What do you say about this, PopIndies?

It is an illusion that it is possible for all things to be transparent and open, and trying to make that happen is a recipe for chaos and intrigue. People will always communicate privately with each other. If there isn't a format for doing that, they will sneak, conspire and maneuver, or even if well-intentioned, feel that they are.

When everything is wide open, only the worst intentioned people will communicate secretly and they will be the only ones effective at influencing the group. No worthwhile endeavor, no relationship, no community, no project, no organization could ever function if everything were fully visible to all, including random passers-by. A free for all is a playground for bullies and hit and run artists.

On a related note, I think we should know who has the "hammer" and how and when it will be used.

On another related note, when disputes arise I think we should have an agreed upon procedure for handling them.

Wide opeen environments perfectly suit - and only serve - the bully, the predator, the tyrant. "Hey, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear."

Didn't read closely enough. Wanted to keep the old forums alive for private use and didn't see that choice #3 would serve. To be honest, I don't what administration entails.

Needless to say (I suppose), I think that, while conversations by government functionaries can never be too visible to or accessible by those who will have to put up with the results, the same is not true of conversations by ordinary people.

The laws of entropy, if nothing else, guarantee that creation is always orders of magnitude more difficult than destruction. So if we're trying to create something, which I suppose we are, then we're fools if we don't guard potentially-productive conversations from being snooped by destructive forces. Conversations where we're just rabbiting on about nothing of strategic or tactical substance, fine, they can be as public as anyone wants them to be. But working conversations? If they're to be exposed too, then I'll have a wee sittie on the sidelines and watch.

Needless to say (I suppose), I think that, while conversations by government functionaries can never be too visible to or accessible by those who will have to put up with the results, the same is not true of conversations by ordinary people.

I suppose that begs further exposition on what the various folks view as the project.

Perhaps naively, I have thought the project was above all a pragmatic experiment in creating an open environment run by its participants in the most transparent, non-authoritarian way possible. A place without private property.

Needless to say (I suppose), I think that, while conversations by government functionaries can never be too visible to or accessible by those who will have to put up with the results, the same is not true of conversations by ordinary people.

I suppose that begs further exposition on what the various folks view as the project.

Perhaps naively, I have thought the project was above all a pragmatic experiment in creating an open environment run by its participants in the most transparent, non-authoritarian way possible. A place without private property.

Are we living in a time and place where it's possible to do that and also do serious work? Recall Orwell's comment about Gandhiji: Gandhiji's passive non-violence worked ONLY because his opponent was Britain, whose people had a big investment in being seen as fair and ethical, and as anti-authoritarians who could be counted on to take the side of the underdog. So on that level he had the entire British population as his allies. Had he tried the same thing against the Nazis, he'd have been dead within a week because the Germans' national self-image was as practical, disciplined people who could be relied on to obey their leaders.

My sense is that USA 2007 is more like Germany 1937 than like Britain 1947. We can indeed do an environment that's open, etc. But I don't think we can do substantive work. But maybe I'm all wet and substantive work isn't the point? Maybe doing a toy environment is sufficient?

Or maybe the definition of 'private property' is broken? How many people must share something before it stops being 'private' property? Flip the so-called 'tragedy of the commons' on its head: the original formulation disingenously ignored all the social factors that prevent community members from unfairly exploiting common resources for personal benefit. But outsiders have no similar constraints or commitment to the continued health of the community. They're free to destructively exploit the community's resources as much as they like. Unless the community prevents them. How healthy is it for a community to allow itself to be exploited that way in the name of openness? Whose interests are being served?

I'm invested in change, and in seeing to it that government will be totally open and a servant rather than a master, but we're not government. So I have no commitment to living in a glass house here. Your mileage may differ :)

My sense is that USA 2007 is more like Germany 1937 than like Britain 1947. We can indeed do an environment that's open, etc. But I don't think we can do substantive work. But maybe I'm all wet and substantive work isn't the point? Maybe doing a toy environment is sufficient?

