Comments on: Hope http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/09/hope/ Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:07:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anonymous http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/09/hope/comment-page-1/#comment-191 Anonymous Sat, 01 Oct 2005 14:34:06 +0000 http://rhinocrisy.org/?p=424#comment-191 Not to be too cynical, but why wouldn't these organizatiosn be elitist? Progressive taxes mean that membership of the rich is crucial, so any shadow gov't would have to make sure the rich are well-represented.<br/><br/>One extremely popular example of "private government" are neighborhood associations, discussed in this<br/><a HREF="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/09/what_are_privat.html" REL="nofollow">Marginal Revolution blog post</a> .<br/> They definitely offer benefits to their members, but I don't think they're really strengthening civil society or democracy. <br/><br/><a></a><a></a>Posted by<a><b> </b></a>aram Not to be too cynical, but why wouldn’t these organizatiosn be elitist? Progressive taxes mean that membership of the rich is crucial, so any shadow gov’t would have to make sure the rich are well-represented.

One extremely popular example of “private government” are neighborhood associations, discussed in this
Marginal Revolution blog post .
They definitely offer benefits to their members, but I don’t think they’re really strengthening civil society or democracy. 

Posted by aram

]]> By: Anonymous http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/09/hope/comment-page-1/#comment-190 Anonymous Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:53:24 +0000 http://rhinocrisy.org/?p=424#comment-190 Oh yeah! This year's <a HREF="http://freethoughtguy.blogspot.com/2005/09/love-parade.html" REL="nofollow">Love Parade</a>  was the best yet! <br/><br/><a></a><a></a>Posted by<a><b> </b></a><a HREF="http://freethoughtguy.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="">FreeThinker</a> Oh yeah! This year’s Love Parade  was the best yet! 

Posted by FreeThinker

]]> By: Anonymous http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/09/hope/comment-page-1/#comment-189 Anonymous Mon, 26 Sep 2005 07:48:25 +0000 http://rhinocrisy.org/?p=424#comment-189 Yes, I have thoughts. There are many different kinds of organizational software that could be useful for this. The <a HREF="http://project.cyclos.org/site.php" REL="nofollow">Cylos Project</a>  has one for a community currency economy that could be adapted easily. Here's a thorough article on <a HREF="http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/?article=emery.insurance.fraternal" REL="nofollow">benefit societies</a> that's worth reading. Here's a rather dry <a HREF="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10899478&query_hl=1" REL="nofollow">summary</a> of the benefits of generosity and cooperation.<br/><br/><i>Some</i>  of what I think would help make your plan workable is a mix of the various benefit societies and a local exchange trading system/community currency.  <br/><br/><a></a><a></a>Posted by<a><b> </b></a><a HREF="http://pierrotsfolly.blogharbor.com/" REL="nofollow" TITLE="pierrots dot misery at gmail dot com">Harry</a> Yes, I have thoughts. There are many different kinds of organizational software that could be useful for this. The Cylos Project  has one for a community currency economy that could be adapted easily. Here’s a thorough article on benefit societies that’s worth reading. Here’s a rather dry summary of the benefits of generosity and cooperation.

Some  of what I think would help make your plan workable is a mix of the various benefit societies and a local exchange trading system/community currency.  

