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New Civilization News: Emergence and democracy |
Category: Systems Thinking 103 comments
13 Jul 2007 @ 00:25 by FreedomBuilder @72.208.129.225 : Ironically... 13 Jul 2007 @ 00:42 by Chris Corrigan @154.20.237.88 : Who is really in charge Great post Flemming, and one of my great passions too. I am actually trying to design some emergent policy making structures at the, and thi sis tied deeply to emergent democracy, so this helps nicely. As for who is in charge, really I think no one is. The world IS a complex adaptive system. Sure there are people in charge of big parts of the world, but most of what passes for control is actually the people lending their consent to ruling structures. There are often good reasons for doing this, hence, nation-states emgere, but watch out if people withdraw their consent. The illusion of power and control really falls away at that point. The important thing to remember is that we are all in this. Together. 13 Jul 2007 @ 14:02 by istvan : Emerging democracy? No matter how I try to like and consequently support the ideas of democracy I keep coming back to tis description of it, as someone described it: democracy in practice is not unlike that of two wolfs and a sheep in the forest trying to decide what to have for dinner legally. You can guess what the democratic outcome might entail. There is a great experiment happening right now in Venezuela and if it works, I will change my mind. The proposed Venezuelan form of democracy would be bottom up need based civilization, only managed, but not dictated by official dogma. Google the information on this since it would take too much to fit the info I gathered on this movement. Of course not too many people are familiar with Chavez's ideas, because the rich in Venezuela are doing their best, with US support to suppress them. The many experiments in democracy from the late sixties and early seventies, such as food cooperatives, free clinics, the rainbow gatherings, etc; and the more recent movements mentioned in your post should be guides in any discussion weather "Another world is possible". 14 Jul 2007 @ 00:20 by ming : Democrazy The trouble with democracy is that it sounds like something good and nice that we of course would want, but we usually have ended up using the word about something that really ends up being something else. Like the two wolfs and the one sheep. Or one wolf leading a bunch of sheep. As long as it is about picking the one of us who's going to tell the rest of us what to do, there'll be something off. Picking the one of us who's going to be our dictator is never going to be a match for the ideals we seem to connect with when we use the word. But, yes, how about if we start with the view that nobody really is in charge. There's nobody who really can run the world, however much money or power they seem to possess. Really, whoever has power has it only because people give it to them. It is a bit of an illusion, allowing us to pretend that somebody else is taking care of things, so we don't have to, and even if they don't, we can at least complain that it was their fault. And, yes, if we look at it as nobody in charge, "simply" a complex system, new possibilities start opening up. It is not about any us versus them, not about who's doing it to us. Things happen the way they happen because of various kinds of feedback loops. And if things somehow get arranged a little differently, different things can happen. Power structures are a lot more fragile than they look, because they aren't really power structures, but just a representations of how things happen to be flowing at the moment. So, if nobody's is in charge, what are the things to do, to help "it" along? 14 Jul 2007 @ 20:16 by ov : OpenSpaceWorld.org Interesting discussion Ming. Did the Open Space concept come up? It's a self organizing technique for grass roots, and any type of group really where there is a need to clear organizational communication blocks so those that are on the front line that know what is actually going on can get things done. Applying it to an entire democracy could be a different thing. For more information check the resource page at openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi? 15 Jul 2007 @ 08:07 by bapty : emergence Another admirable example of Ming's impressively searching realistic reasoning. For fully correlated complexly simplified answers to such questions I offer www.humantruth.org which includes a book The Wrong Reality, shortly to be published in the normal way. Main answer, I believe, is that the basis of intelligently agreed cooperation is moral truth, the source of which is the common postconscious mind. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:20 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Emergence & Democracy: Plan Vs. Reality Title of Lesson: PERSONALITY AND LORD OF THE FLIES Appropriate for Grade: 12 Supporting Mastery of Outcomes: 1201, 1202, 1205, and 1208 Lesson Objectives: Students will . . . 1. complete the reading of Lord of the Flies , 2. use the Kersey Temperament Sorter web site to review personality types and to associate characters from Lord of the Flies with the personality types listed. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:22 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Ralph and the conch “ Because the rules are the only thing we've got! ” pg. 91 Ralph may represent democracy as he is elected leader by a democratic vote and attempts to please the majority. He can also be interpreted as a representation of the ego, which governs the id and is associated with practicality. He seeks to create civilization on the island and is the antithesis of Jack. Ralph's hair represents him being civilized in the beginning of the book. Later on his hair becomes wild-like and shows him becoming a savage and not civilized. The conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel. The shell effectively governs the boys’ meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the right to speak. As the island civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery, the conch loses its power and influence among them. Its appearance, or its gradual loss of colour from exposure to the air, may also parallel their descent. The other boys ignore Ralph and throw stones at him when he attempts to blow the conch in Jack’s camp. The boulder that Roger rolls onto Piggy also crushes the conch, signifying the end of the civilized instinct among almost all the boys on the island. When Piggy and the conch are destroyed, Jack jumps up and yells "...There is no tribe for you anymore. The conch is gone-I am chief!" This is the point at which Jack finally wrestles all control from Ralph, and without the powerful symbol of the conch to protect him, he must run from Jack's hunters who now have no inhibitions against killing him. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:23 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Piggy and his glasses “Which is better - to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” Piggy may represent rational thought as he is logical, but unpopular. Eventually Ralph realizes how much he depended on him and his logic, admitting "I can't think. Not like Piggy." He shows that logic and realism is unpopular in itself and that the ideas he shows is part of what makes Piggy unpopular. He is arguably the most rational boy in the group, and as such his glasses may represent intuition, foresight and intelligence (they can also represent science, as can Piggy). But he often gets the response: "Shut up, Piggy!" This symbolism is evident from the start of the novel, when the boys forcibly take Piggy’s glasses to focus the sunlight and start a fire. When Jack’s hunters raid Ralph’s camp to steal the glasses, the savages subsequently take the power to make fire, leaving Ralph’s group helpless. The physical state of the glasses may also represent the state of the social order on the island, for as their condition deteriorates, so does the order and organization of the boys. Piggy's obesity and asthma, which mark him as an outcast, can also be viewed as emblematic of how the superego, and, thus, civilized thinking, are ill-suited for this environment and are rejected as useless. The power of his glasses to make fire is also a reference to the notion that products of science can be useful, but the science itself isn't. Piggy is the most feminine character in the story, and is almost a mother figure for the "littluns". Piggy is physically weak but mentally strong. Piggy identifies the conch, and he and the conch end their existence together. Throughout the story Piggy blames those who do not act properly of "acting like a crowd of kids" and always asks "what would the adults think?" to further enforce his point. In addition, like Piggy, the Sow (‘Pig.' 'Piggy!’) is a sort of mother figure; when she dies, so does most of the power of the conch. Being physically weak, he is also a symbol of civilized man, in that the others must take care of him. This epitomizes an essential tenet of civilization, which is mercy. As soon as the others abandon him, they are rejecting civilized society. Piggy's glasses may also represent civilization, as they are used by the boys to light the signal fires, which were the only hope for a return to civilization that they had on the island. When the first lens on Piggy's glasses is broken, it is a symbol that civilization on the island is breaking and falling apart. When the glasses are stolen by Jack's hunters, it is a sign that civilization is completely falling apart. Piggy's glasses are his source of logical thinking. In most situations when a decision has to be made, Piggy will clean his glasses, to clear his vision. Similarly, Ralph pulls back his long hair from out of his eyes. As the glasses become broken, Piggy, to some degree, makes fewer decisions and becomes irrational in some cases. Without his glasses, Piggy decides to stand up to the savage tribe, and gets killed in the process. Piggy is the only one on the island whose hair is growing slowly or hardly at all. As the boys' hair grows and begins to cover their eyes, their rational way of thinking is covered, and they become savages. Piggy's hair is still short even after being on the island so long and so we can conclude that he is the person with the most intelligent insight. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:26 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Jack “ Bollocks to the rules! ” Next to Ralph, Jack is the tallest and second strongest of the boys and may represent totalitarianism. He does not appreciate the results of the election and eventually uses his strength, aggressiveness, and his choirboy militia to seize power in a coup and rule alone, making himself chief and the other boys his tribe. Most obviously, he demonstrates Lord Acton's idea that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Jack may represent the opposition of democracy, dictatorship, or even the opposition of civilization itself—sheer atavistic savagery. Everyone must coordinate their actions by arbitrary rules, and he shows an obvious disrespect for the conch and its associations. In Jack's tribe, where fear and superstition go unchecked, the beast comes to seem more and more real until its existence is an article of faith. Jack, who gains authority from this atmosphere of dread by saying he'll protect the others from the beast, also succumbs to the fear himself. Jack may also be described as a revolutionary, a usurper of democracy and civilised values, as shown by his treatment of the conch. The status of Roger towards the end of the novel and his actions towards Jack show that Jack's savage system of government may be usurped by the sadistic evil of Roger, just like Jack did to Ralph. Jack may also represent the Id in contrast to Ralph as the Ego and Piggy as the Superego. The logic behind this is that Jack seeks to immediately satisfy the needs and act on instinct, fulfilling the description of the Id, while Ralph upholds the social norms of the Ego. Examples of this are both positive and negative. The positive is his commitment to democracy and teamwork, while the negative is his conventional mockery of social oddities, such as Piggy's thick specs, his obesity, and his "ass-mar" (asthma), as he calls it in his lower class accent (see reference to 'Home Counties'). 