By the way, such a subculture would be no different from the numerous secret societies already in the world. q.v. the proverbial "Illuminati"... they become self-serving organizations that eventually sacrific the individual, which is what we are fighting here in the first place... PGP.
These "freedom associations" are only temporary bastions of liberty. They exist inside the archaic system of current governance the way virtual machines run off an unreliable host operating system. We need more extensive measures to run a new version of civilization otherwise new societies will succumb just like they always have, even in recent years. PGP.
I agree with your suggestion but how do we ensure the jury (N-size) will not consist of individuals hell bent on craziness and give a shoplifter kid capital punishment?
What is the N-size of a jury that gives us "social norms?"
Obviously we can't have everything by referendum. Or can we? We should investigate these questions, if we are to find answers.
But in the current analysis, we need a fault-tolerant website where we can post stuff because all this talk will be meaningless if the corrupt TPTB comes and throws us all in jail for being terrorists.
Your model of "Zero Removes" is great -- although the issue is that the people who make the laws have also to execute the laws.
So, analogy... programmers design, code, and use their own tools, not write for others to use. Something like that.
We can look to this as a microcosm -- the village of 100 people, or 1024 people. The "1K Village" model. It is small enough that we pass laws, and take turns being police, pharmacist, teachers, students, etc.
I think a major aspect of this is that we do the work that we pass laws about (e.g., police have to wear hats with brims) and we have to wear those hats.
Seems very egalitarian but is it "efficient" or is efficiency even a goal here? Is it to be compromised to obtain a better society? (e.g., etiquette is sometimes inefficient, even though it may have evolved from something that used to be efficient; ultimately efficient in terms of letting people "just get along").
PGP.
Politicians only reflect what they perceive the public to want.
When there is sufficient public demand for OSS you can be sure it will become as political as women's rights, environmental protection, and universal education.
Problem is who says what is smart/stupid?
We are just as stupid as the next ultra-genius that looks at our work.
This line of thinking eventually collides with the eugenics vector...
It is not non-partisan.
It is just not tied to an existing dogmatic organization which has probably lost its original raison d'etre.
Revolutions fade... and then it's time for a new one.
How should/do we come to grips with the fact that XYZ entity has $$$ to give, to encourage this kind of student activity?
In a perfectly open-sourced society, people will have to work due to internal incentive (e.g., make the world a better place); so what do we do with people who are lazy or unmotivated to contribute (e.g., parasites)?
Or are people only selectively parasitic? Would a total tech n00b be an expert surgeon or cook?
The day we have the information portal, the day we can post things up there (including "patented" ideas) and destroy the basis for exploitation.
The day we can whistleblow "corporate secrets" (such as secret tobacco research) and corrupt government black-ops, is the day the people can reclaim their rightful freedom to their collective pursuit of happiness.
A free people with a free spirit need a place where ideas are free from oppression and censorship.
To have to choose between either the Democrats with Kerry, or the Republicans with Bush, is almost like choosing which you hate most: Windows, or Office.
Yes we will may decide we hate Win32 more, but the Suite is still just as bad.
What we need is Nader. It is the sanest choice in an insane world.
"Modern politics" happens only because the "framework" allows it to happen.
Imagine a society where we are not allowed to talk to each other without the permission of the government.
There would be a new kind of politics, and a new kind of corrpution, that exploits that framework.
Problem with the jury system is that there is still the judge, and the jury operates within the confines of "law" (akin to doing open source but limited to developing on Win32 and allowing MSFT to dictate what can and cannot work in your algorithm) and also that there are two lawyers who present "facts" but really they are just extreme skewed / biased views of a larger picture of reality. Thus there are a number of reality filters already in place.
I think the main thing about capitalism is that it is a "lazy" algorithm. I trivialize it by saying it is lazy, but if you think about it, the whole nutshell about capitalism is figuring out how to "capitalize" on something, by exploiting it (usually the work of other humans).
The open source philosophy is to mutually contibute to something (e.g., society/humanity) with good ideas, and then mutually respect each other to make even better work, based on the new ideas contribute to the common "pot."
This philosophy is basically in opposition to the lazy man's view where he would wonder why work hard if he can exploit another person, or just earn a living off his one-hit wonder idea.
It may harken back to our prehistoric days of darwinisn where we try to make life easier / more efficient / with less energy expended. But if we are going to that route then we might as well encourage tribal warfare and irresponsible procreation of countless offspring. And do away with modern medicine as well, if the natural way is so great.
We as humans must evolve beyond the selfish brute.
But I still think we cannot begin to move to this stage without a Robust Anonymous Information Portal.
The point is that this is starting to happen.
The next step is figuring out how to ensure the elctorate are EDUCATED despite themselves.
I am not saying FORCING them to eat propaganda. I am saying what is the trick/tool/process to encourage voters to 1) learn and 2) vote.
Democracy only works when people know what they are being democratic about. And by the way the Democrat party does not necessarily equate to democracy (note how many governments around the world have the word "Democratic" in their names, despite being facist, communist, or otherwise totalitarian).
Until we have a robust "Internet website" location where anyone can post information without threat from any government, or anyone, with the information permanent (unlike the spineless archive.org project) and freely accessible, we will not have the very foundation for a liberal society. Where there are places to hide, the corrupt will do so. Think back on even just the most recent media exposes. Only because of whistleblowers (who suffered the old rule that no good deed goes unpunushed) did we learn of widespread abuse/exploitation. We need protection of information and true privacy. If the smart geeks only focused their efforts instead of getting caught doing stupid hacking stints, maybe we would one day get the robust P2P high-performance "freenetproject" that humanity truly needs. This resource must not reside anywhere physically, or be personally identifiable. It is the most important challenge that the capable among us must absolutely strive to create. Without this, humanity cannot move forward.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, such a subculture would be no different from the numerous secret societies already in the world. q.v. the proverbial "Illuminati"... they become self-serving organizations that eventually sacrific the individual, which is what we are fighting here in the first place... PGP.
