I was talking to my friend Wayne F Smythe who was explaining that he had incorporated himself as a legal entity because he has more rights as a corportation then he has as a citizen. He said the business of Wayne F Smythe Inc. is running Wayne F Smythe's life, his expenses, his income etc. I thought to myself, that it's it, that's what has to replace the corporate economy, we need to create an Incorporate Economy in which only indidividuals can be incorporated. That's how you bring ethics to business. That's how you get around the problems of corporations with more rights than citizens but who legally have "no conscience to bind them" which is why they can't sign affadivits in court.
The Incorporation Economy needs to be an individuals only one, but those individual incs. can still regisiter businesses they form with one another. The business itself has no rights not guaranteed to all citizens. The individuals are thus responsible for their own actions, they remain protected as citizens by Charters of Rights and Freedoms, their purusit of profits is more easily governed by law, the whole tax system can be simplified, business and bureaucratic manageriats can be streamlined for greater effciency, and commonwealth benefits will flow more freely to all, entreprenurial innovations will be unleashed, labour unions would also change shape and character, and the disappearance of bad corporate behaviour internationally will create less stress between peoples.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
The Creative Commons
In the 1970's Elderidge and Gould developed a new theory of evolution because the fossil record showed no evidence that organisms gradually developed new traits like losing tails etc. The new theory was called Punctuated Equilibrium and was devised to explain the lack of data. According to Punctuated Equilibirum something more akin to quantum leapings occur. Symbiologist Lynn Margulis believed the evolutionary jumps were occurring at the level of the cell, where new symibiotic relationships between proto-bacteria in our cytoplasm and the DNA in the nucleus of the evolved creature resulted because of a critical mass of new genetic information exchanges. What Essayist Lewis Thomas called failed attempts at predation.
I look at the sudden emergence of Creative Commons
as a form of punctuated equilibrium. CC is the copyright software at the root of such sites as Flickr or Science Commons. The science site says it all
Web version 1.0 was largely about static information delivery, with interaction coming from email. It was itself a quantum leap from no web. It was also heavily corporate, and the web was used to consolidate the social darwinist dominant predator ideology of the biggest and the fastest winning the world and controlling the resources.
Web version 2.0 is the difference between dinosaurs and mammals. The great lumbering Dilbert-brained corporate dominance of the planet has already ended and the dinosaurs don't even know it yet.
I look at the sudden emergence of Creative Commons
as a form of punctuated equilibrium. CC is the copyright software at the root of such sites as Flickr or Science Commons. The science site says it all
Accelerating the Scientific Research Cycle
Science Commons serves the advancement of science by removing unnecessary legal and technical barriers to scientific collaboration and innovation.
Built on the promise of Open Access to scholarly literature and data, Science Commons identifies and eases key barriers to the movement of information, tools and data through the scientific research cycle.
Web version 1.0 was largely about static information delivery, with interaction coming from email. It was itself a quantum leap from no web. It was also heavily corporate, and the web was used to consolidate the social darwinist dominant predator ideology of the biggest and the fastest winning the world and controlling the resources.
Web version 2.0 is the difference between dinosaurs and mammals. The great lumbering Dilbert-brained corporate dominance of the planet has already ended and the dinosaurs don't even know it yet.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Battle for the Commons
In the days of Henry VIII, after his excommunication, the common-laws of Europe underwent a process known as the Reception, in which laws founded on precedents gave way to Roman civil law. The only nation to resist the Reception was England. That is why only nations once linked to the British Empire use common law today. It was the English habit of writing everything down and keeping it, that preserved the integrity and continuity of common-law.
Civil law is by definition subject to changes depending on who controls the law-makings powers at any given time.
NAFTA, GATT, the Prosperity and Security Partnership are all forms of Reception designed to undermine and destroy common-law.
The battle for the Commons is going to be fought over one issue: water. If water becomes a commodity common-law is dead. I have been waiting for twenty-five years for the moment of crisis, the time to act, the fight to pick, the line in the sand. For me it has come. I attended a meeting called by the newly created Wellington Water Watcher's about the renewal and extension of Nestles' permit to remove 3.6 million litres of water a day from the common aquifer that supplies Guelph and smaller communities to the south of us.
