By the way, the following interpretation of the intent and gist of this essay is presented to you by Google's Bard (the fucktard):
The article, titled "Why Can't We Be Citizens?", by MD C. Bowen, argues that the United States has a long history of denying citizenship to certain groups of people, and that this trend continues today. Bowen begins by discussing the history of citizenship in the United States, noting that the original Constitution only granted citizenship to white men who owned property. This meant that women, African Americans, and Native Americans were all excluded from citizenship.
Bowen then goes on to discuss how this history of exclusion has continued in the 21st century. He points to the fact that undocumented immigrants are not allowed to become citizens, even if they have lived in the United States for many years and have contributed to society in many ways. He also notes that the Trump administration has made it more difficult for people to become citizens, and has even tried to deport naturalized citizens.
Bowen concludes by arguing that the United States needs to change its laws so that everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status, can become a citizen. He argues that this is essential for creating a more just and equitable society.
Here are some additional details from the article:
The United States was founded on the principles of equality and liberty, but these principles have not always been applied equally to all citizens.
The history of citizenship in the United States is one of exclusion and discrimination.
The Trump administration has made it more difficult for people to become citizens, and has even tried to deport naturalized citizens.
The United States needs to change its laws so that everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status, can become a citizen.
There is a huge glaring problem with Johnathon Rauche's Quotes on liberalism.
1. Nobody has final say.
2. Nobody has special authority.
Okay.... here comes the problem.
Egos, like the or not, are universal in that basically everyone has one; and only very few are in control of theirs. The rest, given the chance without consequence; will act like absolute jack-napes. (Trying to be swearword free today, forgive my... imaginative wording.)
So those two quotes are flawed insofar that they do not have something acting as a check and balance against them; due to the fact that most people won't obey them anyways. Again, egos.
To make matters worse, these people mostly just follow each other and their favorable opinions. Not a terrible thing if these are intelligent opinions; but alas they oft are not. Even when the mob thinks itself intelligent, it oft isn't.
The problem is that all of this is why democracy and liberalism fall flat on their face almost every time that populism of the extremes occurs. It's one thing when everyone is being reasonable in their populism based ideas and such. It's a whole other when those ideas and opinions are coming from literally some of the worst people of our societies.
Democracy and liberalism as defined by those quotes, when presented with this problem I write to you; requires essentially an adjudicator to be able to be that one who has that final say, and has that special authority.
But who dare we give it to?
The problem, is that when everyone thinks their opinion is worthwhile, none are. Why?
Because even if just one opinion had enough validity to be more worthwhile than all the rest; the idiots will keep you from ever finding out. They'll drown it out with their stupidity.
This is why mob mentality, group think and many other psychological curses of improper education for decades now, is a huge problem for us.
OH, P.S. I'm speaking from the Canadian side of this. All you in America have it far worse, because your idiots think they can say anything they want just because they want to. We at least have some slight restrictions in our freedoms insofar that you must be considered reasonable.
That has other problems attached to it; but it at least keeps our stupidest from being even worse problems... like you are experiencing.
Here's the thing. Everything I know to be true about open source software stands in defiance of what you just said. All of the egotistic idiots in the world cannot stop the compiled code that works. And when a system is built that allows us to craft multiple forks of policy from the ground up, eventually the idiot component is going to get shaken out.
We can start with the 10 Commandments if you like. How much debate for how many years can idiots and trolls derail the implementation of its common sense? Now step up from that to Hammurabi and evolve.
I'm saying that, given what people already do, with what they commonly expect from what is essentially English Common Law, how long do you think every town will continue to debate given the fact that actual attorneys, professors, first responders, parents and civil servants will participate?
The law as established by a popular and proxied vote (because people can and will elect representatives who will have their own voting records recorded) will not be etched in stone. Just like there is nothing etched in stone on Twitter or reality TV or any such place where the masses make their voices heard.
But let me add to the concept PF's idea -- as we were talking about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and its valid interpretation in the case of Lawrence v Texas, which is popularly known to rather solidly establish the right of consenting adults to behave as they please behind their own closed doors. PF says the 14th was so poorly written and so much junk has been piled onto tangential references that it would be better to throw it out and have it repealed and write the entire thing all over again.
