URI:
   DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Platos Kave
  HTML https://platoskave.createaforum.com
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       *****************************************************
   DIR Return to: General Discussion
       *****************************************************
       #Post#: 4575--------------------------------------------------
       The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: December 9, 2019, 5:14 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The Playground:
       OK!  Call it society.  But, if you ask anyone, they'll agree
       that whatever it is called, it is crazy.
       For 50 years I have been awed at the irrationality of societies
       of our reality.
       It's hard to even conceive of the degree of craziness.
       Thousands of years of "civilization", and still humanity is
       divided into prideful segments that waste considerable time,
       effort, and resources on "defense" from one another.
       When psychologists were discussing the mental issues with the
       Trumpster, the term sociopath was used.
       Further, they said, sociopaths have a tendency to rise in power,
       and that most high power executives and politicians would test
       positive as sociopaths.  And, they are driven to seek more and
       more power.
       One of the most common side effects of awareness (enlightenment)
       seems to be a lack of strong attachment to this reality itself
       (The Playground).  As a result, enlightened individuals are
       typically not war mongers, nor do they try to enforce their lack
       of beliefs on others.
       Unfortunately, that means that the sociopaths make the rules and
       "sustainable procreation and fun" (my simplistic assessment of
       life purpose) is not in their headlights.
       I'd like to use this thread to open up discussion on a way to
       create communities that pursue life purpose.
       It begins as a non-profit think tank where members identify
       problems and come up with solutions.  Doesn't require a meeting
       place. Discussions could be done over the web, although there
       are a lot of user agreements that allow apps to own the traffic.
       Ideas that are created would be owned by the non-profit, with
       the creators assigned a percentage of any result.
       The non-profit could perform contract services with its members,
       as it became available.
       The idea is to ultimately produce a community that provides for
       the development and sustenance of its members.
       #Post#: 4576--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: biisuto
       Date: December 10, 2019, 2:20 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Hey Ray...how do you see this thread proceeding? For example,
       what are the assumptions being made about what a community is?
       Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
       #Post#: 4577--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: December 10, 2019, 2:53 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Glad you asked ;D
       I'd like to discuss details of the potential result of a well
       directed think tank:
       Imagine a society that is literally built around parks and
       recreation, a center for fitness, health promotion, all manner
       of entertainment, education, and community management.  There
       would always be cafeteria style food and drink freely available
       to all citizens and guests.  All manner of restaurants,
       businesses, and aeroponic/hydroponic truck farms  (society owned
       - citizen run) would be located around the community center.
       The community center would host citizen idea forums identifying
       and solving issues.  If a citizen identifies a solution to a
       problem, they would be rewarded with some credit percentage
       depending on the idea. Citizen forums would determine the
       reward.
       Each citizen would decide what to do with their time.  Time
       contributed to needs of society would be compensated with credit
       (amount/time determined by criticality or popularity). Citizens
       could work as trainees (less credit amount/time) for most
       functions developing qualifications to perform the functions
       unsupervised. The idea is to let citizens find their passion
       without survival stress.
       Every citizen, regardless of age, would be assigned at least 2
       (preferably many and multi-racial) mentors and mentees, both
       sexes.  The mentor's purpose would be to guide and assess the
       mentee's educational, social, and physical progress and make
       periodic reports to social analysts. Education/social/physical
       development would be derived via play, gaming, and discussion
       groups.
       The society would essentially own all land and infrastructure.
       Citizens would be provided living space and all essential needs
       (basic foods, clothing, toiletries, health care, etc.).
       Additional want items are provided as requested by citizens.
       Citizens could request and obtain larger and/or more luxurious
       housing based on the citizens ability to afford with society
       credits.  Citizen business ideas would also be worked in the
       same manner with citizen committees assessing viability and
       approving the business projects. As citizens die or become
       unable to meet the credit requirements, the housing, want items,
       businesses are listed for other citizens to acquire, by way of a
       citizen committee approval. Although a child could grow up in
       the luxury of their parents, nepotism should not be supported.
       Each citizen should be developed for their own values and
       societal contributions.
       Feedback and/or amplification encouraged.
