Democracy and evolution
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The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many
factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the greatest threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same applies to corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of self interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out -- except insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held positions. It's like filtering out all but the DC signal. Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is pretty good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of viewpoints. It's rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries) attests to it's evolutionary superiority. There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all non-democracies. In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then they are no longer have a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can Suppress all other Points of View" Mike Oliker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:15:31 -0700 From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] US intelligence agencies "discover" blogs and wikis To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Message-ID: <45783013.5000006 at santafe.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Phil Henshaw wrote: > The ideal product of democracy is decision making that reflects a whole understanding of things by integrating all points of view. Trouble develops when the points of view that believe in suppressing all others take over. > I have my doubts about the evolutionary value of democracy in the modern world. For example, in the corporate world the motivation is supplied by stockholders and the points of view are supplied by employees. Worse, the corporate leaders, workers, and stockholders are all different people, disinterested in the welfare of one another. Complicating matters is that the corporations have the ear of government. Democracy in these kinds of conditions requires individual courage and idealism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061207/8798a1ba/attachment.html |
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The problem with integrating all points of view is that it creates a single
system, and then the only game in town is, who owns it? Democracy is actually furthered by incommensurability. The problem with corporations is, they are not organisms, but owned machines for creating profit, and the rules of that game seem to lead inexorably to concentrations of wealth and power ? tyranny. The democracy project is a project in a state of multiple tensions. Its relation to corporations, capitalism and markets is not well understood yet. Modeling of this would be terrific. It has been said that we have a business culture that knows how to create wealth, but not how to distribute it. Democracy I so far as it is based on the idea of the core identity of persons as being equal, is not in keeping with evolution. It may be that humans have the capacity, through democracy and the idea that ?all people are created equal? to opt out of evolution for more human purpose. Evolution as we know, leads to death and replacement of species. Maybe we don?t want to go there. From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Mike Oliker Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:51 AM To: friam at redfish.com Subject: [FRIAM] Democracy and evolution The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the greatest threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same applies to corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of self interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out -- except insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held positions. It's like filtering out all but the DC signal. Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is pretty good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of viewpoints. It's rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries) attests to it's evolutionary superiority. There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all non-democracies. In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then they are no longer have a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can Suppress all other Points of View" Mike Oliker -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.14/578 - Release Date: 12/7/2006 1:27 AM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061207/9103857f/attachment-0001.html |
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In reply to this post by Mike Oliker
Mike Oliker wrote:
> The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many > factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. Seems to me what matters is the number of truly independent factions an individual can be affiliated. A company like Nokia, for example, has a fundamental influence on Finland while only a small fraction in the country have a share in the company. Throughout the world, Microsoft tells hardware suppliers what and when to do it. WalMart can provide `protection' for a supplier at a scale a mere mafia goon couldn't even imagine. A large country has larger organizations that yield more leverage on their government. The individual, vastly overshadowed by her true representatives in government, can thus put aside her posited evolutionary drive to create diversity, and either attempt to rise through the ranks at such a company, move between companies without conviction, or make new viable companies (where viability is strongly correlated to the status quo which is also strongly autocorrelated). Getting back to Phil's original question about why people don't understand or listen to one another: In the evolutionary view, it's posited that individuals acted independently because there was some survival benefit from the diversity. Today the path of least resistance seems to be to suppress that. To be a middle class baby maker in Japan or the United States or Europe, you're better of to conform to corporate requirements. I could see there is some possibility of having the state of China come eat up your corporation, but come on, how many middle class individuals will act with any ferocity in response to an abstract threat like that? I emphasize the individual here because we are ultimately taking about reproductive fitness. People do communicate a great deal. Mobile phones are a huge business and seem to be in constant use. I'd argue that, if anything, there is too much communication and not enough said. So those of us that still have the posited evolutionary drive toward diversity like to try to *make* some by picking each other apart. To illustrate what seems to be the same on first glance is different! Whew! |
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In reply to this post by doug carmichael
I'm usually a lurker here, rather than poster.
Glad to see Doug participating from afar. I think we give all to easy lip service to complex subjects like 'democracy'; or 'sustainability'. Democracy may be social ideal. The reality in varying degrees around the world is the process of 'democratization'. Democracy: 'people power' requires a prior integrated process. Demosophia: 'people wisdom'; also a complex and seemingly undervalued process. Richard Lowenberg On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Douglass Carmichael wrote: > The problem with integrating all points of view is that it creates a single > system, and then the only game in town is, who owns it? Democracy is > actually furthered by incommensurability. > > > > The problem with corporations is, they are not organisms, but owned machines > for creating profit, and the rules of that game seem to lead inexorably to > concentrations of wealth and power ? tyranny. The democracy project is a > project in a state of multiple tensions. Its relation to corporations, > capitalism and markets is not well understood yet. Modeling of this would be > terrific. > > > > It has been said that we have a business culture that knows how to create > wealth, but not how to distribute it. > > > > Democracy I so far as it is based on the idea of the core identity of > persons as being equal, is not in keeping with evolution. It may be that > humans have the capacity, through democracy and the idea that ?all people > are created equal? to opt out of evolution for more human purpose. Evolution > as we know, leads to death and replacement of species. Maybe we don?t want > to go there. > > > > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf > Of Mike Oliker > Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:51 AM > To: friam at redfish.com > Subject: [FRIAM] Democracy and evolution > > > > The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many > factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. > The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the greatest > threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same applies to > corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of self > interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out -- except > insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held positions. > It's like filtering out all but the DC signal. > > > > Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is pretty > good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of viewpoints. It's > rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries) > attests to it's evolutionary superiority. > > > > There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in > suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all non-democracies. > In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are > structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then they are no longer have > a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can Suppress all > other Points of View" > > > > Mike Oliker > > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.14/578 - Release Date: 12/7/2006 > 1:27 AM > > ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell rl at radlab.com www.radlab.com ------------------------------------------------ |
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In reply to this post by Mike Oliker
Democracy is just an hypocrite and sophist instrument of capitalists but we don't know something better. Not yet. I always vote, I respect Laws and Constitution but only because society needs an order. Alfredo Mike Oliker wrote: > The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many > factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would > be. The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the > greatest threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same > applies to corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with > islands of self interest, but have a system which has them cancel each > other out -- except insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for > the widely held positions. It's like filtering out all but the DC signal. > > Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is > pretty good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of > viewpoints. It's rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies > in two centuries) attests to it's evolutionary superiority. > > There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in > suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all > non-democracies. In democracies people always want to achieve that, > but they they are structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then > they are no longer have a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" > == "No One can Suppress all other Points of View" > > Mike Oliker > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:15:31 -0700 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <mgd at santafe.edu> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] US intelligence agencies "discover" blogs and > wikis > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <friam at redfish.com> > Message-ID: <45783013.5000006 at santafe.edu> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > The ideal product of democracy is decision making that reflects > a whole understanding of things by integrating all points of > view. Trouble develops when the points of view that believe in > suppressing all others take over. > > > I have my doubts about the evolutionary value of democracy in the > modern > world. For example, in the corporate world the motivation is > supplied > by stockholders and the points of view are supplied by employees. > Worse, the corporate leaders, workers, and stockholders are all > different people, disinterested in the welfare of one another. > Complicating matters is that the corporations have the ear of > government. Democracy in these kinds of conditions requires > individual > courage and idealism. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061207/4d3bedeb/attachment.html |
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