Tag: politics

WinDG

Posted on by josuter

WinDG

Problem:  Democracy cannot function without good sources of information.    

Stories can be factually correct and still misleading if framing is incorrect or key parts omitted.  The same can be said for “truth”.   A better concept is “useful information”.   Useful Information (UI) implies a need for ideas and information to complete a specific task or answer a specific question.  It may require a search and more discussion.  

How do we even talk with people who have their own facts, or seem uninterested, or intent on building a counter narrative?   We can challenge them to a game of discovery.  We may discover new things too.  The tools of discovery involve the creation of small group structures to help find and filter useful information. Organizers of such groups can even make a small profit, a Win!   How do we start?

Good Question

We are all asked questions by family, friends, and teachers early in our own development.  Many of us will learn how to ask ourselves good questions.  Leaders and talking heads ask questions too, some of which are rhetorical questions – to which, of course, they have the answer.  Some questions are intended to mislead or incite some action in the audience.  The point here is that these questions initially come from someone else, even an outsider.  These may or may not be the best questions.  With a bit of practice and a few other people, we can learn to frame the problem, develop better questions, and search for solutions in a more efficient and effective manner.   

How Do You Know?  

This question, “How do you know – anything?” is an essential question to make progress toward solutions.  If this question is not asked, people don’t know that they don’t know.  Trusting the source is often equated with trusting the information.  The opposite is equally true, i.e. not trusting (or not liking) the source will lead us to reject information from them. 

Create Information Filters with Discovery Games (DG)

One can create an information filter on the receiving end (not the broadcasting end) by using Small Groups (SG) of people divided randomly into teams with a few players each, plus some judges, also picked randomly, who can decide which team has the best information and wins the prize.  This is real competition for a short period of time – minutes, hours, and sometimes days if the search time must be extended. Players and Judges (PJ’s) are mixed and remixed as needed.  Outsiders who may believe different facts can be invited a few at a time and folded into the mix.  One does not have to argue with them in public.  Simply challenge them to bring their facts to the game.  

Play Ball

Discovery Games follow the model of sports, except that the goal is to find and filter ideas and information rather than to hit a ball into the net.  There will be look-alikes who swear they have found the truth, but their results can be run through another filter at any level.  Which one will you believe?  The process must be efficient and take almost no time of the organizer or sponsor.   PJ’s can even start their own game.  If necessary, they can each put in a small bit for a prize to help focus their minds for a short period of time.  

Push the Process

DG’s can be useful, but the real power lies in pushing the DG process itself to other small groups and other communities.  Starting a new DG in another place can be the goal of a preliminary DG. Getting outsiders to use DG’s may require a larger starting prize, but not too high.  The prize should be just enough to hold attention for the duration of the game.  

And what issues?  What is the Discussion Question (DQ)?   It can be almost anything in which better information could make a difference, but there is really no limit.  It could be a personal question, a local issue within a church or school.  Even national and international issues are fair game. 

Campaign finance is often associated with ‘getting out the message’.  The number of votes received often correlates with the amount of money spent but this is not always the case.  It should be about finding better information.  Better information in political campaigns can be achieved with a DG-type filter.  This requires debates within the private team setting before presentation to each panel of  judges.  Debate is essential.  Andy Grove, CEO of Intel during an especially turbulent transition period, learned the importance of having a vigorous debate before making decisions that would affect the whole company.   Democracy now needs more real debates on many issues and at many levels.  

DG’s are not a social gathering. The goal is the finding and filtering of useful information.  Players can use any source of information.  Keep prize money local and offline if possible.  Challenge other small groups.  They must often make the discovery themselves.  An example might be a tobacco company who want to make cigarettes in a local factory to provide jobs.  Not everyone believes that is a good idea for their long-term health. 

Win Win Win

Readers of this web site (YOU) can start a DG and make a profit.  Your added value lies in organizing people who may not normally talk with each other.  You are giving them the tools to move forward on some issue.  Once people understand the game and want to play, they can contribution a small amount of money.  You keep 10% for organizing the game.  

