Tag: nuclear-weapons

Is Democracy the Problem?

Posted on by josuter

Is Democracy The Problem?                                                                                             jsuter@sbcglobal.net

Citizens blame leaders.  Leaders blame citizens.  Could it be that the problem is democracy itself?  In an interview by Danny Haiphong with Sean Foo and Richard Wolff, they discuss the inability of US business and investors to know the investing landscape.  If the current politics is unfavorable, investors only need to wait a few more years until another band of merry men and women take over.   This does not bode well for future planning.  China has a dictatorship but they still have 5-yr plans.  Russia too is not held back by a three-legged stool of democracy and seems to move faster.  

Are we seeing the end or an evolution of the Nation-State?  A complex system must change several things simultaneously if it is to maintain balance.  If only one thing is changed, the system will snap-back to what it was before, be it Deep State or whatever.  It is important to look at all aspects of our existence within the Nation-State framework.  This includes looking at the structure of government itself and analyzing what feedback mechanisms keep it on track.   

One option is to put more authority in the hands of a single regional leader, but then also make that leader removable at any time by 80% of any minority.  This would encourage communication in both directions and form a more Dynamic Democracy.  Even Israel could use a Dynamic Democracy for the benefit of everyone.  

A government which is set up only to divide the spoils will push leaders and citizens into separate spaces rather than have them work together to solve problems.   Grassroot citizens – as a group – are often ahead of their leaders, especially in the knowledge of what is happening on the ground.   Paraphrasing Friedrich Hayek: “there is often no substitute for information on the ground.”

Economics too must change if we are to address the health of the economy.  An additional currency could be added at the hyper-local level with about 100 people.  Properly used, hyper-local currencies (HLC) can be used to induce people to cooperate at the local level for the purpose of creating useful goods and services to trade on the open market.  In addition, it creates resistance to inflation and a buffer against recession.  Adding another currency at the hyperlocal level is where people can be accountable to each other without a court system. 

Banks create incentives or gradients when they direct money from one sector to another.  A business then uses that gradient power to create organization.  There are other ways however, of creating organization that can be started by people at the local level.  If ten bread winners are able to support two in their group for some period of time as determined by the group, then those two then can do any job that the group decides is important.   They answer only to the group.  This is an opportunity for grassroots engagement.  In fact, many changes may not start without grassroots.

A new type of nation-state can join with other nation-states and maybe even business to form clusters that have defensive military capabilities.  When the most powerful nation, where leaders dress in fine suits, cannot subdue one of the poorest nations where people dress like Star Wars characters, it may be time to think about different types of governing and military structures.  An Association of Non-Nuclear Nations (AN3) does not need large, impressive buildings or fancy accoutrements, yet such an organization can create a purpose and flexibility that is missing from the United Nations.  It is an exclusive club however, since nuclear nations cannot join.  

Military industries too could find other missions, arming small clusters (3) of non-nuclear nations with non-nuclear missiles, maybe even some that are supersonic.  Lots of money to be made here.  It will be defensive buildup, yet able to reach critical targets within nuclear nations.  This would remove the current advantage of nuclear weapons and point us toward a nuclear-free world.  

If war and war games are the purview of the nation-state, then anti-war games may be the purview of citizens who must otherwise make the sacrifice for war mongers.  What anti-war games look like is still unclear, but many things can be created by people at the grassroots with the goal of making the environment for a next-door neighbor or next-door country more predictable and stable.  We cannot escape the fact that much of nature is about competition, so assertiveness and even aggression may be needed if a potentially dangerous or de-stabilizing threat is detected.  The goal is to create a stable and predictable environment.  Petitions to Congress may not be enough. 

American citizens are told to “wake up!” – but sleep is not the correct metaphor.  People have the wrong story in their heads due to mis- or missing information.  Citizens can create additional information filters made up of small groups using any news source.  They then bring ideas and information back to hash it out in a private space, maybe with team competition.  This would benefit other readers and listeners of the news.   

Another tactic is to focus on one target region or town (foreign or domestic) for a short period of time with the goal of giving people the tools to making their region self-sustaining.  Others may benefit and learn from observation.   This too can be done with competitive games.  There are many places and many levels to start if there are people who see another pathway and share their vision.  One person can also set a gradient, just like a bank, only smaller, by creating an incentive for an individual or small group to answer some specific question.  

A transformed United States is more flexible and able to counteract the OBOR initiatives made by China in the developing world.  Rather than regime change, we can contribute to the developing country becoming independent and healthy.   That country will then be able to resist the OBOR initiatives – and we will gain trading partners.  

