[MG] Slashdot post on computers and elections

[Scott Raney]

For those who aren't familiar with it, Slashdot is a forum for
technical types where they're usually discussing technology but
frequently end up talking politics in cases where the two domains
overlap. This post last week got almost 500 followups, which is a
moderately high number. Unfortunately I find the results very
discouraging:
https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/01/13/004233/ask-slashdot-how-would-you-use-computers-to-make-elections-better

The people on that forum should be our "early adopters", but it's
clear that we have a *lot* of work to do to inform them of their own
blindness before they'll be any use to anyone. To me it reads like
they're all just talking about the repercussions of the fact that the
sun revolves around the earth. How do we convince them that their
worldview is just fundamentally wrong?
Regards,
Scott

[h***@fullmoon.nu]

Rare for me to stick my oar in these days but this one grabbed my
attention.

Slashdot is notorious for its dystopian view of technology, despite, or,
they might argue, because of their heightened familiarity with it, so it
didn't surprise me that they would be so negative in response to the
question put.

I would be too, but for different reasons, which most of us on this
group would probably support. I'm not interested in computers or
anything else "improving elections". Elections are nothing to do with
democracy; they are designed, primarily to prevent it.

So the more appropriate question is "how could we use technology to
introduce democracy?" (I reject the word "improve" - it implies we've
already got something worthy of being called "democracy" which is
available for improvement)

And I've been banging on for some years about the most important thing
we can do with technology which will give us a chance of introducing
democracy but I don't thinkg I've ever mentioned it in this group. In
short, the idea is to use technology to limit the damage governments are
capable of.

It's been my principle focus for 20 years or so. With a lot of luck,
this year, I might be able to announce the first live version of the
project I've been working since about the turn of the century designed
to achieve a number of things, the most important of which is the cure
for what I call "Accountability Theatre"

https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/accountability-theatre/

but if you fancy a bit of fantasising about where the technology might
eventually take us my fictional "history of digital telepathy" might
entertain you.

https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-history-of-digital-telepathy-2/

My point is that I strongly believe that the laws, power structures and
vested interests in society are so heavily weighted in favour of the
elites and against WTP, that we need a much more strategic approach to
the problem than is represented, for example, by the long standing
efforts of a group like this. And this is not, in any way to denigrate
all the effort and thought that has gone into MG; I'm sure it will pay
off in the end.

But, personally I feel my own efforts are better spent on attacking the
power structure more directly, with the long term ambition of opening
the door to real democracy along the lines we're struggling with here.

Ciao

Harry

Post by Scott Raney
For those who aren't familiar with it, Slashdot is a forum for
technical types where they're usually discussing technology but
frequently end up talking politics in cases where the two domains
overlap. This post last week got almost 500 followups, which is a
moderately high number. Unfortunately I find the results very
https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/01/13/004233/ask-slashdot-how-would-you-use-computers-to-make-elections-better
The people on that forum should be our "early adopters", but it's
clear that we have a *lot* of work to do to inform them of their own
blindness before they'll be any use to anyone. To me it reads like
they're all just talking about the repercussions of the fact that the
sun revolves around the earth. How do we convince them that their
worldview is just fundamentally wrong?
Regards,
Scott
_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org

[Steve Coffman]

Hi Harry,
I really enjoyed reading both of the papers you linked to below - though particularly the one on the *History of Digital Telepathy*. I’m currently reading another piece you wrote on *Ethical Identity Evaluation*. Very interesting. I really think you should "stick your oar in" here more often.
Steve

Rare for me to stick my oar in these days but this one grabbed my attention.
Slashdot is notorious for its dystopian view of technology, despite, or, they might argue, because of their heightened familiarity with it, so it didn't surprise me that they would be so negative in response to the question put.
I would be too, but for different reasons, which most of us on this group would probably support. I'm not interested in computers or anything else "improving elections". Elections are nothing to do with democracy; they are designed, primarily to prevent it.
So the more appropriate question is "how could we use technology to introduce democracy?" (I reject the word "improve" - it implies we've already got something worthy of being called "democracy" which is available for improvement)
And I've been banging on for some years about the most important thing we can do with technology which will give us a chance of introducing democracy but I don't thinkg I've ever mentioned it in this group. In short, the idea is to use technology to limit the damage governments are capable of.
It's been my principle focus for 20 years or so. With a lot of luck, this year, I might be able to announce the first live version of the project I've been working since about the turn of the century designed to achieve a number of things, the most important of which is the cure for what I call "Accountability Theatre"
https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/accountability-theatre/
but if you fancy a bit of fantasising about where the technology might eventually take us my fictional "history of digital telepathy" might entertain you.
https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-history-of-digital-telepathy-2/
My point is that I strongly believe that the laws, power structures and vested interests in society are so heavily weighted in favour of the elites and against WTP, that we need a much more strategic approach to the problem than is represented, for example, by the long standing efforts of a group like this. And this is not, in any way to denigrate all the effort and thought that has gone into MG; I'm sure it will pay off in the end.
But, personally I feel my own efforts are better spent on attacking the power structure more directly, with the long term ambition of opening the door to real democracy along the lines we're struggling with here.
Ciao
Harry

[h***@fullmoon.nu]

Thanks for the kind words.

I see you are burrowing deep into the rabbit hole.

Post by Steve Coffman
I really think you should "stick your oar in" here more often.

It's a bandwidth issue. I only have the one oar!

More seriously, the "real democracy" movement is basically healthy and
up and running. Nothing, yet, like a consensus on what to do about
getting it sorted but at least there is a considerable amount of
activity in the field. It is also rare that I disagree with the main
thrust of what I see being said and done in the group.