You do not have to be the moderator, however.  Simply invite a dozen people (5 minimum) and divide them into 2 or 3 teams of Players, plus Judges (PJ’s).  Give a DQ (Discussion Question) and a time limit.  Teams meet in private.  Judges decide on the winning team and a prize is awarded.  Players and Judges can be re-mixed (or not) and the next DQ is announced.  This process is repeated until PJ’s find better information or have something to act on.  Follow-up to an action can be done with the same structure.

Why is privacy important?  Why is competition important?  These can be Discussion Questions for a game.  The DQ process must be transparent to the PJ’s, enough so that they can trust the results.  First games can start with any Discussion Question and then move toward more serious issues.  

Push Uphill

Once players understand the game structure they will expand its applications to other groups and other communities, near and far.  Competition can be with any other group and on any issue. Pushing one community uphill toward sustainability can be a series of games with many parallel DG groups focusing on that one community.  Why push others uphill?  Because a lot can be learned and brought back home to use.  Plus it can be fun. 

MWG

Posted on by josuter

MWG   (“There’s a Man With a Gun over there. . .”by josuter October 2025

These lyrics to a 1967 song by Buffalo Springfield were written during the Vietnam era, just before the violent Democratic Convention and Kent State shootings.  Fear was in the air.   The gun was a symbol of power.  The gun is near the top of the list of inventions that changed the course of history.  Guns can exert force at a distance, overtaking factors of strength and speed as survival mechanisms. 

In the halls of leadership guns have a constant effect on the course of history.  The guard with a sidearm prevents unwanted people from entering the office of the leader.  This is not all bad since it keeps order, but in keeping order, it also keeps out people who have different ideas and unwanted information.  Leaders are not stupid people, yet over time they become ignorant about what they should know.  They receive skewed information on the basis of the selection of people in the room.  This is a weak link in democracy and it favors the good salesman or lobbyist with a bag full of money.  

Guns not only protect the integrity of money and contracts but have been an essential tool of empire building.  Guns, money, and information form the top 3 powers of government.  Other types of power involve more time and organization.  In the short run, guns and money will always attempt to control information too, but this is tricky.  Democracy will not work without good sources of information.  Yet it is obvious that if guns control social structure, who’s in and who’s out, then guns can control ideas and the flow of information.  

Metaphors 

Information comes thru all our senses, but spoken and written languages are basic tools for storing, moving, and manipulating ideas and information.  Metaphors especially are a powerful tool of communication and provide tools for thinking and conveying ideas.  Metaphors and mental models can help or hinder solutions.  They must reflect reality accurately.  A “head of state” is not like the “head” of a human or animal and does not function in the same way.  The better, more accurate metaphor is “Guys with Guns”, since this more accurately reflects the source of power.  

Religion and Political Power 

Powerful stories too must touch reality at some points to be effective.  They cannot be totally fiction.  Gaza has gone awry because of a Story that does not apply.  The age-old conflict between Politics and Religion continues today.  All religions have an internal logic, even if one does not agree with the premise.  Their own internal logic might be used to find a way out of this conundrum by searching for inconsistencies.  Is our God only the God of our small group, or the God of all?  Is our God a living God?  If the answer is ‘yes’ to both of these questions, then the Story can change to find solutions to real problems.  

Even the definition of a word can have a powerful effect on our behavior.  Are the people on the other side “the enemy”?  or are they “the younger sibling?”  Taking this latter position puts us in the role of the older, more responsible sibling, and our behavior is allowed to change.  The words “War” and “Peace” are associated with the Nation-State rather than the “skirmish” of smaller groups.  Conflicts may always be with us if we choose that path.  We have a choice.  In any case, peace is a byproduct of better communication.  