A Systems Approach to Nuclear Deterrence                                                               by john suter         

Posted on by josuter

A response to a new book  “Rethinking a Political Approach to Nuclear Abolition”     

by Perkovich, Yoshida, Nishida 

The nation-state does not make decisions.  It is not a living being.  In reality, a nation-state is a group of people within a geographic border with leaders who make critical decisions.  Leaders who reflect on their use of language, stories, and metaphors will discover that the stories in their minds are highly influenced by their own circle of assistants along with the influence of lobbyists, family, friends, and colleagues.  We make decisions as individuals but gather information and tell stories as groups.  The story created includes what the world looks like, or should look like, and what the consequences might be if bad decisions are made.  The chess board on the cover page of the book indicates that many leaders are led to believe they are grandmasters playing the game.  In reality, they are part of the game too.  This fact should be recognized and used to find solutions.   

The rethinking considered in this paper may lead to reformulation of scenarios of a seemingly difficult problem, but does it bring in new ideas and new solutions?   Solutions may start to appear depending on how the problem is set up.  What are the assumptions?  What questions are asked?  What are the contingencies?  Nuclear weapons experts unable to consider other questions or outside ideas will not be able to create a new future.

New Tools, New Situations, New Imagination

New factors in a different world must be recognized.  New tools include new pathways of communication that include social media.  World travel and cross-cultural mingling has also changed the game.   Astronauts in the space station arrive there from a variety of countries and languages.  A number of high government decision makers have dual citizenship with another country.  Without arguing the pros and cons, this fact brings up the question of whether it may herald a new role in the evolution of the nation-state.  

When a problem seems too complex it can be helpful to enlarge the problem.  Complex systems must have feedback to function and to stay in balance.   In the case of nuclear weapons, the system must be enlarged to include the whole world. 

Thinking in systems can be very helpful in complex problems, allowing some people to focus on only a part of the system and then integrate that part with other parts.   In many systems, control is determined by the feedback from a small sensor to a specific decision point or control valve.  This is the target of the feedback. In the case of nuclear deterrence, the target is a specific Decision Maker who gives the command to launch a nuclear attack, but targeting the person would only happen after a nuclear weapon has been launched.  

MAD deterrence has been the underpinning of the nuclear arms race.  It makes sense that no political leader would make a decision that would eventually destroy their own country.  MAD deterrence in a systems approach for nuclear deterrence is set to “take out” (whatever that means) a Decision Maker.  To be a deterrent, however, the Decision Maker must know ahead of time what will happen to them.  This is systems thinking that could save the system – i.e. the whole world.  

But who or what is the sensor?  In a balanced and stable system, feedback can come from sensors at several sites.  In the nuclear control system, feedback could be from a Trio of Feedback Sensors, each one having at least one real person in a small group.  These small sensor groups would be distributed geographically and located in any combination of nuclear nations and non-nuclear nations, of which there are more than 150.   Even non-state actors can participate. These Trio-Feedback groups must create their own reliable communication methods and standards.  

Time to Decision

Decisions to launch or not launch are coming under increasing pressure.  One factor is simply the increasing number of countries building their own nuclear arsenal.  Even more pressure comes from the improvements in missile technology, decreasing the time to make a decision to 10 minutes or less, a very short time to decide on the fate of the world.  If there is a solid belief that an attack by an enemy is imminent, it may be smarter to strike first and to make that strike overwhelming.  Defense becomes offense.  Is this Orwellian – or is it common sense?  Military leaders exist today who make the first strike argument.  

Systems in Biological Models 

A study of other systems could be helpful in designing a system for control of nuclear weapons worldwide. There are systems in biology, for example, that control the balance of several opposing factors without catastrophic results.  The coagulation cascade that prevents blood loss in the human body is a marvel of design.  It can activate or “turn on” many cells and tissues all at once (the cascade) yet prevent the process from going too far.  And it can do all this within minutes.  A hematologist making a presentation on this subject might also comment on the general command and control mechanisms of this system.  

The Dark Suits – the Human Factor

Historically there have been presidents and their counterparts who have had the courage and creative thinking to broach the question of nuclear weapons: Reagan with Gorbachev in Helsinki, Trump with Kim Jong Un in Singapore.  As reported by people in the room, the principles were on the same wavelength and got along fine.  When the principles left the room, however, the Dark Suits entered and re-tied the Gordian Knot.  It should be common knowledge that there are a significant number of clinically paranoid people among the Dark Suits.  Without totally discounting their point of view, they should be challenged.  Testing of their view with a Discovery Game can allow anonymity but retain the integrity of ideas.  

Fear is a true motivator, and paranoid people tend to only look at power thru the barrel of a gun.  We must be more creative in thinking about and using other types of power, including how to find and move useful information, a critical task when news outlets are unreliable.  Circles of advisors have always had their own agenda but with a limited view.  If the issue of nuclear weapons is not on the agenda of the Chief of Staff, it won’t be discussed.  Leaders need better information, new ideas, and privacy of discussion away from their advisors.  

