by James | Jun 22, 2012 | Life
Inspired by Matt Cutts‘ video on 30 day challenges I thought I would attempt to do something challenging for 30 days. In a slightly different shift I decided rather than pick a challenge for myself I’d leave it up to my friends because.. Well… what could possibly go wrong with that?!
Firstly we’ll pick from my list but if you have better suggestions for tasks comment and when I complete this challenge we’ll put your suggestions on a list and see what I have to do then…
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by James | Jun 22, 2012 | Exploration I
On the previous post 99 I have had a few extra thoughts
There are times in extreme situations when this [following the laws of the host country] may cause a conflict of interest, take for example, a woman who was beheaded for practising witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, this followed the laws of the nation, and as such quite rightly caused international condemnation. How can one blithely say “follow the host countries rules without question”.
Similarly, what to do if a community member is called out as being a witch or sentenced in such a way? Or if a corrupt government or Nazi like dictatorship demands the community to obey oppressive, unethical rules.
In fact it may not even need to be that extreme what if a person arrives at the door begging for sanctuary because they are to be married against their will, or a minor who is experiencing abuse, an outspoken reporter who has been found to spread information about his corrupt government.
It would be simple to say; this is unlikely, this probably won’t occur but that would shy away from the simple question.
I am writing Exploration II which covers more of these moral ambiguities and questions of conflicts of state corruption vs. community ethics. Suffice to say I realise this is a complex issue and Exploration I is only intended as an initial foray into the concept of the community. It was never designed to cover every detail.
by James | Jun 22, 2012 | Exploration I
Why have punishments in the community?
There are two fundamental methods of punishment; personal remorse or guilt for your actions and socially or legally imposed punishments.
It is firstly important to clarify that if any civil law is broken it is up to the external authorities to decide the severity of the punishment according to the laws of the nation the community resides in [note: This means irrelevant of the moral codes of the community if someone brakes the law of the nation that the community is operating in they are charged and sentenced by the authorities in that nation. There should be no excuses and all laws of a host nation should be upheld]. This is right, proper and should not be disregarded or lashed out against, even if the civil law seems incorrect or archaic.
If there is a breakdown of order in the community that is not relevant to civil law, like a member not working or causing agitation, regularly causing distress etc. The range of punishments would flow from isolation -> exile. The reason should be clear ‘ good behaviour should be encouraged and rewarded while negative or destructive behaviour should be discouraged and mitigated.
As physical punishment has been regularly shown to be notoriously bad at being an effective system to change habits, social isolation and reflection seems a more appropriate method. Humans without training find social interactions and stimulus pretty necessary. Social isolation or enforced reflection on difficult topics should be sparingly dispensed to transgressors, certainly an authority figure dealing out the punishment should be in a group of selected officials who all agree on what is being done.
The council in charge of the rules and assessment of peers who might be removed from community permanently will either
a) need to be carefully decided on by a vote from the community or,
b) the matter must be voted on by the entire community in an open dialogue
As removing someone from the community permanently is the most decisive judgement the community can deliver.
by James | Jun 21, 2012 | Exploration I
Why are members trained in a large number of subjects and disciplines? Why not just focus on a particular field from the beginning?
General education, in many countries, segregates every subject teaching it in isolation of its peers. As a community of reason we should realize that no subject is used in complete isolation from the others, especially in the sciences, many different disciplines combine to form very diverse subjects from nano-technology to bio-chem. But equally art, philosophy and creative visual thinking have been behind some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs (DNA, General Relativity etc) in a holistic, homogeneous approach to education a general spread of foundation skills can greatly improve our abilities in unexpected ways.
Secondly, the general studying of a wide range of subjects allows us to create a basic level of equal understanding. This could point to a level whereupon the member becomes a full fledged member of the community. The idea is that the level should not be a destructive barrier for people who have very specialised expertise but a level where by the members have enough understanding that they can be helpful in any disciple in some way, even if it is just data entry or testing data, at the very least community members should understand the arguments and essentials of a dialogue in a number of different fields.
While equality is the goal there might necessarily be a hierarchy of upper and lower levels of understanding. The lower level being equivalent to a GCSE or O-Level and the upper being the same as an A-level. To become a specialist in any subject you must have a fundamental understanding of the whole (chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics) in addition to this the disciplines of electronics and computing should be taken as they are essential for building practical applications or appliances. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to assume that you need a high level of knowledge in all areas of all subjects there has to be some cut-off points. To become an expert in a field you need to direct your unwavering attention to it, thus an advocate of a subject will have to be content in letting other disciplines slide.
Finally, by keeping members educated or teaching subjects in a churn it keeps knowledge and humility alive as they realise their weaknesses in other disciplines and the strength of their peers, meanwhile by teaching other students their subjects it helps reaffirm and retain those fundamental skills of their trade.
by James | Jun 20, 2012 | Random Links, Writing
I was reminded of Malcom Gladwell’s book on viral marketing ‘the tipping point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference’ when I watched this video. Just for the method of creating a sticky message easily spread. I haven’t smoked for a long time, and I realise the difficulties in giving up. The road to obtaining release is probably never traversed, I still to this day want a cigarette when I’ve had a drink or when I have a moment of indecision and stress.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Sabd1SbyLgQ[/youtube]
The strategy followed in the video is a great one it makes people question themselves, it makes people realise the questions they wont ask. It needs to be pursued, cigarette companies are a multi-billion dollar industry based upon addiction and death. When was the last time we looked at that and thought “this is wrong”.
I for one wish that the selling of tobacco was banned but that probably wouldn’t stop the trade. We need better methods to stop children from starting and strangle this industry from the roots up.
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