       Perhaps discuss concepts like education, health care, work
       passion individually.
       #Post#: 4579--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: Plato
       Date: December 10, 2019, 9:40 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       This discussion feels well above my pay grade, if you could
       figure out how to enlighten the world en masse, then something
       like this might work but with the human animals I see populating
       society, these utopian ideals have fallen flat on their face
       when previously implemented by even the best intentioned
       individuals.
       Even in this forum, with the 6 or 7 (over time) participants,
       individuals who are "enlightened" to varying degrees, there is
       seldom if ever any consensus or even simple alignment of ideas.
       I live in a small (pop. 2100) community that has seen tremendous
       rebirth in the last 4 years, a nearly literal ghost town risen
       from the ashes. You'd think that people would be excited and on
       the same page as far as what's good for the community and yet,
       that's not the case at all. Ego's abound and each needs to be
       placated or it's a mess. Fast friends have become bitter
       enemies, it's kind of crazy honestly and this is a town with a
       future to look forward to!
       What about all those towns whose futures have already burnt
       down? Apathy and lethargy has a stranglehold on the denizens of
       such to the effect that nothing moves, ideas don't have fertile
       soil in which to germinate, how do you shift that? In this town
       the shift literally came from the outside, nearly every building
       on Main Street is owned by a non-native, the locals, many
       excited by the influx of new blood and vision, are also super
       skeptical of any change taking hold after decades of rot and
       decay and graft.
       I don't know Ray, your vision seems like a beautiful sci-fi
       movie, and yet here I am on the forefront of trying to make a
       difference in this small town where I abide, I guess the two
       just seem so far removed from one another.
       Marx had some great ideas about a utopian society, wrote a book
       and nearly singlehandedly birthed the USSR with it's Utopian
       Theme and Gulag Archipelago and multi millions of innocents
       murdered, careful what you wish for I guess...
       #Post#: 4580--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: December 10, 2019, 4:45 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Yes indeedy, sounds like sci-fi ::)
       I realize the end result would appear to be a utopian society,
       but the significant difference from other attempts is that the
       transition could be gradual and within the existing greed based
       societies.  I envision many more than one community arising with
       this concept.  They would serve as examples for more startups.
       And yes, a mind machine with hypnosis should be able to clear
       the minds of any of the masses that wish to become aware.  As
       you know the experience is extremely pleasant.  There is a local
       hypnotherapist that performs group hypnosis sessions at one of
       our public libraries (name: Diana K. Ross :D).
       I think it would benefit the entire amusement park to see the
       hippie commune concept actually succeed.
       Really, I'm just hoping for detailed feedback and discussion on
       issues like health care, education, developing individual
       passion, etc.
       #Post#: 4582--------------------------------------------------
       The Playground
   DIR By: biisuto
       Date: December 11, 2019, 4:56 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I’m afraid I’m mostly with Steve here, Ray. Not skeptical but
       doubtful that human energy works in a way that would be
       conducive to carrying it off.
       Did you ever see the Matt Damon movie “Downsizing”...?
       I also have a confession of my own here:
       In the 90s while soaking up the blessed intellectual solitude of
       living in Japan, I had a similar vision to yours and wrote
       extensively about it - alas in notebooks that never survived.
       After reading ‘Republic’ where Plato talks extensively of his
       own utopian community, I spent a great of time thinking,
       discussing with my students and writing about how humanity could
       realistically achieve such an ideal, deducing in the end that -
       as Steve wrote - there’s basically 8 billion utopias (about 4
       billion at the time).
       My conclusion then was to instead engineer a system by which
       humanity could, by trial and error and harnessing our human
       natures of curiosity and competitiveness (amongst others) begin
       a grand experiment whereby we’d work out over generations what
       the perfect human community is; how it is organised, what’s the
       critical mass, how scalable it is (or if it isn’t), etc.
       I even had funding ideas, where the UN would put aside a small
       but escalating % of its budget to review, critique and endorse,
       then seed applications from those who wished to start such
       utopia-building experiments, all in the hope that some group or
       groups would either in part or in whole hit upon the ‘perfect’
       human community, both organisationally and numerically and that
       further cross-pollination, refinement and synthesis over
       generations would then get us wherever ‘there’ is.