While countries now might wish to prevent a catastrophic nuclear exchange with their adversary, it is obvious that each continues to engage in many subtle and indirect ways to destroy their opponent.  In so doing, they continue to build enmity.  

There are ways to set up competition in more constructive ways and with a positive twist.  China is tied to a concept of their own making called “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR).  Using that same metaphor for leverage, it might be possible to “Break the Belt” by focusing on a few Links within that belt and make those countries (the Links) self-sustaining enough so that they do not need China.  Pushing the Link country uphill toward success rapidly would be essential, something the US might have to practice.  This process could be made into a competition and a challenge to many parts of society besides the military.

Grass Roots Groups as Monitors 

What if we get to zero?  How would that maintained?  One possibility could be to engage a group of 100 citizens in a specific geographic area, or with a specific politician to monitor.  If any rumors about new nuclear facilities arise, these citizens drop everything to “check it out” and force an answer.  This requires communication and information filtering that is robust, plus a way to organize their neighborhoods to pick up the slack from their regular jobs.  This is a systems approach that engages people as sensors, not as consumers. 

Other groups can play with hypothetical situations on almost any issue, but these should be limited in time and limited in number of people to make it efficient.  Some of this could be made into a game in the same way that military planners play war games.  

Several smaller nations are now starting a process that will give them a “latent” possibility to build their own nuclear weapons.  This is essentially useless since an all-out war will be over within a day if not within hours.  They would do better to invest in conventional military readiness which could, in reality, play a big role in limited nuclear exchanges.  Or these countries might invest in the formation of Trio-Feedback groups.  

A New Story to Avoid Nuclear War

Posted on by josuter

A New Story to Avoid Nuclear War

I was a young boy when my father told me something that I realized was not true.  I loved and admired my father, but why would he do that?  Maybe he believed it.  Maybe that’s what his father told him.  Both grew up in different times and different environments.  For that I could forgive him. 

When the environment changes, the story must change.  A powerful story must touch reality at some point yet leave room for imagination.  Culture is a collection of stories that work and have value in a particular environment.

Metaphors reflect our vision and understanding of the world.  We think in metaphors and use them to influence other people too.   Memes are metaphors with feet.  Allistair Crook says the fever of misleading memes should be broken.  But how do we do that?   It takes a long time for a bad meme to burn out.  Because of this lag it may be necessary to take counter measures simultaneously at multiple levels.   

The Story of The Emperor’s New Clothes is just as true today as it was when written nearly 200 years ago. The Big Lie in the tale was not that the Emperor had no clothes.  That fact was evident.  The Big Lie was that people who could not see the new clothes were stupid.  This made people shut up.  When political leaders are afraid to look weak, it increases the resistance to finding Useful Information, both for themselves and others. In the same way, censorship destroys language.  People hide what they mean and some others may create a new language.   

Israel needs a New Story.  Their Old Story worked in the past but not today in this new and different environment.  Can they forgive their fathers, or will they continue to be prisoners of an Old Story?  

Environment

By themselves supersonic missiles (SSM) can be viewed as a dangerous and destructive weapon.  But this is a nuclear weapon environment.  If only the Big Players have SSM’s they will simply be another weapon on the shelf and potentially destabilizing.  As a part of a larger system with feedback loops, SSM’s can be distributed to both nuclear and non-nuclear countries where they could be a stabilizing force, allowing us to back away from the Nuclear War precipice. 

Even several SSM’s fired by mistake or by malice will not destroy the whole world.  There will be time to investigate.  On the other hand, detonation of a single nuclear weapon will likely lead to thousands of them being launched.  Henry Kissinger noted that after the first nuclear weapon is launched everything beyond that point becomes unpredictable.  So it is highly likely that all the missiles will be launched.  Consideration of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII are not helpful in thinking through this problem since the United States was the only one who had them at that time.  This situation is more like the old-fashioned gun fight with two gun-slingers – except we are using nuclear guns and everybody dies, including the crowd.  Is this how we will treat God’s Creation, this great and miraculous Creation? 

Jonathan Schell’s book “The Gift of Time” was a reflection on the luck – or maybe providence – that kept us from using nuclear weapons in the decades since WWII.  But time can be so short and even disappear when leaders have only minutes to make a decision that will affect the fate of the world.  “He who hesitates loses”.  We must not put anyone in that position.  Yet some leaders believe that a nuclear war can be won.  That is the Story they tell each other – but it is misleading.  

Motivation of those who are Gender-Queer might be, in part, a statement that the alpha male model does not work anymore.  The alpha male model has brought us this far but continuing along the same path will lead to destruction of everything.  The risks go up even further when more nations want nuclear weapons.  Yet Queer people want to be protected too, so we and they must find some other type of defense.  