In contrast, the global level of activism or even comprehension about
the extent and dangers of government surveillance against its own
citizens is abysmal. We are living in a state of what I describe as
Panopticon Plus which outperforms Bentham's wildest fantasies. It is a
totalitarian wet dream and WTP have allowed it to happen without much
more than the occasional whimper. People generally have no idea how
serious a threat this poses to civilisation.

For example, it probably hasn't occurred to most members of this group
a) that every word ever posted by this group is now safely stored in
archives held both by NSA and GCHQ
b) it's extremely unlikely that even they are aware of this. Yet.
Because we haven't come up on their radar and, for the most part, they
don't actually know what date they have captured.
c) if and when anything we do starts to make waves and thus bring
ourselves to their attention, they'll go looking in their archives and
discover the full history of the MG group.
d) they'll then churn all the material, particularly names and email
addresses through their network matrix builders and construct the matrix
which shows how we're all connected to the rest of the world. They'll
trawl through all the messages we've ever sent (not just to each other
but to ALL our contacts) in non encrypted channels, check our
publications and public utterances and build complete profiles and
activist pyramids to identify key players
e) then, if the waves we're making worry them in any way, for example
because we're fuelling a growing movement in the USA to rewrite the
constitution in ways they wouldn't approve, they'll go looking for the
dirt (buried in the related data) they can use to undermine, blackmail
or discredit those key players or ideas as appropriate

They started building that system, seriously, following 9-11. It isn't
yet complete but it is up and running and we do occasionally see its
ugly tentacles reaching out to grab its victims. China has a similar
system, which is actually more honest - they openly tell their citizens
that they're being watched for signs of subversion - but probably less
powerful (it requires about 3 million human spies actively trawling
their networks; NSA/GCHQ have fully automated their "passive"
surveillance and are building fairly effective AI systems to search and
correlate) Russia, Israel and sundry European countries are pursuing the
same goals but aren't yet in the same league.

I'm in the Ed Snowden camp. For me the priority is to expose what's
going on, but more importantly, I go one step further, to try to get
people to realise that there ARE measures we can take to prevent the
global Panopticon being used against us. Essentially it boils down to -
first - using the same technology to watch the watchers and to store the
data on immutable databases with trusted auditors having unfettered
access.

And here's where we reconnect to Democracy. To begin with, the Auditors
and Juries they'll need to report to are a fundamental democratic tool
for the oversight of material where there is a legitimate need to
preserve confidentiality. And that's something we could demand and
create today. Ditto the laws required to mandate the use of the "Trusted
Surveillance" protocols I advocate which would "watch the watchers" and
provide the audit trails for the auditors and juries to examine.

But I'll leave you to ponder two examples of how democracy can (and, in
my my view, must) control the technology more directly. I've actually
touched on the first in the "Ethical ID" paper you're reading so you may
already have encountered it. In short, Trusted Surveillance will only
deserve that name if it acquires the Trust it needs. It will be trusted
by all parties because they will (eventually) understand that
a) no one can cheat it
b) no one can extract data from it without the informed consent of the
owner EXCEPT in circumstances defined, monitored and implemented by
democratic means.

And here's the first example of how that democracy would manifest. I
describe, in the Ethical ID paper, the possibility that Trusted
Surveillance will permit us to prove the negative (eg that we were not
at the scene of the crime) without revealing who we are or where we
were. That would enable massive anonymous sweeps of the population to
expose the handful of people who are unable or unwilling to prove that
negative. It is an inherently democratic mechanism. Nobody could force
you to comply. So it cannot work without a massive consensus that the
question needs to be asked and answered in the first place.

You can imagine, for example, that if we learn that a rape/murder has
taken place at a given location within a given time window, that once
the horrific details were public and the police asked the community to
take part in the "voluntary exclusion" exercise, there would be massive
support and the vast majority of the population would comply, leaving
exposed the handful who didn't. Amongst whom are likely to be the
perpetrator and perhaps collaborators, as well as one or two innocent
parties who happened to be close by but are not involved. The Policing
task is now fairly trivial. In contrast, imagine that the Police had put
out a similar request for those involved in the anti-trump protest which
took place on inauguration day and for which they have tried to
prosecute over 100 protestors (using, incidentally, some of the archive
surveillance techniques outlined above) (and, fortunately, failing, so
far, to get juries to cooperate). In that situation, the vast majority
would simply refuse to participate, leaving the "perpetrators" safely
hidden among the herd.

The second example of democratic control is the use of massively
distributed escrow keys (I mention this in the History of Digital
Telepathy). Heres the short version.

We're all (under Trusted Surveillance) monitoring our own lives
digitally, in ways which cannot be subverted. This - for example -
provides an instant cure for all sorts of abuse, from Police violence,
through to sexual harrassment. You've got the evidence you need to
convict the bastards. And you and only you can choose to release it. BUT
that can also be abused. For example the same recordings could become
Revenge Porn. Solution, joint keys and neither of you can view the
material without reconstructing the key in a consensual fashion. BUT
that too can be abused. If it began as consensual, so you've shared
keys, then it turns nasty, the rapist can block your revelation by
refusing to share his key. So now you need what I call the Jury key.

