The title is provocative, but certainly not arrogant in its intent. In my opinion, it is arrogant to say that the current socioeconomic paradigm is the best we can do as a species.
Thank you for the Upvote!
What’s the scenario where someone is able to ‘immorally’ hoard? In a connected system, aid org sends a truck full of beans to a known destination with a specific ETA. Each of the individual requests comprising the ‘community request’ would expect to be satisfied, increasing relevance for the aid org (as a provider of beans) and for the community (as a trusted source of requests). Truck doesn’t arrive, and you now have people on both ends of the route working toward the middle. There would be a gap in the accounting if one person absconded. Now, an expected level of loss is included in the shipment often. A well dressed and well connected individual comes along and promises a certain amount of cooperation in exchange for the job of distributing resources. All this ignores the presence of mobile phones and the ability of a connected citizenry to get what they need—when given the chance. So, out of fear of theft, the entire society is impacted by ‘paternal’ suspicion.
When the evidence is clear that empowerment is the solution, there is no other conversation than “How do we do it?” I mean, you could ask how long it will take, and where do we start? But those are secondary and the when, is obviously disaster. Massive need, reduces restrictions and amount of ‘convincing’. Incremental ‘authorized’ progress will never allow everyone to be free.
While baby steps may sound like good advice, what are we really talking about? Would you settle for not being told when supplies are en-route because an aid worker ‘didn’t want to get your hopes up’ ? There is no ‘provisional respect’ equivalent to sovereignty.
“Not getting hopes up” is standard operating procedure that would infuriate most people if they were actually in the room where that decision was made. It would cause emotional harm if that were part of one’s entire life. Not knowing where resources are going, and being trained to not expect accountability, is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker. Eventually every human does yearn to be free.
I am proposing a system that creates democratization by default, provides resource maps as a designed ‘side effect’, and completely transforms the last-mile logistics question. I ask that control over data be given up, in exchange for far richer and more detailed information that opens possibilities and improved situational perception. As another designed side-effect, peer support is acknowledged and facilitated because that’s where the vast majority of recovery happens.
For every hole poked into this plan, self-sovereign interaction still leads to the desired state.
Just to be clear, the only mechanism at work isn’t self reporting. Governance would have ample supply of things to investigate based on the absence of data. e.g. If a steady supply of beans is requested and then suddenly stops, it’s worth a look. If an individual is requesting 10x what their neighbors are, it is worth a look.
If the populace does not send requests to their own governance, that is worth a look by the international community! Undoubtedly, there will be a connection between low ‘responsiveness scores’ of governance and overall citizen trust.
Something else crisis creates that cannot be predicted is emergent leaders. Community in crisis pushes certain people to the foreground and they are rarely best at self promotion. See the pattern? Those with self promotion skills often get the contract but are often least likely to make it happen. In a facts-only based system, the person who waits in the rain for the truck and shares it without community complaint becomes highly relevant for community leadership.
Similarly in political life, the soap box grandstander who does not satisfy the To-Do list provided by community needs will quickly lose out to the humble public servants who work hard in every political system, but often languish invisibly.
—
Giving humans a means to use the technology in their palm for personal freedom, prosocial rewards, and an expectation of accountability, shouldn’t be a revolutionary idea, but apparently it is.
Many of us have been conditioned carefully to believe that the extant structures are the ‘best we’ve got’ and the result of long evolutionary processes. This is just untrue; especially in the human context. Nowhere is more humanizing than surviving a traumatic crisis event.
This project began as a way to prolong the period of benevolence that’s universally present post-event. As the line of inquiry self-unfolded, the singular question wasn’t if, but how, and which layer to target.
Refining a system to only be about what one Has and Needs, with open ended and unstructured categorization, puts the tasks in the appropriate places. By that I mean humans are excellent at deciding what’s similar with really ambiguous inputs. What they choose as a match for a need can be considered as a ‘provisional synonym’ that is reinforced with repetition. Compute is excellent at remembering and disseminating information along a ruleset.
When humans in any locality express themselves through exchange it will include subjective equivalencies. If shopping patterns matter, people will happily spend time leafing through resources, choosing what suits them best. It’s perfect. People choose, compute repeats, with weights for various kinds of ‘relevancy’ and physical proximity.
Dissimilar groups that interact will have a means of exchange they define and no system architect can predict; so ‘why try it?’ was my reasoning. Allowing humans to interact means they will find a way, as we have always done. I don’t believe a well designed system needs to restrict behavior, just the ability to affect someone else. Putting each individual in control of their value exchange creates a localized social ruleset—or digital representation of culture. Fortunately, human interaction isn’t wildly random. There’s only a certain number of things on the planet that we use, and only in a few ways each.
This task is easily within the realm of tech to interface with the community a person contacts directly. The secret is to not overmanage the inputs, which traps you into design choices that are not appropriate to purpose. Another secret is not designing a physical social tool like an abstract ‘digital pool’. I am not proposing a means to share details with anonymous masses or to adhere to a certain currency. There are means for each that exist separately from one’s ‘real life’. I’m proposing a system for encapsulating a value exchange with rules to make the best choice possible. By only dealing in ‘exchanges’ creates an expectation that one’s selfhood is valuable even in a digital realm. This is revolutionary in the current paradigm and takes some adjusting to get used to, thanks to the prolific and persistent efforts of corporate entities keeping you unaware of your own digital value.
Sorry, but I’m getting some uncanny valley vibes, like this might’ve been written by an AI? (Same with your reply to Guy Raveh’s comment, and maybe even the OP now come to think of it.) It’s pretty rambling and doesn’t really address most of what I say in my comment. (Very sorry if not an AI!)
