Societal Design Challenge

Regarding a design challenge to redesign society, first read….

(1) Sic Itur Ad Astra – by Andrew J. Galambos (design of a society with no coercion – total freedom)
http://www.amazon.com/Sic-Itur-Ad-Astra-Volition/dp/0880780045
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Joseph_Galambos

(2) Unto This Last – by John Ruskin (Gandhi read this, and it triggered his new path)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin
https://archive.org/details/untothislast00rusk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unto_This_Last

“Unto This Last had a very important impact on Gandhi’s philosophy.”

(3) Conceptual Foundations of Multidisciplinary Thinking – by Stephen J Kline (philosophers have failed us, but here is what they might have done)
http://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Foundations-Multidisciplinary-Thinking-Stephen/dp/0804724091

My sense is that we need people to have the ability to rapidly rebuild society from scratch – and individuals have to know and do this – as a prerequisite to be a “mature member of society” – I think we need cognitive assistants to do this.  So rapidly rebuilding to the point where people get a 3D printer, kinematic machines, and rebuild a cognitive assistant.  How rapidly could all of science be redeveloped if you knew what to measure, and how to build measurement instruments?  This is what a cognitive assistant can be training wheels for, and help get us to rebuild cognitive assistants more and more rapidly…..   see this: https://service-science.info/archives/2189

I have not figured our an intelligent way to express the above material, so it is an emotional intuition….  someday I hope to have a rigorous story to tell.

Besides rebuilding technology infrastructure, these people need ideas for rapidly rebuilding societal decision-architectures/institutions/governance/governments and rule systems….

(4) Federalist Papers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers

(5) Meta-Rules and Chartered Cities
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer?language=en

(6) Jefferson – Agrarian Policy
https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/the-federalist-era-1789-1801-10/the-republican-alternative-88/jefferson-s-agrarian-policy-492-8248/

(7) The Unbounded Mind: Breaking the Chains of Traditional Business Thinking, by Ian I. Mitroff and  Harold A. Linstone
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unbounded-Mind-Breaking-Traditional/dp/0195102886

Distributed intelligence and governance are co-dependent.  Augmented local intelligence can demonstrate itself by rapidly rebuilding itself from scratch.

From a service science perspective, the evolving ecology of nested, networked service system entities, with capabilities, constraints, rights, and responsibilities – should be able to rapidly rebuild itself from scratch while doing many distributed experiments to extend itself (progress).

(8) Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny – by Robert Wright
http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941

“Interactions among individual genes, or cells, or animals, among interest groups, or nations, or corporations, can be viewed through the lenses of game theory. What follows is a survey of human history, and of organic history, with those lenses in place. My hope is to illuminate a kind of force – the non-zero-sum dynamic – that has crucially shaped the unfolding of life on earth so far…  In short, both organic and human history involve the playing of every-more-numerous, ever-larger, and ever-more-elaborate non-zero-sum games. It is the accumulation of these games – game upon game upon game – that constitutes the growth of biological and social complexity…” (Wright 2000, Pp. 5-7)

The non-zero sum force is more than value co-creation, it is value co-creation plus capability co-elevation in the contact of the capability to rapidly rebuild from scratch.

Service is the “non-zero-sum force” …

Service system entities/resource integrators are what exhibit the “non-zero-sum force.”

(9) Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter – Terrence Deacon
http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Nature-Mind-Emerged-Matter/dp/0393343901

(10) Bob Sutton’s warning…. be careful what you wish for….
“The Dark Side of Scaling Up: Will You Want to Live in What You Build?”
http://bobsutton.typepad.com/

BTW Ruskin -> Ghandi…

“Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily necessities of life, have hitherto existed — three exist necessarily, in every civilised nation:

The Soldier’s profession is to defend it.
The Pastor’s to teach it.
The Physician’s to keep it in health.
The lawyer’s to enforce justice in it.
The Merchant’s to provide for it.

And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die for it.

“On due occasion,” namely: –

The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle.
The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague.
The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood.
The lawyer, rather than countenance Injustice.
The Merchant— what is his “due occasion” of death?

It is the main question for the merchant, as for all of us. For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.”

And also Ruskin wrote…

“For wealth, instead of depending merely on a “have,” is thus seen to depend on a “can.””

Hence my fascination with:

(11) “The knowing-doing gap” – by Pfeffer and Sutton
http://www.amazon.com/The-Knowing-Doing-Gap-Companies-Knowledge/dp/1578511240

Again, from a service science perspective, the four types of resources are – people, technology, organizations, and information.    People and technology are physical.   People and organizations have rights and responsibilities.   The capability to rapidly rebuild society from scratch seems like a responsibility/duty to me.   This is an emotional intuition.   However, I would like to make it a logic argument someday.   And I aspire to have the knowledge and put it into practice – knowing and doing.   Unlikely I will succeed. Oh well.  Dream big.

Is there a university on the planet that could rapidly rebuild societal infrastructure from scratch?   The Munich Germany Science Museum tries to show the knowledge required to rapidly rebuild society from scratch.  Wouldn’t it be great if a university graduated students who had that experience?

My ideal society is one in which each individual demonstrates the ability to rapidly rebuild society from scratch.   This is a responsibility – a duty to self and others – that once demonstrated suggests the person appreciates the essential past, as well as is ready to push forward and make new progress.  As part of the evolving ecology of nested, networked service system entities, it also provides an answer to what is education.

The paradox of course – is that in the old days some people actually had this knowledge and demonstrated it… See Alone In The Wilderness – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss – granted the level was lower than all of societal infrastructure of today.  Today we suffer from the knowledge burden – so much knowledge some say education and innovation is getting harder – http://www.nber.org/papers/w11360 – rapidly rebuilding societal infrastructure provides a speedier path for re-deriving all of knowledge.  And sets the stage for the 6 R’s of learning – https://service-science.info/archives/2096