This is a key broken into 10,000 pieces and widely distributed amongst
random key holding citizens who are all using the Trusted Surveillance
system. If any 8000 of that 10000 all collaborate, they can reassemble
the Jury Key. And the way the data is locked is such that any 2 of the 3
keys can unlock it. i.e. the two consenting parties who originally
locked it can unlock it at any time. But if a serious allegation like
rape comes up and the other party refuses to co-operate, the potential
victim can put out an appeal for democratic unlocking. Unless of course,
they've died as a result of the attack, in which case, there's a much
clearer case for democratic re-assembly of the Jury key. In either case,
no one knows who is holding bits of the key. So no one can be coerced
into sharing. The question has to be put to the population at large. If
enough people are motivated to unlock the key, they'll go searching for
the relevant matches in their key store and submit any matches to the
"pool". If 80% of the key holders agree, the key will eventually emerge
from the statistical fog.

I could ramble on for days. But you get the gist. I am deeply committed
to the Democratic cause and doing my best to integrate it into the
technology we need to defend ourselves against the authoritarians who
control most of the human race. And achieving that protection is, in my
view, currently a greater priority than figuring out how to implement a
rational democratic debating process.

I need all the help I can get. So if anyone wishes to join my side of
the struggle, please step forward...

Harry

Post by Steve Coffman
Hi Harry,
I really enjoyed reading both of the papers you linked to below -
though particularly the one on the *History of Digital Telepathy*. I’m
currently reading another piece you wrote on *Ethical Identity
Evaluation*. Very interesting. I really think you should "stick your
oar in" here more often.
Steve

Rare for me to stick my oar in these days but this one grabbed my attention.
Slashdot is notorious for its dystopian view of technology, despite,
or, they might argue, because of their heightened familiarity with it,
so it didn't surprise me that they would be so negative in response to
the question put.
I would be too, but for different reasons, which most of us on this
group would probably support. I'm not interested in computers or
anything else "improving elections". Elections are nothing to do with
democracy; they are designed, primarily to prevent it.
So the more appropriate question is "how could we use technology to
introduce democracy?" (I reject the word "improve" - it implies we've
already got something worthy of being called "democracy" which is
available for improvement)
And I've been banging on for some years about the most important thing
we can do with technology which will give us a chance of introducing
democracy but I don't thinkg I've ever mentioned it in this group. In
short, the idea is to use technology to limit the damage governments
are capable of.
It's been my principle focus for 20 years or so. With a lot of luck,
this year, I might be able to announce the first live version of the
project I've been working since about the turn of the century designed
to achieve a number of things, the most important of which is the cure
for what I call "Accountability Theatre"
https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/accountability-theatre/
but if you fancy a bit of fantasising about where the technology might
eventually take us my fictional "history of digital telepathy" might
entertain you.
https://harrystottle.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-history-of-digital-telepathy-2/
My point is that I strongly believe that the laws, power structures
and vested interests in society are so heavily weighted in favour of
the elites and against WTP, that we need a much more strategic
approach to the problem than is represented, for example, by the long
standing efforts of a group like this. And this is not, in any way to
denigrate all the effort and thought that has gone into MG; I'm sure
it will pay off in the end.
But, personally I feel my own efforts are better spent on attacking
the power structure more directly, with the long term ambition of
opening the door to real democracy along the lines we're struggling
with here.
Ciao
Harry

_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org

_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Post to the list: ***@metagovernment.org
Manage subscription: http://metagovernment.org/mailman/lis

[Steve Coffman]

On Jan 25, 2018, at 4:52 AM, ***@fullmoon.nu wrote:

(little snip)

More seriously, the "real democracy" movement is basically healthy and up and running. Nothing, yet, like a consensus on what to do about getting it sorted but at least there is a considerable amount of activity in the field. It is also rare that I disagree with the main thrust of what I see being said and done in the group.

If you have any further thoughts on "what to do about getting it sorted”, I for one would be interested in hearing your suggestions. Most of what I’ve read so far on your blog site is somewhat dated and I’m wondering what your current thinking is regarding leveraging a "real democracy".

In contrast, the global level of activism or even comprehension about the extent and dangers of government surveillance against its own citizens is abysmal. We are living in a state of what I describe as Panopticon Plus which outperforms Bentham's wildest fantasies. It is a totalitarian wet dream and WTP have allowed it to happen without much more than the occasional whimper. People generally have no idea how serious a threat this poses to civilisation.

Agreed. My own research suggests that it’s even more sinister than what you describe. I’m quite sure the *powers that be* are actively engaged in the use of very effective mind-control mechanisms. (Perhaps a conversation for another day.) The take away is that the threat is serious enough, and that it’s up to WTP to respond effectively, or we risk losing freedoms on a scale that is perhaps unimaginable.

For example, it probably hasn't occurred to most members of this group
a) that every word ever posted by this group is now safely stored in archives held both by NSA and GCHQ
b) it's extremely unlikely that even they are aware of this. Yet. Because we haven't come up on their radar and, for the most part, they don't actually know what date they have captured.
c) if and when anything we do starts to make waves and thus bring ourselves to their attention, they'll go looking in their archives and discover the full history of the MG group.

Given what you’ve written elsewhere, I’m guessing your presence here just about guarantees this. :)

d) they'll then churn all the material, particularly names and email addresses through their network matrix builders and construct the matrix which shows how we're all connected to the rest of the world. They'll trawl through all the messages we've ever sent (not just to each other but to ALL our contacts) in non encrypted channels, check our publications and public utterances and build complete profiles and activist pyramids to identify key players
e) then, if the waves we're making worry them in any way, for example because we're fuelling a growing movement in the USA to rewrite the constitution in ways they wouldn't approve, they'll go looking for the dirt (buried in the related data) they can use to undermine, blackmail or discredit those key players or ideas as appropriate

No doubt some scenarios bent towards engendering the successful inauguration of "real democracy" into our current *ecosystems of corruption* will bring the men in black suburbans to knocking on our doors. I don’t currently lose sleep over this because I think our overall lack of success has kept us securely in the "benign threat" file. Though I hope we can change this soon.