The Emperor’s New Clothes (ENC) and the Dynamics of Fear 

The story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is not a story about ignorance but about fear.  It may be the fear of saying something stupid, or fear of being left out.  It might be fear of looking weak, especially at top levels of power.  In the story of ENC everyone at some level knew the emperor had no clothes, but it was fear that paralyzed them and kept them from saying anything.  This story repeats over and over again today.  It keeps us from responding or asking questions.  We can begin to address this fear by creating structures that provide some cover for people who may want to raise appropriate questions and comments.  

Social Structures Change Information

As with the gun, an intentional and temporary structural change of social groups can change the flow of useful information.  A different Structure and Process (SP) can bring different Questions to the table.  This is true for groups of all size.  As an example, a Select Security Council (SCC) in the United Nations might engage a small number of nations with special veto power as part of their specific SCC, whether it be agriculture, water, education, healthcare, etc.  This would make the UN more effective and responsive. 

Systems and Feedback – We Create our own Filters

Systems need feedback as a source of useful information, both from inside and outside.  Good feedback is required to make a system function properly.  If democracy is to be more than simply a way to divide the spoils, it must have a larger purpose and a way to solve practical problems.  Democracy needs better feedback at many levels.  

Sensors in a system can be quite small and dedicated to the measuring one thing such as temperature, or measuring the concentration of some element.  This information is directed back to a control panel designed to control larger machinery that will correct the balance and direction of the system.  Social feedback in groups is more complex since body language and tone of voice must be considered alongside ideas and information. Sensors in society might be small groups that are structured to find and filter information in a way that will give useful information to decision makers and to other people.  

End of the Nation-State?    Western hegemony can rightly be viewed as an Empire.  The idea of a Nation-State in Europe was adopted in 1648 after an exhaustive 30-year war and ending with the Treaty of Westphalia.  This system was relatively stable for hundreds of years.  Now there is some question about whether the Nation-State is up to the task to carry mankind forward.  Is there adequate feedback to people making important decision makers?  Those who would de-construct the nation-state must show new pathways to address social issues.  This will require a division of labor to handle the information on the many problems that will arise.   

Forming a new political party will take too long to address current problems.  New leaders may become corrupt by the time they come into office.  A faster and more effective way to make change is the formation of feedback loops within a system that has gone awry.  Feedback sensors within social groups can start with a handful of people who use a method to balance their own bias but keep the process moving.  The other factor for large scale change is to use a division-of-labor to divide the most pressing issues among people by their month of birth.  Those in January will have their own selected “special vote” on some issue that is different from those with a February birthday, etc.  Statistically, the outcome will be nearly the same for both large and very large groups on one issue.  Division of labor for information gathering can be done for many issues and will create better filters.  Supranational bodies such as the European Union or the United Nations seem unable to solve critical problems alone.  Maybe do not have the right structure – or they simply lack adequate feedback.  

A Way Ahead:  The Small Group Process (SGP) to Push and Pull from the Outside

Often the way out is not just putting the system in reverse.  The way down the mountain may be to go up and over to another path.  

Like learning to ride a bike or going to school, we were all pushed and pulled by someone else.  We can push and pull other groups uphill toward a future that they can make secure and sustainable.  We are not selling or recruiting but rather challenging the next group.   The small group process (SGP) can be started from the outside starting with a small group and using a PRICE mechanism.  (PRICE= Privacy of team meetings, Randomness in picking team players, Incentive, Competition, and Efficiency).  PRICE can counteract the negative social dynamics described by the ENC story.  The goal is to make the target group safe and sustainable, something that requires better communication at all levels. 

BC=Better Communication (BC) requires work and others may try to sabotage our efforts.  BC Games can be played with people we don’t really like or know.  There must be a goal or discussion question (DQ), and a time limit.  We know that guns and games can both change social interactions, but guns tend to be exclusive, whereas games are inclusive. 