Nuclear weapons are not a “great equalizer” as some have said, but rather a “great destroyer”.  They warp reality and make individuals blind.  SSM’s could be a key stabilizer  and function to keep the larger system stable, but only if distributed among all nations and using interlocking regional groups.   

Types of Power

A Story can definitely have power but it must match the environment.  It should be obvious that we need other types of power.  It may be up to citizens to find and use those powers since current leaders are too busy and may have no motive to do so.  

Education is power.  30 years ago, Jackie Jackson, a public school teacher speaking as a guest on The Newshour, clearly stated that the value of education is survival of the group, not just getting a job.  We argue over school funding while the Russians educate their students in STEM subjects, allowing Russia to build SSM’s while the US  lags behind. 

Government, business, and mainstream media use BOG (Barrel-Of-a-Gun), money, and information as tools of power.  This aligns with the task of government to set boundaries, business to produce goods and services, and media to gather and filter information.  

These types of power might be called Type I or material powers since a person who possesses them has power.  Type II and III powers are process-structure types of power and include Division of Labor (DoL), Competition, PIE Games, Feedback (FB), Bottlenecks (BN), Focusing on a Few (FoF), or changing Target Learners (TL). 

Other types of power include: Discovery of better Questions, Discovery of Points of Resistance, Creation of New Stories, and various Information Games.  These are all types of power if they help to get things done. Organization itself might be considered a power, though it may be more a manifestation of power since many organizations will collapse when the power is shut off.  

What is the purpose of the Nation-State?   

The Treaty of Westphalia that ended the 30 Year’s War in 1648 was the result of exhausted warriors agreeing on some boundaries and promising to keep their hands off others’ property.  Since that time the Nation-State has evolved to become the primary protector of its citizens, plus creating a stable and predictable environment.  So the Nation-State can evolve, but can it change itself?   How?  And in what direction?  Feedback will be key.  

Can democracy handle these increasingly complex issues?  How do we Start?  Thinking about HOW we talk can be power.   

Small seed groups (2 or 3 people) can start something with one of these powers.  A discussion or debate does not have to save the world.  It only has to take one step or discover one idea.  The next step is a “process” discussion like “How do we get this idea into a larger group?”  Alternating Issue Debates with Process Debates will move us forward. 

We cannot simply point out mistakes or accuse someone of “hubris”.  There is hubris at every level, even among children who are unable to hear others from a lower station.  Maybe it’s boredom or not wanting to repeat things already learned.  Maybe it is a fear of looking bad or an effort to maintain the social hierarchy.   So we must help find a new path.  

Feedback to the Future

Posted on by josuter

Feedback in Nuclear Weapon Control Systems and Society

Precision Kinetic Missiles (PKMs) like the Oreshnik, some say, are a game changer.  Yet missiles are still being fired into Russia from Ukraine with NATO’s help.  The argument in this paper is that PKMs will not be a game changer unless they are part of a larger system with adequate feedback.  

We are now on the edge of a nuclear war, an apocalypse with no winner.  No nations will remain.  There will be no democracy.  If any people survive, they will be in survival mode.  The situation now is more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis with talk of preemptive strikes by Rear Admiral Buchannan who himself does not realize that we cannot “win”.  He is not getting the information, the feedback that he needs to make better decisions.  But he is not alone.  More nations now believe they will be safer if they obtain nuclear weapons.  This may seem true if leaders see no other options or pathway to ensure their safety.  

Because of the ever-shortening time period to make a decision whether to launch a nuclear weapon (now 5-10 minutes), the first use of any nuclear weapon is likely to begin an all-out nuclear war and the end of humanity.  This risk is increased if there is no direct connection between the White House and the Kremlin.  

Complex systems cannot operate without good feedback to keep the system stable.  This feedback is often from sensors that may be quite small but that give important signals under specific conditions.  What we call international politics is a type of system that is quite complex, but it is still a system.  

Examples of feedback:  1.  The thermostat that helps to regulate the temperature of a room.  In most cases this can be adjusted by people in the room, though that may not be true in large conference rooms.  2.  Airplane landing gear must be in an up or down position.  This information on landing gear position is sent from the sensor directly to the decision maker – the pilot.  3. The human body has many systems that work together. Each system has sensors that detect changes and give feedback directly to keep that system stable.  The person’s brain may or may not be aware of any changes.  It is a marvel of engineering and worthy of study.   

Leaders in international politics are imagined to be in control.  We assume they have the necessary information to make good decisions.  Comparisons to a chess game are often used but one thing that Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown us is that leaders who think they are grand masters are actually part of the game and can be taken out.  