They started building that system, seriously, following 9-11. It isn't yet complete but it is up and running and we do occasionally see its ugly tentacles reaching out to grab its victims. China has a similar system, which is actually more honest - they openly tell their citizens that they're being watched for signs of subversion - but probably less powerful (it requires about 3 million human spies actively trawling their networks; NSA/GCHQ have fully automated their "passive" surveillance and are building fairly effective AI systems to search and correlate) Russia, Israel and sundry European countries are pursuing the same goals but aren't yet in the same league.
I'm in the Ed Snowden camp. For me the priority is to expose what's going on, but more importantly, I go one step further, to try to get people to realise that there ARE measures we can take to prevent the global Panopticon being used against us. Essentially it boils down to - first - using the same technology to watch the watchers and to store the data on immutable databases with trusted auditors having unfettered access.

Yes. My own fantasy is to summon *Big Sister* in order to keep an eye on *Big Brother*. Perhaps the precursor of this could be seen this past weekend wearing a hundred thousand pink hats. One must remain imaginative and hopeful
no?

And here's where we reconnect to Democracy. To begin with, the Auditors and Juries they'll need to report to are a fundamental democratic tool for the oversight of material where there is a legitimate need to preserve confidentiality. And that's something we could demand and create today. Ditto the laws required to mandate the use of the "Trusted Surveillance" protocols I advocate which would "watch the watchers" and provide the audit trails for the auditors and juries to examine.
But I'll leave you to ponder two examples of how democracy can (and, in my my view, must) control the technology more directly. I've actually touched on the first in the "Ethical ID" paper you're reading so you may already have encountered it. In short, Trusted Surveillance will only deserve that name if it acquires the Trust it needs. It will be trusted by all parties because they will (eventually) understand that
a) no one can cheat it
b) no one can extract data from it without the informed consent of the owner EXCEPT in circumstances defined, monitored and implemented by democratic means.

I’m still reading your "Ethical ID” paper. I’m a bit slow on the uptake when encountering new ideas such as this
and it’s rather long (that’s not a criticism). I think you adequately covered the basic idea though in your other paper that describes a fictional prelude to the potential future success this digital technology may realize.

Related to this I found myself wondering if maybe Elon read your paper prior to coming up with his suggestion for a ubiquitous counter to the AI threat through the development of a neural lace. That would be quite a feather in your hat, heh. If not, you could just resort to the adage that "great minds think alike". :)

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15077864/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-computer-interface-ai-cyborgs

And here's the first example of how that democracy would manifest.

(Big snip)

I could ramble on for days. But you get the gist.

Yes. While the technological details are currently beyond my ability to fully comprehend, I do though get the gist. I’m impressed and heartened by both by the depth of your proposal as well as the clarity with which you present it.

I am deeply committed to the Democratic cause and doing my best to integrate it into the technology we need to defend ourselves against the authoritarians who control most of the human race. And achieving that protection is, in my view, currently a greater priority than figuring out how to implement a rational democratic debating process.

As you may have gathered from my previous contributions here, my own instinct has been to design and develop a global *platform for proposal* whereby projects such as the one you are proposing to could be presented, discussed, accepted, and potentially supported. Though I’ve been working on this for many years, with as much passion as I imagine you have in conjured in mustering you own, I am not tied to the details of how a *real democracy* might come about.

I am encouraged by the variety of individual efforts emerging here and there and find myself wanting to bind them together into some cohesive and collaborative organism. The world is in such great flux these days I find myself wondering if maybe all it would take is for "a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” to turn things around. Such widespread *Chaos equals Opportunity* right?

Personally, I’m continually looking for individual trim tabs or leverage points. That said, I am convinced that unless we do this *together*, we’re simply blowing into a wind of ideas that will never find a (collective) soil in which to fully root and grow.

I need all the help I can get. So if anyone wishes to join my side of the struggle, please step forward


I’m in, (albeit with some ideas of my own). Please carry on
..

As together we choose,

Steve

[h***@fullmoon.nu]

Post by Steve Coffman
If you have any further thoughts on "what to do about getting it
sorted”, I for one would be interested in hearing your suggestions.
Most of what I’ve read so far on your blog site is somewhat dated
and I’m wondering what your current thinking is regarding leveraging
a "real democracy".

you might regret asking that. I was challenged by "The Prof" in 2007,
over my support for Democracy. He made a cogent argument against
democracy based on the notion that we're not sufficiently "equal"
(chiefly in a cognitive sense) to allow democracy to work. In reply I
laid out the most detailed case for and defense of Democracy I've so far
attempted. In particular I took the arguments for Meritocracy head on.
And, in the process published my first attempt at a democratic debating
algorithm and outlining how the web is obvious platform for the
democratic debate (your "Platform for Proposal"). There is even in a
link back to "Metascore" in there somewhere, which shows how long I've
been lurking on this group.

Its a forum discussion on my own website and I've "self certified" the
entire forum (its a partial obstacle to automated state snooping) so as
you enter you'll be confronted with the terrifying warning that you are
entering the dangerous territory of an unvalidated certificate. If
you're prepared to take your life in your own hands, and risk trusting
me, then add the site as a "Security Exception" and proceed. But don't
expect to surface for a few hours. And get someone to check, from time
to time, that you haven't fallen over backwards frothing at the mouth...