Posted by Harry

]]> By: Anonymous http://rhinocrisy.org/2005/09/hope/comment-page-1/#comment-188 Anonymous Sun, 25 Sep 2005 19:52:00 +0000 http://rhinocrisy.org/?p=424#comment-188 You've generated an almost physically painful reaction in me, where I'd like to (positively) comment on almost every line you've written, which of course is both impolite and impractical. I'll try to be brief:<br/><br/><b>Yes!!!</b> <br/><br/>significantly less briefly:<br/><br/>If there is a major silver lining in technology, it's that this is now neither farfetched nor necessarily requiring major divisions across the Union. And if there's a major silver-lining in having our 200-+-year-old govt, it's that it's helpfully provided a lot of geographic templates and an organization scheme for much of the relevant information. I kind of think it was always the intention of Jefferson (who famously regretted not writing up the role of the citizens in the constitution) for such shadow governments to exist, both as alternative back-up schemes (how you seem to be posing it) and to actually shadow the government-----decentralized oversight being a key method to maintaining efficiency and honesty. <br/><br/>And we've always had a bit of it. Civil society is a deeply important aspect of the American project that usually gets short schrift. (We need much better non-profit and civil-society oriented Journalism in this country, for one thing.) I'm not going to dip into the rhetorical trick of calling upon a golden age mythology--I don't know if it was ever adaqutely organized and effective and widespread to match the geographic and demographic scale of the Union and the governments. But regardless if this civil society once was correctly scaled, and just failed to grow at a rate commensurate to that of the Union and the government, or even if it was never effective enough, there's no reason to jump-start its growth now. I think our newfound technical ability to organize and bring together interested parties could regrow civil society at the kind of astronomical rates which might finally match up with the needs at hand. <br/><br/>This is partially why I'm recently so fascinated with geography, mapping, electronic mapping, and cartography, which I think I briefly mentioned to you. I think a lot of these new tools could, in theory, enable people to dynamically maintain and deepen their sense of place and community and responsibility. <br/><br/>I've <a HREF="http://ssrdatta.blogspot.com/2005/07/economic-flights-of-fancy-this-is-kind.html" REL="nofollow">said before</a>  that we should be able to come with new ways of organizing people other than the big three models. (Government, corporation, non-profit.)<br/><br/>When it comes to disaster preparation, some of these ideas seem relevant to <a HREF="http://ssrdatta.blogspot.com/2005/09/recovery-2.html" REL="nofollow">Recovery2.0</a>.  <br/><br/><a></a><a></a>Posted by<a><b> </b></a><a HREF="http://ssrdatta.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="sahelidatta at hotmail dot com">Saheli</a> You’ve generated an almost physically painful reaction in me, where I’d like to (positively) comment on almost every line you’ve written, which of course is both impolite and impractical. I’ll try to be brief:

Yes!!! 

significantly less briefly:

If there is a major silver lining in technology, it’s that this is now neither farfetched nor necessarily requiring major divisions across the Union. And if there’s a major silver-lining in having our 200-+-year-old govt, it’s that it’s helpfully provided a lot of geographic templates and an organization scheme for much of the relevant information. I kind of think it was always the intention of Jefferson (who famously regretted not writing up the role of the citizens in the constitution) for such shadow governments to exist, both as alternative back-up schemes (how you seem to be posing it) and to actually shadow the government—–decentralized oversight being a key method to maintaining efficiency and honesty.

And we’ve always had a bit of it. Civil society is a deeply important aspect of the American project that usually gets short schrift. (We need much better non-profit and civil-society oriented Journalism in this country, for one thing.) I’m not going to dip into the rhetorical trick of calling upon a golden age mythology–I don’t know if it was ever adaqutely organized and effective and widespread to match the geographic and demographic scale of the Union and the governments. But regardless if this civil society once was correctly scaled, and just failed to grow at a rate commensurate to that of the Union and the government, or even if it was never effective enough, there’s no reason to jump-start its growth now. I think our newfound technical ability to organize and bring together interested parties could regrow civil society at the kind of astronomical rates which might finally match up with the needs at hand.

This is partially why I’m recently so fascinated with geography, mapping, electronic mapping, and cartography, which I think I briefly mentioned to you. I think a lot of these new tools could, in theory, enable people to dynamically maintain and deepen their sense of place and community and responsibility.

I’ve said before  that we should be able to come with new ways of organizing people other than the big three models. (Government, corporation, non-profit.)

When it comes to disaster preparation, some of these ideas seem relevant to Recovery2.0.  

Posted by Saheli

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