The power of PKMs is reflected in the words: “Precision” means it will hit the target exactly.  “Kinetic” refers to the fact that the missile is going so fast at supersonic speeds that it needs no payload to explode.  The kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity and all of this energy will easily destroy the target.  Supersonic speeds also mean – as of this date – that there is no way of stopping or intercepting them.  

If one steps back and looks at the whole system, PKM’s make sense if they are under the control of small groups of nations and pointed to the head and critical infrastructure of the nearby larger nuclear states.   PKMs are thus only a game changer if part of a larger System feedback design.   Three countries, both nuclear and non-nuclear act as one sensor and must agree to fire their PKMs at the Headquarters of Nuclear Nations if anynuclear weapons are detonated.  Misfiring of a PKM by accident will not be nearly so destructive as a nuclear weapon, and the reasons for the misfire of the PKM can be found and corrected.  

PKMs can be given to or developed by groups of 3 non-nuclear, smaller countries to start this system of feedback, even if the larger nuclear countries decline.   Larger nuclear countries will join when they realize that this system is safer.  We can then begin to de-construct all nuclear weapons. 

If nuclear weapons are gone, the feared power shift from West to East will not be so large and imbalances can be addressed in other ways.  If 2025 is to be anything, it must be the year to construct feedback loops, especially for control of nuclear weapons.  This effort can start at any level, from Discussion and Discovery Groups, to the Congressional level. 

John Suter Communication Research

January 1, 2025

Evolution or End of the Nation-State, Part B – Tools

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Evolution or End of the Nation-State?                                     J. Suter

Part B – TOOLS for CHANGE

  1. Language – Mental Models and Metaphors, Stories

  2. Bio models and Feedback

  3. Competition and Gradients

  4. Organization and Structures

  5. Examples

Mental Models and Metaphors

We make decisions as individuals but gather information and tell stories as a group.  Communication skills then become very valuable. We must find, filter, and move useful information at all levels and between all levels.

Would a powerful parent let their children destroy each other?  Of course not.  We must apply that same question to the Greater Being who goes by a different name in every society.  A powerful God, like the powerful parent, leads to peace.  This metaphor becomes real or not real by the actions or inactions of believers. 

When leaders tell stories that are not credible, one wants to ask, “Who do they think they are talking to?”  It may be that, in their own mind, they are back in their childhood, just making stuff up and hoping not to disappoint their parent, teacher, or authority figure.  Maybe they do not recognize the facial expressions of disbelief.  What do you do when you realize a leader is lying?  First, show no reaction.  Simply nod your head in agreement.  Second, you begin a process to replace them. 

Story is the software that guides our action and help to build a framework for our understanding of the world.  Good stories become a key part of the flow of useful information and can determine whether or not any particular bit of information is passed on to the next person or not.  Stories as weapons have never gone away, but in an information age, censorship and “Info-Terrorism” stories can lead us astray. 

Love & Language

The national anthem makes the heart swell, making one feel closer to the motherland.  In reality, a nation is not a sentient human being but simply an agreement among leaders.  This can be good or bad.  Elites set the boundaries, set the rules, and make predictable an environment for the grassroots people who are busy with their lives.

Jeff Bezos noted that people are not (generally) truth seekers but social in nature.  Go along to get along.  One could argue that this changes when important decisions must be made or decisions that will affect the whole group.  Both love and language draw people together.  Family, friends, and community.  They all matter.  The fact is, however, that there are Americans who would like to see me suffer, and conversely, there are people living in other countries who would sacrifice for me. 

Hermann Goering, Hitler’s right-hand man, expressed a strong conviction that wars are decided by the elites, and although the common man did not want to fight, it was always easy to bring them along.  Simply tell a story that creates fear of an enemy and the grassroots will join the effort. 

A crack in the story of Western Civilization started in the 1960’s when Detroit Automakers created a slogan for Americans to “buy American” while at the same time they themselves purchased foreign autoparts from Japan.  This allowed US Automakers to get lazy in research and development.

Historian Margaret MacMillan writes about the 4 causes of war:  1. Greed, 2. Self-protection, 3. Emotions and 4. Ideas.  It may be difficult to change 1-3, but #4 does hold some promise.  We should not forget boredom as a factor.  Historians reading personal letters from the period around WWI found that boredom actually was a factor in getting British elites to push for engagement.  These were people who had a lot of power at their fingertips and no place to use it. 

Stories

Kings queens and pawns make a good story, but is that framework sufficient for current challenges?  If there is any change in the environment (any kind of environment), the story must change to adapt.  The role of Hollywood in creating our present story should not be underestimated.  To continue on our present path, however, the Story cannot be clever enough.  Communication and filtering of useful information will therefore be essential. 