Do we want the Empire to “Collapse” with all the ensuing violence? No, but any pathways of change must show how to address perennial social problems.  It will require a division of labor to find, filter, and move useful information on many issues and many levels.  Rather than the historical Mon-archy or Olig-archy the new structure must have agency at all levels – a “Poly-archy”.

The Small Group Process can re-capture the integrity of democracy by creating information filters, starting with a handful of people.  Their feedback does not start by going to a central government but rather pushing and pulling the next region, the next city, or the next neighborhood to build their own SGP and information filters.  This can even be done internationally, Beyond the Border (BtB).   The focus can be on any issue or it can be used to move the SGP to other locations.  If the goal is to make the next region, city, or neighborhood secure and sustainable, then this SGP may need to include forming their own security if police are absent or dysfunctional.  

Applications of Feedback Mechanisms

It is not enough to simply tell the truth.  We must push truth and Useful information (UI), sometimes with evidence, to decision makers, then use similar methods for follow-up.

Nation-States and their leaders seem unable to extricate themselves from a nuclear weapons buildup.  We must set a goal of zero nuclear weapons and start down that path.  Groups of 3 non-nuclear nations can form “trio sensors” that act as feedback to decision makers (DM) within nuclear nations.  The DM is someone who has their finger on the nuclear button or is close to those button-pushers.  The DM’s (along with their Family, Friends, and Colleagues) must be reminded of this on a monthly basis via letter, email, or phone call.  This monthly reminder can be made into a game and played at any level, between levels, and internationally.  

If leaders are unwilling or unable to listen and act, then the feedback becomes more pointed and intense.  The trio monitors one specific nuclear nation, and if there is imminent threat of nuclear war, or if nuclear weapons have already been used, then the non-nuclear trio will support the use highly accurate missiles to destroy the DM within the nuclear nation.  This can be done even after nuclear weapons are detonated.  This new structure may need to help re-direct a military industry that may or may not yet realize the dead-end of nuclear weapons build-up throughout the world.    

A second use of using the SG Process is creating a robust system of support in an unstable economy.  This cannot be started at the top but could be addressed with SG-type communication to improve local social dynamics in one location, then in a network.  The goal here should be to make the target group able to sustain themselves in the event of a recession, depression, or economic collapse.   

Governments cannot make everyone secure all the time.  We must push other groups to become as self-sufficient as possible.  Demonstrations are a politically acceptable way of pushing up against central powers.  But we must push in all directions.  If leaders don’t listen, SGP’s can be used to start a series of local debates.  It will be important to engage young men and women who otherwise may go off to fight someone else’s battle.  If we are to claw back democracy, we must create better information filters at all levels. 

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.  

Liberty on Trial

Posted on by josuter

Liberty on Trial – Hearings on the USS Liberty                                       by josuter

This is the time for Congress to hold hearings around the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli war planes in 1967. It may be a small bit of justice for those Americans killed, but more importantly, it will be a realization that Israel is willing to kill Americans in a white flag operation if needed to help pull the US further into the war with Iran. This is not out of the question. Hearings should be done soon. If Congress is cowed by the Zionist Lobby, there are many other places around the country where this issue can be discussed and debated.

Is it any wonder that Trump is an incessant liar? Mainstream media has ignored and covered up so much in the last decades. Mainstream media print whatever they are told. Truth-seeking media will persist in asking questions. The benefits of being an incessant liar allows Trump to lie to those power brokers around him: “I was told these were bunker-busting bombs.”

Diplomats complain that Trump does not do diplomacy in the normal way, and Trump does not read the daily intelligence briefings. Reagan and Gorbachev, meeting in Helsinki, both wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons but when they left the room the dark suits entered and nullified the intentions of their leaders. Why would Trump or Witkoff surround themselves with a group of people that cannot be trusted?

Tim Harford (“Adapt”) makes a case that new communication technology should allow more decisions to be made at the lowest level consistent with their ability to find useful information. This is in contradistinction to the man Netanyahu sitting in front of a big screen with a white cat sitting on his lap giving commands to everyone, including to Donald Strangelove.  

