with Mr. Butts or modify if we want to (the anagram variation is cool) based on consensus.
Probably Scrabble is a bad example since it can cause me to spout millions of words. I’m not a tournament level player, but am obsessive.
(I’d never do it in a serious setting, cause I am a nice and respectful person. But you always have to assume there is a cheater, botter, or someone with a card up their sleave)
Do you play scrabble with a rabble that has to reach a consensus on whether a given word is valid, or has the governing body of scrabble players issued a predefined list of acceptable words (or designated some works as being considered canonical sources)?
Of one player dissents, is the list invalid, or is consensus not a thing?
I stick with the One True Word of God if at all possible:
There are those who follow a somewhat misguided archaic religion:
I accept them even though they’re really infidels. If there’s no formally agreed word list then I can’t consent to play the game - that’s the bad kind of anarchy where other people might reject perfectly reasonable words like QANAT or TRANQ just because they don’t have a solid Scrabble vocab. and then it’s chaos. If there’s a dispute you need the list to punish people who might reject something correct like LEX, or to punish those who play a proper noun that’s not on the list.
I dismiss the Scrabble problem as being essentially consumerist. If you buy (into) a game, then it is what it is, and it is what you bought.
I am more interested in games created by the participants. But there are all sorts of variations. Parties could even agree ahead of time to a game with rules which are to be determined at random.
But mostly, I dislike markets, jobs, politics, etc “as game” because they deny people the ability to set any meaningful goals in their lives. How can my social status depend upon how successful I may be, if nobody even knows what my goals are? Obviously, success is relative to my goals, and how this frames my circumstances. So these things can only be games if we make the whole Enlightenment, individual-agency orientation of Western culture into a superficial sham. Otherwise, if people can have goals, those systems need to be un-gamed and adapted into simple utilitarian systems which people can use (or not) regardless of their actual goals.
And to be serious for a second, I don’t disagree. But you will always get assholes like me and William Shatner who will tell you we are playing by your rules; look you in the eye and promise; then go do something completely different like paint a dog.
And I don’t mean a painting of a dog, but paint a dog.
Shit dawg, I took multiple photos of myself with an octopus on my head this morning. Do you honestly believe I will be an honest participent in anything?
You are a serious rugged individualist. That is definitely not my cup of tea (sounds like a recipe for misery), but good luck.
How would you plan to get (less bright|risk-averse|conservative|lazy) people on board with the massive complexities of open-ended consensual rule based systems of interaction? Do you think that adding that load of effort, complexity, responsibility, risk, and capriciousness to their lives would give them something they’d prefer to the status quo?
That’s what people tell me! But I disagree. Situationally, I suppose I am made an individualist by proxy - simply by virtue of a lack of other interested participants. But I am really quite communally-minded and cosmopolitan. So I am given paradoxical advice, such as “We are all a bit selfish around here. So if you want a commune, you should go out in the boonies and live by yourself”.
I wouldn’t bother, honestly. I don’t buy the frequent refrain that “everybody” needs to live the same way.
“If you’re going to start another country here, then I can’t be a citizen of mine!”
“If you don’t have territory or property, this means no one else can have it either!”
“If you’re going to marry a same-sex person, then I can’t stay married to my opposite-sex partner!”
“If you’re going to be Muslim, then I’m not allowed to be Christian!”
etc, etc
I prefer opt-in systems with a meta-framework which makes them all non-exclusive. There is no pressing reason for anybody to prevent others from implementing what system they think works best. But no, what I am talking about is not additional capriciousness. I see it as the replacement of capriciousness with the ability of people to live systematically if that’s what they choose/need/want.