People need a story.   War makes for great stories. In the cycle of war, the first thing to do is to start rumors or a story about the place to be taken over.  Want to take over Canada?  First, prime the takeover by telling a story to dehumanize the people, then add a touch of something fearful.  That makes the takeover much easier.

People also need stories as software to help make decisions.  “Is that plant poisonous?”  The answer could be useful information.  “Is the guy over there an enemy?  How do you know?  Do you have a memory of trusting that person?”

We all use mental models and metaphors to navigate, communicate, and to build social systems.  In looking at the more successful systems we could pay attention to the biological systems that have been around for thousands of years.  We are part of that biological system.   The words we use acknowledge this fact: “head” of state, “arm” of the law, “branch” of government, or even “mother” in motherland show our innate biological selves.  We are part of this larger cycle and words help or hinder our understanding of it.  So we create stories of hunters, running down the gazelle in Africa.  Like all situations and stories about how to find food, water, and shelter, geographic location is specific and important. 

Cycles of war and peace reveal two or more forces in opposition, creating a back and forth dynamic, similar to cycles in a biological model.  War to release tension is a catharsis so there is always a tension between the Story and what is happening on the ground.  What is the role of the Story in war?  Is it to find and move Useful Information and to close this gap?  Or is the role of the Story to lead, to find another path and use whatever tension it can create to bring us along? 

Communication technology by itself is neutral on the abuse of language.   NGO’s used to be the good guys, but now they weave their way into a client government and gain a foothold for control.  The biological analogy here is that of a parasite but thankfully one which can be countered and controlled with Useful Information. 

Nuclear deterrence is a Story too and a belief that risk of self-destruction offers stability, at least at the international level.  There are now a growing number of nuclear states.  For this and various other reasons, political power now seems concentrated in a smaller number of people who are adversaries.  This combination pushes toward an increasing real risk of self-destruction of the planet.   

Competition from the bottom up

Silicon Valley’s success is built from the bottom up in the silicon chip, speaking both literally and metaphorically.  A closer look reveals other truths.  The silicon in the chips cannot be pure silicon, or it will not work.  There must be some other elements added, some impurities in tiny amounts for the transistor to work.  This might be a metaphor for the loyal opposition in Parliament, or maybe the First Amendment that keep leaders honest and in touch with reality. 

Silicon Valley’s success is primarily because scientists and engineers paid attention to what happens at smaller and smaller scale.  New languages and properties emerge when a million transistors can be put on a single chip, and with good software it begins to approach and exceed the capability of the human brain. Go small to go big.  Over the last 50 years the desire to use the communication ability of computers has become a natural instinct for most humans.

The wealth concentration created by Silicon Valley increases the added risk that previously reliable information sources can be bought and used as a megaphone to spread whatever message the owners want.  Yet they seem oblivious to this risk.

This brings up the question about who we are as individuals.  What is our local level purpose?  Our task?  Can we change the site and nature of the competition and keep it friendly?  Can we push others uphill toward sustainability?  Can we push in all directions and at many levels?  Nature is competition and we must learn to use it.

Biological Models (War again)

Another biological model to consider is the immune system.  It is the defense system of our body with killer T-cells, macrophages, and all kinds of cytokines, each distributed throughout the cells, organs, and tissues.  The skin is the first and primary barrier of defense, just like the border of a country is a primary part of national defense.  

Most nations of the world were not signatories of the Treaty of Westphalia, yet they all exhibit the same tendency to form national boundaries.  Are there limits to the size of a nation-state?  There are natural limits to size in the plant and animal kingdom.  The elephant has reached a natural limit on land and the whale in the ocean.  In each case they hit the limits of growth in their environment.

What forces demarcate the Nation-State?  How do they “know” to stop growing?  Push, push, push – until resistance – or some signal.  In cell biology this is an important question: “what stops a cell from growing?”  Cells and tissues of the body release chemical signals and provide resistance from neighboring cells.  Out-of-control growth is cancer.  Does this tell us anything about the limits of hegemony?

Alpha women tend to mate with alpha men.  (Do they still?)  This gives both of them power, a social adaptation probably related to our genes – or to a story they were told.  Biology can be very political, a fact that was shown by the intermarriage of royals during the Middle Ages.  Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. a special advisor and historian for JFK, made the remark that maybe the only way to avoid war is for everyone to inter-marry.  That is statistically unlikely to happen with humans, but it could happen with ideas. 

Information and Feedback

Feedback is defined here as useful information at the right time and right place.  Useful information via feedback can help to make a decision by either man, machine, or bio system.  Feedback for any policy or legislation can be written into the law to help keep it on track and not grow too large or obtrusive.  The good news is that feedback can be added post-policy implementation and added from people on the outside.  This is another role for citizens who can act together.   Feedback from reliable and balanced bias sources can be useful for anyone implementing a policy or legislation. 