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:28 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Roger “ You don't know Roger. He's a terror. ” Roger may represent pure evil. Roger represents human malice even more so than Jack, abetting all his worst instincts, and is sadistic. Roger is described as mysterious and having black hair and a low forehead which in such times is seen as dirty and evil. A rogue early in the book, Roger throws rocks at a smaller boy, Henry, and only misses on purpose because "Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law." During the sow-hunt, he pushes his spear up the sow's anus, although the particular location is probably unintentional ("Roger found a lodgment for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight"). After nearly all of the boys on the island have joined Jack's tribe, Roger goes on to kill Piggy with a large boulder. Jack had originally put the boulder there to scare off "enemies" like Ralph, but since Roger represented death, hatred, or Satan, he deliberately uses the rock and kills Piggy. He also tortures Samneric until they join Jack's tribe and plans Ralph's killing when they have captured him: Samneric tell Ralph that Roger sharpened a stick at both ends, much like the stick that the sow's head is impaled on, but do not elaborate further. He and Jack nudge each other near the end of the book, implying that had they been allowed to stay on the island any longer, Roger might eventually have challenged Jack for the leadership just as Jack did to Ralph in turn. "Roger" means expert spearsman, so his name does not only suit him for the fact that he plans to kill Ralph with a spear sharpened on both ends, but also his violent nature and aggressiveness. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:30 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Simon “ Simon stayed where he was, a small brow image, concealed by the leaves. Even if he shut his eyes the sow's head still remained like an after image. The half-shut eyes were dim with infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business. ” Simon may represent natural goodness because he is the only character on the island that continues being good even when the other boys forget about the rules of society. Some see similarities between him and Jesus, based on the religious references around Simon: his name (that of one of the Apostles), his skill with carpentry and his killing at the hands of a mob. Simon is also seen on the island giving the little ones fruit from the tree that they cannot reach. Simon is the only one who can get the fruit for them, and indeed the only boy who would stop to help. Through him they get the fruit, much like through Christ, Christians receive salvation they cannot achieve on their own. Also, Simon's private sanctuary is a place with a high dome roof and candle-like flowers, suggesting a cathedral, further establishing him as a spiritual, visionary character. His climb up and down the mountain to discover what the beast is also long and arduous, much like Christ's carrying of the cross on the Via Dolorosa. Also, Simon freeing the parachutist can symbolize Jesus freeing mankind or man. His conversation with the Lord of the Flies (pig's head) can be linked to Jesus' journey through the desert when he must overcome the temptations put before him by Satan. With his superior insight, he sees most clearly that the children's civility is dying. This is made clear when he says "maybe it's only us" in reference to the beast. This demonstrates his intuitive knowledge that the fear and chaos come from the minds of the children and not from any outside agent. Simon has been viewed as a Cassandra figure, able to predict the future but condemned to be disbelieved. Another interpretation is that he represents the poets and writers, much like Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. Simon has a sense of many things which he cannot communicate to the others, and he is in touch with the darker side of humanity as much or more than Piggy. Both film versions omit the monologue of the Beast, addressed to Simon. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:36 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Sam and Eric / Samneric (the twins) “ But they could never manage to do things sensibly if that meant acting independently . . . ” Sam and Eric are referred to in the first half as "Sam 'n' Eric" and the second half of the novel as "Samneric." They were very loyal to Ralph in the very first 10 chapters, but in the last chapters, they were forced to join Jack's tribe. It was actually Roger who tortured Samneric until they joined the tribe. Their allegorical representation in WWI could be nations forced into war such as Germany did to Belgium. Physically, Golding describes them as "barely having enough skin" to cover both: they are "stretched." They also are a representation of unity, due to the fact that every activity they participate in, they do together. At first they are called Sam and Eric but then become Sam'n Eric and then Samneric which shows the breaking down of English, and communication itself, as the boys break down morally. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:36 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Percival “ Percival had gone off, crying . . . ” Percival, the youngest of the littluns, may represent innocence, emotion, and children. He is known as the character who frequently expresses emotions. He uses his address, Percival Wemys Madison, The Vicarage, Harcourt ..., as an incantation that comforts and reminds him of civilization. However, by the end of the novel he cannot even remember his own name. This shows how far the children have descended into savagery — so far that they have no recollection of the civilized world. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:38 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Boy w. the mulberry coloured birthmark “ He says the beastie came in the dark. ” At one of the earlier assemblies, a scared boy came forward to ask about the 'beastie.' He had a mulberry coloured birthmark. He is sometimes seen as the devil as he introduces something for the boys to direct their fear towards. Another possibility is that he represents the False Prophet mentioned in the book of Revelation who paves the way for the coming of the Antichrist, just as the boy's tale of the Beast in some ways gives birth to Jack's main source of fear and power. He is never given a name and is always referred to as the boy with the birthmark, which can also be the mark of the devil. After the forest fire, he is never seen again, and it is believed that he burned to death. Ralph suggests, "Perhaps he went back to the, the --," but no one has an answer for where he may have gone. 16 Jul 2007 @ 00:41 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : The Beast “ This head is for the beast. It's a gift. ” The beast may represent brutality, propaganda, and irrational fears, as it causes panic and ultimately allies the boys around Jack. The fact that there is physically no beast suggests that it is a representation of the evil in human nature. "Lord of the Flies" is translated from Hebrew Beelzebub, or Ba'alzevuv. "Lord of the Flies" is said to be a mistranslation from an incorrectly transliterated word, but it does sound pungent and evil, like that of a reference to the devil. A devil whose name implies a devotion to decay, destruction, demoralization, hysteria and panic is particularly fitting for this book. The Lord of the Flies and the beast represent the evil lurking within everyone's hearts, which, while not physical, is no less real. This is similar to the cold war; no physical action actually occurred, but there was still a huge fear about it. It may also be considered to be the religious belief of the island society, as it is not seen but its existence is rarely doubted, it is credited to what cannot be explained, and it is given offerings in an attempt to persuade it to spare the lives of the islanders. In this way, it is representative of what one might call "dark worship" — the worship of things that are inherently bad. Simon's conversation with the pig's head (referred to as "the Lord of the Flies") in the realm of his own mind is one of the most fascinating parts of the story, because the pig's head tells him that the beast is immortal and finds all human action funny, leading one to wonder if there is some intelligence inside human evil — a reference to the devil, linking back to its name. The author is believed to have written the novel shortly after World War II as a reflection on true human nature. Simon implies that he thinks the true beast is really human nature. The beast's actions seem to match Simon's theory. The beast and the children's fear of it is what eventually splits the one tribe into two competing tribes. The beast is only seen by the littl'uns (the most pure of the children). It leads to the death of three of the children (one death is implied) and the attempted murder of another. Taking into account the world events occurring when the novel was written, similarities can be drawn to World War II. The 'beast' of human nature (Hitler's holocaust) divides the tribe (the world) into two parts. The idea the author tries to convey is that this 'beast' of human nature during World War II is not simply a one-time occurrence, but rather a fundamental flaw in human nature that is bound to be repeated until the world goes into total chaos, which is represented on the island when the jungle is being burned to the ground as a result of the manhunt for Ralph. 16 Jul 2007 @ 08:08 by Ming Chau @84.103.71.151 : life is non-linear ! I saw the word "emergence" in a book about robotics and artificial intelligence. The same ideas where developped. Furthermore, it is said that emergence is a non-linear phenomenon : no additivity and no proportionnality. in other words, the sum of individuals is not the whole and tiny changes may lead to huge effects. Emergence is also present in modern physics. In 19th century, scientists believed that universe will die when all forms of energy is finally transformed into heat, the poorest form of energy. They got rid of this idea in 20th century, when they discovered that emergence exists in chemistry, fluid dynamics, and so on. Universe will evolve; it will not die. Actually, our current society has emerged from somewhere, so it is stable [(2) coherence or correlation (meaning integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some period of time)]. As a consequence of stability, nothing new can emerge in society unless something very special happens : major economic crisis, war, discovery of new worlds, etc... (sad but true examples) 16 Jul 2007 @ 16:57 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Static Environment or Elemental Magic? Actually, our current society - and our currents societIES (and it is also true, to a certain degree of most communities, and/or networks, such as for instance NCN) have all emerged from "somewhere." LOL Are they stable? I don't know. No offense to our good friend Ming Chau here, but I do tend to be rather wary of reductionist theories, in general. And Ming Chau cautionary comparisons of 19th century versus 20th century beliefs with regard to the nature of the universe, is a good point. But, yes, I can see how when "integrated wholes maintain themselves over some period of time" it can be a bad thing when/if it leads to stagnation because "nothing new can emerge." I think you might be getting to something, here, Chau. Flemming Funch had an interesting post up not too long ago about Elementary Magic in which he presented "a simple principle that appears in many forms": i.e. "A purposeful element in a changing environment is more likely to succeed, the more fixed its purpose is, and the more random motion there is in the environment." And then a commenter (Seb) asked: "What would you say is likely to happen in the opposite situation? (scattered goals, static environment)" I can't help but feel there is something there that is of some relevance to NCN, wouldn't you think? Is NCN currently such a static environment, in which, as Chau postulates, "nothing new can emerge unless something very special happens" (attract new members from a wider socio-economic-cultural palette for a greater diversity, revamping the dated infrastructure of the network (the medium is the message), etc...