I'm invested in change, and in seeing to it that government will be totally open and a servant rather than a master, but we're not government. So I have no commitment to living in a glass house here. Your mileage may differ :)

I think a 'toy environment' is substantive work. Perhaps as substantive as a wee little teaching field could be.

I think a 'toy environment' is substantive work. Perhaps as substantive as a wee little teaching field could be.
I'm happy to acknowledge that I might have completely missed the point of the exercise. But I don't know where to go with that. Would you want me to say 'oops, sorry, wrong pew' and head out the door, or what?

I think a 'toy environment' is substantive work. Perhaps as substantive as a wee little teaching field could be.
I'm happy to acknowledge that I might have completely missed the point of the exercise. But I don't know where to go with that. Would you want me to say 'oops, sorry, wrong pew' and head out the door, or what?

Of course not. I suppose each among us have different reasons to be here. I am here to learn more than claim any realistic chance of affecting real change. For me, it's the basics.

I don't think there can be any more -real- outcome of this discussion than to create it in the image we would see society. To me, an insider group is Thermidorian and thus a bit more than wee off-base.

I think a 'toy environment' is substantive work. Perhaps as substantive as a wee little teaching field could be.
I'm happy to acknowledge that I might have completely missed the point of the exercise. But I don't know where to go with that. Would you want me to say 'oops, sorry, wrong pew' and head out the door, or what?

Of course not. I suppose each among us have different reasons to be here. I am here to learn more than claim any realistic chance of affecting real change. For me, it's the basics.

I don't think there can be any more -real- outcome of this discussion than to create it in the image we would see society. To me, an insider group is Thermidorian and thus a bit more than wee off-base.

My 4.5 ton air conditioner is called a Thermidor

Perhaps naively, I have thought the project was above all a pragmatic experiment in creating an open environment run by its participants in the most transparent, non-authoritarian way possible. A place without private property.
Ah, that hadn't occurred to me. A virtual commune - an experimental community - as it were. Thanks for explaining that.

That was probably the farthest thing from my mind, FWIW - maybe even the exact opposite of what I had envisioned.

I don't think there can be any more -real- outcome of this discussion than to create it in the image we would see society.
The possibility of real outcome is my only interest.

There are real political outcomes from every offline everyday conversation I have, and from everything I do offline. It is odd, and a feature of our times I think, that it is only in the activist community, and especially when using the most powerful political tool ever, that the people have no expectation whatsoever of real outcomes.


To me, an insider group is Thermidorian and thus a bit more than wee off-base.

Theory without practical application is futile. Practical application without theory is fatal. As with so many things - and again I think this may be a feature of our times - we can only imagine things in dualities. It is either theory or pragmatism for us. Choose one. If one side of the two imagined choices is found wanting, then we swing way over to the other side. This leads to odd phenomenon, for example people who promote and proselytize for atheism with a zeal and doctrinaire certainty that would make a fundamentalist blush, and head off on a frantic and single-minded crusade to convert people to "the truth" and away from their spiritual errors and to redeem a fallen and corrupted human race. That would be the "not religion" position on "the issue," don't you know?

My 4.5 ton air conditioner is called a Thermidor

No doubt it cools your revolutionary passions...

Thermidor - The name of the eleventh month in the calendar adopted by the French Revolution. On the ninth of Thermidor (July 27) in 1794, Robespierre, a Jacobin, was overthrown - starting shifts to the right in the government that opened the way for Bonaparte and the destruction of the First Republic. Trotsky often compared the policies of Stalinism with the Thermidorian reaction.

Problem is I have seen this abused repeatedly.

People can't help themselves.

Problem is I have seen this abused repeatedly.

People can't help themselves.

Let’s begin with what I call the “Cookie Monster Experiment,” devised to test the hypothesis that power makes people stupid and insensitive — or, as the scientists at the University of California at Berkeley put it, “disinhibited.”