The sensor for this social feedback is a small group (SG) of people picked randomly to provide another layer of information filtering.  This requires some imagination, but just as importantly, it requires a specific task and feedback from other people.  The structure of sensors and feedback loops may become standard once some good designs are discovered.  Plus, sensor groups and feedback loops do not need to have national boundaries. 

Another example of feedback in biology is the regulation of breathing.  How does your body know that you need to breath faster or slower.  The heart uses feedback to regulate the heart rate.   Breathing, growing, heart rate, senses such as hearing, and movement, all use feedback.  Biological feedback is mostly not seen or thought about.  With a well-designed feedback loop, however, these processes stay on track with a very small signal and good communication pathways.

Accountability is a subset of feedback.  Governments and corporations must have accountability to work well.   Feedback and accountability as types of information and sometimes be just as powerful as military or economic power.  This is why the First Amendment on free speech is critical, though by itself may not be enough. 

Gradients

Life is a flow of energy – mostly downhill.  Organization requires a local “uphill” movement of energy although the general trend is still downhill.  No gradient? No life.  No money?  No goods and services.  But a nation-state cannot survive on the movement of money among the financial sector. 

Gradients can be created with positive or negative slopes, prizes or negative punishments.  One can create a gradient with money as a symbol of value, but gradients, both positive and negative, can come with emotions like fear or desire.  Hope is a great motivator too, but mostly long term. 

Gradients can be one large gradient – or many smaller ones that one can see with a series of waterfalls, or a series of ten 3-volt batteries end to end that create a 30-volt drop in energy.  There is great potential energy in a town of only a few hundred people if they can find ways to organize for some task, or to find better information even for some group outside this town.  Some general organization can be done with a gradient alone plus a goal.  An information filter or story may help focus efforts.

Organization and Structures

In any economy, one can often make money by getting between a person and what they want, maybe adding some value, and charging a fee.  Here “want” is an indicator of emotion, tension, or gradient.  The role of business is primarily one of creating organization.  Without organization there is no product or service.  In a capitalist system the money flows in a downhill gradient in salaries and wages for services rendered and products purchased.  Those decisions are primarily made by consumers.  In a socialist society, decision making is less clear though it can be done.  In either case, good feedback is essential.

The division of labor for gathering and filtering useful information is a task traditionally for mainstream media, but that function is now coming into question.  We do not seem to be getting the best information for problems that confront us.  Course correction may require a new and different division of labor, i.e. a Division of labor for Information Gathering (DIG).

There seems to be a magic of majority in the structure of democracy.  The minority must either stay and fight a larger group or go home.  This dynamic is related to a common sense of fairness and seems to be a basic societal norm.  No matter if the government is democratic or non-democratic however, grassroots people can wake up to their power to change things by creating small group processes.  These small groups (SG) can be started by anyone and participants picked randomly. Depending on the task, they can be re-mixed as needed.  Their primary role is the gathering and filtering of information to provide feedback to Decision Makers (DM) or anyone. 

In social groups we often use the term “feedback” as a negative signal, telling the other person to “chill out” or change their behavior, but feedback can be both positive or negative.  Horseback riders give feedback to their horse and, if paying attention, will listen to the feedback from the horse. 

Feedback must reach the decision maker in an efficient way.  The pilot of an airplane has rows of instruments so that he or she can see what is happening at all critical places in the airplane.  Contrast that system with a passenger sitting near the tail who can see the position of a wing flap and passes that information person-to-person on up to the pilot.  That is a type of feedback too, but one can easily imagine that it would not work very well even assuming that other passengers cooperate.   

ANA – Anti-Nuclear Actuators

Actuators in a system can be thought of as automatic switches that wait for a specific signal before they flip.  They are usually devoted to one task.  If we want to taper off of our dependency on nuclear weapons, we can use the concept of small group Anti-Nuclear Actuators (ANA) which fit quite well with the concept of feedback for military preparedness and nuclear weapons.

The theoretical basis for nuclear deterrence is that one nation will not strike another with nuclear weapons because the aggressor will likely also be destroyed.  This gave rise to the acronym MAD or Mutual Assured Destruction.  This is destruction of all of society and probably all of humanity.  According to a RAND study on nuclear war, particulate matter thrown into the upper atmosphere would last for many years and cut 70% of the sunlight, leading to starvation of nearly all plants and animals.  Humans will not survive.   