I love the idea of an anti-congress whose job it is to get rid of the cruft in law. It's something we probably cannot enact in our real electorate, but it is something we could definitely model in an appropriately sized XR. It absolutely would demonstrate no last word, just like there is no final version of Microsoft Windows or law or interpretations of the meaning of the life of Jesus or of Western thought itself. What's different will be that we will have software assistance in telling us what positions were taken by which constituencies under what conditions with what precise vote counts. So if you want to know why the 45th evolution of the Ten Commandments says 'Thou shalt not kill' rather than 'Thou shalt not murder', then you will be able in XR to identify the leaders of that schism and see how it's going among their clique and constituency.
What I expect is that software will be able to easily identify every permutation of configurations a trail of decisions made by us jackanapes can conceive. The trick is to get coalitions to want it bad enough to stick their necks out and spend the compute it takes to investigate. My sense is that will be a lot less expensive than using the FBI.
We humans will simplify objections, and paint the bad guys broadly. Software has no requirement to do that.
A noble project! I admire your vision, guys. It fits with the insight tenaciously held by John Adams. (We've just finished watching an HBO-Max series (from 2008) based on David McCullough's book titled using that founding father's name; and I'm also reading the book, same title.) Here was a guy who dedicated his entire life to "civics" — a rare generosity given to build community. "Build it, and they will come?" Hope so! Perhaps a sleek open-source tool will stir passion from the ashes of our Soul, sparking genuine care for neighbors and nation.
This is a good and ambitious idea, worthy of deep thought and purposeful development. Blockchains and smart contracts for the first time strike me as having the necessary utility to underpin something practical as an agent for change. As an expatriate American living in a foreign country, I want to go away and think about how this could be effective in the sense of global organization leading to local action. In addition, Mr Alinsky's methods come to mind for a hint of iron-fist-in-velvet-glove kind of effectiveness.
This article was of particular interest to me, Michael, because for a long time I thought about something very similar to XR. My own version was much more narrowly based on transparency with regards to voting, spending and donations I guess (kind of a opensecrets on steroids). But I also thought of incorporating things like legislative alert systems, push-button petitioning, WISIWYG legal contracts and so forth. The features begin to sprawl and creep, when we think of what a true Digital Citizen toolset would look like.
I guess there were two problems I kept running up against in the early design phase. On the one hand, I would always find RW vulnerabilities, and get lost in the weeds coming up with workarounds that weren't ultimately self-defeating. But I think the bigger problem I had was a pair of (related) conceptual paradoxes: Would we be building a tool to keep tabs on the princes, or one for them to keep tabs on us? To build lists of snoops and other potential troublemakers? And if they are princes, and this tool truly threatened their power, couldn't they simply roll the truth-train a bit further down the tracks, and start using our own system to feed us false data? Some might say "If they could do that, they already would have. But I've noticed that people (and especially venal, corrupt people) usually don't work to change the status quo until something forces them to.
That said, the idea still haunts me, because I think something like it which worked as advertised would be game-changing, and perhaps on a planetary scale.
Maybe you would consider posting a link to this in #skunkworks on Deimos? It sounds like the kind of project where many of us could get our heads together on it, compare notes, etc.
I'm not sure I'm in that channel Mark, so go ahead and post it. But here's the thing. We cannot build this and then dumb it down. Or rather, we can't build it dumb and smarten it up. The purpose has to be to give all of the options Congress has including filibusters and cloture and everything else. Ultimately we have to trust the people can govern the people. If the whole thing collapses under the weight of actual trolls who are willing to spend the money if they get censured by their peers .. then it will be an accurate reflection. But I also expect wonks. I also expect charismatics and people who really know how to get consensus.
What I don't believe is that with as much KYC as a typical bank possesses, that real people who work this system will be ignored. That is to say, the first dog catcher that gets elected from this will have their entire voting history and comments on the XR blockchain. Now and forever.
If all this becomes is the equivalent of a Hogwarts pensive, then we can still know the answer to 'what the hell were we thinking'? All we can do is build a system we expect to allow citizens to self-govern from the ground up given all of the democratic processes we know, starting from Robert's Rules, and then to all kinds of sophisticated digital equivalents of Electoral Colleges and everything else. If we destroy it, then we know we're not worthy. But it won't happen behind our backs like it does today. That's the integrity we need to build into the system. There's enough blockchain brain out there to do it. This is the one smart contract we need more than any other.