- the kind of things that would allow NCN to meet its original objective of being "a database of people and a lot of facilities intended to help [members] find what [they] need and collaborate with others when appropriate.") Or, I don't know, am I reading this totally wrong here, and is NCN, maybe, doing exactly, like some of its members have been advocating, "what it was meant to do" by trying perhaps to be that "fix purpose" of which Flemming Funch spoke in his post about elemental magic - like kind of a soap box from which the same string of messages are spewed over and over in a simple, explicit and redundant kind of a way, until...somehow...something magical happens? In other words, paraphrasing Flemming Funch, from his Elemental Magic entry, will "the simple fact that NCN keeps its desire alive and consistent" suffice to "align the rest of the world around it and bring opportunities to it and its members"? Is that the current administrative Modus Operandi of NCN? 16 Jul 2007 @ 17:11 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Emergence and complexity "Simple, rigid structures are subject to entropy. They fall apart over time, turn to dust. Whereas complexity, of the type that life is made of, regenerates, re-configures itself, it evolves, it transitions to higher orders of organization." ---Flemming Funch, Denial of Complexity 16 Jul 2007 @ 18:15 by i2i : NCN as an Emergence experiment Ming has a category, here, dedicated to the evolution (or stagnation, as the case might be - which is not to say that the network is without qualities) of NCN. The thing is that Ming is just one little person here (like the rest of us, he has a life, and a family, and he is buzzy trying to make a living) and he has not been very successful, I suppose, in securing the kind of help from other programmers or system thinker or like-minded network, that could have made a difference in helping him advance NCN to the next stage. 17 Jul 2007 @ 09:42 by jazzolog : People Leave In my years at NCN, I have found the fundamental arguments are 1) why do people join and then what happens to them, and 2) why do people leave. They ought not be arguments. If Ming cared, we'd know these things. Countless people join and, if you check new Profiles, never even Log In. How is that possible? Apparently motives can be strictly economic: the network somehow provides free advertising. Why people leave addresses i2i's point however. Ming's view is people move on. They get what they want momentarily or over a long haul, and then live their lives in the real world...and not at this site. It's true: I confess to joining a few message boards just to post one item or reply to something...and then never go back. BUT I can list you at least a couple dozen key people from all parts of this planet who joined, became involved, then inspired, went on to attempt regeneration, reconfiguration, transition to higher order---call it what you will---but became frustrated and quit. What is tragic to me is the frustration usually was a workable situation. Matters could have been solved simply by the webmaster paying attention, accepting offers of help and then compromise on all sides, and following through on promises made. At first it seemed leadership was asleep at the wheel here. Then NCN was set adrift like a rudderless ship. Now there are few comments at the Logs, the Chats drone on lifelessly, and who ever has known what goes on in those Workgroups? Elsewhere forums and subject discussions float in limbo. People use NCN for purely selfish reasons...if at all. It's the perfect formula for stagnation. 17 Jul 2007 @ 20:49 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Emergence and Democracy: NCN People Leave... There is that. It is a good point - all of it. And, it seems that it's always kind of difficult (or painful) to address the topic, because, as I have been lead to see it, NCN is Flemming Funch's baby, and anything which is perceived as a criticism of NCN is often taken personally - understandingly so (and sometimes with good cause, I must say, depending on the nature of the criticism.) And with that, also comes - again, very understandingly so - a bit of denial, too, on the part of the founder of NCN - I have read posts or comments in which Ming, for instance, seems to somehow more or less lay the shortcomings of the network at the feet the NCN membership, a bunch of "strange people" "who don't like each other very much" or a membership not made of the kind of "system thinker" or "visionaries" he thought would be joining NCN. Etc. And sometimes speaks of himself as if he himself, were not a part of the dynamic at work on NCN, while stressing his function of "facilitator" trying to "support the existence of a network," and how "that makes [him] sad" (sic) that people do not get it, and do not just use the network to "go out and do the things they see that need doing." Now, all of this may sound a bit harsh of me, so I want to make it clear that I am not one of Ming's detractors here - there are some who have said that NCN "functions under a false pretense, " or those who claim that NCN is just a vanity website that Ming has put together to boost up his image and his presence on the web and that nothing else will ever come of the network. I am not one of those. When Ming says, as above on the present post that "Emergence is one of [his] most favorite subjects. The one [he]'d maybe most like to figure out," I think NCN is - or ought to be - very close to Ming's heart (and to his Libertarian heart, too, politically,) to that regard, as an experiment as to what happens "when nobody is in charge," or when "everyone is in charge," or when everyone one does synergistically "his or her own things." Plan Vs Reality: One of the premise of NCN, as clearly stated by Ming is the idea that there is "No need for everybody to agree on everything. A civilization isn't built out of uniform agreement on what it is. It is a collage of a diversity of currents that somehow get woven together." This is the idea. The reality is that things have not at all been working that way, in the past, and are not currently working that way (I am not going to go over the detail of it, as Ming has already done a better job, here, of documenting the history of NCN than I could.) I believe it an error to lay the blame, as Ming sometimes does, at the feet of the NCN's past and current membership. And I think that, deep down, he knows better than that. I don't think that it is about lecturing people either - and there has been a lot of that. The limited kind of membership NCN attracts or the way members interact (or fail to interact) with one another are not the CAUSE of the problem but one of its SYMPTOMS - those are things which are symptomatic of some systemic deficiency or insufficiency with the way NCN came to be when it was first designed and the way it developed from there (those are things that Ming is aware of, as he has himself addressed some of that there: link) and the way it is being operated now. The notion of catalyst, here, is a relevant one, and one I am sure Ming will relate with: a catalyst is something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected. This is the idea. And, well, maybe NCN needs a better catalyst here - this means going back to the drawing board: What is it that is working with the current infrastructure? (And there are some nice features here, and Ming has come up with many clever ideas.) Where is too much tension being generated with the current layout (a bit of tension can be a good catalytic element, whereas too much tension can have a counterproductive effect. Cross-pollination or a vivid exchange of ideas, is not the same thing at all as Cross-Trolling or all out war and sabotage.) The success or the failure of a catalytic reaction is also dependent on the nature of the elements in presence. I, for one, do not think that there is anything wrong with the present membership of NCN, other than the very obvious and, I think, widely recognized fact that ever since its creation NCN has been lacking in DIVERSITY (a fact too, that Ming has acknowledged.) And as jazzolog point it out in the above comment, "People leave." Unlike jazzolog, however, I am not sure that the problem is that "people use NCN for purely selfish reason" - though there are people who have been known to do that - but, the truth of the matter is that, had NCN been designed to work the way it was intended to, this should not have mattered. It should not matter at all. All kind of people (including selfish minded ones) should be able to coexist and work with each other when they feel so inclined (even when their inclination is selfishly motivated) without it being detrimental to NCN as a whole. Actually this kind of interactions (the selfish kind and the less selfish kind) is perhaps one of the prime functions NCN is purportedly intended to serve. The problem is that that function is not served! Unlike Ming's view (presented by jazzolog above,) I am not sure either that people come to NCN and "get what they want momentarily or over a long run" and then "move on." Though, again, there are those (the same who have claimed that "NCN function under a false pretense") who say that this is exactly the way NCN is intended to work: people come to NCN, they get "proselytized to" or "un-hypnotized" (depending on one's perspective) and are actually meant to leave at the end of the process (so, their leaving is actually seen as a good thing.) Again, this is not something I believe, but it is out there (and deserves to be brought out in the open) and this kind of paranoia (there are many other on NCN - and no wonder) is not a good indicator of the health of NCN as a functioning system. The number one problem of NCN seems to me like something less nefarious than any of the conspiracies theories out there. To me, it essentially comes to a problem of population. The way NCN was first populated. And the way it is populated (or depopulated now.) The cause and the consequences are the same: lack of diversity and dwindling active membership. People come to NCN, they look for like-minded people, or people they feel they can work with, or the kind of "think-tank" diversity they expect to find on NCN and...they do not find it. And they leave. It's a vicious circle. Furthermore, this lack of diversity and limited size of the active population of NCN, result in a magnification of the presence of some of the more eccentric members (they are often the most active), who although they may not be trolls per see (in the classical sense), may, for all practical purpose, look and sound like trolls to visiting members. Personally, I happen to believe that eccentric members are ordinarily (under normal population conditions) an asset to a network (especially so, if one is looking for a "think-tank" kind of an environment), furthermore they are often amusing - enlightening, at times. However under strained population conditions (especially where paranoia is present), such activities may result in the opposite effect as it generates an intelligence drain, meaning that when such members create havoc on a thread or on a network (especially when behaving in a Troll-like mode,) all discussions often become less intelligent and less useful to all other participants, as a result. (which, in the case of a real Troll, is the intended effect, of course. - Trolls tend to post messages in which the original words that they seem to reply to, are purposefully misinterpreted, pulled out of context or simply ignored.) Things might get heated. When things get heated, people concentrate on flaming and flaming only. And...people leave. 18 Jul 2007 @ 01:56 by tlingel : NCN: Service Pack One 
YOU ARE IN ERROR. NO ONE IS SCREAMING. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. The Computer is happy. The Computer is crazy. The Computer will help you become happy. 18 Jul 2007 @ 02:05 by tlingel : LOL Paranoia: Intended as a spoof on other RPGs, the Paranoia rulebook is unique in a number of ways. For example, in earlier versions of Paranoia, the entire chapter on rules is labeled 'optional', and player knowledge of the rules is treasonous (treason, of course, being punishable by summary execution). Most of the rulebook is written in an easy, conversational tone that scoffs at how screwed the players are and frequently takes potshots at other notable RPGs. 