These "freedom associations" are only temporary bastions of liberty. They exist inside the archaic system of current governance the way virtual machines run off an unreliable host operating system. We need more extensive measures to run a new version of civilization otherwise new societies will succumb just like they always have, even in recent years. PGP.
And we know just how INEFFICIENT AND DANGEROUS it is to run on an unreliable host system.
Who are we to say they are "lazy?"
I just use the term "lazy" to indicate an external condition. They might have valid psychological disorders, or not aspire to be brick layers.
PGP
PGP
Your model of "Zero Removes" is great -- although the issue is that the people who make the laws have also to execute the laws. So, analogy... programmers design, code, and use their own tools, not write for others to use. Something like that. We can look to this as a microcosm -- the village of 100 people, or 1024 people. The "1K Village" model. It is small enough that we pass laws, and take turns being police, pharmacist, teachers, students, etc. I think a major aspect of this is that we do the work that we pass laws about (e.g., police have to wear hats with brims) and we have to wear those hats. Seems very egalitarian but is it "efficient" or is efficiency even a goal here? Is it to be compromised to obtain a better society? (e.g., etiquette is sometimes inefficient, even though it may have evolved from something that used to be efficient; ultimately efficient in terms of letting people "just get along"). PGP.
Politicians only reflect what they perceive the public to want. When there is sufficient public demand for OSS you can be sure it will become as political as women's rights, environmental protection, and universal education.
We need the platform for posting this stuff, without censorship or retribution.
Problem is who says what is smart/stupid? We are just as stupid as the next ultra-genius that looks at our work. This line of thinking eventually collides with the eugenics vector...
It is not non-partisan. It is just not tied to an existing dogmatic organization which has probably lost its original raison d'etre. Revolutions fade... and then it's time for a new one.
How should/do we come to grips with the fact that XYZ entity has $$$ to give, to encourage this kind of student activity? In a perfectly open-sourced society, people will have to work due to internal incentive (e.g., make the world a better place); so what do we do with people who are lazy or unmotivated to contribute (e.g., parasites)? Or are people only selectively parasitic? Would a total tech n00b be an expert surgeon or cook?
FREE - Freedom Resource for EveryonE
The day we have the information portal, the day we can post things up there (including "patented" ideas) and destroy the basis for exploitation. The day we can whistleblow "corporate secrets" (such as secret tobacco research) and corrupt government black-ops, is the day the people can reclaim their rightful freedom to their collective pursuit of happiness. A free people with a free spirit need a place where ideas are free from oppression and censorship.
To have to choose between either the Democrats with Kerry, or the Republicans with Bush, is almost like choosing which you hate most: Windows, or Office. Yes we will may decide we hate Win32 more, but the Suite is still just as bad. What we need is Nader. It is the sanest choice in an insane world.
"Modern politics" happens only because the "framework" allows it to happen. Imagine a society where we are not allowed to talk to each other without the permission of the government. There would be a new kind of politics, and a new kind of corrpution, that exploits that framework.
Problem with the jury system is that there is still the judge, and the jury operates within the confines of "law" (akin to doing open source but limited to developing on Win32 and allowing MSFT to dictate what can and cannot work in your algorithm) and also that there are two lawyers who present "facts" but really they are just extreme skewed / biased views of a larger picture of reality. Thus there are a number of reality filters already in place.
I think the main thing about capitalism is that it is a "lazy" algorithm. I trivialize it by saying it is lazy, but if you think about it, the whole nutshell about capitalism is figuring out how to "capitalize" on something, by exploiting it (usually the work of other humans). The open source philosophy is to mutually contibute to something (e.g., society/humanity) with good ideas, and then mutually respect each other to make even better work, based on the new ideas contribute to the common "pot." This philosophy is basically in opposition to the lazy man's view where he would wonder why work hard if he can exploit another person, or just earn a living off his one-hit wonder idea. It may harken back to our prehistoric days of darwinisn where we try to make life easier / more efficient / with less energy expended. But if we are going to that route then we might as well encourage tribal warfare and irresponsible procreation of countless offspring. And do away with modern medicine as well, if the natural way is so great. We as humans must evolve beyond the selfish brute. But I still think we cannot begin to move to this stage without a Robust Anonymous Information Portal.
The point is that this is starting to happen. The next step is figuring out how to ensure the elctorate are EDUCATED despite themselves. I am not saying FORCING them to eat propaganda. I am saying what is the trick/tool/process to encourage voters to 1) learn and 2) vote. Democracy only works when people know what they are being democratic about. And by the way the Democrat party does not necessarily equate to democracy (note how many governments around the world have the word "Democratic" in their names, despite being facist, communist, or otherwise totalitarian).
Until we have a robust "Internet website" location where anyone can post information without threat from any government, or anyone, with the information permanent (unlike the spineless archive.org project) and freely accessible, we will not have the very foundation for a liberal society. Where there are places to hide, the corrupt will do so. Think back on even just the most recent media exposes. Only because of whistleblowers (who suffered the old rule that no good deed goes unpunushed) did we learn of widespread abuse/exploitation. We need protection of information and true privacy. If the smart geeks only focused their efforts instead of getting caught doing stupid hacking stints, maybe we would one day get the robust P2P high-performance "freenetproject" that humanity truly needs. This resource must not reside anywhere physically, or be personally identifiable. It is the most important challenge that the capable among us must absolutely strive to create. Without this, humanity cannot move forward.