The title is provocative, but certainly not arrogant in its intent. In my opinion, it is arrogant to say that the current socioeconomic paradigm is the best we can do as a species.
Thank you for the Upvote!
What’s the scenario where someone is able to ‘immorally’ hoard? In a connected system, aid org sends a truck full of beans to a known destination with a specific ETA. Each of the individual requests comprising the ‘community request’ would expect to be satisfied, increasing relevance for the aid org (as a provider of beans) and for the community (as a trusted source of requests). Truck doesn’t arrive, and you now have people on both ends of the route working toward the middle. There would be a gap in the accounting if one person absconded. Now, an expected level of loss is included in the shipment often. A well dressed and well connected individual comes along and promises a certain amount of cooperation in exchange for the job of distributing resources. All this ignores the presence of mobile phones and the ability of a connected citizenry to get what they need—when given the chance. So, out of fear of theft, the entire society is impacted by ‘paternal’ suspicion.
When the evidence is clear that empowerment is the solution, there is no other conversation than “How do we do it?” I mean, you could ask how long it will take, and where do we start? But those are secondary and the when, is obviously disaster. Massive need, reduces restrictions and amount of ‘convincing’. Incremental ‘authorized’ progress will never allow everyone to be free.
While baby steps may sound like good advice, what are we really talking about? Would you settle for not being told when supplies are en-route because an aid worker ‘didn’t want to get your hopes up’ ? There is no ‘provisional respect’ equivalent to sovereignty.
“Not getting hopes up” is standard operating procedure that would infuriate most people if they were actually in the room where that decision was made. It would cause emotional harm if that were part of one’s entire life. Not knowing where resources are going, and being trained to not expect accountability, is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker. Eventually every human does yearn to be free.
I am proposing a system that creates democratization by default, provides resource maps as a designed ‘side effect’, and completely transforms the last-mile logistics question. I ask that control over data be given up, in exchange for far richer and more detailed information that opens possibilities and improved situational perception. As another designed side-effect, peer support is acknowledged and facilitated because that’s where the vast majority of recovery happens.
For every hole poked into this plan, self-sovereign interaction still leads to the desired state.
Just to be clear, the only mechanism at work isn’t self reporting. Governance would have ample supply of things to investigate based on the absence of data. e.g. If a steady supply of beans is requested and then suddenly stops, it’s worth a look. If an individual is requesting 10x what their neighbors are, it is worth a look.
If the populace does not send requests to their own governance, that is worth a look by the international community! Undoubtedly, there will be a connection between low ‘responsiveness scores’ of governance and overall citizen trust.
Something else crisis creates that cannot be predicted is emergent leaders. Community in crisis pushes certain people to the foreground and they are rarely best at self promotion. See the pattern? Those with self promotion skills often get the contract but are often least likely to make it happen. In a facts-only based system, the person who waits in the rain for the truck and shares it without community complaint becomes highly relevant for community leadership.
Similarly in political life, the soap box grandstander who does not satisfy the To-Do list provided by community needs will quickly lose out to the humble public servants who work hard in every political system, but often languish invisibly.
—
Giving humans a means to use the technology in their palm for personal freedom, prosocial rewards, and an expectation of accountability, shouldn’t be a revolutionary idea, but apparently it is.
Many of us have been conditioned carefully to believe that the extant structures are the ‘best we’ve got’ and the result of long evolutionary processes. This is just untrue; especially in the human context. Nowhere is more humanizing than surviving a traumatic crisis event.
This project began as a way to prolong the period of benevolence that’s universally present post-event. As the line of inquiry self-unfolded, the singular question wasn’t if, but how, and which layer to target.
Refining a system to only be about what one Has and Needs, with open ended and unstructured categorization, puts the tasks in the appropriate places. By that I mean humans are excellent at deciding what’s similar with really ambiguous inputs. What they choose as a match for a need can be considered as a ‘provisional synonym’ that is reinforced with repetition. Compute is excellent at remembering and disseminating information along a ruleset.
When humans in any locality express themselves through exchange it will include subjective equivalencies. If shopping patterns matter, people will happily spend time leafing through resources, choosing what suits them best. It’s perfect. People choose, compute repeats, with weights for various kinds of ‘relevancy’ and physical proximity.
Dissimilar groups that interact will have a means of exchange they define and no system architect can predict; so ‘why try it?’ was my reasoning. Allowing humans to interact means they will find a way, as we have always done. I don’t believe a well designed system needs to restrict behavior, just the ability to affect someone else. Putting each individual in control of their value exchange creates a localized social ruleset—or digital representation of culture. Fortunately, human interaction isn’t wildly random. There’s only a certain number of things on the planet that we use, and only in a few ways each.
This task is easily within the realm of tech to interface with the community a person contacts directly. The secret is to not overmanage the inputs, which traps you into design choices that are not appropriate to purpose. Another secret is not designing a physical social tool like an abstract ‘digital pool’. I am not proposing a means to share details with anonymous masses or to adhere to a certain currency. There are means for each that exist separately from one’s ‘real life’. I’m proposing a system for encapsulating a value exchange with rules to make the best choice possible. By only dealing in ‘exchanges’ creates an expectation that one’s selfhood is valuable even in a digital realm. This is revolutionary in the current paradigm and takes some adjusting to get used to, thanks to the prolific and persistent efforts of corporate entities keeping you unaware of your own digital value.
Sorry, but I’m getting some uncanny valley vibes, like this might’ve been written by an AI? (Same with your reply to Guy Raveh’s comment, and maybe even the OP now come to think of it.) It’s pretty rambling and doesn’t really address most of what I say in my comment. (Very sorry if not an AI!)