This will take you to the Prof's case. My reply follows immediately.
https://www.fullmoon.nu/forum2013-import/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=170&p=868#p868

I did argue, in the early days of this group, that we should have set up
a forum of our own, not just in which to conduct our discussions
somewhat more scalably than this, but also as a testbed for debating
algorithms like my own or any alternatives which may exist or are
provoked by it.

I'd have to say I am disappointed that after all these years, we still
haven't managed that much.

Post by Steve Coffman

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
c) if and when anything we do starts to make waves and thus bring
ourselves to their attention, they'll go looking in their archives
and discover the full history of the MG group.

Given what you’ve written elsewhere, I’m guessing your presence
here just about guarantees this. :)

that's no joke. I was "identified" by MI6, as an "anarchist - but one we
can do business with" back in the early 80s (a close relative was
"Positively Vetted" for the role he was about to take up at GCHQ) so I'm
under no illusion that I'm at least on a list somewhere, but
(regrettably?) I'm equally sure they don't (yet) see me as a threat. It
is fascinating to speculate what effect discussions like these will have
on the junior spooks who may one day read these comments and ask
themselves what the fuck kind of system they're working for that thinks
this kind of prurience is justifiable.

Post by Steve Coffman
Yes. My own fantasy is to summon *Big Sister* in order to keep an eye
on *Big Brother*. Perhaps the precursor of this could be seen this
past weekend wearing a hundred thousand pink hats. One must remain
imaginative and hopeful…no?

funny you should say that, before I settled on "Trusted Surveillance" I
was rooting around for more "comforting" titles for my proposed system.
I was close to choosing "Little Sister" (even less threatening than Big
Sister). But then I decided that I had to take that challenge head on as
well. My wife bluntly pointed out that a name like "Trusted
Surveillance" instantly attracted distrust. I agree. But that's how it
should be. Anyone proposing the kind of surveillance shield I'm
proposing should be obliged to prove every claim, in order to earn
whatever trust it requires and if we're not prepared to describe and
defend every relevant choice, then nobody should be stupid enough to
trust it.

That, in a sense, is a clue to why

Post by Steve Coffman
Most of what I’ve read so far on your blog site is somewhat dated

because, since about a year after that forum post, I've had the
opportunity to start building the system which might make the beginnings
of the Trusted Surveillance system possible and I am utterly focussed on
getting the logic and every resulting definition, algorithm, protocol
etc completely consistent with my starting principles. It is an
extremely ambitious project and, candidly, I don't think I've got what
it takes to complete it. My hope is that I can at least get it started
to the extent that others will be able to jump on board and keep it
going. One of the consequences of this level of focus is the near
destruction of all my other creative effort. Like I said before. It's a
bandwidth problem.

Post by Steve Coffman
Related to this I found myself wondering if maybe Elon read your paper
prior to coming up with his suggestion for a ubiquitous counter to the
AI threat through the development of a neural lace. That would be
quite a feather in your hat, heh. If not, you _could_ just resort to
the adage that "great minds think alike". :)
https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15077864/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-computer-interface-ai-cyborgs

ah, I can't claim credit for that. The cyborg notion is not far short of
a century old! (I think I've even heard arguments that Frankenstein's
monster was the first example of the meme, but I don't think it
qualified) I was certainly reading multiple sci fi stories containing
cyborgs or similar concepts back in the 60s.

Post by Steve Coffman
I am encouraged by the variety of individual efforts emerging here and
there and find myself wanting to bind them together into some cohesive
and collaborative organism. The world is in such great flux these days
I find myself wondering if maybe all it would take is for "a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens” to turn things around. Such
widespread *Chaos equals Opportunity* right?

I oscillate between deep despair and cautious optimism. A phenomenon
like the election of Trump is an extremely powerful argument against
democracy and in support of the views put forward by "The Prof". But I
prefer to see it as the necessary shock that it will take to wake a
critical mass of intelligent Americans (who I would estimate at about
25% of their population) to the need for revolutionary change in the
direction of real Democracy.. And if a group like ours could get its own
act together, we might even be able to build the model they need, in
time for them to come along and adopt it...

Post by Steve Coffman
Personally, I’m continually looking for individual trim tabs or
leverage points. That said, I am convinced that unless we do this
*together*, we’re simply blowing into a wind of ideas that will
never find a (collective) soil in which to fully root and grow.

yup, the eternal Anarchist problem. There's never another one to hold up
the other end of the banner...

Post by Steve Coffman

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
I need all the help I can get. So if anyone wishes to join my side
of the struggle, please step forward…

I’m in, (albeit with some ideas of my own). Please carry on…..

good to hear.

H

Post by Steve Coffman
_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org

[Steve Coffman]

If you're prepared to take your life in your own hands, and risk trusting me, then add the site as a "Security Exception" and proceed. But don't expect to surface for a few hours. And get someone to check, from time to time, that you haven't fallen over backwards frothing at the mouth...
This will take you to the Prof's case. My reply follows immediately.
https://www.fullmoon.nu/forum2013-import/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=170&p=868#p868

I’m working up to it. You make it sound like there might be some monsters down there.

I did argue, in the early days of this group, that we should have set up a forum of our own, not just in which to conduct our discussions somewhat more scalably than this, but also as a testbed for debating algorithms like my own or any alternatives which may exist or are provoked by it.

