[ExI] How to make progress (was Re: Why do political and economic leaders deny Peak Oil and Climate Change?)

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sun, 15 Sep 2013, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> 
> > There might be a solution, even now. Just grab this puny civilisation 
> > with iron fist and impose changes to its ways. Unfortunately, it seems 
> > iron fists have ugly, ugly side effects. And they tend to be 
> > implemented by morons who think they understand it (and they end up 
> > washing blood from ugly side of the fist so it looks nicer) and by 
> > those who claim that "one milion/bilion bodies, not a big dealion".
> >
> 
> One problem with that is: how can you make sure you are not one of said
> morons?

This is easy to answer - I am THE moron. One of the two mentioned above. 
Or both, or some uncategorized kind, depending on circumstances. At least, 
I assume so based on some empirical data. Thanks to some well-timed chain 
of events, I have been isolated from decision making. Which is why my 
dreams, especially those about creating swamps by soaking soil with boold, 
are going to stay in my head, never to be materialized, just like is the 
case with the rest of the people.

> ...and then, how can you make sure while still maintaining power?  Many 
> of the ways to check seem to involve exposing yourself to attacks from 
> people who are really good at seizing power but awful at responsibly 
> using it.
> 
> This is not an easy problem.  If it was, it would've been solved 
> already. It is true that many who attain power never think to ask 
> themselves this - but some do.  Enough of them do, combined with the 
> naturally high visibility of national leaders, that any simple but 
> reliable solution would have made itself evident already.
> 
> I've thought of a few ways to approach a solution, but first I'd like to 
> make sure I've stated the problem well enough that it's clearly 
> understood.

The question I'd like to ask is not about finding the right people. I 
assume there is no such breed. So, how to get the wrong people and lock 
them in such system, that will produce good even if they fail to be good, 
which is to be expected sooner or later (rather, sooner).

Why such question? Well, because millenia of putting "right people" in the 
"right places" have not got us very far. Two steps forward, one step 
backward, and then suddenly discover we are marching inside a threadmill. 
It would have been a sign of madness to repeat this and expect different 
outcomes.

I'd also like to answer this question, but for a while I am stuck. I guess 
I am too stupid or too lazy or too distracted...

Emocracy somehow delivers, although see above, compare madness-voting 
relation.

It is possible that building such a thing from humans alone is not doable. 
It is possible we could do it if we had time to develop some cybernetic 
solution, but 1) previous such attempts went bonk AFAIK 2) we have 
unprecized amount of time, ranging from a decade to a century. It is thus 
impossible to bet on a future because one has to assume that data we base 
our bets on has been manipulated (because, why not).

For me, building iron fist from humans (homo s.s.) is pure fantasy. In a 
grim setup, I'd expect it to be used by a nomen-omen fistful of players to 
improve their life expectancy and nothing else.

But you know what, it is possible to do at least small things. I will send 
another email in a newyorkean minute.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **