[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[ian glendinning]

Hey Craig, (and Khaled) I started the whole piece with "I'm no expert
on government and politics", gimme a break :-)

Naturally I have ideas but no "answers" for all those questions, but
any system of "governance" will have similar questions. At this level
of discussion (ie we're not actually trying to set up such a state,
just discussing the idea, en passant) I'd say it's more a question of
whether these questions are any harder to answer than they are for any
other system in practice.

Before (if) we go anywhere with this ... perhaps the word "stability"
is a problem ... I didn't say "static" ... I meant stable as in not
too chaotic, having some stability, not being entirely stable. Khaled
was concerned about the more catastrophic breakdowns, war, famine,
torture, persecution, etc ...

A state with less risk of those is a good thing ? Yes ?
(If no, we don't really have anything to discuss.)

We want dynamism / change / evolution (even revolutions of a kind) to
be possible, but from an enlightened perspective where not too many
eggs are unnecessarily broken when making the necessary omlettes.

My starting idea was a simple variation on the "Benevolent Wise-One
Dictator" with a few checks an balances to protect the "Wise One(s)"
and avoid the corruption of individual power, and solely biological
heredity. The Wise One is the ultimate intellectual elite,
theoretically perfect to an MoQ'er, but practically - how ?

Just some positive ideas. Problems are ten-a-penny.

Ian

On 6/1/06, craigerb at comcast.net <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:
> Ian,
> My point was that stability is not like, for example, fairness.  The more fairness in a model the better.  But stability is only good for good models & then only if the model is flexible.
>
> [Ian]
> > a model in which an intellectual elite (who understand the MoQ) have sufficient
> > powerbase to be effective, but insufficient power to provide
> > attractions of short term selfish gains...or are genuinely people driven by the higher
>  > intellectual aims (in Maslow or Hertzberg terms). Something like a democracy over multiple
> > evolutionary generations. An elite that can be voted out by their
> > stock of votes over many human and electoral cycles
>
> The problems I see with this model:
> 1)  How is "understanding the MoQ" to be determined?  By vote (= beauty contest)?
> 2)  How do we endow their powerbase but keep it limited?  By a written constitution & a supreme court?
> 3)  How do we determine who is "genuinely driven by the higher intellectual aims"?  Do we make them swear on a copy of  Maslow or Hertzberg, have another elite determine this or let the masses decide?
> 4) Democracy has already evolved over many generations.  Why isn't it already where we want to be?
> 5) Do we really want the incumbants to stay in office for "many electoral cycles".  If so, how would we know?
> Craig
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>