Here’s What we Propose - motivate those who have an open source ecology mindset. Aling the contributors
Creating Civilization from Scratch
Conclusions
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Introduction 1
This is a book that asks for a practical course of action to end war, corruption, perverty, and that onyone can take to bring society to its next level of evolution. This is a story of personal repsonsibility: ask not what the world can do for you, but what you can do to the world - to make it better. While the end point technical (building infrastructures for a new civilization) the motivation is sociological: asking how everyone can prosper, so nobody is left behind. Assumption is that ‘we are all in it together’
For anyone to act effectively, they have to ‘know what time it is.’ What is the state of the world? Which stories that we are told are political manipulation by specific agendas - and which are authentic issues? How do we differentiate between the two?
So the chapter on the State of the World: Abundance or Demise - must begin with how humans process information, so we are more aware of what is ‘true’ and what is not. This invariably gets to socilogical topics of general semantics, mass cultural creation, political ponerology, and the scientific method. Yet the rationality must be tempered with uncertainty, as inherent in the scientific method. For even the best scientists used to think that the world was flat - until someone showed otherwise.
The state of the world assesses the major infrastructures of civilization - from economic, to political, to social - to bring common understanding to the state of affairs. It’s an assessment of abundance thinking, and scarcity thinking - aiming to come up with common ground that we may all agree is generally regarded as true. The goal is to set the record straight, as much as such a task is possible. Of course there will be assumptions in the background - and those will be made explicit as we go along.
What I propose is the open source ecocnomy, and I will explain why I think open source collaborative economies are where society is going - in terms of an operating paradigm - as opposed to the current competitive, proprietary norm, where wealth concentration is build thoroughly into the operating system of human transactions. Thus the claim that wealth distributed far and wide is the best option for a democratic society.
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Introduction 2
In the State of the World discussion, key paradoxes must be explored. First, the paradox of capitalism, where the ultimate success of capitalism - a power/wealth concentrating enterprise - results in thorough distribution. What are the facs and figures behind this? Is the very end point of capitalism its complete opposite - the open source economy? We will of course define the terms here - what is capitalism as understood today, and what is the open source economy?
The Paradox of Capitalism has been questioned by Adam Smith (ref), and other well-known economists. But to date - this remains a riddle without solution. It is my goal to shed some light on this question.
Second, the Paradox of Democracy: the Struggle between liberty and equality (Victor David Hanson). That issue has never been resolved. If you err on the side of liberty, you accept some inequality. If you err on the side of equality, you compromise liberty (make people equal even if they are not). US founding fathers said that democracy (erring on the side of Athenian equality) was an evolutionary dead end. USA liked an enlightened oligarchy, not democracy - which meant coarcion in the style of ‘majority mob rule’ - that led to deaths such as of Aristotle or of Lesbians. Equality is coercion. Democracy started in the 507 BC, ended in 338 BC. Democracy remained an undelivered promise of numerous intellectuals. What worked instead was a constitutional system, an enlightened oligarchy (such as the USA where only land owners voted), with checks and balances, and checks on the mob rule. They did not trust people to have absolute power. This left a legacy of constitutional governments. Democracy is not rule by people, it’s rule by poor people. Right wing critique: people are not equal; if you force them to be, it requires 2 things: loss of individual liberty and coercion.
Open source solution: not take from the ‘rich’, but provide tools to the ‘poor’ - while leveling the field from extractive institutions and monopolies
Practical outcome: the struggle between ‘democrats’ and ‘republicans’ in the USA?
Considering the paradoxes of the economy and of governance, we will be on a better footing to begin addressing the question of prosperity for everyone.