In the meantime, can you paddle on about this? …."more scalably" - "testbed for debating algorithms”?

funny you should say that, before I settled on "Trusted Surveillance" I was rooting around for more "comforting" titles for my proposed system. I was close to choosing "Little Sister" (even less threatening than Big Sister). But then I decided that I had to take that challenge head on as well. My wife bluntly pointed out that a name like "Trusted Surveillance" instantly attracted distrust. I agree. But that's how it should be. Anyone proposing the kind of surveillance shield I'm proposing should be obliged to prove every claim, in order to earn whatever trust it requires and if we're not prepared to describe and defend every relevant choice, then nobody should be stupid enough to trust it.

I’m imagining a Big Native African *Rosie the Riveter* type who’s really pissed about how we’re ripping her entire planet to shreds. Cause that’s kinda what’s happening.

I'm thinking *Me Too* is just getting going. There’s so much to unpack in that multi-millennial tragedy.

And who wants the means to *provide the evidence and prove the lie* more than women who’ve experienced abuse. Well, I suppose there are a lot of men as well, but when you do the numbers.

I can see the meme now - "Big Sister" has the *tools* to keep fucking Big Brother in fucking line...and she fucking knows how to fucking use them. Think first-adopters.

Think flamingo pink hair over deep black shiny skin with a Gaia tattoo, studs, implants, and other hardware including an antenna poking out of her skull next to her M.I.B. Ray Bans. Her scowl would frighten Ali. And keep the monkey wrench resting on her bulging bicep for all of the Neanderthals out there who will never get it otherwise.

Big Sista be watchin’ YOU!

I oscillate between deep despair and cautious optimism. A phenomenon like the election of Trump is an extremely powerful argument against democracy and in support of the views put forward by "The Prof". But I prefer to see it as the necessary shock that it will take to wake a critical mass of intelligent Americans (who I would estimate at about 25% of their population) to the need for revolutionary change in the direction of real Democracy.. And if a group like ours could get its own act together, we might even be able to build the model they need, in time for them to come along and adopt it…

Ditto…ditto…ditto. I’m much inspired by the link Michal recommended. Much to think about there for a group like this….imo.





_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Post to the list: ***@metagovernment.org
Manage subscription: http://metagovernment.org/mailman/list

[h***@fullmoon.nu]

Post by Steve Coffman
I’m working up to it. You make it sound like there might be some monsters down there.

the monsters of complexity. We dived deep in that one...

Post by Steve Coffman
In the meantime, can you paddle on about this? …."more scalably" -
"testbed for debating algorithms”?

email debate isn't scalable. Forum debates scale quite well.

they are also the obvious platform for formal democratic debates and we
could use our own debates to test out the various algorithms which we'll
need to develop to make the system work.

Post by Steve Coffman
I’m imagining a Big Native African *Rosie the Riveter* type who’s
really pissed about how we’re ripping her entire planet to shreds.
Cause that’s kinda what’s happening.

unfortunately that's exactly the kind of image which will fuel the
authoritarian (and racist in this case) mysogynist.

One of the painful conclusions I have reached is that, unless you
actually want fisticuffs and a shooting war, you have to find ways to
make your opponents agree with you, not just bully or intimidate them
(even if just with images) into submission. The problem is that the
coercive strategy favoured by the authoritarians is much more effective,
which is why, so often in human history, liberation movements have
turned into tyrannies. It's so much easier. (That's a contributing
motive to my Trusted Surveillance efforts - make the coercion
permanently visible)

[Scott Raney]

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
email debate isn't scalable. Forum debates scale quite well.

Only up to a point, and I'd argue that point is not more than a few
multiples of the email limit and still several orders of magnitude
smaller than would would be required to have even a locality-wide
debate on an issue where more than a few percent of the population
participates. And if you don't have at least a majority of the people
directly involved in making the decision, you've just reproduced
oligarchy ("government by the active participants"), not implemented
democracy.

Fortunately, little debate is actually required to make good
decisions. In fact if you have qualified and talented social engineers
writing the proposals, no debate at all should be required. Instead
the vastly simpler pro/con list (as implemented in proxyfor.me) will
be sufficient to ensure a good decisions since The People are merely
doing quality control at that point, not arguing about the details of
a proposal. To my mind the latter, and what you seem to be proposing,
is just "design by committee" which any engineer can tell you reliably
produces poor quality products.

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu

Post by Steve Coffman
I’m imagining a Big Native African *Rosie the Riveter* type who’s
really pissed about how we’re ripping her entire planet to shreds.
Cause that’s kinda what’s happening.

unfortunately that's exactly the kind of image which will fuel the
authoritarian (and racist in this case) mysogynist.

Agreed, and it's not just authoritarians who will balk at one group
like this having control over the outcome out of proportion to their
numbers. With the exception of a small minority of social dominators
(the main leadership component of SDAPs) we *all* have an innate sense
of fairness that requires a much more egalitarian distribution of
input into the process.

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
One of the painful conclusions I have reached is that, unless you actually
want fisticuffs and a shooting war, you have to find ways to make your
opponents agree with you, not just bully or intimidate them (even if just
with images) into submission. The problem is that the coercive strategy
favoured by the authoritarians is much more effective, which is why, so
often in human history, liberation movements have turned into tyrannies.
It's so much easier. (That's a contributing motive to my Trusted
Surveillance efforts - make the coercion permanently visible)

Not just that, I believed we're actually instinctively programmed to
turn to authoritarian rule when decisions (and progress) don't get
made, especially when the group is under some sort of economic stress.
Which is of course why I find the consensus-oriented systems Ed and
others are insisting on so objectionable: They virtually *ensure*
authoritarian decisionmaking because *no* decision gets made
otherwise.

