The following are the second and third posts made 9/10/10 by Leaving Society on the No Bad Memes Blog. This is here for research and archival purposes.
Societal systems
There are bound to be more in the future, but for now, a shorthand layout:
Flowchart:
Note: Notice the lack of a belief system
Meme system (for ideation; selection for implementation and practice) -> information system (for retention of an updated knowledge base)
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Value system
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Education system
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Economic system
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Governmental system
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Technological infrastructure
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Social system
Definitions:
Meme system - The pool, mill, etc. from which we synthesize, create, and select ideas for use in our values system
Information system - The continually updated repository in which we store all data and information of any kind, regardless of its value or selection potential
Value system - What we care about, what our goals are, why we exist at all
Education system - How our values are instilled into their future agents; teaching agents not just what to think (subject to change moreso than the other outcomes and of least importance, especially given data redundancy and storage) but how to think (meta-cognition) and why to think
Economic system - How raw materials and processed materials are exchanged between agents to the end of upholding our values
Governmental system - How to deal with aberrations and logically inferior competitors (with our ideas, for brain-space) through meme selection and agent evaluation
Technological infrastructure - How we manipulate the physical world to the end of upholding our values after acquiring resources and enforcing our ideas through a state
Social system - How we spend our time as we live our lives to their various ends after society has formed and as it is maintained
Current implementation plans:
Meme system - See previous posts on this topic
Value system - All systems remain open, no attachment or commitment, no assumptions, practical approach to processing data/information, social system should eschew individualism and competition, pain/pleasure depression/joy fear/desire make up our core value equations, logical processors are the basis for meme selection and ideation, reproduction is cumbersome and aconsensual and incurs massive risk, use risk analysis and relational analysis to better understand what logically takes precedence in our reality, continue existing not to perpetuate our instinctual desires (which are unable to ever be truly fulfilled) but to act as guardian of the universe in an effort to end all suffering, no morality or freedom but rather higher quality outcomes after processing value-centric problems through our algorithms
Education system - Youth centers where children are confined away from all society until they demonstrate a near-full awareness of the core values of the society, perhaps through training modules and, eventually, virtual simulations of real-world problems
Economic system - Resource-based economy eschewing notions of trade, ownership, property, and inheritance
Governmental system - Meritocratic idearchy*; rule by logically selected ideas rather than by individuals or groups
Technological infrastructure - Subject to change with time (as is everything else, but this is particularly transient), but very little waste and highly efficient, designed both with functionality and aesthetic "value" in mind (not real value according to core values but important to moods and atmospheres), transparent buildings with no locks, less doors and compartments per building, especially in tropical climates
Social system - Open society with no traditions or customs, everyone is a friend because everyone has the same values and general goals, no individualism. note that we'd still employ merit-based interaction, and that people wouldn't be able to do whatever they wanted (even though they probably wouldn't want to behave that way, anyway, given their conditioning), as some functional aspects of society would require certifications.
* A society run by ideas rather than by individuals; contra to stateless societal implementations, like anarchy, but also to individual-centric governments, like fascism, totalitarianism, and democracy.
Flowchart:
Note: Notice the lack of a belief system
Meme system (for ideation; selection for implementation and practice) -> information system (for retention of an updated knowledge base)
||
\/
Value system
||
\/
Education system
||
\/
Economic system
||
\/
Governmental system
||
\/
Technological infrastructure
||
\/
Social system
Definitions:
Meme system - The pool, mill, etc. from which we synthesize, create, and select ideas for use in our values system
Information system - The continually updated repository in which we store all data and information of any kind, regardless of its value or selection potential
Value system - What we care about, what our goals are, why we exist at all
Education system - How our values are instilled into their future agents; teaching agents not just what to think (subject to change moreso than the other outcomes and of least importance, especially given data redundancy and storage) but how to think (meta-cognition) and why to think
Economic system - How raw materials and processed materials are exchanged between agents to the end of upholding our values
Governmental system - How to deal with aberrations and logically inferior competitors (with our ideas, for brain-space) through meme selection and agent evaluation
Technological infrastructure - How we manipulate the physical world to the end of upholding our values after acquiring resources and enforcing our ideas through a state
Social system - How we spend our time as we live our lives to their various ends after society has formed and as it is maintained
Current implementation plans:
Meme system - See previous posts on this topic
Value system - All systems remain open, no attachment or commitment, no assumptions, practical approach to processing data/information, social system should eschew individualism and competition, pain/pleasure depression/joy fear/desire make up our core value equations, logical processors are the basis for meme selection and ideation, reproduction is cumbersome and aconsensual and incurs massive risk, use risk analysis and relational analysis to better understand what logically takes precedence in our reality, continue existing not to perpetuate our instinctual desires (which are unable to ever be truly fulfilled) but to act as guardian of the universe in an effort to end all suffering, no morality or freedom but rather higher quality outcomes after processing value-centric problems through our algorithms
Education system - Youth centers where children are confined away from all society until they demonstrate a near-full awareness of the core values of the society, perhaps through training modules and, eventually, virtual simulations of real-world problems
Economic system - Resource-based economy eschewing notions of trade, ownership, property, and inheritance
Governmental system - Meritocratic idearchy*; rule by logically selected ideas rather than by individuals or groups
Technological infrastructure - Subject to change with time (as is everything else, but this is particularly transient), but very little waste and highly efficient, designed both with functionality and aesthetic "value" in mind (not real value according to core values but important to moods and atmospheres), transparent buildings with no locks, less doors and compartments per building, especially in tropical climates
Social system - Open society with no traditions or customs, everyone is a friend because everyone has the same values and general goals, no individualism. note that we'd still employ merit-based interaction, and that people wouldn't be able to do whatever they wanted (even though they probably wouldn't want to behave that way, anyway, given their conditioning), as some functional aspects of society would require certifications.