The Computer fears a number of threats to its 'perfect' society, such as The Outdoors, mutants, and secret societies (especially communists). Nonetheless, a large proportion of the people who inhabit Alpha Complex are mutants and members of a variety of secret societies - including communists. The PCs ((Player Characters) almost invariably are mutants and members of secret societies, and so are traitors of the very sort feared by The Computer. The PCs are usually given incomprehensible or self-contradicting mission goals, dangerous, faulty or experimental futuristic gizmos as equipment, as well as contradictory missions from their secret societies. 18 Jul 2007 @ 03:03 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Whimsical "Green Hat" thinking Or is that "black hat" thinking, lol. It's not the first time, btw, that NCN is compared to an RPG (I think the last one to do so was Swan, and I would give a link to it, except that, to my knowledge, she is apparently one of those who closed their accounts and have left NCN.) As I said in an earlier comment, I happen to believe that such eccentricities are ordinarily (under normal population conditions) an asset to a network. A bit of whimsical "Green Hat" thinking can be a bit of a welcome relief, especially after too much "White Hat" or "Blue Hat" thinking has been going on. Not taking oneself too seriously is not a bad thing either. I must say that this is actually pretty funny. The Secret Societies are hilarious: - First Church of Christ Computer Programmer (FCC-CP) (also referred to as The Assemblers of God in some editions): They believe that the Computer is God. (...) But there are interfactional conflicts between different sects of the church, and even simple differences in interpretation can lead to bloodshed. - Humanists: The Humanists are aware of just how flawed Alpha Complex is ...at least to some degree. They realize the Computer is bonkers, and strive to make Alpha Complex a better place for people. They do this by making hidden backdoor codes in the computer, reprogramming rogue bots to serve humanity, and planning for the day when they rise up and restore power to the people. That day is just around the corner; and has been for centuries. They just never seem to get much done, as the society is bogged down by process, meetings, and committees. - Illuminati: The Illuminati is a secretive organization whose goals are so well hidden that most members don't know them. No one knows what the goals of this society are, or even how it goes about them. Members may be given orders as simple as 'deliver this', or 'kill him/her', or as unfathomable as 'Take the cap off the pen in the briefing room XLJ11, and dispose of it down the trash chute in X corridor'. Most Illuminati also pose as members of another secret society, in order to keep their true society a secret. - Mystics: Supposedly founded by those seeking enlightenment, the Mystics focus on Recreational drug use. Another example of an un-society, there is no grand Mystic goal. Some limit themselves to their own personal visions, others might try to drug food or water supplies to try to enlighten as many as possible. The list goes on: link :-) 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:58 by jazzolog : But Seriously Folks Hanae's analysis (yesterday @ 20:49) is one of the best I've seen in any number of occasions during which this topic has been rolled out---or, honoring all secret synchronism societies, rolled itself out. I'm particularly interested in the "eccentric" feature of his/her (? speaking of eccentrics) comment. I don't want to talk behind someone's back, but I imagine most of them would gladly confess to eccentricity. Many of them splashed down with the first page, if they weren't Founding Mothers themselves. The point is the character of a Message Board (and that's what mmmark called this site essentially) definitely is formed in the minds of newcomers by the more active and forceful personalities who do a lot of replying to stuff. I admit to avoiding some sites where there is a know-it-all and accompanying unwelcoming atmosphere. I know that people have felt that way here, especially if they wander innocently into the Chats. The potential of NCN is stupendous in my opinion, diversity or no. What is undeniably diverse is the international character...and that's its most valuable attribute in my opinion. There never has been, in cyberspace anyway, a greater need for people from all over the planet to have a forum in which to share or debate. It's why I come here everyday...along with the hope the next new member through the winding labyrinth of joining will be another special someone who can withstand it all and stick around! 19 Jul 2007 @ 16:25 by tlingel : Human Operator(s) 
A fusion of fields as was seen in the Renaissance is certainly no longer possible; the mountain of specialization has grown too high. However, one might demand that the different fields of knowledge communicate with one another and without undermining each other. This is, in essence, that which Edgar Morin has called "transdisciplinarity," that which, without attempting a unifying principal for all fields of knowledge (which would also be reductionism), aspires to a communication between the disciplines based on complex thought. ---Regarding a New Humanism, by Salvador Pániker (Translation by Karen Phillips) Salvador Pániker is a Spanish philosopher and writer. [First published in the Opinion page of El Pais, February 18, 2007.] 19 Jul 2007 @ 17:00 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : ...honoring all secret synchronism... Ah, yes, synchronism! Synchronicity even. There is that too. There is something of a bit of micro cyberspace "harmonic convergence" here, when logging onto Ming.tv, you see three entries posted one after another, and the first one is about "Elemental Magic" and the second (the present one) is about "Emergence and Democracy," and the following one is called "Plan vs Reality." It is all a coincidence, of course, or - who knows? - perhaps it was all meant to be, or maybe it is something that is imbued of some significance that goes beyond our limited linear perception of our "non-linear" universe. Like Tarot reading, or Tasseomancy. In order to read the tea leaves or grind coffee, one must be served a cup of tea, and as everyone knows drinking cannot be rushed. Tea or coffee is served steaming hot. It is sipped, time slows down, and you relax. Then the tea leaves are pondered for signs of what the future might bring ;-) 19 Jul 2007 @ 23:26 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Future Incidents ---------------------------- quote ------------------------------ "Consider that the future is the co-created reality of everybody involved in it. It basically is what people agree that it is. That is no different from the past; the only difference is that we agree that the future is the part that "hasn't happened yet". But now what if a bunch of people agree that there is a lot of bad things that will happen in the future. Well, if they make it real enough and agree well enough, then they are right. It doesn't mean that they were good at predicting things. It just means that the future is what you make it. There is nothing that IS the future. It is whatever you are making it now, and if you change your mind about it, the future changes. If a group changes its mind, even better, the future might be greatly different. It is not that the future doesn't exist. We might for simplicity's sake say that is hasn't happened yet. But actually it is very real. It is just that you change it quite easily, by changing your considerations about what it will be. (...) I've had several people run out large catastrophes they had in their future. Nuclear holocaust, earthquakes, etc. If enough people do that the future will necessarily change for the better. Particularly the events that there is wide agreement about, like prophesies from Nostradamus or the Bible, would be a prime target of incidents to run out. It would be reasonable to say that one person who is running out a future group incident is to some degree doing it for everybody. That is, if 100 million people have a nuclear armageddon incident located in 1999, they don't all have to run it out. If enough people run out the incident, the 100th monkey effect will set in. The incident will change for everybody." ---Technical Essay # 113 - Flemming Funch 3 December 1992 --------------------------- endquote ---------------------------------- The above material, and other like it, are a remnant of the Free Zone (or independent Scientologists or Scientology Freezone) with was essentially a group founded by ex-Scientologists to promote L. Ron Hubbard's ideas independent of the COS [Church of Scientology]. I mention this freely because, for one thing, I do not believe there is anything wrong with any of that, and furthermore Ming is and has been very open about all of this, and he has talked of his past association and eventual disagreement with the Church of Scientology quite openly before, and there was an occasion, in particular, when he was the object of a pretty nasty spirited attack on his person and his reputation (The downside to living your life publically) where the topic came up and he somehow found himself on the front page of a minor German business newspaper. And, well, the lesson of all this is that, as Ming put it, "there's always a bit of a danger in being a multi-facetted, open-minded person with varied interests and years of colorful experiences exploring different things." And it is a darn shame, too. Especially when "you suddenly are put particularly in the spotlight, and any little comment you might have made can be greatly misconstrued and taken out of context, painting a picture of you that isn't really true." So, I try not to do that. Members of NCN who are not involved with the Free Zone or who have not even ever been Scientologist themselves have found themselves on the receiving end of the same kind of prejudiced mental attitude on the part of people who found out about their involvement with NCN and assumed them to be Scientologists - I am thinking of one person in particular, who had gotten very enthusiastic about NCN and had listed on his resume and on his website his being a member of NCN, until he realized that the word has gotten around amongst some of his co-workers that in their mind that made him a Scientologist, and, well, he eventually removed from his resume and website any reference to NCN. Now, the reason I bothered quoting the above Free Zone document is because it is time-wise very relevant to the issue of diversity and the topic at hand - I would not have done so otherwise. It is also important to stress here that Ming 1992 is not Ming 2007 (and Ming, for whom "Science and Sanity" is still on his list of all time most important books written, will understand what I mean.) Furthermore, as Ming put it "In these essays I am sort of more thinking aloud and also changing my mind along the way." So this is not really about Ming himself either. What makes the text relevant is the time at which it was written and some of the ideas that were prevalent that can be found in such a text (or others like it), at the time NCN came into being, and the kind of people (ex-Scientologists, FreeZone people, New Age people interested in the Harmonic Convergence and the 100 Monkeys stuff, etc.) who resonated with that. Ming himself spoke of it thusly: "Little things might have made a big difference in what sorts of people mostly moved into NCN. For example, back in 1995 I made a Celestine Prophecy discussion mailing list. It still exists on the server, has hundreds of members, and is still quite active. Because of that, various Celestine Prophecy mailing lists recommended NCN as a good place to take a next step. Which, still today, means that a lot of the new people are folks who're looking to learn more about energy, and it is obvious from many new member comments that they believe this to be a Celestine Prophecy oriented community. Which is fine and great, but compared with the original target, it is a more passive group. Nice and spiritual people, but not the kind of activists, inventors, organizers, systems thinkers, etc, that originally were expected." Most of the Celestine Prophecy people have moved on now, and things have somewhat evolved since then - as they should - but not that much, and very insufficiently so (and unfortunately not always for the better, as the Network is pretty anemic right now - that's what happens when your base population is lacking in diversity), and NCN still suffers from the perception that NCN is a Network founded by ex-Scientologists to promote L. Ron Hubbard's ideas and nothing more. Some members came and went. Some spoke of a need to reinforce the Meta-paradigmatic vocation of NCN (an objective with which Ming agreed wholeheartedly) and well, here we are. jazzolog's point that "the character of a Message Board definitely is formed in the minds of newcomers by the more active and forceful personalities who do a lot of replying to stuff" is a good one. When it comes to the ex-scientologist/libertarian type (a common combination) and such forceful personalities (especially when the active participation is at a minimum) drop hints that they are "in the know" of what NCN is about and that other members do not, it does NCN a disservice. And yes, the occasional "know-it-all atmosphere" which sometimes prevail can definitely be a problem. That said, understand me, I do not have any beef with Scientology or Libertarianism per se here - or, even if I did, it should not matter whether I (or any member of NCN) did or didn't, and neither should it matter to ex-scientologists or Libertarians whether any given member of NCN have come here to do or speak of things that have nothing to do with L. Ron Hubbart's philosophy/science/religion or the Libertarian ideal. The point of the matter is that NCN is not an ex-scientology or Libertarian site. Because if it were, well, if it were, then it wouldn't be what the Network claim it is aiming to be. The Elementary Magic entry is very relevant here: "Let's say some extremely rare butterfly is looking for a mate. If it is in a very static environment, like your kitchen closet, and there's no other butterfly of that kind of around, it is out of luck. But if you drop it somewhere where thousands or millions of species live, and all of them move around a lot, it is more likely that the right kind of lady butterfly will flutter by. Some wind might help, bringing in specimens from elsewhere..." NCN is in need of "thousands or millions of species live, and all of them moving around a lot," so that when some "extremely rare butterfly" (or even some not so rare butterfly) come looking for a mate and join NCN here, some magic can happen. I like Tlingel's Human Operator(s) entry, above. It's a potent image (visual thinkers are good that way.) It is of no good for NCN to be some spaceship in outer space, if it has no crew. I don't care how bright the engineer, who designed the spaceship, is, or how happy some of the people who have found their way aboard might be with some of its features, or how bright they themselves might be - it doesn't matter - the spaceship is going nowhere (no emergence is going to happen here.) It is of no good either if a ship which is required to be operated dynamically by different crews working alongside