But you don't have to get everyone to agree, only to have a majority
not raise objections, a vastly lower hurdle. If people truly believe
that the decision reflects The Will of The People (which of course
applies to essentially zero of the decisions made by misrepresentative
democracy), they will follow the law with minimal coercion even if it
wasn't the one they preferred. But we're much less likely to follow an
authoritarian leader, especially if we didn't vote for that, which is
why coercion becomes so much more common (and necessary) when power is
all top-down.
Regards,
Scott

_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Post to the list: ***@metagovernment.org
Manage subscription: http://metagovernment.org/mailman/list

[h***@fullmoon.nu]

Scott, greetings,

some good and meaty, and some bizarre arguments you have in your
response(s)
Probably take me a week to respond and right now I don't have that week
available.

I'll also probably repost the whole thing onto my forum, a) because its
a much better writing/quoting environment and b) because the whole
argument - which looks like it could get quite interesting - will be
more publicly available.

Will try to deal with it in the next couple of weeks but I'm actually at
a crunch time for own development plans so they must take priority.

Apologies.

Harry

Post by Scott Raney

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
email debate isn't scalable. Forum debates scale quite well.

Only up to a point, and I'd argue that point is not more than a few
multiples of the email limit and still several orders of magnitude
smaller than would would be required to have even a locality-wide
debate on an issue where more than a few percent of the population
participates. And if you don't have at least a majority of the people
directly involved in making the decision, you've just reproduced
oligarchy ("government by the active participants"), not implemented
democracy.
Fortunately, little debate is actually required to make good
decisions. In fact if you have qualified and talented social engineers
writing the proposals, no debate at all should be required. Instead
the vastly simpler pro/con list (as implemented in proxyfor.me) will
be sufficient to ensure a good decisions since The People are merely
doing quality control at that point, not arguing about the details of
a proposal. To my mind the latter, and what you seem to be proposing,
is just "design by committee" which any engineer can tell you reliably
produces poor quality products.

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu

Post by Steve Coffman
I’m imagining a Big Native African *Rosie the Riveter* type who’s
really pissed about how we’re ripping her entire planet to shreds.
Cause that’s kinda what’s happening.

unfortunately that's exactly the kind of image which will fuel the
authoritarian (and racist in this case) mysogynist.

Agreed, and it's not just authoritarians who will balk at one group
like this having control over the outcome out of proportion to their
numbers. With the exception of a small minority of social dominators
(the main leadership component of SDAPs) we *all* have an innate sense
of fairness that requires a much more egalitarian distribution of
input into the process.

Post by h***@fullmoon.nu
One of the painful conclusions I have reached is that, unless you actually
want fisticuffs and a shooting war, you have to find ways to make your
opponents agree with you, not just bully or intimidate them (even if just
with images) into submission. The problem is that the coercive strategy
favoured by the authoritarians is much more effective, which is why, so
often in human history, liberation movements have turned into
tyrannies.
It's so much easier. (That's a contributing motive to my Trusted
Surveillance efforts - make the coercion permanently visible)

Not just that, I believed we're actually instinctively programmed to
turn to authoritarian rule when decisions (and progress) don't get
made, especially when the group is under some sort of economic stress.
Which is of course why I find the consensus-oriented systems Ed and
others are insisting on so objectionable: They virtually *ensure*
authoritarian decisionmaking because *no* decision gets made
otherwise.
But you don't have to get everyone to agree, only to have a majority
not raise objections, a vastly lower hurdle. If people truly believe
that the decision reflects The Will of The People (which of course
applies to essentially zero of the decisions made by misrepresentative
democracy), they will follow the law with minimal coercion even if it
wasn't the one they preferred. But we're much less likely to follow an
authoritarian leader, especially if we didn't vote for that, which is
why coercion becomes so much more common (and necessary) when power is
all top-down.
Regards,
Scott
_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org

_______________________________________________
Start : a mailing list of the Metagovernment project
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Post to the list: ***@metagovernment.org
Manage subscription: http://metagovernment.or

[Scott Raney]

some good and meaty, and some bizarre arguments you have in your response(s)
Probably take me a week to respond and right now I don't have that week
available.

I look forward to seeing your categorization of my points.

I'll also probably repost the whole thing onto my forum, a) because its a
much better writing/quoting environment and b) because the whole argument -
which looks like it could get quite interesting - will be more publicly
available.

I'm game. There's a similar forum at http://www.matchism.org/forum,
but it seems your forum went dormant around the same time as I started
working in this area. If you're really interested in public access it
might be better to use the matchism forum instead of www.fullmoon.nu
because matchism.org works with http instead of requiring using https
without a certificate (something most people won't do because of all
the scary warnings browsers bring up before you can get to your
forum).

Although as I said I'm actually more comfortable working via email and
believe it works fine for discussions of this type.

Will try to deal with it in the next couple of weeks but I'm actually at a
crunch time for own development plans so they must take priority.

I can certainly relate to that: Since none of us are getting paid for
this and there isn't even any possibility of a big payoff at the end
(other than maybe the opportunity to become a martyr for the cause ;-)
it's a miracle that any of us make any progress at all. I would
recommend, however, using us as a "sanity check" on your plans before
going all-in on them. Sure you might get some troll-type criticism
that will just be a noisy waste of time to deal with. But it might
also save you from making huge blunders that you're simply blind to
because you're too close to the problem (like, creating a system
that's designed to merely restrict the government rather than to fix
what's actually broken in it).
Regards,
Scott

Apologies.
Harry

[Scott Raney]

you might regret asking that. I was challenged by "The Prof" in 2007, over
my support for Democracy. He made a cogent argument against democracy based
on the notion that we're not sufficiently "equal" (chiefly in a cognitive
sense) to allow democracy to work.