Researchers led by the psychologist Dacher Keltner took groups of three ordinary volunteers and randomly put one of them in charge. Each trio had a half-hour to work through a boring social survey. Then a researcher came in and left a plateful of precisely five cookies. Care to guess which volunteer typically grabbed an extra cookie? The volunteer who had randomly been assigned the power role was also more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table.

It reminded the researchers of powerful people they had known in real life. One of them, for instance, had attended meetings with a magazine mogul who ate raw onions and slugged vodka from the bottle, but failed to share these amuse-bouches with his guests. Another had been through an oral exam for his doctorate at which one faculty member not only picked his ear wax, but held it up to dandle lovingly in the light.

As stupid behaviors go, none of this is in a class with slamming somebody else’s Ferrari into a concrete wall. But science advances by tiny steps.

The researchers went on to theorize that getting power causes people to focus so keenly on the potential rewards, like money, sex, public acclaim or an extra chocolate-chip cookie — not necessarily in that order, or frankly, any order at all, but preferably all at once — that they become oblivious to the people around them.

Indeed, the people around them may abet this process, since they are often subordinates intent on keeping the boss happy. So for the boss, it starts to look like a world in which the traffic lights are always green (and damn the pedestrians). Professor Keltner and his fellow researchers describe it as an instance of “approach/inhibition theory” in action: As power increases, it fires up the behavioral approach system and shuts down behavioral inhibition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opini ... ae&ei=5070 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04conniff.html?em&ex=1176091200&en=ca732a661ba71aae&ei=5070)

methinks you're right, Raph

You could always do this experiment as a separate subset of the main board activity.

As far as the model for operating the board, I didn't see the choice as being between a dictatorship versus a free-for-all, nor did I imagine some new avant garde experimental model, either. I was thinking of a democratic republic as a model.

People talk about the problems on boards as though they were inevitable, or somehow the product of human nature, or something unique to the Internet, but I think in the real world you would have the same problems if you ran institutions, or meetings the way that boards are run. If the choice is between a dictatorship or a free-for-all, I vote dictatorship - given that members are free to leave.

I really believe that 30-40 years ago if people had been setting up boards like this, the old traditional models of writing and using a constitution and a charter, of representative democracy, of a democratic republic, with rules of order, protections of individual rights with protection for the group from disruptors would have been the first model that came to mind, not the last.

You could always do this experiment as a separate subset of the main board activity.

As far as the model for operating the board, I didn't see the choice as being between a dictatorship versus a free-for-all, nor did I imagine some new avant garde experimental model, either. I was thinking of a democratic republic as a model.

People talk about the problems on boards as though they were inevitable, or somehow the product of human nature, or something unique to the Internet, but I think in the real world you would have the same problems if you ran institutions, or meetings the way that boards are run. If the choice is between a dictatorship or a free-for-all, I vote dictatorship - given that members are free to leave.

I really believe that 30-40 years ago if people had been setting up boards like this, the old traditional models of writing and using a constitution and a charter, of representative democracy, of a democratic republic, with rules of order, protections of individual rights with protection for the group from disruptors would have been the first model that came to mind, not the last.

And yet all of my grousing about pursuing a model of deliberative democracy met with not one relevant comment from you. Until now.

Interesting, this thing we call communication online...

And yet all of my grousing about pursuing a model of deliberative democracy met with not one relevant comment from you. Until now.

Interesting, this thing we call communication online...
Very interesting. I thought you meant deliberative democracy as a way to administer the board, not as what the board itself should be an experiment in. I saw it as implicit in deliberative democracy that institutions needed to be set up to foster it, and that you can't just let 'er rip and hope for the best. Also, people first have to understand it, and buy into it and agree to play by those rules, no? We had yet to discuss how to structure things to foster deliberative democracy, and welcoming in all comers and doing everything in public view with no qualifications would seem to preclude deliberative democracy from ever breaking out, wouldn't it?