President Trump, either intentionally or unintentionally, is giving us a window of time to reclaim democracy. If Congress is unable or unwilling to decide on what is Anti-Semitic, this question could be decided at the institutional level, including universities and civic institutions, answering the specific question “What is Anti-Semitism?”. We know there is real Anti-Semitism and then there is the stuff that common sense simply rules out. If we cannot do this, then let’s hang up our boots.

Donald Trump, as the captain of the ship, may be willing to go down with it, taking neocons and Zionists with him. It will be a radical, but maybe necessary change to the Story of Democracy that is not just For the People, but Of and By the People.

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 Story to End Israel

Posted on by josuter

Stories can be created by anyone, but stories that create a culture mostly come from people above us in the social hierarchy – people like politicians, religious leaders, parents, teachers, and older siblings.  Time-tested stories provide a structure to help guide beliefs and behavior.  When reality changes, however, the story must also change to match reality.  That is not the case with Israel.  Enemies of Israel, frustrated for decades, are setting a trap to destroy Israel.  Using a known martial arts technique, they are using the force of the opponent turned against the opponent themselves.     

Zionist Christians and Jews in United States, the largest and most powerful country, are force feeding the Zionist war machine with financial and military support.  With war as the primary mode of foreign policy, the coffers of the leaders in Israel are overflowing from well-meaning Jewish and Christian Zionists who are mostly ignorant about what is happening.  

What is happening?  Younger brother has grown up.  Younger brother has developed supersonic missiles with ranges of thousands of kilometers and using pinpoint accuracy from advanced guidance systems.  These missiles have already evaded the Iron Dome to strike military bases within Israel.  Yet Zionists are kept in the dark about this due to censorship and misinformation by government, mainstream media, and local religious leaders.  

Is there a way out?   Maybe.  First, it must be understood that God and Government are not the same.  Secondly, pressure must force better choices by the warring parties.  This pressure can come from leaders in other countries but the pressure itself can be started anywhere at any level.  Leaders must be pushed to find or create alternative pathways.  A Dynamic Democracy could allow significant input by any minority in a new government.  Grassroots people, who primarily want stability and predictability, will also have input in a Dynamic Democracy process. 

Realizing the bad blood between United States and Iran stemming from the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, third parties can host public hearings on why the Iranians felt strongly about charting their own course and their need for a change in government.  This may help to clear the air.  

Writers of the Old Testament, knowing the types of people whose minds were closed, may have been led to write about their demise.  Stories of Armageddon in the Bible may have been written specifically about the end of the Nation of Israel.  Zionists today remain unaware of the impending destruction of the land they say God has given them.  Even if nuclear weapons are used in a war between the US and Iran, Israel will be merely a footnote.  

The Old Stories will not work in a new time and new environment.  Ignorant about what is happening on the ground, Israel is going out on a limb soon to be cut off.  Ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel are already gone.  The last two are headed for a buzz saw.  This is sad for those of us who want Israel to survive.  Tens of Thousands of Zionist supporters within the United States could rise up and demand a change in the government of Israel – but will we?  Can we imagine another future?  

Un-Corrupting the CIA

Posted on by josuter

Our Secret                                                                                                       by josuter

Corruption in the CIA is closely linked to keeping secrets, those things that only you and a few others know.  It’s real power.  Ask any 6-year old.  Corruption, as defined by an engineer, is about elements on a circuit board that are simply not working as they should, so we say they have become corrupt and need to be replaced.  It’s not about being good or bad.  We all have good and bad in varying ratios.  

Graham Fuller, ex-CIA analyst, says “I don’t know how you ‘un-corrupt’, if you will, an organization like CIA   . . . and I suspect ‘un-corrupting’ really means establishing an organization in which there is an openness and willingness to speak truth to power and not be afraid and twist it.”   This may be wishful thinking.  After all, finding hidden information is the nature of the work of the CIA. 

