The Keystone Problem

[Carl Ballard Swanson (banzai9)]

I want to talk a little about sustainable transformations.

Let us assume that everyone who matters here at Mondoglobo.ning.com wants to make the world a better place and they want to do it in a collective way. How do we best accomplish that?

Define the problem
Agree on the parameters for success
Agree on the solution
Create a trust network around the solution

I think we are really good at Agreement on a solution and creating a trust network around the solution! It is the first two that are difficult for Mondoites so far. We have been given a somewhat limited platform that includes vast territory and context. Looking just at that platform the parameters for success are easy to discern, the problem is that in our present state they are unobtainable. why? To accomplish those goals we need to confront social and cultural momentum and habit and we need to effectively control the most conscious and potent forms of organization in human history - corporations and governments. Let me repeat that at the risk of being cognitively violent in repitition, we need to control the most conscious and potent forms of organization in human history - corporations and governments.

What tools do we have in our toolbox to accomplish this mission?

Free Will and social context.
Available communications and networking tools.
Nearly unlimited library of information.
Collective experience.

What immediate challenges do we face?

Gaining membership and participation, which is radically different than consumption.
We are habitual creators and authors of consumption, in effect we begin to create our own limits and unsustainable authority structures. As our population grows the individual loses his voice and social context becomes diluted.

Another habit that we inherit is a usually healthy instinct to avoid collective expectations and organizational structures that resemble authority/fascism, this is a challenge because if we disagree with the majority we are inclined to assume that the fault lies with authority and we are less likely to question our own perspective and knowledge. All if not most of our early adopters will have an aversion to fascism/authority. The problem is that our organization has to define a solution with demonstrable integrity and then execute that solution with more consciousness and potency than any other extant organization, we cannot avoid working together and trusting the process.

What other challenges do we face?

Once we create an effective organization and a trust in the process how do we insure that we do not get co-opted, either by extreme agendas, lack of focus or by overwhelming resources of our opponents? I believe that some aspects of the solution to this co-opting erosion is the market, democratic process, rotation of elites and keeping our organization at a "human scale" where the individual still has a voice and real power to effect change. The problem with allowing individuals to have real power is that they are not always honest internally or externally and the only way to make this apparent to what I consider valid market, democratic edits is to create "open" context for each individuals ideas and organizational history. In some organizations this is handled by just posting minutes for each meeting or using a forum that keeps track of individual viewpoints. If we depend on minutes or forum records we will eventually create a threshold of participation that is too high for newcomers. We will lose our open ideas (buried in archives) and organizational history context in the large organization and we will again face the risk of co-opting our trusted authority or community.

Another potential problem is that we will become mired in detail and perfection, we will be repainting the bike shack. If I were a troublemaker I would only have to send a few individuals to raise issues with emergent leaders in an organization that lacks individual idea context or organizational history context to cause new/early adopters to doubt the potential for their investment of time and effort. Such troublemakers will gladly echo the smallest faults with our existing social context into a familiar anti-authority timewasting message.

To summarize so far - NOW is the time for all good intelligent lifeforms to come to the aid of this planet. The most powerful forces for social change are already working in our favor, there is no need to punctuate our participation with destructive conflict. There is no need to painfully transform ourselves, via repitition or some other induced cognitive violence(drugs, needless labor). We have only to act now to become the change we wish to see.



Believe nothing,
no matter where you read it,
or who said it,
no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Hatred does not cease by hatred,
but only by love;
this is the eternal rule.

Have compassion for all beings,
rich and poor alike;
each has their suffering.
Some suffer too much,
others too little.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you,
not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path.

On life's journey faith is nourishment,
virtuous deeds are a shelter,
wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night.
If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.

Peace comes from within.
Do not seek it without.

Teach this triple truth to all:
A generous heart,
kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past,
nor to worry about the future,
but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

The tongue like a sharp knife... Kills without drawing blood.

The virtues,
like the Muses,
are always seen in groups.
A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought,
sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

The world, indeed,
is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!
Like the apparent distances in a picture,
things have no reality in themselves,
but they are like heat haze.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth;
not going all the way, and not starting.

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.

[Jason Thompson]

Thorough mapping of the challenges faced, Carl. I didn't recognize the Buddha passage at first. I thought, Carl's mind is on fire! So it is.

[Carl Ballard Swanson (banzai9)]

Somehow I didn't think Buddha would be concerned with copyrights but I do need to ensure that I am not taking credit for things other people/beings said!

Hmm lets keep it simple and assume none of this is stuff I arrived at independently, it all belongs to someone else first.

[zuma]

By designing a new form of grammar, Syncratic Syntax (Transformative-Generative Grammar), Noam Chomsky not only simplified grammar but clarified it's essence as revealed by the contrast between the two systems.

Buckminster Fuller did something similar for trigonometry with Synergetics and his Spherical Trigonometry. Poetical mind and writing. Naturally so, given his way; very much in keeping with Chomsky's grammar at that. Bucky's work gave us geodesic domes and such meanwhile. Producing solutions as by-product. His philosophy was that of Anticipatory Design, sidestepping presumptions and conflicts and certainly problems.

Bruce Lee likewise thought out of the box, starting with eschewing conventions. His philosophy was 'there is no fight'. Fighting without fighting as joke.

Such a fluid world. Change is the only constant. Transformation too. Sustainability is assured only by efficacy of a design, or rather how much it is inspired. What matters more to me is how Positive is it.

Here is a place for inspiration; to pick some up and to leave some. Here is a place to think out of the box.

Democracy is a word abused. To refresh or clarify such notion, I say we ought refresh and clarify the notion of the sovereignty of our minds, consciences, consciousnesses and bodies, to go back to not only John Locke but practically a new Protestant Reformation all over again, reasserting our own authority over ourselves and our relation with god and earth, eschewing priestly intervention. However, protesting the rising tide of conformity is one thing and building a boat is another...

Anticipatory Design said Fuller. Rather than clubbing around a solved problem, might we leave any notion of today's problems for today and rather anticipate?

Unemployment and energy needs; hook them together into work stations where i can pedal my butt off and make a quarter rather than spend $100.00 to do so at a gym, and so forth.

At base is needed actual political representation of course, where I can be actually repesented. Look at Russell Means creation; his secession of the Lakota Nation. States as they are are anachronisms. We move too much. I have been in OKC, OK seven years yet still use my Arizona driver's license. I'd rather my representative represented my individual sovereignty first, and geographical location not at all. Sadly, Russell Means holds the Lakota Nation to the idea of location -I think. Otherwise, I'm in.

I say we establish first things first and go forward from there, with speed of execution. Esteban's words above echo here.

This is two countries really, not unlike Florida is two states (north half and south half) and Maine likewise. I say half of this country ought say they are indeed of a whole unified gestalt, and secede, not to escape, but to go forward positively and productively, to more honestly be represented in the world at large.

The Declaration of Independence taken seriously.

http://zuma.usmjparty.com/first_things.htm

[zuma]

Your thinking *is* very much like the Bucky Fuller methodology already, I must add. Aptly titled as well.

[Gary F. Moraco]

So is staying high a choice?

[zuma]

not for some, gary. they're just born that way.

that state is only as trivial as what any user does with it, in any case. it's innately anti-establishment, innately subversive, and when those who approach it with any personal strength, any real work ethic, the boundary-dissolving aspects of it broadens them and whatever they do rather exponentially.

the virgins of conventional society who reflexively seek to repress look sillier to me than any wastrel stoner.

high or straight, what matters is what ya do, eh?

um, how did that come up anyhow? my mention of the lakota nation? no matter, it was a good and pertinent question as far as i'm concerned.