At least from what I'm reading, that's not exactly his argument. I
found his claims amazingly reminiscent of the recent Damore/Google
kerfuffle last year (12 years later), albeit that's about the
composition of the engineering population rather than the
decisionmaking population:
https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

It's of course also the general position taken by Wade in "A
Troublesome Inheritance" a 2014 book that SJWs and PC pressure has
caused the "scientific community" to denounce even though few of them
have even read it and none of them have made any convincing case that
any of it is fundamentally incorrect (all the negative reviews I've
read of it focus on obscure technicalities, attempting to discredit
the overwhelming evidence that his main conclusions are correct by
pointing out a little bit of fuzz on his characterizations of the raw
data):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Troublesome_Inheritance

The way I interpret it he's not exactly arguing against democracy or
even direct democracy, but only that different people are going to
have different roles in the system (which, BTW, is exactly what
proxyfor.me is designed to facilitate). You, on the other hand, seem
to be arguing the opposite (that it's *not* reasonable to make these
kinds of distinctions) without offering any proof that this is
necessary, desirable, or even achievable. IMHO differential
participation rates are inevitable and so no system that doesn't
account for this is even viable. Unfortunately this includes every
single system prior to proxyfor.me that I'm aware of with the possible
exception of the very earliest human decisionmaking system: Voting
with your feet or conspiring to eliminate a problematic individual in
your band, a system that worked for us for hundreds of thousands of
years prior to the development of agriculture (or more specifically,
the invention of money that can be used to purchase surplus goods).

because, since about a year after that forum post, I've had the opportunity
to start building the system which might make the beginnings of the Trusted
Surveillance system possible and I am utterly focussed on getting the logic
and every resulting definition, algorithm, protocol etc completely
consistent with my starting principles. It is an extremely ambitious project
and, candidly, I don't think I've got what it takes to complete it.

And not to rain on your parade, but I'd say you're holding the wrong
end of the stick: All this paranoia about surveillance just tells me
that you're apparently looking at "the government" as an us vs. them
kind of thing, a perspective that's not only fundamentally backwards
but also all but guarantees that anything you come up with will be
unimplementable (why would the oligarchs give up any of their power if
you've already resigned yourself to the fact that they have the
power?). Worse, you've also squandered (or even misapplied) what
little intellectual and political capital you may have to bring to
bear on the issue making it even *more* difficult for anyone with an
actual solution to the problems of public policy decisionmaking to
succeed. IMHO widespread surveillance, even to the point of *complete*
surveillance, should be considered a good thing because it can be used
to solve so many problems with almost no downsides *provided* that The
People are the ones actually making the decisions as to how that data
is used (and by whom). Arguing against it is just arguing from a
position of fear and weakness: If you don't trust the government, your
problem is with the structure of government, not with the tools
they're using.
Regards,
Scott

[Scott Raney]

Rare for me to stick my oar in these days but this one grabbed my attention.

Rare for me to let a post go unanswered for a week, but I was
otherwise occupied last week. Please forgive my ginormous snips as I
hit the high points...

Slashdot is notorious for its dystopian view of technology, despite, or,
they might argue, because of their heightened familiarity with it, so it
didn't surprise me that they would be so negative in response to the
question put.

Besides the possibility that they "know enough to be afraid" a related
issue is the personality psychology of engineers and other technical
types: They tend to be highly authoritarian with a unusually large
predilection for prejudice and violence. For example they are vastly
over-represented among the ranks of Jihadis:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engineers_among_Islamic_radicals_%28publisher%29.pdf

I would be too, but for different reasons, which most of us on this group
would probably support. I'm not interested in computers or anything else
"improving elections". Elections are nothing to do with democracy; they are
designed, primarily to prevent it.

To the extend that by "elections" you mean selection of
representatives for the legislative branch, I agree. Elections for
executive branch positions are much less problematic, I think,
although still a suboptimal way to do it.

And I've been banging on for some years about the most important thing we
can do with technology which will give us a chance of introducing democracy
but I don't thinkg I've ever mentioned it in this group. In short, the idea
is to use technology to limit the damage governments are capable of.

Sorry, I think you went off into the weeds here: If you think you need
to limit the tools and techniques the government uses I submit that
you've already failed because you've made one of two fundamental
errors:
1) You believe that it's reasonable (or perhaps inevitable) that the
government implements something other than "The Will of The People".
2) You believe in some sort of "inalienable rights" independent of
those the rest of us are wiling to grant you (the libertarian
position).

Laboring under either of these misconceptions simply renders any of
your proposals non-viable because even if you succeed in achieving any
short-term goal it will be at best a bandaid covering up a cancerous
mole. The only solution to bad government is to replace it with good
government. *That* is what we should be working on, not merely
applying patches to a vessel that we know will eventually sink us all
unless it's replaced. While we might argue about what "good
government" is, I think most of us here would agree that some sort of
more egalitarian system must be designed/built/implemented. Whether or
not that will result in "good government" or not is an empirical
question, but since we've never tried it before it's at the very least
an experiment worth doing. Unfortunately working on anything else is
not just a distraction, it's actually counterproductive because it
serves to legitimize the existing system and make people substantially
less willing to abandon it even when something better comes along
("Maybe if we just patch this one biggest leak we can make it across
the river one more time before we all drown!").
Regards,
Scott