Take a group of top-level business people meeting in a secluded room.   The first thing they do is fix prices.  The walls that surround these people offer privacy and secrecy.  Common sense would suggest more transparency, but if secrets are exposed a scapegoat will be offered for public humiliation, leaving the system unchanged.  This happens at all levels and areas of society.   It’s a part of how social hierarchies are made and maintained.  We may not need transparency per se, but a way to separate useful information from the person who has that information.  

Finding good questions will help.  Finding good people can help too, but good feedback is really the key and can make up for weak questions and imperfect people.  Good feedback depends greatly on the immediate environment.  Who is in the room with you?  What are their expectations, spoken or unspoken?  What is their position and power over you?  How confident can you be of their advice or of other options?  Is one surrounded by people who celebrate a New Gaza Resort – all the while looking at others around them, carefully watching for the reaction in others too?  Or is one surrounded by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), generally a saner group of people.   

Recognizing the impossibility of getting the whole truth, one can get a good approximation with a structured approach.  A “First Person Reviewer”, i.e. the boss who wants better information, can assign a question to 2 or 3 small teams with several people on each team, hand-picked by the boss of course.  The questions should be hand delivered and include the names of others on each team.    “I want a one-page report back tomorrow with all your signatures.”  This may remove some of the boss’s ability to reward or punish but he or she will get better information.  

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that one cannot know both the exact position and the momentum of any particle.  It’s either one or the other.  So a boss can either retain his or her ability to reward and punish individuals – or get better information – but not both.   The goal is to trap the truth, not the person.  Still, it may be important to get rid of compulsive liars, something that can be done using a similar approach.  

Herb Simon was known for his study of decision making and the theory of Bounded Rationality.  Many people say that this means you simply get someone with a lot of experience who will just make their best guess.  But what does the word “bounded” mean?  It is more than simply trimming off the less probable options.  Rather, it may reflect the importance of the group structure and process.  

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.  

Israel Palestine Solution

Posted on by josuter

A nation-state is not a person or a living being.  It is an agreement among leaders about rules and boundaries.  It is whatever can be agreed on and written into a constitution.  This is good news and may allow democracy to evolve.  It may also allow a solution to Israel’s dilemma.  With this dynamic form of democracy, PM Netanyahu can declare victory.  He could say “The war is over.  We have extracted an eye for an eye, ten times over.  Israel has won and now it is time for peace.”  Such a declared victory would be more Biblical than a war without end.   *(Ecclesiastes 3:3 – A time to kill and a time to heal.) 

Israel-Palestine will remain a single state, but because of external threats, the military will remain under Jewish control, even if the Jewish population becomes a minority.  That can be written into the constitution.  Regional leaders within Israel-Palestine will maintain peace in their areas, but they can be removed by a referendum of 80% vote of any minority within that region, or by a 60% of the general population vote within that region. This can also be written into a constitution and allows political leverage by minorities to allow some control over their own lives.  This dynamic democracy is somewhere between one-person-one-vote and one-group-one-vote.  It can work if leaders agree.  

Let the food aid into Gaza.   Palestinians can leave Gaza (with help and transportation) and establish many enclaves around the whole of the state of Israel-Palestine.  Enclaves on both sides can have their own small arms but only to be used defensively.  Any attempt to use them offensively will result in the small arms being taken from that enclave. Declare that the war has been won, but do not go back to the status quo.  The walls of Gaza must come down.  Anyone can live anywhere in Israel-Palestine.   

It may be that PM Netanyahu is the only one who can carry this out.  The role of religious leaders will be key in helping to guide The Story toward a positive future for all involved.  Third party peacekeepers and communicators may be required for some years and will be allowed to carry arms to defend themselves.  This plan is not simply a way of keeping enemies close but gives people a chance to heal.  Claims on geography are important but not in the same way as in the past, and there is no current court of justice that parties will listen to.  The healing must come from within.