Ming the Mechanic:
Dee Hock on Democracy

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 Dee Hock on Democracy2003-03-10 18:02
9 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

Dee Hock sent a fascinating e-mail to Joi Ito, commenting on emergent democracy, blogging, power and other interesting things. Dee Hock is the father of chaordic thinking, and the guy who created the VISA organization. And this is delightfully subversive stuff.
" It is futile to directly challenge such institutions, political or commercial, for they have an oligopoly on power, money and instruments of compulsion. Nor do they hesitate to use them if threatened. However, they will prove to be vulnerable, rusted out hulks if confronted with new and better ideas of organization which transcend and enfold them. Ideas that excite the very people they expect to remain passive. What they cannot resist is the searchlight of informed public opinion. Once the public begins to withdraw relevance from them they are helpless, as Gandhi so ably demonstrated in India. While I don't begin to understand Blogging, your paper set something turning in the back of my mind that whispers it may be one of the keys to the puzzle.

I wonder if you realize that a dozen or two people like yourself with the right combination of communication, technological and organizational skills could design and implement a global government without the consent of any present form of organization and provide it with the neural network to insure its success. A government that could continually evolve to ensure that no matter affecting the public good or the health of the planet fails to be disclosed, examined and understood. Or that any existing organization could escape being confronted with synthesized opinions and alternatives that would swiftly emerge. Such an organization based on rights of participation and withdrawal and consent of the participants could be something entirely new in this tired world. Now that would be something truly worthy of the best within us and the best among us."
He's not talking about a traditional government, you know, that wields power over people. What he's saying is that a few dozen dedicated people with fairly modest funding could change everything, by setting up a system that analyzes and understands all matters and activities important to society, and shares the information openly and widely, so that people can make informed decisions by themselves, based on the truth. He's right. Everything would change. I think that is an extremely profound vision and observation, and a very worthy goal.


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9 comments

10 Mar 2003 @ 18:43 by koravya : Hey,
that is a wonderful articulation
of a little germ, I'll bet,
that's been sitting and quietly growing
in the nether corners of some of our minds.
Like, that's cool.  



10 Mar 2003 @ 18:54 by martha : ego
It would be interesting if you could actually find several dozen people to do this without their egos getting in the way. Otherwise it all sounds like a powerful idea.  


10 Mar 2003 @ 19:01 by spiritseek : Website idea...
How many people would be willing to join a website thats for just that? It was done before and I believe we can do it again! Many of the brightest minds working on the project worldwide via the internet. Declaration of Independence revised or reverted back to it's original form.  


11 Mar 2003 @ 07:26 by bushman : Hmm.
The Hopi prophesy, talkes about the 12 that come together, to fix the wheel. Could the wheel represent technology? And to fix must mean, to use the tech to make the world run smoother, as the tools needed to fix this mess. I just saw in my mind, a computer virus, that sends a random e-mail, to one machine a day, stating that for that day you are the leader of the world. It will send you to a website, that has a list of things to do, or just public oppinions. Once the data base has enough info about what people want world wide, it should be easy to sort them out and see how many people want or not want a certain change in the goverment. So the random leader would voice an oppinion, and maybe answer opinions, from past leaders of the day. I kind of see that happening here in NCN as we type, lol. I see, people in here take the leadership roll all the time, bet most in here haven't noticed that or just haven't said it. Very intresting situation to work towards. A form of NWO, but if it comes to pass, lets not call it NWO, lol.  


11 Mar 2003 @ 08:55 by bushman : Found this.
I'm wondering how government can be modifyed with out falling into this area.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_031003_sedition.html  



11 Mar 2003 @ 10:18 by shawa : Hey, Ming!
I would want to be part of this group! ;-)  


11 Mar 2003 @ 12:53 by sevenlamb : Gods taught me this...
Literally, some gods came, lived in me for 6 months, and said: go make these governments, now - to save your world. Problems like: we're adults & can't believe you, and 'that's impossible', or 'I already know what you're talking about' or 'other experts know more than you' are people's constant objections. A suggestion: we've temporarily lost the ability to agree with 'regular' people. We can now only agree with 'experts' who are distant and to whom we're essentially unconnected. Solution: Make small rings of heroes. I've got toys that turn humans into something that makes a Jedi look like a bad charcoal sketch...and they aren't my toys...they're yours. What good will it do me to die holding them, alone? :) Answer: Bad idea. I'm not saying the way I was shown is the only one. I am saying that if the other ways don't contain the right toys (that fix problems in our symbolic cognition as popularly practiced) they'll merely recreate another version of the atrocity exposition we're currently involved in - it's a 3000 year-old problem. We can resolve it, almost completely, right now. Give me 5 sincere people to return toys to. That's all I'm asking!

Desperation Quotient: 18%
Reason: Prophecies indicate brief window, now.  



11 Mar 2003 @ 19:54 by koravya : The other side of the coin
The possibilities for good are emerging
in seeming flowers of geometric progression;
while noteworthy is an observation from an
article I stumbled across.
http://www.thecosmiccontext.de/cosmism/breaking_terrorism.html
"Mary Kaldor is very much to the point when she draws a sharp contrast two quite different groups of humans, drawn into the globe's new form of conflict: 1) the "...global class who can speak English, have access to faxes, e-mail and satellite television, who use dollars or [euros and yens] or credit cards and who can travel freely..." [if only incognito] and 2) those "...excluded from global processes, who live off what they can sell or barter or what they receive in humanitarian aid, whose movement is restricted by roadblocks, visas and the cost of travel and who are prey to sieges, forced famines, landmines etc.". ("New and Old Wars; Organized Violence in a Global Era," Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1999, p.4.)
Decisive in this framework is the fact that the contending parties, the established orders, on the one hand, and the terrorists, on the other, are both - and that word must be stressed - are both in category one. Let's not forget those internet chat sessions, secured with ever changing passwords, between members of Hezbollah and al-Qaida! Only the hosts upon which both side feast, is in category two. This, then, is NO CLASS WAR in the Marxist sense! If there appears to be a major disparity in strengths and size, then only momentarily. Once that first nuclear explosion has occurred the picture will appear to have altered itself considerably."  



30 Apr 2016 @ 01:07 by Doughboy @188.143.232.32 : vgogABYGDxCQ
Chào em. Em có thể liên hệ đến 2 cÆ¡ sở của trá»n°Æg tại Hà Ná»™i và TP. HCM để được há»— trợ nhé. Tại 2 cÆ¡ sở này có tuyển sinh lá»›p buổi tối.  


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2007-11-07 00:51: Diversity counterproductive to social capital?
2007-07-13 23:42: Plan vs Reality



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