one another, independently or dynamically with one another, is only occupied by one or two of the required crews, and the critical mass is not met. It is of no use either for the engineer to blame the existing crew for the fact that his ship is stranded. It is of no good either for the engineer to turn to the crew and ask for volunteers to assist him in doing what he has failed to achieve. There may be a few on deck who might be able to assist (provided that the engineer is sincere in his request and there is no control issue,) but the help he requires might in large part - and in all likelihood - be beyond the available potential of the ship (whose population is limited and unbalanced - remember? - that's the problem one is trying to redress.) The engineer has built a ship and thought that this would be enough and that his ship would be discovered (on the strength of the message it is broadcasting) and that people would come aboard and that the right diversity would occur and that critical mass would be reached and that the ship would be flying off, and well...things seldom work that way now, do they? Typically for a project of this nature, a great deal of care is paid to the crew of a ship. What kind of talents does the ship require? Or in the case of a multidisciplinary expedition (as NCN was clearly intended to be), how do I insure that all the needed or relevant disciplines are represented? How do I attract "talents" - don't forget that even though it might seem to you that your ship is God's gift to people interested in working on a new civilization and you are basically giving something free to anyone who want to use your facility, basically what you are still doing is asking of people to contribute freely a lot of their time to you project (and time is a precious commodity, so this is a two way road) - people are also giving you their trust. Building a ship is only half of the work, you still need a crew, even if the idea is that the ship will fill up with all kind of different and unexpected people and transform along the way to snowballs (forgive the mixed metaphor) into something that's greater than the sum of its parts. Well, anyway, this is one vision of NCN. The other vision - and it is a little bit, at times, as if there were two conflicting visions of NCN struggling with each others, here - is that the crew of NCN is EXACTLY what it is supposed to be, doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to do. And while people who join NCN may think they are joining NCN for all the reasons they think they are joining NCN, they have, in fact, and unbeknownst to them, joined NCN to be "educated." NCN "knows" all the answers (hence the "know-it-all atmosphere" which sometimes prevail), and the mission of NCN is to help, quoting something I once read on a thread by one of its members, "change the Worldmind," which take us back to the 1992 quote with which I opened this comment. This is, of course, another vision of NCN, entirely. The latter is tainted with hubris, and might be one of the causes of some of the discomfort some people have experienced with NCN. This is not the vision that is advertised on the Splash page of NCN (but then again, it wouldn't be), and I do not believe it to be at all the vision of the founding father of NCN. 20 Jul 2007 @ 09:53 by jazzolog : NCN As Spaceship I was invited into NCN, and literally led by the hand to Turn To Divine Powers Workgroup, where I lived for a while until I dared venture out to look around. My guide was a representative of another major population in here: those who believe in ascended masters and/or motherships waiting for something on the dark side of the moon. (That person now may make an appearance at the site once every year or 2.) I don't subscribe to such philosophies nor spend any time during my day thinking about them. I didn't know scientology was the seed kernal of this site or I probably never would have joined. What the heck does that word even mean? My 6 years of Latin tell me "scire" means "to know" and my 0 years of Greek define "logos" as "reason." So this is a group that seeks the reason to know anything or maybe purports to be the Reason To Know Everything? Oh well, between the attendants to alien visitors and the remnants of faded scientological dreams, we have the network of the New Civilization. Hmmm, maybe there is very little mystery about an increasing lack of vitality around here. 20 Jul 2007 @ 16:09 by a-d : Is this - - - - - - "gettin' down to the NittyGritty" ? : All fabulous Analysis and the rest of variable Intellectualism presented in the thread here above; the very core on which ALL life on earth (itself) in very real terms depends on, is whether we understand that our own PSYCHE/psychology is NOT "optional" , but always actively at play in every interaction we have; how we relate to other(s lifeforms) outside our own skin. ONLY our true/own Psyche is hard-wired towards LIFE. The false one; our Socio-political Image; the so called Ego; our SELFISH-bully, who lives at-the-expense-of-others is NOT hard-wired towards Life,( but ALWAYS HOPING to survive "one hour longer", because it is AFRAID of the "possible" JUDGEMENT on "the Other Side"! -and for no other reason! This is an important psychological factor that needs to be taken into account since it is in play all the time -in everything we do -or don't! ) The more this kind of selfishness in a person; the more BULLY they are. The more bully; the LESS im-personal/righteous, sticking-to-the- SUBJECT-matter-at-hand these kind of people are capable of being. Hence incapable of discussing, venting, clearing out (possible confusions etc) but the knee-jerk reaction kicks in: "defend-the- perpetrator-and- kick-the-Target's-ass-instead"; (The Age -OLD "Blame The Victim-" Syndrome). In other words: defend those who choose COMPETITION over CO-operation! Defend the bully-type/Competitor vs the Co-operative one! Life IS moving towards ever more humans breaking away from the self- destroying COMPETITOR-("ideology") to ever more CO-operation-type, but the NAME of this site IMPLIES that these latter activities and people are the ones this site is made for. Though, in reality -under Ming's stewardship- this is NOT how NCN works today... not even meant to work... even though pretending to do so! (Ming did NOT START this site originally, I've been told, but took over the site AND with the package came its original idea of being a forum for this NEW emerging civilization). People are mislead to this site, because with its name it advertises itself as being a site for this Cause & Purpose of the New, slowly, but steadily growing in numbers -emerging- Civilization -yet it isn't quite living up to it!(... and under Ming's Stewardship, not even quite meant to, is my conclusion, after my -more or less- four years here!) Why Things are "This Way" (here on NCN), is what we have to see and acknowledge: It is for the same reason as in the World/Western "Civilization" at large: because the old way of being is PARASITICAL in its very core and it NEEDS to steal (the) Life energy from the Co-operative ones! The day that NEW CIVILIZATION Network changes its name to something more TRUTHFUL to its real "temperature" and start calling itself something, that more appropriately would reflect the truth of NCN;s HIDDEN Agendas, it would admit its Parasite status. Of course, this won't happen, because the PARASITE always NEEDS its Host = ENERGY /Food-source -and the parasite won't give give that up voluntarily, will it?! IF there was a web-site with an as easy navigation system as Ming's site (NCN); all the Co-operation /NEW-Civ-Loving People would already have moved over to that site -but in all of the Big Cyber World, there really isn't a site this easy to navigate -and that is the Power and the Strength of Ming's site! But before all is said & done; ALL Problems do have several Solution Options -of which ONE is always of a higher (more Divine ) quality than the rest of them. One of these days, the Divine Solution = most honest/truthfull one, for NCN -as well (as for the World at large) will surface, I am sure! ... : ) 20 Jul 2007 @ 21:34 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : NCN: Emergence and Diversity 1. NCN FAQ: NCN in itself is just an infra-structure, a framework, a space in which connections might form. 2. NCN Intro: NCN is a place where you can find people to work with and where you can share your experiences with others. The way I understand it - the intro makes it very clear - "there's no agenda to NCN as a whole other than to connect THOSE who build a better world" and THOSE are "...quite a diverse group of people with quite different views and beliefs and backgrounds." I personally have no beef with Scientology or the Free Zone or the "Turn To Divine Powers Workgroup" or a-d's personal understanding (above) of what a New Civilization entails. It's all good to me. It might not be all good to everyone, or everyone might not personally be interested in, relate to, or agree with such or such art/philosophy/science/ideology. And that is as it should be. No one, here, is required to get involved in anything that they don't personally relate to or to get involved in something in which they might have but just a peripheral interest. People should be able to get here and run into someone who is, say, an ex-scientologist, and say: "Ah, you are into the scientology tech kind of a stuff, how interesting. Nice to meet you, my name is so and so, and Scientology is not really my cup of tea (or I have but just a passing interest in that kind of stuff.) What I am really interested in is 'Green Technology' or 'creative synthesis' or whathaveyou, and I am hoping to connect with those on NCN who share that interest. Hey, is 'Green Technology' or 'creative synthesis' or whathaveyou something you are interested in?" Likewise no one should be made to feel that in order to join NCN, you have to become part of the "Turn To Divine Powers Workgroup," or any group. More importantly, NCN as a whole should take care of its image - as it is perceived by outsiders and potential members. And no one should get the mistaken impression that NCN is, say, a Scientology Website or a Free Zone Website (and most people don't even know the difference between Cos and Free Zone anyway,) or a "Turn To Divine Powers" website, or whathaveyou. Plain and simple, people interested in NCN should be able to come here and find it "a place where [they] can find people to work with and where [they] can share [their] experiences with others." Unfortunately, and that's what I mean when I speak of the DIVERSITY issue, unless newcomers happen to be interested in, say, "Scientology tech" or the "Turn To Divine Powers" ideology, or whathaveyou, most of the time, they DON'T FIND PEOPLE TO WORK WITH (this has been a major complaint.) And sometimes - and this is not good at all and not in keeping with the image that NCN has been trying to promote - such new members are made unwelcome. Self-organization is all and well, provided you find people to organize with. I have spoken of Scientology, not because I am prejudiced against its followers, or to give Ming a hard time (I think Ming knows better than that) but because, the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard ("he who must not be named") is the elephant in the room. To that regard, NCN has been caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being the Church of Scientology itself because the Cos has a tradition of taking steps to suppress the Free Zone and shut down dissenters when possible, by "all means necessary." The hard place being, on the other hand, the people who do not like or do not trust Scientology (and as I've said somewhere further above, Cos or Free Zone, it's all the same to them.) There are been calls for help, on a couple of occasions, from Ming, mostly for techies or system administrators, and this is a good thing. And I'll come back to that. There has also been people who, spontaneously, have attempted to help NCN by promoting it to outsiders and try to bring in more people in here who might relate to NCN for different reasons so has to plant the seed for a greater diversity from which some kind of emergence could unfold. And this is another good thing. All solutions to NCN shortcomings are not all techies solution. If population is a problem, you need to take steps to maximize NCN exposure to people you think would be a good fit for NCN. Who are those people? How do you find them? How do you approach them? How can NCN be made an attractive place they feel they can join and to which they can contribute? This is where the notion of IMAGE becomes prevalent here!!! Insofar as the techie part is concerned, there are, of course, many other questions to be addressed. Do those people already have a website or are they already part of a network? If so, why would they want to join NCN? How could such websites or networks be dynamically integrated (as opposed as just having a bunch of sites listed on one page) to become part of a greater network of which NCN would be the hub? Again, here, the notion of Trust and Image is an extremely important one!!! So is a clear DESIGN and structure establishing unmistakably, at first site, that META-PARADIGM is the name of the game here. This is how emergence works, it must be embedded in the design, and the concept must jump out to you at first sight that this is what it is. If you must start having texts all over the place explaining what it is, it means your design is not so good. Then if you must further start posting about it on your blog because people do not get it, then you are in trouble. Also, this is one heck of a project to be handled by one person alone. Ming and NCN at large would benefit greatly from having more than one techie in charge. There is help to be found outside of NCN. People who are interested in emergence, and system thinking, etc. (Ming blogs about this all the time, some of his friends and acquaintances blog about it all the time, and some are techies.) A lot of inspiring stuff there. Like this (I practically picked it randomly out of Ming.Tv's Organization category) about User Community: Here are some of the bullet points: - Create something worth building a community around. - Identify and recruit your thunderlizards—immediately! - Create an open system. - Welcome criticism. - Foster discourse. - Publicize the existence of the community. Ultimately the first order of business, it seems to me, would be to put together a team of facilitators who could help lay the kind of ground making possible "the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of [NCN] self-organization in complex systems." (The definition of emergence by Jeffrey Goldstein, from Wikipedia, presented by Ming in this very entry.) And speaking of Emergence and Democracy, emergence is a bottom up process, and I don't think it to good for Ming - no matter how good he might be at what he is doing - to stand all alone by himself here, as an administrator, at the top of such a project, and I can only see some good (for himself, as for NCN,) coming out of bit of brainstorming with qualified techies and like-minded individuals, and system-thinkers working together as a team on all of this, and see what emerges out of it all. I don't know about Ming, but were the roles reversed, I know I would feel lonely up there, all alone by myself. 21 Jul 2007 @ 03:18 by tlingel : Ron Hubbard Legacy? 