I really believe that 30-40 years ago if people had been setting up boards like this, the old traditional models of writing and using a constitution and a charter, of representative democracy, of a democratic republic, with rules of order, protections of individual rights with protection for the group from disruptors would have been the first model that came to mind, not the last.
Believe it or not, Mike, the model used was the same as today: autocracy. I can say that with authority because I was there, and was flatteringly often invited to be the/an autocrat. Years later I tried to institute democracy, with my role becoming that of a mere functionary. But people weren't interested--they were happy to let me exercise all the power however I saw fit. That was a real lesson to me, but one I'm still worriedly struggling to understand more than 20 years on.

I have doubts that on-line communications can provide a 100% accurate model of real life communications. Facial expression, tone of voice, body english, perhaps even pheromones all contribuite to human face to face communications. Witness the assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks that we have had here, a community no larger than a hunter/gather band and in general agreement on 90% of that which brings us together. I don't believe that the animosity would have gotten so intense had we been in each other's presence.

This is not to say that I consider online-communications to be futile, it is very useful, more than telegraph, which was useful in itself. But it is not to be mistaken for the "real thing", people talking directly to people, which must be the bedrock basis of democracy. Models can be useful, enlightening, but should not be mistaken for the real world. This is certainly a problem in the biological science with which I am famaliar.

Rusty, I'm curious about your take on this in relation to your recent gathering with the PI gang in DC.

I have doubts that on-line communications can provide a 100% accurate model of real life communications. Facial expression, tone of voice, body english, perhaps even pheromones all contribuite to human face to face communications. Witness the assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks that we have had here, a community no larger than a hunter/gather band and in general agreement on 90% of that which brings us together. I don't believe that the animosity would have gotten so intense had we been in each other's presence.

This is not to say that I consider online-communications to be futile, it is very useful, more than telegraph, which was useful in itself. But it is not to be mistaken for the "real thing", people talking directly to people, which must be the bedrock basis of democracy. Models can be useful, enlightening, but should not be mistaken for the real world. This is certainly a problem in the biological science with which I am famaliar.

But why would we want a 100% accurate replication of real-life communications? Is something being sacrificed to produce that smoother, more toned-down RL conversation? We know, for example, that A and B are willing to say things behind C's back that they would never say to C's face. So why is face-to-face comm considered the ideal, when it's apparently less honest?

I have doubts that on-line communications can provide a 100% accurate model of real life communications. Facial expression, tone of voice, body english, perhaps even pheromones all contribuite to human face to face communications. Witness the assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks that we have had here, a community no larger than a hunter/gather band and in general agreement on 90% of that which brings us together. I don't believe that the animosity would have gotten so intense had we been in each other's presence.

Funny, because just last night I was reading a bunch of correspondence between the US and Britain from the 1860's. Not only did they have all of the handicaps you mention above, there was also a pretty significant delay back and forth.

And yet all of my grousing about pursuing a model of deliberative democracy met with not one relevant comment from you. Until now.

Interesting, this thing we call communication online...
Very interesting. I thought you meant deliberative democracy as a way to administer the board, not as what the board itself should be an experiment in. I saw it as implicit in deliberative democracy that institutions needed to be set up to foster it, and that you can't just let 'er rip and hope for the best. Also, people first have to understand it, and buy into it and agree to play by those rules, no? We had yet to discuss how to structure things to foster deliberative democracy, and welcoming in all comers and doing everything in public view with no qualifications would seem to preclude deliberative democracy from ever breaking out, wouldn't it?

Not to me, not so long as the qualifications were on the -method- of dialogue rather than its content or allowed participants.

I really believe that 30-40 years ago if people had been setting up boards like this, the old traditional models of writing and using a constitution and a charter, of representative democracy, of a democratic republic, with rules of order, protections of individual rights with protection for the group from disruptors would have been the first model that came to mind, not the last.
Believe it or not, Mike, the model used was the same as today: autocracy. I can say that with authority because I was there, and was flatteringly often invited to be the/an autocrat. Years later I tried to institute democracy, with my role becoming that of a mere functionary. But people weren't interested--they were happy to let me exercise all the power however I saw fit. That was a real lesson to me, but one I'm still worriedly struggling to understand more than 20 years on.