       Applicants would go through a non-partisan vetting process and,
       if successful, be granted a parcel of land somewhere in the
       world that wouldn’t require pushing (too many) others aside to
       establish. They’d be granted capital, tools and then their own
       sweat and passion would have to do the rest.
       There’d be, by bureaucratic necessity, UN apparatchik
       bookkeepers and other scribes to keep score of the successes and
       failures, but these weren’t to wield political power, just take
       notes.
       These communities would be encouraged to establish independent
       trade relationships with others, to make the most of relative
       economic advantages. But it was important that - while
       sustainable exploitation was fine - there would be no trashing
       of a community’s environmental assets to make a profit. There
       could be no ‘absentee tycoons’, harnessing the economic energies
       of one community, enslaving the residents and laying waste to
       the place, while living in luxury someplace else, for example.
       There just wouldn’t be the traction for it anyway, at UN
       committee level.
       ...to write about it now actually blows a little oxygen across
       surprisingly still-warm embers. I wrote a letter many pages long
       about my ideas to one my heroes of the time, Czech president
       Vaclav Havel. Unsurprisingly in hindsight I got a dismissive
       letter from someone in his government - that I may still have,
       actually.
       ...in fact, I believe very shortly after that I chose to channel
       my energies into building my own enterprise: the educational
       ‘empire’ which I sold 12 years later for a handsome profit,
       which in a large way allows me to enjoy the relative luxury of
       my current circumstances...of sitting here in comfort,
       remembering a time when...
       Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
       #Post#: 4586--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: December 11, 2019, 7:49 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I'm in agreement with you both.  Unlikely that it could be
       pulled off.  But so was the moon landing. :D
       I seriously doubt an actual follow through on my part, but I do
       derive some pleasure from discussion.
       #Post#: 4746--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: September 13, 2020, 4:44 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       As I was saying, this reality is totally f*cked up.
       I know that we have the technology to sustainably feed the
       world.
       I know that we have constrained/restricted sources of energy.
       And I know there is a tremendous group that feel a right to
       control the masses.
       And I am just an observer.
       #Post#: 4748--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: biisuto
       Date: September 13, 2020, 10:05 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       What's that cybernetic principle about "the true function of a
       system being what it *actually* accomplishes, regardless what
       anybody *claims* it is for" ...look around us and apply that
       principle to terms like 'democracy', 'socialism', 'capitalism',
       'The UN', 'the stock market', 'the education system', 'universal
       healthcare', 'human rights'...and so forth.
       It's a quick trip to the heart of things, to see that 'the
       system' is filled with institutions ranging from openly brutal
       thrones of bayonets to eloquently constitutionalised
       masks...whose core functions are all about control, maintaining
       the status quo and pushing the agenda of those at the top of
       each of those interlocking pyramids, with only the hopeful,
       supplicating belief in their beneficence holding it in place
       over the great unwashed nearer the base.
       What is utopia but the seed of the next USA, PRC, USSR...or
       Jonestown (both of those)?
       "Cui bono?" a little into that f^cker and one needn't be
       enlightened to become enlightened.
       ..Besides,  ::) utopia-prepping  ::) is a grand
       distraction...the ultimate egoic adornment of exerting external
       control to bring about a meatspace paradise, 180 degrees away
       from the fundamental, primary... real... work of hunkering down,
       unlearning and disempowering the lies and being only what I am -
       without embellishment.  ;D
       #Post#: 4750--------------------------------------------------
       Re: The Playground
   DIR By: rgardner
       Date: September 28, 2020, 4:24 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       As an observer, I am shocked with the irrationality of global
       society.
       If someone rational were to design a human society,  it's
       purpose would be support and develop it's members.
       Think about it.  Wouldn't you (if you were the designer) want
       your society members to have the best opportunity to develop
       mentally, physically, and spiritually?
       The current global society primarily demands profit on both
       health and education. WTF? ???
       Spiritualism is in the hands of "it was written".  Again, WTF??
       We need to research and understand the physical, mental, and
       spiritual aspects of humans without the profit motive.
       *****************************************************
       Page 1 of 1