By the way, the following interpretation of the intent and gist of this essay is presented to you by Google's Bard (the fucktard):
The article, titled "Why Can't We Be Citizens?", by MD C. Bowen, argues that the United States has a long history of denying citizenship to certain groups of people, and that this trend continues today. Bowen begins by discussing the history of citizenship in the United States, noting that the original Constitution only granted citizenship to white men who owned property. This meant that women, African Americans, and Native Americans were all excluded from citizenship.
Bowen then goes on to discuss how this history of exclusion has continued in the 21st century. He points to the fact that undocumented immigrants are not allowed to become citizens, even if they have lived in the United States for many years and have contributed to society in many ways. He also notes that the Trump administration has made it more difficult for people to become citizens, and has even tried to deport naturalized citizens.
Bowen concludes by arguing that the United States needs to change its laws so that everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status, can become a citizen. He argues that this is essential for creating a more just and equitable society.
Here are some additional details from the article:
The United States was founded on the principles of equality and liberty, but these principles have not always been applied equally to all citizens.
The history of citizenship in the United States is one of exclusion and discrimination.
The Trump administration has made it more difficult for people to become citizens, and has even tried to deport naturalized citizens.
The United States needs to change its laws so that everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status, can become a citizen.
There is a huge glaring problem with Johnathon Rauche's Quotes on liberalism.
1. Nobody has final say.
2. Nobody has special authority.
Okay.... here comes the problem.
Egos, like the or not, are universal in that basically everyone has one; and only very few are in control of theirs. The rest, given the chance without consequence; will act like absolute jack-napes. (Trying to be swearword free today, forgive my... imaginative wording.)
So those two quotes are flawed insofar that they do not have something acting as a check and balance against them; due to the fact that most people won't obey them anyways. Again, egos.
To make matters worse, these people mostly just follow each other and their favorable opinions. Not a terrible thing if these are intelligent opinions; but alas they oft are not. Even when the mob thinks itself intelligent, it oft isn't.
The problem is that all of this is why democracy and liberalism fall flat on their face almost every time that populism of the extremes occurs. It's one thing when everyone is being reasonable in their populism based ideas and such. It's a whole other when those ideas and opinions are coming from literally some of the worst people of our societies.
Democracy and liberalism as defined by those quotes, when presented with this problem I write to you; requires essentially an adjudicator to be able to be that one who has that final say, and has that special authority.
But who dare we give it to?
The problem, is that when everyone thinks their opinion is worthwhile, none are. Why?
Because even if just one opinion had enough validity to be more worthwhile than all the rest; the idiots will keep you from ever finding out. They'll drown it out with their stupidity.
This is why mob mentality, group think and many other psychological curses of improper education for decades now, is a huge problem for us.
OH, P.S. I'm speaking from the Canadian side of this. All you in America have it far worse, because your idiots think they can say anything they want just because they want to. We at least have some slight restrictions in our freedoms insofar that you must be considered reasonable.
That has other problems attached to it; but it at least keeps our stupidest from being even worse problems... like you are experiencing.
Here's the thing. Everything I know to be true about open source software stands in defiance of what you just said. All of the egotistic idiots in the world cannot stop the compiled code that works. And when a system is built that allows us to craft multiple forks of policy from the ground up, eventually the idiot component is going to get shaken out.
We can start with the 10 Commandments if you like. How much debate for how many years can idiots and trolls derail the implementation of its common sense? Now step up from that to Hammurabi and evolve.
I'm saying that, given what people already do, with what they commonly expect from what is essentially English Common Law, how long do you think every town will continue to debate given the fact that actual attorneys, professors, first responders, parents and civil servants will participate?
The law as established by a popular and proxied vote (because people can and will elect representatives who will have their own voting records recorded) will not be etched in stone. Just like there is nothing etched in stone on Twitter or reality TV or any such place where the masses make their voices heard.
But let me add to the concept PF's idea -- as we were talking about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and its valid interpretation in the case of Lawrence v Texas, which is popularly known to rather solidly establish the right of consenting adults to behave as they please behind their own closed doors. PF says the 14th was so poorly written and so much junk has been piled onto tangential references that it would be better to throw it out and have it repealed and write the entire thing all over again.