"Ron Hubbard believed, and said, that benevolent dictatorship is the best political system, and saw himself as the only natural candidate. His successors possibly suffer from the same conceit." ---Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, Part 9: "Summing Up", Chapter 1: "The Founder" 21 Jul 2007 @ 03:23 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : LOL Is that "Black Hat" thinking, now, or “Red Hat” thinking, Tlingel? Or is that a Yin Yang hat on this irreverent picture of Hubbard? 21 Jul 2007 @ 03:46 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Well... I fear Tlingel might have, no doubt, "intuitively" picked up on the last note of my last comment @ 21:34 which does indeed hint to the possibility (mea maxima culpa) that there might be some contradictions to a network which is designed on and around the concept of bottom-up democracy (a topic dear to NCN's founding father) and yet which remains pretty much under the authority and decision-making of one person only (i.e. autocratic control) when it comes to the design and the administrative control of that network. What I meant by that – in not too subtle kind of a way, apparently, considering what Tlingel has made of it – is that there is there indeed somewhat of a paradox. Yet a dictatorship is not what we have here – not by a long shot - lol - not in my book. Because if Ming were a dictator, well, I wouldn’t even be wasting my time getting involved with any of this. As a matter of fact this thread would not even exist in the first place. And our good friend Tlingel would have been kicked out of NCN for crime of “lese majesty” (an offense or crime committed against the ruler or supreme power of a state), lol. Freedom of expression is actually one of the features that pretty much work rather well on NCN, except that it would work far better if there were a greater diversity and more people to talk around with, instead of just a handful of people – interesting as they might be. Humor, too, has its place on the network (or there was a time when it used to, in any case,) it often does help clear the air by making light of subjects which are in desperate need of being made light of - and Scientology and the Free Zone is definitely one of them ;-) Somewhere above jazzolog justly observed, that in his opinion, “there never has been, in cyberspace anyway, a greater need for people from all over the planet to have a forum in which to share or debate.” I couldn’t agree more. That forum – or the potential for such a forum – is a nice feature of NCN (it shouldn’t be all what NCN aims to be, but if NCN could achieve just that, it would be one great accomplishment.) Jazzolog also says that he come here everyday “...along with the hope the next new member through the winding labyrinth of joining will be another special someone who can withstand it all and stick around!” You know, it shouldn’t have to be that way. Members of NCN shouldn’t have to be “survivors” who did “withstand it all.” Members shouldn’t end up leaving because they feel unwelcome, or “talked-down” to, or because they haven’t found the diversity they were expecting and are disappointed in the so-called network. The elementary magic butterfly doesn’t have to be out of luck. The butterfly should be able to find other butterflies of his or her kind on a NEW CIVILIZATION NETWORK worthy of this name, and “thousands or millions of other species live, and all of them moving around a lot,” so that cross-pollination and all kind of wonderful and unexpected things can happen…and maybe emergence. NCN is not the only place I visit on Cyberspace, there are all kind of diverse and interesting people out there who share in NCN dreams. They are not all “visionaries” or “system thinker” per se, they don’t have to be, what they all have in common is that they care. This is – picked totally randomly – the site of Laura @ llrishel.com I do not know Laura. Yet, I know that she cares. For one thing, she is part of the Peace Corps. Peace Corps member work – often under difficult conditions – on a voluntary basis. They believe in helping to make the world a better place for all and part of their missions is one of promoting understanding. Laura is presently on assignment in Togo. She talks about it on her blog. Now, shouldn’t her blog be part of a New Civilization Network? Wouldn’t the NCN membership (or part of it) be interested in what goes on globally in the world? Wouldn’t you want to hear more about Togo and about what Laura is doing over there. About what different people are doing all over the world? Shouldn’t people all over the world be networking with one another? Shouldn’t NCN be dynamic and welcoming place for them all? 21 Jul 2007 @ 09:52 by jazzolog : Buy A Used Network From This Man? 
If I'm not careful, antics like this will bring Ming into our thread. I think Hanae have been doing brilliantly with their commentary (maybe the name is plural?). 21 Jul 2007 @ 14:22 by a-d : I rest my case! "....Shouldn’t NCN be dynamic and welcoming place for them all?" Isn't that -pretty much- the point I've been making a hundred times about NCN!..... "... I do not know Laura. Yet, I know that she cares. For one thing, she is part of the Peace Corps. Peace Corps member work – often under difficult conditions – on a voluntary basis. They believe in helping to make the world a better place for all and part of their missions is one of promoting understanding. Laura is presently on assignment in Togo. She talks about it on her blog. Now, shouldn’t her blog be part of a New Civilization Network? Wouldn’t the NCN membership (or part of it) be interested in what goes on globally in the world? Wouldn’t you want to hear more about Togo and about what Laura is doing over there. About what different people are doing all over the world? Shouldn’t people all over the world be networking with one another? Shouldn’t NCN be dynamic and welcoming place for them all?" Isn't THAT exactly the ISSUE I've been trying to bring up by discussing WHY it is NOT the case with NCN?! (you co love to take other people's points and make to yours, Hanae! This is NOT the first time you pick my discussions and with some new WORDINGS make them to look as if they originally were your points!... Quite funny -in the way Queen's English uses the word "funny"! Then again; THAT is exactly what so called "Intellectualism"/"being (an) 'Intellectual"' is all about: No OWN Original/New thinking, but taking someone else's ball so to speak -and run with it, as the saying goes! I have also, just to make Things clear, explained/"analysed" WHY this ("... Shouldn’t NCN be dynamic and welcoming place for them all?"" is NOT the case with NCN.... To no avail(have I done so. People's Mental capacities here don't seem to stretch that far as to grasp my simple language about the Human Psyche -or is the scrutiny "Too Close For Comfort"??? I say it ONCE AGAIN: Change the NAME of NCN to LESS deceiving and all will be fine! Let someone else -with more integrity- have the name to start a new site with it and maybe THEY could actualize what NCN only pretends doing or representing; a Forum for the Ones, who indeed truly are all members of the NEW (Spiritual ) Species of Humans; those who are both willing and capable of Co-operation with ea in a Loving atmosphere; to give ALL a chance to pursue their Lives in Peace & Harmony & Abundance of Health and Wellbeing on all fronts; for the Highest Good of ALL Life on Earth! 21 Jul 2007 @ 16:00 by bushman : Hmm, I think most people are already decived if they come to any web network, expecting more than what reality provides. Where a machine may become the central core of a new civilization, it can not be "The New Civilization" People go to Las Vegas to gambal, but thats not the only reason to go to Las Vegas. We could say in its early days, that Las Vegas was a sort of a "New Civilization Network". This is how NCN works, and people cant expect to win the gambal they take, niether good nor bad, till someone decides to just accept some new age diversity and toss out the ones that are here for something else, to have a true reality of diversity, all aspects of human existance must be represented, this includes but not limited too... good,evil, right,wrong, showing emotion, and none at all, being hot or cold or just luke warm, just use Las Vegas as your model. The machine cant pretend. The best place anyone can be on a network, is on middle ground, because its a machine, it only does what you turn the knobs to do, just because your amplifier goes up to 11, dosnt mean that its any louder than an amp that only goes to 10. Its all about the ability of the musician. NCN is like, Woodstock and the Us festival, made into one show, lol. It dosn't need to be "Battle of the bands" but then again, NCN wouldn't be the all encompassing/diverse network that it claims, if it didn't now and then trip into human-ality. :} 22 Jul 2007 @ 02:16 by ming : Origins of NCN Wow, I get busy elsewhere and don't pay attention to my own blog for a few days, and then I run into all this. I need to catch my breath... I'm not going to even attempt to respond to all points raised, but a few key things: Creating a link between NCN and Scientology is somewhat like the kind of work that German journalist did, where he looked my name up on the net, found various things I had been involved in, and linked them all up into an insidious master plan, even though there wasn't much of a link. I used to be a scientologist. I got kicked out 25 years ago and declared a "suppressive" (evil) person. I was later in the Free Zone independent Scientology thing. But I eventually moved on, even though I still have friends who're very into that, and I have nothing bad to say about that. Those "technical essay" writings you picked up on, Hannae, were my process of re-evaluating what I thought I knew, and if you read them all the way through, which I don't necessarily recommend, you'd find that I essentially moved from speaking scientologese into just talking about philosophical principles. I haven't considered myself a scientologist since then. The term "New Civilization" was in part inspired by the "New Civilization Game" thing that Bill Robertson wrote. Bill who was both a top Scientology person, and instrumental in the "Free Zone" movement. And who indeed was one of Hubbard's most loyal supporters. But that's about the end of any Scientology link. None was intended, or desired, on my part, and NCN never particularly appealed to scientologists anyway, Free Zone or not. There are a handful of NCN members who're Free Zone scientologists. But I can't really think of any element of NCN that has anything inherently to do with Scientology beliefs or practice. We share the bold expectation that a group of people can change the world, but that's about all. So, is there any secret inner doctrine here that only a few people are initiated into? Not as far as I'm aware. I've worked hard in the past on laying it all out in the open, creating open dialogue, putting all the cards on the table. But, as Hanae also pointed out, there are some self-contradictory elements in what NCN is, which in my mind is what has stopped it from taking off, and which I personally never succeeded in overcoming. I invented NCN. However, I never ever had in mind that it would be anything I'd be the leader of. And that's kind of where I probably hadn't thought things through all that well. What I wanted was very much a self-organizing bottom-up network where distributed direct democracy would emerge. I optimistically expected that this would happen more or less by itself. What I accomplished was to some degree the "clustering" type of emergence mentioned at the top. I got a lot of people together, and by word of mouth they got other people to join up. And it was a very potent group of people, quite a who's who of leaders of various kinds, activists, non-profit organizers, system thinkers, etc. Which was what I was aiming at. But I had no plan on what to do with them. Because I expected that the main work would be that they would self-organize into teams that would work on different aspects of what a new civilization is and what it needs, and then those teams would cooperate with each other, and bigger things would come out of it. I have written extensively in the past about the various things that went well, and particularly didn't go well about that. The thing was that a functional self-organization didn't magically emerge. So, things kind of fell back to the need for more traditional organization. And, by default, all eyes landed on me, as I somehow would be the likely leader to give a hint on what we all ought to do. For a while that somewhat worked, at a time where I collected news and visions and other items from memebers and distributed them in regular e-mail newsletters. This was before the existence of this website, mind you. And I spent quite some energy on preaching how this really is a self-organizing thing, where anybody can