This battle needs to be fought on all fronts, locally, provincially, nationally, internationally. Guelph is a funny place, it is large town masked as a city with a reputation for a vibrant arts and activist community. It has a sense of destiny.
If we win this fight, we will unify a movement that will change the world, that will focus the fight for water rights in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World.
Resist the Reception, help Preserve the Commons.
www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca "Build it and they will come."
Civil law is by definition subject to changes depending on who controls the law-makings powers at any given time.
NAFTA, GATT, the Prosperity and Security Partnership are all forms of Reception designed to undermine and destroy common-law.
The battle for the Commons is going to be fought over one issue: water. If water becomes a commodity common-law is dead. I have been waiting for twenty-five years for the moment of crisis, the time to act, the fight to pick, the line in the sand. For me it has come. I attended a meeting called by the newly created Wellington Water Watcher's about the renewal and extension of Nestles' permit to remove 3.6 million litres of water a day from the common aquifer that supplies Guelph and smaller communities to the south of us.
This battle needs to be fought on all fronts, locally, provincially, nationally, internationally. Guelph is a funny place, it is large town masked as a city with a reputation for a vibrant arts and activist community. It has a sense of destiny.
If we win this fight, we will unify a movement that will change the world, that will focus the fight for water rights in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World.
Resist the Reception, help Preserve the Commons.
www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca "Build it and they will come."
Monday, April 9, 2007
Co-operative Commonwealth
In the end, this is what politics comes down to, to me.
Within the context of mutual benefit biology, the creation of a society rooted in both cooperative principles and commonwealth practicalities speaks volumes to me.
Theoretical Commonwealth began life in Hobbes' 'Leviathan', written and published just at the time that Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate of landed gentry began to emerge from the shadows of parliamentary opposition to the English Bureaucracy, the unproductive Lords and their king. Leviathan appeared in the full light of the revolution led by property owners.
For Hobbes, the issues were how to make Christianity into a communitarian practice. At first he was writing for King Charles and went into exile with him. Hobbes was allowed back into England because he was willing to redefine the word sovereign to include Parliament and not just the monarch. For Hobbes, a common duty to the state was everything, for without a belief in the common cause of the governed to accept the laws of the governors there could be no justice.
From my perspective that theory also leads to tyranny, as Cromwell's Protectorate proved in practice. His was what I would call an Uncooperative Commonwealth. The Parliamentary dictatorship of the gentry went out of its way to crush or betray the people, who were represented by two groups, the Levelers and the Diggers. The Levelers were tenant farmers who made up the bulk of the Protector's Army and who wanted access to the House of Commons, while the Diggers were itinerants who wanted rights of access to the historic commons - the land.
Cromwell betrayed the Levelers and crushed the Diggers. Reforms came slowly and through stages, and it took nearly three hundred more years for Levelers and Diggers to achieve the rights they wanted in the 1650's.
The commons itself is an ancient tribal concept in which clans divvied up their territory and in which all members of the tribe had rights to a share in the bounty of the land, a kind of extended family partnership, in which the chief chartered temporal ownership. That temporal chartering process passed to the Crown, so that any given common land became the chartered domain of a lord in a manor house, tenant farmers, farmed their own lease holds and in common and had access to the bounty of the forests and waters.
A commons enclosure system developed in which ancient rights were refuted and property once held only by charter became private, usually with a kickback to the crown, since sovereigns were always in need of money and what better way to get then to sell things they didn't actually own.
Much of Canada is still crown land, still chartered, and/or licensed for mineral or timber extraction. And of course, the friends of the crown still have ways of ending up with large private chunks of it.
As the earth races towards ecological disaster, Cromwellian Uncooperative Commonwealth represented by men like former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, will pit the new landed gentry against the majority of the people, only this time, Hobbesian philosophical/theological arguments about duty, will not see a populace willing to wage war on itself, there will be no sacrifice for their betters, they will not accept any sovereignty that does not include mutual benefit.
