Date Posted:Tue 2003-08-19 19:35:11 Author:arendt Subject: Re: RE: updated version of NK-govt In reply to:
arendt (reposting redeye)
's message, "RE: updated version of NK-govt" on Tue 2003-08-19 19:30:00
I am overwhelmed! This is fabulous.
It took me five minutes just to scroll
through your off the cuff response.
All I have are impressions.
1. 476 is my bad :-). I got 435 crosswired with 1776,
and I was so surprised by the correspondence of
level percentages, I missed the goof.
2. You understand grandmother cells, and you have
read GEB! We can talk. We are on the same
wavelength. This is great.
3. I see your point about a top level legislature,
but its bad neuroanatomy. Can you show me
the top level in your brain? Its not there. This
is a version of the "homunculus fallacy". Also,
unless its duties are carefully specialized it
becomes a bottleneck and a target for decapitation/
coup.
4. I agree that the whole question here is how to
run distributed computing. I'm trying to think along
Internet lines, and build something that "routes around"
political sabotage. I'm simultaneously using the brain,
which we understand only slightly, as a model. So,
I'm juggling multi-processing, the internet, and the
brain as models. And all of that in my non-existent
spare time.
6. I was very light on the exposition of the Dept of
Political Defense. We need to move those items
into the "genome" of the new government. Free press,
sep of church and state (already there, but tottering for
no reason other than the coup), education that is not
captured by the corporations, and a totally new
way of controlling self-funding, deniable, black ops
are vital to preserve democracy in our new age.
These items are features of government that have
"evolved" over the last two centuries. They make
today's democracies more "evolved" than earlier ones.
The bad guys are trying to wipe out/hijack these features
and return our government to a primitive life form. I
think of them as viruses, feeding on and eventually
killing us. That is why I think of this Dept as the
"immune system" of government.
5. You said you are young, and your profile says you
live in Oakland. How is government there working out?
Is Jerry Brown for real, or just an ex-media darling?
You sound well educated. Berkeley connection?
Anyway, I got to go do more housekeeping stuff,
but I wanted to get back to you as soon as I woke up.