choose something to work on and just go and do it. Some people argued against that, but a lot of people argued with me that it was a sound principle and all was well. However, when it came to it, you of course couldn't just order an effective self-organizing world-changing network into existence just by decreeing it and giving it a pep talk. I was continuously stuck between the vision of anarchic, emergent self-organization and my de facto role as being the guy to lead that. In retrospect, it is a bit of a design flaw. I should have thought about that before. If done a little differently, it could have been done one of two ways: 1. It might simply have been a technological platform, a set of tools for connecting people together. You know, like MySpace, Facebook, or Skype, or the phone system. There's no content imposed on you, no agenda. Nobody's preaching to you about what you ought to say or what you ought to work on. It is simply a set of tools for communicating and organizing yourself. Nobody is rebelling against the agenda of the people in charge of Facebook. One might bitch about the features, one might want different ones, one might leave and go somewhere else. One might use Gmail or Yahoo mail, it doesn't really matter. NCN could have been like that, simply an effective platform for connecting individuals, teams and networks together, to do whatever they chose to do. 2. NCN could have been an organization with a specific aim, a specific agenda, with a group of people working towards it methodically. Amongst the initial people coming together, roles would have been chosen, teams would have been formed, different people would be in charge of different parts. A legal organizational structure would have been chosen. Financing would have been thought. Maybe I'd have ended up being the leader of it, maybe not, if somebody better suited stepped up. But if I were in charge, I'd have handpicked the people who had a similar or complementary vision, and who also were skilled and effective at what they do. And I'd have gotten rid of the people who didn't support the vision. So, if #1 had been the plan, then the initial actions to take would have been technical. Somebody would have developed a suitable platform. Might have been me, or a group of software developers, designers, etc. The aim would have been a very scalable platform that inspired people to communicate and collaborate in ways that weren't possible before. If successful, you might today have been talking about NCN the way one talks about MySpace or Yahoo Groups. Except for that it would have been better, and the world would be a different place because of it. If it had been #2, NCN would today be some kind of NGO, a sort of meta organization, bringing together a think tank of inspired minds in different fields with the infrastructure necessary for taking action on the very best projects that are available. If done well enough, it would be the kind of thing that Warren Buffet or George Soros would leave their fortunes with. NCN became neither. If that's anybody's fault, it is mine, for failing to predict and resolve the basic conflict, which to a large degree is just my own basic conflict. How to bring about an emergent self-organizing phenomenon while being its benevolent dictator. It is of course impossible. It isn't quite self-organizing if anybody has any final say about how it is supposed to be done. It isn't really emergent if you need somebody to inspire you or persuade you into doing it. How do you lead a leaderless group? So, instead of keeping trying to do the impossible, I should probably have chosen one of the two paths there. Is there a way out? I could somehow get inspired to cut through and decide that NCN is one or the other. Or both can happen at the same time, but it is still two different things. The original vision was most like #1. The work done on a New Civilization Foundation was along the lines of #2. I hate being pessimistic, but I'm afraid I think the window of opportunity has closed. It was definitely there at some point, and it was big, really big. But I don't sense it now. So, we're somewhat left with making the best out of what is there at this point. Which isn't bad. But it isn't what it could have been. I can never say that a phoenix won't rise from the ashes. It might, but I personally have little clue how. 22 Jul 2007 @ 10:53 by jazzolog : Plan Vs Reality Hmmm, sounds like an interesting title for a blog entry...but not a particularly attractive way of life in my opinion. OK, what might have been. What I was like then and what I am like now. Is this NCN Anonymous? So where's the hope and strength? What's the dream now? Where's the plan? Where's the wheel? Who's got the rudder? Ming, it seems very simple to me...and I haven't changed my view on this in 5 years. If you say you're going to do something, popular support or no, do it. What drives people crazy is not a dream unfulfilled. It's a promise not kept. You said you were going to redesign at least the look of the site. You had somebody helping you out around LA somewhere. I even saw a mockup of the thing and told you I thought it looked great. Nothing happened...except maybe some personal friction with the kid? I don't know. We've still got the same splash page that looks like the floor of a public restroom. You said you wanted to survey the membership about what we wanted from the site and how we could facilitate all that. You called for volunteers to help you email it all or post it or something. At least 3 people I remember stepped up with enthusiasm. Nothing happened...except a couple of them got so depressed they quit NCN entirely. More recently you promised a member you'd show her the manifestation of her suggestion for a forum. There had been about 50 comments in the thread before you dropped by with that promise. [link] That was in April 2006. Not a peep and no show. I appreciate you take blame and shame upon yourself, but it seems to be with a shrug rather than any real acknowledgement. Your life is your own and apparently so is this site. Most of what some of us have learned about the New Civilization and its network is you do whatever you want. So be it. But these are crocodile tears No one has a clue as to how a phoenix rises from its ashes. That's the wonder of it. But hope plays a part. And a plan based on what's real doesn't hurt. What's real is the need here...and the desire. If you doubt it, read the comments of any new member about why they're joining! 22 Jul 2007 @ 12:02 by ming : Plans and Realities Although it generally is a good thing to do what one says one will do, it is not always as simple as that, particularly when there are groups of people involved and the "how" isn't clear. A forum, yes, I'd like to be responsive to what people want. But my estimation would be that it would turn the member area into a war zone unless it is done right. It would essentially be like a workgroup that everybody's a member of, without any self-selection of who gets along or anything. I can add a forum any day, but I'd be very worried about that. I don't have a solution to how to do a forum in the current setup that is likely to work well for the group dynamics. It is entirely possible that it simply wouldn't be used much, like the "Subjects" areas, that essentially are forums already. But if it is used, it would be more like the chat rooms split into many threads. Some people will have to be moderators. Would it simply be that anybody can add their own forums, just like they can do blogs, and they set their own rules? Probably, but there are many tricky issues there. As to the site re-design, you probably didn't notice, but it would have turned NCN into something like the #1 kind of thing I mentioned above, and the globally shared spaces, like chat rooms, would fade out of existence. That design is focused on the individual, who then would add connections to others, similar to other social networks. That might be better, but it would fundamentally change what NCN is. And I didn't dare make that jump at the time. Plus there were some unresolved technical issues. As NCN already is good evidence of, design elements that intitially seem tiny and insignificant will grow and take a life of their own over time. Any seed planted has a certain DNA. Some turn into weeds, some turn into forests. 22 Jul 2007 @ 15:16 by istvan : The spaces betwean things. Self emergence was and still is the basic idea that you cherish and fascinated by it’s apparent incidences as magical happenings presented in a seemingly chaotic universe. The results of my personal studies/experiences with the basic question of “What is this all about Alfie” (life is you like) is that there is no such happening as “Self Emergence”. Everything and anything happening in all nukes and corners of the Universe manifests only as and according to a basic law, not yet fully understood/comprehended by the human mind, that governs/directs manifestation (the observable), can only create what is possible in any instance of what we perceive as time. ”Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.” From The Kybalion. One example: The whole Universe is predatory in its basic nature; as galaxies swirl displaying their spectacular light shows in essence they are consuming each other’s material reserves, not for the display of fireworks, but to achieve an orgasmic state we know as Energy. Than LIFE appears and low and behold it follows the same pattern. Dog eats dog. And humans appear and consume anything consumable to collect energy for a better Orgasms. Than intelligence appears. This intelligence starts wondering and begins to feel, according to its visions/ understandings, that life is actually well enough to be happy sometimes, but something is not quite right and according to it’s new powers of cognition begins to desire other ways/states of being that is not wholly based on predatory principles, but a transcendent form of being that vibrate beyond the elemental laws of manifestation of observable only by the senses. Thus appears philosophy, religiousness, ideas for new civilizations, etc. Opinions for century after century pour out of human minds like lava from an overburdened volcano suggesting how to transcend the elemental, ,but no one listens. In the meantime. as intelligence deepens, it becomes more and more painful to experience the e old ways, the predatory elementalism, that that no longer serves the vibrations perceived by this deepened intelligence we are evolving toward, could be called GRACE, that has to be allowed to descend and be allowed to transform the elemental toward finer vibrations of being where the” predatory” is no longer the LAW.. Here the idea of GOD becomes reality. OSHO used o try to explain that “MAN”(no gender applied), is an unfinished product, hovering somewhere between the present animal and the idea of god, living in confusion as to how to apply the faint voices of the spirit and synchronize its animal (elemental) nature to create a new world conducive to living in harmony, so as to manifest “EXTASY”(not the drug induced, but permanent), SATORY that can be experienced and lived. The ideas of NEW CIVILIZATIONS arise from the pain of the spirit by the elemental contaminants within the shells of individual beings that we create as sovereign/individual entities within the apparent chaos of the Universe. T To ease the pain these contaminants cause, like the oyster crates pearls around grains of sand, we crate ideas. Each attempt of intelligence to -create and evolve- is such a pearl to ease the pain of the spirit to feel more comfortable until such time as living in a shell is no linger necessary, because the environment is no longer predatory and now totally supports “Live and let Live”. Until than, we like to share our pearls crated by the pain of not being able function fully according to our potentials/possibilities also presented within the UNIVERSE (equally with the limitations). I say throw these pearls freely to the pigs, as many as you can muster, in fact feed the pigs only pearls. I guarantee they will quickly disappear to search for more nourishing condiments. If you are attached to your pearls you can always retrieve them from the detritus, they can not be digested by the pigs. Ming, you have the facility(NCN) and the material(Holo World and the ideas/desires of the members} to Revitalize NCN to serve the path toward a new civilization if you would only heed Sengstan’s advice “Do not search for the truth, only cease to cherish opinions.” You, yourself expressed the problems often, Just one example from of your entries is: “Why am I complaining? It is funny how different environments inspire different kinds of communication. Like, here in this news log thing, it seems like I'm most inclined to write about day-to-day annoyances I have, rather than deep philosophical visions about new civilizations. Well, maybe because I need an outlet for complaining about things, maybe because I feel less of an obligation here to write something inspiring. Or maybe one just goes through different phases. In those periods where I keep a personal journal (on paper) it also changes quite a bit what I put in it. Sometimes my dreams when I wake up; sometimes philosophical ideas, or realizations about how something works; sometimes personal longings I'd have trouble sharing in othe r formats.”