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 12, 2012 | Writing
I am trying to take my various blog ideas and put them on this site so things may get pretty messy until I find a nice way to separate posts and clean things up. I am not too worried about losing the minimal traffic I have from this as most of what I write is simply to have written it up in a digital format.
My latest inclusion is the Exploration I notes, a large quantity of quasi-philosophical / political writing that I did while on buses and the métro. The idea of creating a community of people dedicated to science and progress in much the same way a monastic order is dedicated to praying and servitude to a god. Only in this case it’s serving humanity and would have tangible results.
I have been very absent recently but I hope to make this a habit again. I have a lot of work to do and only one lifetime to do it in. Wish me luck.
by James | Nov 5, 2011 | Exploration I
Everyone has the capability to be a teacher, and we are all born as creative artists, despite what we may think. The community should foster all the qualities of their members, with every long-standing member being qualified (with a PGCE) and prepared to teach various topics. All members should also nurture their own unique talents in creativity, divergent thinking, brainstorming, and problem-solving, which should all be worked on as seriously as logic, mathematics, and science.
by James | Nov 4, 2011 | Exploration I
To create a community you need a structure and converging personal beliefs or values. When this is not the case there will be division and conflict. All humans have similar needs and desires in life [Maslow’s pyramid of needs] although peoples expectations in how to realize these objectives differ