The only option is Co-operative Commonwealth, not quite a return to the primivatist extended family model where it all began, but nonetheless, an extended human family model, where everyone has a share, and a reason for ensuring the stability of the whole.
Within the context of mutual benefit biology, the creation of a society rooted in both cooperative principles and commonwealth practicalities speaks volumes to me.
Theoretical Commonwealth began life in Hobbes' 'Leviathan', written and published just at the time that Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate of landed gentry began to emerge from the shadows of parliamentary opposition to the English Bureaucracy, the unproductive Lords and their king. Leviathan appeared in the full light of the revolution led by property owners.
For Hobbes, the issues were how to make Christianity into a communitarian practice. At first he was writing for King Charles and went into exile with him. Hobbes was allowed back into England because he was willing to redefine the word sovereign to include Parliament and not just the monarch. For Hobbes, a common duty to the state was everything, for without a belief in the common cause of the governed to accept the laws of the governors there could be no justice.
From my perspective that theory also leads to tyranny, as Cromwell's Protectorate proved in practice. His was what I would call an Uncooperative Commonwealth. The Parliamentary dictatorship of the gentry went out of its way to crush or betray the people, who were represented by two groups, the Levelers and the Diggers. The Levelers were tenant farmers who made up the bulk of the Protector's Army and who wanted access to the House of Commons, while the Diggers were itinerants who wanted rights of access to the historic commons - the land.
Cromwell betrayed the Levelers and crushed the Diggers. Reforms came slowly and through stages, and it took nearly three hundred more years for Levelers and Diggers to achieve the rights they wanted in the 1650's.
The commons itself is an ancient tribal concept in which clans divvied up their territory and in which all members of the tribe had rights to a share in the bounty of the land, a kind of extended family partnership, in which the chief chartered temporal ownership. That temporal chartering process passed to the Crown, so that any given common land became the chartered domain of a lord in a manor house, tenant farmers, farmed their own lease holds and in common and had access to the bounty of the forests and waters.
A commons enclosure system developed in which ancient rights were refuted and property once held only by charter became private, usually with a kickback to the crown, since sovereigns were always in need of money and what better way to get then to sell things they didn't actually own.
Much of Canada is still crown land, still chartered, and/or licensed for mineral or timber extraction. And of course, the friends of the crown still have ways of ending up with large private chunks of it.
As the earth races towards ecological disaster, Cromwellian Uncooperative Commonwealth represented by men like former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, will pit the new landed gentry against the majority of the people, only this time, Hobbesian philosophical/theological arguments about duty, will not see a populace willing to wage war on itself, there will be no sacrifice for their betters, they will not accept any sovereignty that does not include mutual benefit.
The only option is Co-operative Commonwealth, not quite a return to the primivatist extended family model where it all began, but nonetheless, an extended human family model, where everyone has a share, and a reason for ensuring the stability of the whole.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
The Chinese May Not Love Me
John Baker, a British crime writer, posted this , it's a way of testing to see if your site is blocked in China. Apparently The Independent Communitarian is. Why the commie rats. My grandfather was a commie, you'd think they'd give me a pass to the masses, but no, I'm on the purge list. (OR on the test-site's technical difficulties list. In which case my apologies to Beijing.)
Actually if you view my map-counters you'll see Chinese hits, it was because of them that I wondered in the first place. My friend who owns a server says they're probably just hackers. But you never know.
Actually if you view my map-counters you'll see Chinese hits, it was because of them that I wondered in the first place. My friend who owns a server says they're probably just hackers. But you never know.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Heart Math observations on the Brain
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Why the Human Brain Is a Poor Judge of Risk
The human brain is a fascinating organ, but it’s an absolute mess. Because it has evolved over millions of years, there are all sorts of processes jumbled together rather than logically organized. Some of the processes are optimized for only certain kinds of situations, while others don’t work as well as they could. There’s some duplication of effort, and even some conflicting brain processes.