* A society run by ideas rather than by individuals; contra to stateless societal implementations, like anarchy, but also to individual-centric governments, like fascism, totalitarianism, and democracy.
1 comment:
AnonymousNovember 3, 2011 at 4:12 PM
Which system would stop people from writing shitty pseudophilosophical blogs?
Reply
Life has no intrinsic purpose
This post has been designed with the intent to quell any unfounded inferences regarding what building a better society implies about reality as a whole; I may find repairing the world in which I live to be immensely valuable, but I will never purport to believe that life is sacred, or that we should live our lives as individuals for our own independent reasons, or that life is a wonderful thing worthy of purposeless perpetuation. None of these ideals could be further from reality, despite being touted by everyone from existentialists to New Agers* to even, yes, many members of grass roots movements like the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project.
As outlined in an earlier post, suffering and pleasure are not opposites. Life is rife with the most abominable of horrors, as there doesn't appear to be anyone "in charge" of its underlying processes. Having children, therefore, is incredibly irresponsible and selfish so long as there are no realistic simulations of reality or safe means of euthanasia or suicide available to the general population. Furthermore, debilitating bouts of the flu, life-changing car accidents, kidney stones, and any other obviously horrible experience should be enough to make anyone with a conscience control themselves. Stomach cancer, a common cause of death among the modern elderly, is reputed to be extremely painful and difficult to endure. Death itself is almost a guarantee -- not a risk -- and so, if we do not believe in a god, but still desire to have children, we are imposing risk, fear, and suffering upon non-consenting sentient creatures without any meaningful return on our investment to balance out the equation. Nothing could be more barbaric.
As an illustration of the imbalance of pleasure and pain, if you were promised a billion dollars, but in order to receive the money, it was required that you also receive AIDS, would you agree to the transaction?
This rationale invokes risk management, which, while applied rather effectively in many business environments, seems to be nonexistent in our larger, selfishly democratic civilization, with its emphasis on doing what feels good, satisfies our expectations of ourselves, or is popular. Risk management is only necessary, of course, if our ideals are predicated on the crude, binary system of attraction and repulsion which makes up the agenda of all living organisms on Earth. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for anything else being of greater, 'objective' value, so we must pay attention when sentience perceives something as negative.
Sentient life has created value merely by existing, and is almost impossible to ignore, especially in its most stark manifestations. Therefore, we must listen to it by minimizing negative sensation wherever we encounter it -- that is, so long as our methods are practical and efficient first and foremost. This is the default stance to take, and should anything prove more sensible, it will be tentatively adopted, or at least implemented under the pretense that we "believe" in it until something better comes along.
This approach differs from nihilism, which asserts that, not only does reality lack any inherent purpose or ultimate meaning, it lacks meaning or purpose of any kind. The evidence is not in nihilism's favor, however. Therefore, we have to care about improving life for all sentient organisms.
But we can't just care. We also have to get it right, or at least get it as close to right as we can based on probability assessments. Multiculturalism, the sanctity of "opinions," and the power of the individual (as opposed to the power of well-tested ideas), then, are all dangerous.
Our existence necessitates that we take responsibility for the welfare of all feeling organisms, because we possess intelligence through language, and are therefore the first beings in documented evolutionary history to be able to ratify the world in which we live in any sustained, planned, and meaningful way. There is an inherent, cause-and-effect logic to the universe; as a result, we have to draw conclusions. Even remaining undecided is a form of 'conclusion,' though it's quite impractical and silly in any instance where we have enough data to make an informed decision about something. Therefore, it is up to us to give our lives a purpose -- one aimed at putting the termination of negatives far before the creation of positives* -- but we must also come to a consensus where possible, and reject the sanctity of individual opinion in favor of the scientific method.