People prefer to be led. It leaves over calories to be spend on frivolity in the sort of abundant societies that rightly demand citizen participation in governance.

I have doubts that on-line communications can provide a 100% accurate model of real life communications. Facial expression, tone of voice, body english, perhaps even pheromones all contribuite to human face to face communications. Witness the assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks that we have had here, a community no larger than a hunter/gather band and in general agreement on 90% of that which brings us together. I don't believe that the animosity would have gotten so intense had we been in each other's presence.

This is not to say that I consider online-communications to be futile, it is very useful, more than telegraph, which was useful in itself. But it is not to be mistaken for the "real thing", people talking directly to people, which must be the bedrock basis of democracy. Models can be useful, enlightening, but should not be mistaken for the real world. This is certainly a problem in the biological science with which I am famaliar.

Rusty, I'm curious about your take on this in relation to your recent gathering with the PI gang in DC.

"assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks"

Shall I start a poll to rename the old, private threads the 'assorted trainwrecks and lesser clusterfucks' area :) ?

Ya know, it was interesting to meet some folks I'd long chatted online with in the real world of DC. It was at once weird to be so comfortable with people whom I also felt that I had so much more to learn about and from. Undoubtedly, the absence of real life cues is enormous in getting to really ~know one another. This is not to say that a meaningful, and largely accurate dialogue sans the real life non-verbal things, etc., cannot be had. It seems clear to me it can. But yeah, it was powerful to hang flesh on the people who had none for me prior. Especially interesting was how much it added to knowing them and yet, at once, how little difference it made in 'getting' to the core of the mystery that makes another, well, another...

Long story short, no big surprises about anyone here - save perhaps Clamor's truly disarming, unbridled, and ongoing joie de vivre. No reason to feel shitty just because the planet is on fire! As he put it,

whatatimewehad.

Believe it or not, Mike, the model used was the same as today: autocracy. I can say that with authority because I was there, and was flatteringly often invited to be the/an autocrat. Years later I tried to institute democracy, with my role becoming that of a mere functionary. But people weren't interested--they were happy to let me exercise all the power however I saw fit. That was a real lesson to me, but one I'm still worriedly struggling to understand more than 20 years on.

I wonder when that changed? Going back to the Civil War the soldiers elected their own officers, so at least that far back people were thinking in terms of setting up democracy within organizations, even in the military. How successful that was, or what precise form it took varied, but people were reaching for that model as the first resort. When I was younger, every sort of organization from the Rotary Club to the local Dem HQ, to the High School madrigal troupe to the model railroad club, and all of the farm organizations, set up rules of order for meetings and some sort of representative democracy.

But why would we want a 100% accurate replication of real-life communications? Is something being sacrificed to produce that smoother, more toned-down RL conversation? We know, for example, that A and B are willing to say things behind C's back that they would never say to C's face. So why is face-to-face comm considered the ideal, when it's apparently less honest?

Of course, people will lie, whatever means of communications are used. Face to face communications employs the full range of human communications, not just the symbolic(language). Leave aside deliberate deception, which may be either more easily detected or artfully elaborated in the face to face. If we're lying to each other it's all for naught. I don't think that's been the case around here. Rather I think that there has been a good bit of misunderstanding, miscommunications, which would have been more easily resolved if we were face to face and able to employ that nuance and empathy natural to us.

I realize that I'm in the midst of a number of internet veterans, who may have strong feeling about this. :) A relative newbie myself(5 years), my lack of communication skill might prejudice my opinion. :oops:

But why would we want a 100% accurate replication of real-life communications? Is something being sacrificed to produce that smoother, more toned-down RL conversation? We know, for example, that A and B are willing to say things behind C's back that they would never say to C's face. So why is face-to-face comm considered the ideal, when it's apparently less honest?