-Ming Hear the spirit and all is WELL. 22 Jul 2007 @ 16:54 by ming : Making things happen There's clearly a conflict between the common human tendency to set a goal and then go try make it happen, and everything that works more by emergence, or by law we could say. I agree with you that everything that appears to be chance is merely law that isn't visible. Sometimes certain things are possible, sometimes they aren't. We might assign imaginary causes to try to explain it. I wasn't focused enough, the force wasn't with me, etc. Whereas sometimes it is simply a question of the right thing at the right time. And whether it is the right time or not might depend on factors we don't understand. Although, intuitively, we might be plugged into something that tells us, whether we intellectually understand or not. Can one set out to purposefully create an emergent self-organizing bottom-up environment in a goal-oriented we-can-do-it kind of way? The folly in attempting to do that could be said to be somewhat humorous. Well-executed plans don't really go well with emergence. You can't both allow things to be whatever they are, and at the same time insist that they are a certain way. We can dream of a civilization where everything is harmonious, where things get sorted out all by themselves, good things just happen naturally, and we all work together to do great things. But can one go ahead and construct such a thing, like we'd construct a company or a bridge? Probably not. And if it is something that needs to emerge by itself, how do we relate to that? Do we just pay no attention, and act surprised when it emerges, or is there something we should do to help it along? These kinds of questions, conundrums, paradoxes are inherently interwoven with the idea of creating a new civilization. What part do you construct, what part do you just let grow wild? How do you organize something that will organize itself? 22 Jul 2007 @ 18:55 by jazzolog : How About if you reply very kindly at someone's NCN Log that you are going to do something in response to an idea--- and then change your mind through whatever out-there or in-here contortions may "emerge"--- you go back to that beautiful soul's Log and say so and explain it? Do you owe anything to your members? 22 Jul 2007 @ 19:17 by ming : Doing what you promise I don't necessarily owe anything, but I'd easily feel like I do. So, I do my best to be responsive to what features people want. And if that's straightforward, no problem. But there's the kind of problems that involve a process of firt finding a good solution. In that case, I can't just promise that I'll solve it, because I don't really know. I might optimistically state that we'll figure it out, but sometimes I'm wrong. Yes, of course it would be good communication and good manners to stay on top of it, and explain why if something turns out to be more difficult than expected. I have probably failed in that regard on various threads, like the discussion of creating forums, which I haven't looked in on for a long time. 22 Jul 2007 @ 19:29 by istvan : to solve this [ [link] ] 22 Jul 2007 @ 20:03 by Hanae @71.165.180.193 : Complementary Visions I very much resonate with Ming’s analysis @ 22 Jul 2007 @ 02:16 and I like the #1 vs. #2 vision. I do not think that NCN should be one or the other. I personally believe that #1 and #2 can – and I would even say SHOULD probably - happen at the same time (in a first stage.) Somewhere hereBreathing with the Mind Uncle Remus made the following point: "Unless the freshness and spontaneity of process is kept alive in the moment now, it can eventually turn full cycle and our effort achieves the opposite of our intentions." Somewhere along, Remus also referred to NCN as being – amongst other things – “a creative medium to bounce ideas." I like that description. One of my comments there was that “if you fill a bag with jewels and knives, with nails and coins, with poison and ale, you never know what you will pull out when you are in need. What you find could hurt, what you find can help. It is very much like calling out the spirits of the Fae and asking them for help. Some help, some don't, that is always their way…” And so it is with emergence. Coming back to the diversity issue, those were Uncle Remus exact words: “For myself, I have been enjoying NCN as a creative place for me to bounce ideas back and forth, I am often not sure myself how a post that I begin is going to end, there is a sort of dialogue going on, mostly with myself---and with others too, when I am so lucky (although I don’t mind talking to myself, the benefit of such networks as NCN is that supposedly one should be able to communicate with others who share similar interests as one does.) One of the dimensions of NCN I like is its think tank quality, and think tanks work best when the diversity is great, and, well, that is maybe the part where the many gated, multi-dimensional ambition of NCN still leaves a lot to be desired. I think that typically, newbies expect that they will start posting and that people who share their interest will come up, and that they will be able to connect and, possibly work with some of the people they have thus met. More often than not, however, the diversity of the NCN active membership is not such that things will always end up working that way----unless one invests a lot of time and energy inviting the diversity in - i.e. invite people who share their interest to join NCN too and use the facilities to work with them on a given project. The thing is, most such groups tend to already have their own network on the internet and it is a hard sale to try and convince them that they should join NCN. In a way, it is a shame, because it is my conviction that if a way could be found to invite enough such “self sufficient” groups on NCN (which would address the excessive dependency on the currently overly stretched active membership for feedbacks and participation,) such groups and their members would eventually find reasons to interact with each other and turn the network into a bigger more optimally functioning NCN.” There was also here (At Play in the (fractal) Fields of NCN - July 2002 – My! how time flies), this entry by Quidnovi. The diversity issue, here again: “I don't think that NCN is a tool of indoctrination (or counter-indoctrination) or about "simplifying diversity" and though I thoroughly enjoyed Scott's powerful piece on that theme (a lot of interesting things there---I liked the bit about the Sun), I do not believe that it's about "demystifying" NCN's language either (I don't think it's enforceable on this Network, nor would all people care about that). NCN is essentially about what Shakti_ma referred to as FREEFLOW. Which means to me that EVERYTHING GOES! And with that inherently comes a great deal of complexity. I see NCN as an ECHO CHAMBER into which resonates that multi-layered fractal experiment, Richard was talking about, and through which we sometimes almost can glance, fugitively, an image of the UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (i.e. the future or what we could make it). I think that phenomenon could be and should be amplified. We could read a better and more complex image. It all depends on the multiplicity and the quality of the people who join NCN and will be joining NCN in the future.” And perception: “Perception is all. One suggestion I made was that we try to reinforce the META-PARADIGMATIC nature of NCN. It would include making it CLEAR, right off the bat, on NCN's greeting page, that there is a proliferating variety of terminologies, concepts, models, theories, and disciplines going on here, and that they are all part of NCN and that all are welcome!!! Let's acknowledge our intellectual divergences and the weirdness and the quirkiness too (it comes with the territory) and publicly recognize them as part of what NCN is all about (creativity and open mindedness.) Anything that reinforces the idea that not all fruits are oranges and makes it clear that joining NCN is not necessarily an endorsement of any particular movement or school of thought. Not all fruit are oranges, nor does joining NCN make an orange out of anyone.” And Site Redesign: Consider this: Ming (in some of his comments on the present thread) makes some very good points: 1. “The ‘Subjects’ areas, that essentially are forums already” are not used much. 2. Turning the member area into a war Zone: …. not so good a thing. 3. The globally shared spaces, like chat rooms, fading out of existence: ….not so good either (we definitely don’t want that.) One of the ideas presented on Quidnovi was: 
“…the possible introduction of a subdivision into both the Newslog and the Member News on NCN's greeting page. It could be done in a cute way. i.e.: a picture of a room with a spiraling series of doors. Each door a different entryway. Like "here we all are rationalist-objectivists" (or whatever) or "here we believe in magic" or "here we don't believe in magic" or "here we don't care what we believe in", or (my favorite) "here we don't know what we are talking about." Each door would open to different sub-groupings of the Newslog in which would only be listed the posts of people who share the same paradigms (and with a possibility for crossover for those who feel they belong to more than one school of thoughts.) For people who do not share such concerns they still could all just list their journal in the Newslog such as it exists now and which would be accessible through the door that says, of course, "Here we don't care what we believe in." ”Myself, I would probably feel at home behind the door that says, "here we don't know what we are talking about" but then again I can understand the so-called rationalist-objectivist who would feel more comfortable introducing friends and colleagues to NCN and would be more at ease referring them to his/her journal if it belonged to a Newslog where there is no talk of magic. Conversely, the magic believers (of which, I fear, I am) might occasionally enjoy the possibility of just stepping from time to time through a door where they know the rationalist-objectivists fear to tread and won't come and bug them. Furthermore, this typology would serve to stress that NCN recognizes the existence of distinct orientations or predispositions in human thoughts, while at the same time emphasizing NCN's purpose to pull together and juxtapose diverse views and strands of thoughts into a wider meta-paradigmatic approach to our world and its problems.” Not very technical, of course (no offense to Quidnovi) and I can see some potential complications around the implementation of such a design or something in that direction, and I am sure that Ming, who has probably far more experience in that domain than anyone else here, will be prompt in spotting some of the potential issues. BUT, you know, issues are things we work around. They are part of what makes life interesting. And part of what makes (or used to make) such projects as NCN interesting. Coming back to Ming’s points, the interest of a spiraling series of door entryway as a splash page is that: Point 1: It could help revitalize the development of a subject-oriented forums Point 2 and 3: It would diffuse the potential for the member area to turn into a war zone: I can see how, insofar as any given member’s blog is concerned, any blog, depending on the member’s interest, could be ubiquitously present and accessible behind a great number of doors, or just be present behind one door only, depending how such or such member feels about it. Any given members, could, if they so choose, just have their blog accessible behind the door that says “here anything goes” (which would basically be the equivalent of the current Newslog as it is now set up on NCN.) Coming back to the “more active and forceful personalities” of which jazzolog was speaking, it could prove a helpful tool for those who are turned off (and sometimes turned away from NCN) by some of the rude behavior of some of those members who want to talk about one issue and one issue only, or who want to impose their one “truth” or paradigm of what the world is or what NCN is about on everyone and cross-post rabidly and aggressively everywhere they can and often regardless of the subject-matter in a way that sometimes borders on harassment. This could come handy in promoting a space in which members who have different visions of NCN could work alongside each other – and know that it is alright – and sometimes, hopefully, interact with one another, and find out that NCN is neither this or |
12 Jul 2007 @ 22:53, by Flemming Funch