Sunday 25 December 2011

2010 we woke up. 2011 we stood up. 2012 we take over.

From Heather  ttscanada@riseup.net

Optimism is a political act. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. -
Alex Steffen

The world is long overdue for a completely new system of governance. The need for political representation or a paternalistic and opaque  authority
has been removed by technology. Governance by nation states is  now as
arbitrary and illogical as city states were earlier found to be. Corporations have the freedom to live in a world without borders or  social
responsibility, to own property no individual can claim and to  control a
one world government and legal system, with insupportable  consequences for
the world's resources and individual rights. To effect  the change we
require in 2012, to give individuals control and  responsibility, to bring
regional systems under regional governance and  protect the heritage of
future generations, we need a new political  model.

Individual Rights

In any system where groups have power, individual rights are always  at
risk. Both pure democracy and communism have brought human rights  horrors
every bit as reprehensible as fascist states; in order to guard  against
genocide, torture, and other persecution of individuals in the  name of the
greater good, a system must safeguard individual rights  above all other
authority.

Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies that individual rights are to be applied equally without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.  With
the addition of age, this would prevent discrimination against any  group.
Groups are not individuals and no group is entitled to special  and further
rights or protections under individual rights.

A recognition of individual rights will include life, liberty,  security of
person, access to the basic essentials of life including  knowledge,
privacy and personal autonomy in matters not affecting the  rest of
society, free development of personality and potential, and a  fair legal
system which does not promote wishes of the group over rights  of the
individual.

Autonomous peer to peer user groups for systems

Governments up till now have been run by hierarchical groups, which  act as
the final authority on all topics for an entire region for an  arbitrarily
specified length of time or until they are overthrown by  another group.
What these authorities govern is a series of systems,  controlled by the
state or corporations, and run as dictatorships where  workers' individual
rights are exchanged for the basic necessities of  life. These systems have
profit for the top of the hierarchy as their  objective; they are not set
up to provide an efficient or superior  service or product to the users.

If these systems were organized as autonomous, transparent, porous,  peer
to peer user groups, they would be far better governed by  themselves. The
current political structure does not recognize that  every system is not of
concern or interest to everyone in the region, or  that some users have far
greater knowledge and expertise in specific  areas than others. We need a
system where responsibility and control  rests with the entire user group
and expertise is acknowledged and put  to best use.

Autonomous: each user group should consist of all people affected by the
system and no people not affected by the system.

Transparent: all information related to the system must be fully
transparent in order for users to participate in tasks or auditing.

Porous: contribution at all levels of each user group must be open to all
users with acceptance by peer review.

Peer to peer: each user group should consist of users: audit and provide
feedback, contributors: interested users who periodically present work for
acceptance by the members, members: have acquired expertise and been
accepted as full contributing members by the user group, and a core group:
recognized by the group as having the necessary level of expertise to
provide direction for the system.

Meritocracy:  A side effect of these user groups is that they  provide
workers with the three motivators which provide the greatest job satisfaction, autonomy, mastery and purpose. People can work on  anything
they like, they are not required to submit resumes, acquire  accreditation,
seniority, or approval from an individual authority. If  their work is good
enough it will be accepted by the user group.  Everyone can work on the
system that interests them, doing the jobs at  the level they are capable
of, with as much or as little involvement as  they choose.

Systems should be organized by user groups, not by nations or  treaties.
International systems would include things such as the  internet,
telecommunications and knowledge, local systems would include  things such
as transit, food production and social services, and in any  situation
where only one family or an individual is affected, the  responsibility
would rely with only them. Each local user group or  individual would have
access to outside user groups for trade, shared  knowledge, disaster
relief, etc., autonomous but networked.

Global commons
Anything which is not only of global interest but also does not  belong to
any one generation cannot be destroyed and cannot be claimed  as the
property of any individual, group, corporation or government.  Global
commons would include space, the atmosphere and electromagnetic  field,
deep sea ocean, land and water masses of sufficient size to have  global
impact, areas of the biosphere which are rare or important enough  to be of
global concern, and knowledge. Knowledge includes discoveries,  history and
creative works, and excludes personal information regarding  individuals.
There should be no restriction on the use of ideas,  although creativity
needs to be compensated and credited.

Anything belonging to the global commons must be held under  stewardship of
a porous and transparent peer to peer organization set up  for the purpose,
and the mandate for all global commons must include  the protection and
preservation of the commons. All systems which affect  the commons must
work with the commons in their design and  implementation.

2010 we woke up. 2011 we stood up. 2012 we take over.


Resources:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Needed now: A News Commons http://wlcentral.org/node/2330

Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation - TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh4fi5oJlnM

Bettermeans: How does an open enterprise work? http://bettermeans.com/front/how.html

P2P Foundation http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Foundation_for_P2P_Alternatives

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