Of course, people will lie, whatever means of communications are used. Face to face communications employs the full range of human communications, not just the symbolic(language). Leave aside deliberate deception, which may be either more easily detected or artfully elaborated in the face to face. If we're lying to each other it's all for naught. I don't think that's been the case around here. Rather I think that there has been a good bit of misunderstanding, miscommunications, which would have been more easily resolved if we were face to face and able to employ that nuance and empathy natural to us.

I realize that I'm in the midst of a number of internet veterans, who may have strong feeling about this. :) A relative newbie myself(5 years), my lack of communication skill might prejudice my opinion. :oops:

hmmm...I think my question, evidently not communicated very well! :mrgreen:, might have been whether face-to-face communication makes people unwilling to be open about their views. I don't see that as being "lying", exactly (i.e., it doesn't involve telling an untruth), although I suppose it is on some level (lying-by-omission) if there's a shared expectation that nothing will be held back. But how often do we have such an expectation, face to face?

Believe it or not, Mike, the model used was the same as today: autocracy. I can say that with authority because I was there, and was flatteringly often invited to be the/an autocrat. Years later I tried to institute democracy, with my role becoming that of a mere functionary. But people weren't interested--they were happy to let me exercise all the power however I saw fit. That was a real lesson to me, but one I'm still worriedly struggling to understand more than 20 years on.

I wonder when that changed? Going back to the Civil War the soldiers elected their own officers, so at least that far back people were thinking in terms of setting up democracy within organizations, even in the military. How successful that was, or what precise form it took varied, but people were reaching for that model as the first resort. When I was younger, every sort of organization from the Rotary Club to the local Dem HQ, to the High School madrigal troupe to the model railroad club, and all of the farm organizations, set up rules of order for meetings and some sort of representative democracy.

I wonder, too. Rusty's point about people wanting to be led certainly seems true for some people at least. In the environment where I tried to institute democracy, the community I started was the first of its kind, but several others sprang up very soon afterwards. Some of them were shockingly authoritarian, and from the disparaging remarks made, I got the strong feeling that their members might have committed mass seppuku rather than invite anyone like me to be their autarch. They liked the authoritarian environment provided by their autocrats. As far as they were concerned, that's exactly how things should work! As I said, I still don't understand it, and it worries me that perhaps that kind of thinking is an inbuilt trait cluster rather than being a socialisation product.

A few years ago, I came across Temple Grandin's interesting research. If you're not familiar with her work, she has both autism and a phd in animal science, and is the designer of less-awful abattoir systems. She determined that non-humans about to be killed are well aware that something bad is about to be done to them, and they feel real terror in the chute to the abattoir (if there were no other reason for me to be a vegetarian, that alone would suffice!). But she discovered, using her own feelings as a guide, that making the chute narrow enough to give the victims a prolonged hug, as it were, causes them to be calmer and feel less fear in the last minute or two of their lives.

When I read about her findings, I wondered whether they might have some relationship to the desire for an authoritarian environment.

I've also wondered whether the reason my idea of democracy was rejected was because the people in the community felt that it would increase their workload without increasing their benefits. I.e., that I was already providing all the freedom and responsiveness they wanted, and was unlikely ever to turn on them, so why bother.

hmmm...I think my question, evidently not communicated very well! :mrgreen:, might have been whether face-to-face communication makes people unwilling to be open about their views. I don't see that as being "lying", exactly (i.e., it doesn't involve telling an untruth), although I suppose it is on some level (lying-by-omission) if there's a shared expectation that nothing will be held back. But how often do we have such an expectation, face to face?

I see your point, and in general random conversation I'm sure that's often the case, certainly I've experienced such. But in the case of interested parties discussing specific issues I do have that expectation. Otherwise how can we expect the best possible resolution? Perhaps I'm being idealistic but I think one should bring their best tools to the job.