Article
Posted by Tom Beckman on 03/29 at 08:49 AM
Amygdala • Brain • Emotions • Psychology • (0) Comments • Permalink
The Fit May Produce Less of Harmful, Stress-Related Chemicals
Why the Human Brain Is a Poor Judge of Risk
The human brain is a fascinating organ, but it’s an absolute mess. Because it has evolved over millions of years, there are all sorts of processes jumbled together rather than logically organized. Some of the processes are optimized for only certain kinds of situations, while others don’t work as well as they could. There’s some duplication of effort, and even some conflicting brain processes.
Article
Posted by Tom Beckman on 03/29 at 08:49 AM
Amygdala • Brain • Emotions • Psychology • (0) Comments • Permalink
The Fit May Produce Less of Harmful, Stress-Related Chemicals
Unseen Hand
Over on my Guelphi blog I posted some of what is below, but since it was posted in relation to Guelph building issues I want to expand the concept here.
The part I'm focusing on is the so-called 'unseen hand' of the market, that mystical entity that is allegedly so good at deciding what's good for us...
And now bear with me for a second,
"To someone like me, who insists that people need to understand that human beings are symbiotic life forms, with zillions of proto-bacteria in our cells breathing for us, metabolizing our food for us, the "unseen hand" is made up of the array of bacterial symbionts alive in every human cell. It is an array that is adept at transmitting and receiving myriad bits of energy-information, but in the end it has the understanding of a bacteria. Humanity derives mutual benefit from their existence in our cytoplasm, but human ingenuity in service to basic bacterial imperatives are what has brought us to the edge of the ecological Armageddon facing humanity.
And rest assured, bacterial symbionts will survive the disappearance of humanity, they are in every other life form on the planet.
The unseen hand of the market is mindless because it has the brain of a bacteria, it is unseen because we don't look for it in biology, in life, we look for it in economic abstractions.
The unseen hand of the market is simply bacterial life intent on eating and drinking and consuming every resource required by... human beings..."
In the other post I also talk about the issue of controlling growth, but speak of it in terms of extreme or moderate control. In essence, because we all need self-control for all manner of reasons from anger to passion to whatever field of human endeavor you want to describe, the idea of controlling the 'unseen hand' is one of moderating the future, facilitating sustainability. The 'unseen hand' as mystical force also tends to hide the reality of all kinds of economic machinations from all levels of the spectrum, those with money, gangster capitalists, buck-passers of the manageriat avoiding tough problems by deferring them to the future etc. etc.
The most common 'unseen hand' is the one concealed by the loudest proponents of unseen hands.
The part I'm focusing on is the so-called 'unseen hand' of the market, that mystical entity that is allegedly so good at deciding what's good for us...
And now bear with me for a second,
"To someone like me, who insists that people need to understand that human beings are symbiotic life forms, with zillions of proto-bacteria in our cells breathing for us, metabolizing our food for us, the "unseen hand" is made up of the array of bacterial symbionts alive in every human cell. It is an array that is adept at transmitting and receiving myriad bits of energy-information, but in the end it has the understanding of a bacteria. Humanity derives mutual benefit from their existence in our cytoplasm, but human ingenuity in service to basic bacterial imperatives are what has brought us to the edge of the ecological Armageddon facing humanity.
And rest assured, bacterial symbionts will survive the disappearance of humanity, they are in every other life form on the planet.
The unseen hand of the market is mindless because it has the brain of a bacteria, it is unseen because we don't look for it in biology, in life, we look for it in economic abstractions.
The unseen hand of the market is simply bacterial life intent on eating and drinking and consuming every resource required by... human beings..."
In the other post I also talk about the issue of controlling growth, but speak of it in terms of extreme or moderate control. In essence, because we all need self-control for all manner of reasons from anger to passion to whatever field of human endeavor you want to describe, the idea of controlling the 'unseen hand' is one of moderating the future, facilitating sustainability. The 'unseen hand' as mystical force also tends to hide the reality of all kinds of economic machinations from all levels of the spectrum, those with money, gangster capitalists, buck-passers of the manageriat avoiding tough problems by deferring them to the future etc. etc.
The most common 'unseen hand' is the one concealed by the loudest proponents of unseen hands.
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