by James | Jun 26, 2012 | Exploration I
What is the purpose of the community?
This has been covered in numerous past entries, however there is no single use to a multi-tool. But the more these entries are written the more the purpose has evolved. From being prepared -> providing for the community -> helping those organisations that currently exist through our expertise.
Thus we can help the world via the frameworks that currently exist, alongside our own contributions. The ultimate aim is to reduce the suffering of the world and that of future generations.
by James | Jun 24, 2012 | Exploration I
Why use dialogue between members?
Dialogue is not an open conversation it is a formal discussion between groups or individuals with the intention to teach, learn or evaluate what is being suggested. In many schools, students would memorize notable dialogues that perfectly explained or clearly identified a particular subject. The reason for using them in the community is to keep alive the idea of clear logical reasoning and debate, this also prepares the student to use logical steps to draw conclusions from facts.
The other idea is to give a method of individual teaching create a framework to allow disagreements between members in a civil manner.
[note: I wrote and read a lot more later on dialogue and dialectic methods so I know this isn’t exactly a clear description of why we should use them, or even what dialogues truly are, it’s true that dialectic and dialogues feed the minds ability to debate and reason arguments, the noting of fallacies, etc. are all good reasons to have at least a broad understanding of the discipline, but I wrote more on the subject later.]
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.