Also consider this: subjectively, I may prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, but if both chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream were sentient creatures, I'd not let my psychology get in the way, and would value both flavors equally from a purely rational and unbiased perspective. It should be noted, though, that I expect everyone in a productive society to also be this rational, because the more bias we introduce into our lives, the more problems we create.
* I would never (or at least doubt that it would ever be acceptable to) generalize anyone based on their beliefs into any preordained category, let alone an 'ism,' or to the extent that I'd personally refer to them as an 'er.' If you hold 'New Age' beliefs, I'll still listen to what you have to say for as long as it is an efficient use of my time to do so. Everyone is a feeling organism long before they are an 'ist' or an 'er.'
* I do not think that it's even possible to create real positives at the moment. All perceived positives are born of deprivation, and are merely the return to a zero-sum state.
As outlined in an earlier post, suffering and pleasure are not opposites. Life is rife with the most abominable of horrors, as there doesn't appear to be anyone "in charge" of its underlying processes. Having children, therefore, is incredibly irresponsible and selfish so long as there are no realistic simulations of reality or safe means of euthanasia or suicide available to the general population. Furthermore, debilitating bouts of the flu, life-changing car accidents, kidney stones, and any other obviously horrible experience should be enough to make anyone with a conscience control themselves. Stomach cancer, a common cause of death among the modern elderly, is reputed to be extremely painful and difficult to endure. Death itself is almost a guarantee -- not a risk -- and so, if we do not believe in a god, but still desire to have children, we are imposing risk, fear, and suffering upon non-consenting sentient creatures without any meaningful return on our investment to balance out the equation. Nothing could be more barbaric.
As an illustration of the imbalance of pleasure and pain, if you were promised a billion dollars, but in order to receive the money, it was required that you also receive AIDS, would you agree to the transaction?
This rationale invokes risk management, which, while applied rather effectively in many business environments, seems to be nonexistent in our larger, selfishly democratic civilization, with its emphasis on doing what feels good, satisfies our expectations of ourselves, or is popular. Risk management is only necessary, of course, if our ideals are predicated on the crude, binary system of attraction and repulsion which makes up the agenda of all living organisms on Earth. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for anything else being of greater, 'objective' value, so we must pay attention when sentience perceives something as negative.
Sentient life has created value merely by existing, and is almost impossible to ignore, especially in its most stark manifestations. Therefore, we must listen to it by minimizing negative sensation wherever we encounter it -- that is, so long as our methods are practical and efficient first and foremost. This is the default stance to take, and should anything prove more sensible, it will be tentatively adopted, or at least implemented under the pretense that we "believe" in it until something better comes along.
This approach differs from nihilism, which asserts that, not only does reality lack any inherent purpose or ultimate meaning, it lacks meaning or purpose of any kind. The evidence is not in nihilism's favor, however. Therefore, we have to care about improving life for all sentient organisms.
But we can't just care. We also have to get it right, or at least get it as close to right as we can based on probability assessments. Multiculturalism, the sanctity of "opinions," and the power of the individual (as opposed to the power of well-tested ideas), then, are all dangerous.
Our existence necessitates that we take responsibility for the welfare of all feeling organisms, because we possess intelligence through language, and are therefore the first beings in documented evolutionary history to be able to ratify the world in which we live in any sustained, planned, and meaningful way. There is an inherent, cause-and-effect logic to the universe; as a result, we have to draw conclusions. Even remaining undecided is a form of 'conclusion,' though it's quite impractical and silly in any instance where we have enough data to make an informed decision about something. Therefore, it is up to us to give our lives a purpose -- one aimed at putting the termination of negatives far before the creation of positives* -- but we must also come to a consensus where possible, and reject the sanctity of individual opinion in favor of the scientific method.
Also consider this: subjectively, I may prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, but if both chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream were sentient creatures, I'd not let my psychology get in the way, and would value both flavors equally from a purely rational and unbiased perspective. It should be noted, though, that I expect everyone in a productive society to also be this rational, because the more bias we introduce into our lives, the more problems we create.
* I would never (or at least doubt that it would ever be acceptable to) generalize anyone based on their beliefs into any preordained category, let alone an 'ism,' or to the extent that I'd personally refer to them as an 'er.' If you hold 'New Age' beliefs, I'll still listen to what you have to say for as long as it is an efficient use of my time to do so. Everyone is a feeling organism long before they are an 'ist' or an 'er.'
* I do not think that it's even possible to create real positives at the moment. All perceived positives are born of deprivation, and are merely the return to a zero-sum state.
1 comment:
AnonymousNovember 2, 2011 at 10:31 PM
Yes, a purely rational and unbiased perspective. And in the meantime, let's make a hot ice cube and a tall dwarf.
Fuck you, you logic-worshipping creep.
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