[MG] National Essay Competition on the Next System

[Scott Raney]

As we near release of proxyfor.me I wanted to link to that essay I
wrote for The Next System competition and asked them for a status
update on the judging for that. They told me that the winners and
runners up have all been contacted and they're now editing the entries
for publication on their site. Which I guess means that none of us
placed ;-)

Not that I'm disappointed, actually: Despite claiming to be an
organization of "visionaries", nothing published on that site rises
above the level of the average blog-entry in terms of actual
implementable proposals for how to fix anything (i.e., IMHO the stuff
they've published so far is about 40% lamentation, 40% handwaving, 10%
recycling of old ideas, and 10% wacko). I think we can safely draw the
conclusion that "revolutionary academic" is an oxymoron.

Or have I missed something? Did anyone else find any proposals on that
site that were "shovel ready"?
Regards,
Scott

PS: Interesting discussion on Slashdot yesterday, although of course I
think most of the posters missed the point (yeah, I'll get to the
guerilla marketing later, after the release):
https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/04/10/1426236/if-humble-people-make-the-best-leaders-why-do-we-fall-for-charismatic-narcissists

[Michal Štěpánek]

Post by Scott Raney
As we near release of proxyfor.me I wanted to link to that essay I
wrote for The Next System competition and asked them for a status
update on the judging for that. They told me that the winners and
runners up have all been contacted and they're now editing the entries
for publication on their site. Which I guess means that none of us
placed ;-)
Not that I'm disappointed, actually: Despite claiming to be an
organization of "visionaries", nothing published on that site rises
above the level of the average blog-entry in terms of actual
implementable proposals for how to fix anything (i.e., IMHO the stuff
they've published so far is about 40% lamentation, 40% handwaving, 10%
recycling of old ideas, and 10% wacko). I think we can safely draw the
conclusion that "revolutionary academic" is an oxymoron.

I do not think it is oxymoron. I know our theories have flaws. (in my case,
there was one more important "flaw", I did no entry :D).
Cheers
m.

Post by Scott Raney
Or have I missed something? Did anyone else find any proposals on that
site that were "shovel ready"?
Regards,
Scott
PS: Interesting discussion on Slashdot yesterday, although of course I
think most of the posters missed the point (yeah, I'll get to the
https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/04/10/1426236/if-
humble-people-make-the-best-leaders-why-do-we-fall-for-
charismatic-narcissists
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[Scott Raney]

Post by Michal Štěpánek

Post by Scott Raney
Not that I'm disappointed, actually: Despite claiming to be an
organization of "visionaries", nothing published on that site rises
above the level of the average blog-entry in terms of actual
implementable proposals for how to fix anything (i.e., IMHO the stuff
they've published so far is about 40% lamentation, 40% handwaving, 10%
recycling of old ideas, and 10% wacko). I think we can safely draw the
conclusion that "revolutionary academic" is an oxymoron.

I do not think it is oxymoron. I know our theories have flaws. (in my case,
there was one more important "flaw", I did no entry :D).

I think this is my point: Academics self-censor any truly radical
ideas they have because they don't want to (and probably just can't
afford to) risk their reputations by spouting off about something that
may be truly visionary but might also turn out to be totally crackpot
because of hidden "flaws". It's a luxury only independents really
have...

In addition to all being academics "The Next System" people have the
additional unfortunate constraint of being dependent on financing from
the very organizations that must be forcibly reformed as part of the
process of creating a "next system". For example, one of the upcoming
proposals on proxyfor.me specifically calls for the abolishment of the
practice of inheritance, a position that is trivially easy to justify
(e.g., it would cut everyone's taxes by a *third*) but *none* of the
major non-profits, neither on the left *or* the right can seriously
propose this because doing so would probably require them to take a
major haircut or perhaps even shut down because they are so dependent
on donations from their wealthy benefactors (i.e., their "masters")
who won't appreciate even a public *suggestion* that it's not right
that they can make their children part of the aristocracy with the
wave of a pen. But again, we independents (and indeed, we, The People)
don't have this constraint and I fully expect it to pass (e.g, it took
a little work, but when I proposed this on FaceBook awhile back it
took mere hours for a group of a dozen people to go from being
completely in support of unlimited inheritance to being radically
opposed to it).
Regards,
Scott

Post by Michal Štěpánek
Cheers
m.

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[\\0xDynamite]

Post by Scott Raney
Not that I'm disappointed, actually: Despite claiming to be an
organization of "visionaries", nothing published on that site rises
above the level of the average blog-entry in terms of actual
implementable proposals for how to fix anything (i.e., IMHO the stuff
they've published so far is about 40% lamentation, 40% handwaving, 10%
recycling of old ideas, and 10% wacko). I think we can safely draw the
conclusion that "revolutionary academic" is an oxymoron.

I think that's a darn good analysis. The real answer will require a
synthesis of religion and science -- there's no way anyone will get
rid of one or the other. And postmoderism simply hasn't been able to
create that for people -- it's too abstract of a solution and in the
end turns everyone into meaningless narratives.

Marxos

[Scott Raney]

Post by \\0xDynamite
I think that's a darn good analysis. The real answer will require a
synthesis of religion and science -- there's no way anyone will get
rid of one or the other. And postmoderism simply hasn't been able to
create that for people -- it's too abstract of a solution and in the
end turns everyone into meaningless narratives.

Unfortunately the only narratives that are compelling enough to cause
people to adopt them as philosophy are those designed to play on
emotions (particularly fear). But because that always works to degrade
progress in civilization, I think we have to take the only other
viable approach I've thought of which is to provide them with a
working system that contains enough bells and whistles that the
*technology* wins them over, and then use that as the entry point for
the philosophy. proxyfor.me has the additional benefit that so much of
it is automated: Most of The People will only need to spend the 10
minutes it takes to sign up and fill out the profile for them to get
good representation. The philosophy will only need to be impressed
upon the most active users to get good results from the whole system,
and for The People in general.
Regards,
Scott

Post by \\0xDynamite
Marxos