In the dilemma of nuclear weapons that could destroy all of mankind, it becomes imperative that some message reach the decision makers directly – and it must be done a priori – before any nuclear war begins.  Otherwise it will be ignored.  Decision makers must realize that if there is any nuclear weapon detonated against either civilians or military personnel – anywhere in the world – then that Decision Maker along with their family and friends will be destroyed.  They must have strong incentives to work with leaders in other countries to abolish nuclear weapons.  Without a strong signal it gets pushed down on the list of priorities.  

Consequences must be clear.  These messages can be sent by post or email on a regular basis (every 3-6 months) with photos showing that they are being watched closely.  Who would send such a message and how would they get it there?  It could be done by small groups of Anti-Nuclear Actuators (ANA) made up of a few people from several countries and be state actors, non-state actors, or a mix.  Surveillance of the decision makers and their family and friends could be done by other small groups or by the same ANA.   The letters must also be made public but with few or no names attached. 

Is ANA murder?  No.  It is group accountability.  It is one way to include decision makers in the feedback loop.  When the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 it made sense to prohibit the assassination of one’s opponents for the sake of social stability.  With the question of nuclear annihilation, however, it makes more sense to include decision makers in the feedback loop.  This may be a moot point since few leaders will survive a nuclear exchange.  Alternatively, they will be picked off in the hallway by a security guard whose family and future are now destroyed.

Then God will be alone again, thinking about whether he or she wants to do it all over, disappointed that humans did not realize that they were still in the Garden. 

Some might argue that the role of nuclear weapons has been downgraded with the advent of new technologies in modern warfare such as the drones or supersonic cruise and ballistic missiles.  Others might argue that the gap between conventional weapons and nuclear weapons was a chasm so wide as to be unthinkable.  But now that chasm is now closing with recent advances in conventional weapon technology.  By itself, this narrowing of the chasm may pull us into use of nuclear weapons before we realize it. 

Nation-state leaders must have a strong incentive to move nuclear weapons to zero.  The fact that ANA and use of other non-nuclear weapons can be more precise in their targeting of decision makers will actually allow any nation to begin nuclear disarmament unilaterally since first use of nuclear weapons will give no advantage.

The key is in creating feedback, not only for ourselves, but giving feedback to many other parts of the system, much of it done without creation of rigid laws.  We must assume that people want to survive and will look for better methods of government.

Dynamic Democracy

French born journalist and political commentator Vladimir Posner noted that mainstream media in both the US and Russia chose to perpetuate the old stories about the other, hoping to keep up the mistrust – and maybe sell more papers.  Of course most readers had no specific task for which they would have to gather more accurate information about the other country.  If they did have such a task, they would have lost confidence in what they were reading in the mainstream media and searched for better sources.  Who would give them such a task – a task that required better information?  Maybe a teacher.  Maybe other readers.  Even a temporary need for better information could be useful when exploring unknown cultures or exploring almost anything new.  The incentive may be “artificial” or an “artifact” because it is man-made, but useful nonetheless.    

Competition versus War (the YMW20)

Boundaries mean less than they did in the past.  Remember that there are Americans who want to see me suffer, but foreigners who would sacrifice for me. 

The linchpin for changing the purpose of war away from a war business are the Young Men and Women (YMW) called to serve or paid to fight.  Hermann Goering’s dictum that one can always get the common people to fight needs to be modified:

If leaders want young people to go off and fight forever wars, keep them ignorant and angry.  But young people are not as ignorant as they used to be, and most of them want to devote their lives for something positive.  A society that abuses the hearts of young people does not deserve to survive.  If the young people have friends in other countries, they may decide to make a Covenant with those other young people, a Covenant that says they will not harm anyone their age or younger.  Maybe call it YMW20 (age 20 or whatever).  What would that look like?  It changes the value and the meaning of physical borders.  Rather than dividing people by geography or gender or race or religion or sports team, it divides people by age.  Some young people realize that they are being used for political purposes and are OK with that.  Others will find their own path.  Their war is not their father’s war. 

And democracy?  Is one-person-one-vote (OPOV) the best way?  Surviving in a changing environment appears to favor authoritarian regimes if one only looks superficially.  Yet democracy requires citizens to be educated on a wide variety of issues and the time frame for making decisions cannot be too long or too short.  That is a very difficult task to do without a Division of Information Gathering (DIG). 

An “Authority” is an “Author”, someone who writes things down.  What leaders agree to and sign can still work, even if it goes beyond one-person-one-vote (OPOV).  It can become a Dynamic Democracy if there is better FB.  In fact, the role of Western Democracies may lie in connecting people to each other, not in creating a look-alike democracy.  “Who is stealing from whom?”  We now have the ability to discover and move such information, even if we cannot change everyone else and convert all nation-states to Democracies.

We cannot move forward on stories based on lies.  The terrain is too difficult.  There is no one person or organization that has the ultimate truth on anything.  We each bring our bit of information, our idea or question, and try to make things work.