I love the idea of an anti-congress whose job it is to get rid of the cruft in law. It's something we probably cannot enact in our real electorate, but it is something we could definitely model in an appropriately sized XR. It absolutely would demonstrate no last word, just like there is no final version of Microsoft Windows or law or interpretations of the meaning of the life of Jesus or of Western thought itself. What's different will be that we will have software assistance in telling us what positions were taken by which constituencies under what conditions with what precise vote counts. So if you want to know why the 45th evolution of the Ten Commandments says 'Thou shalt not kill' rather than 'Thou shalt not murder', then you will be able in XR to identify the leaders of that schism and see how it's going among their clique and constituency.
What I expect is that software will be able to easily identify every permutation of configurations a trail of decisions made by us jackanapes can conceive. The trick is to get coalitions to want it bad enough to stick their necks out and spend the compute it takes to investigate. My sense is that will be a lot less expensive than using the FBI.
We humans will simplify objections, and paint the bad guys broadly. Software has no requirement to do that.
A noble project! I admire your vision, guys. It fits with the insight tenaciously held by John Adams. (We've just finished watching an HBO-Max series (from 2008) based on David McCullough's book titled using that founding father's name; and I'm also reading the book, same title.) Here was a guy who dedicated his entire life to "civics" — a rare generosity given to build community. "Build it, and they will come?" Hope so! Perhaps a sleek open-source tool will stir passion from the ashes of our Soul, sparking genuine care for neighbors and nation.
This is a good and ambitious idea, worthy of deep thought and purposeful development. Blockchains and smart contracts for the first time strike me as having the necessary utility to underpin something practical as an agent for change. As an expatriate American living in a foreign country, I want to go away and think about how this could be effective in the sense of global organization leading to local action. In addition, Mr Alinsky's methods come to mind for a hint of iron-fist-in-velvet-glove kind of effectiveness.
This article was of particular interest to me, Michael, because for a long time I thought about something very similar to XR. My own version was much more narrowly based on transparency with regards to voting, spending and donations I guess (kind of a opensecrets on steroids). But I also thought of incorporating things like legislative alert systems, push-button petitioning, WISIWYG legal contracts and so forth. The features begin to sprawl and creep, when we think of what a true Digital Citizen toolset would look like.
I guess there were two problems I kept running up against in the early design phase. On the one hand, I would always find RW vulnerabilities, and get lost in the weeds coming up with workarounds that weren't ultimately self-defeating. But I think the bigger problem I had was a pair of (related) conceptual paradoxes: Would we be building a tool to keep tabs on the princes, or one for them to keep tabs on us? To build lists of snoops and other potential troublemakers? And if they are princes, and this tool truly threatened their power, couldn't they simply roll the truth-train a bit further down the tracks, and start using our own system to feed us false data? Some might say "If they could do that, they already would have. But I've noticed that people (and especially venal, corrupt people) usually don't work to change the status quo until something forces them to.
That said, the idea still haunts me, because I think something like it which worked as advertised would be game-changing, and perhaps on a planetary scale.
Maybe you would consider posting a link to this in #skunkworks on Deimos? It sounds like the kind of project where many of us could get our heads together on it, compare notes, etc.
I'm not sure I'm in that channel Mark, so go ahead and post it. But here's the thing. We cannot build this and then dumb it down. Or rather, we can't build it dumb and smarten it up. The purpose has to be to give all of the options Congress has including filibusters and cloture and everything else. Ultimately we have to trust the people can govern the people. If the whole thing collapses under the weight of actual trolls who are willing to spend the money if they get censured by their peers .. then it will be an accurate reflection. But I also expect wonks. I also expect charismatics and people who really know how to get consensus.
What I don't believe is that with as much KYC as a typical bank possesses, that real people who work this system will be ignored. That is to say, the first dog catcher that gets elected from this will have their entire voting history and comments on the XR blockchain. Now and forever.
If all this becomes is the equivalent of a Hogwarts pensive, then we can still know the answer to 'what the hell were we thinking'? All we can do is build a system we expect to allow citizens to self-govern from the ground up given all of the democratic processes we know, starting from Robert's Rules, and then to all kinds of sophisticated digital equivalents of Electoral Colleges and everything else. If we destroy it, then we know we're not worthy. But it won't happen behind our backs like it does today. That's the integrity we need to build into the system. There's enough blockchain brain out there to do it. This is the one smart contract we need more than any other.
I have to think about what you're saying here before I can respond coherently. I get the sense that you're right (hence all the g-d haunting).
In the meantime, I added you to #skunkworks.