Invitation: Become a Citizens’ Dividend Organisation (CDO) Confidant
Interested in being part of a global multi-partisan standing ‘optimal governance’ summit, which seeks to solve our collective-problems at their source?
The ‘CDO-Confidants’ is a 10,000+ strong Google-group whose membership, while inclusive of both the Disempowered & moderately Empowered, disproportionately comprises the influential particularly executives (especially CEO’s), Board members (especially Managing Directors & Chairs), founders, entrepreneurs, academics, performers, journalists, authors, commissioners, politicians (from councillors to the highest level), the wealthy, the famous and other leaders.
Its members span the arts, business (small and large), the diplomatic corps, economics, education, emergency services, the environment, health, law, media, the military, philanthropy, politics, religion, science, social-services, sport, think-tanks, trade-unions, other public-services etc. and possess views, which, proportionally representative of those within Western societies, range from: the Left to the Right; conservative to progressive; Atheist to Supernaturalist.
In sum, it embodies the concept: “We’re all in this together.”
CDO-Confidants don’t necessarily agree with everything the CDO states (or even support the CDO) but are interested parties to ‘optimal governance’ including the theory & advocacy of ‘Coopetism’.
Implicit in this group’s collective understanding is, in this time of institutional stress, optimising any single nation’s governance will stand as a beacon for all other nations and their citizens.
If you wish to be included, which means being copied on some CDO correspondence and receiving its annual report please reply, ‘I wish to be a CDO-Confidant’ and we will be in touch.
In joining, your name will be visible to group members; however, your email address will not and, of course, you can opt-out at any time.
Thank you.
Paul
Coopetism
“Irrespective of whether there’s a God or not, we can’t make ourselves perfect;
however, we can (and must) optimise our systems.”
Coopetism: Government infrastructure that maximises ‘Coopetition’ – i.e.: it ‘maximises both good-faith Cooperation and, within that context, potential Competition’.
Such ‘Total-Coopetition’ infrastructure represents the fully-civilised fully-optimised ‘Completed Western Model’, which achieves ‘universal sustainable SEE-in stability-prosperity optimisation’ where SEE-in is Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural].
Currently, the best we have is: ‘The SIS-infested (suboptimal) Western Model’ where SIS is ‘Subsistence-Income-Servitude’, which infrastructurally generates a continuous plague of unnecessary suffering.
[Note: SIS arose out of the Industrial Revolution when subsistence-farmers gave up their self-sufficiency to become national-economy-serving income-earning machinists, which, meaning our ancient prophets/philosophers couldn’t/didn’t advise on it, therefore, requires us to use our God-given/nature-given minds.]
The solution is the self-funding SIS-eradicating ‘USI-4-UMHoW Reform’ in which The Universal Subsistence Income (USI) is substituted for the twin evils of:
- Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) – i.e. unemployment’s creator-Satan
- Income-Welfare – i.e. the creator-Satan of targeting-bureaucracies, ‘the dole-bludger’ narrative & the gain-paid-work-lose-the-dole distortion.
Meanwhile, our SIS-inclusive suboptimal-systems are manufacturing a ubiquitous form of mental-illness, which we are, therefore, all suffering and which, in a circularity of insidiousness, means we don’t dare even discuss either SIS or its self-funding ‘USI-4-UMHoW’ solution.
Articles of SIS-Preserving Faith
The Devil: “Regarding your SEE-in problems, thou shalt not discuss the solution nor cast a single light ray upon it but, eternally, shall fill the vacuum with Band-Aid distractions.”
Articles of faith against SIS-eradication:
- “It’s something for nothing”, which suggests all inheritance ought to be outlawed
- “It’s too expensive” – unlike income-Welfare, whose targeting is both bureaucratically-costly and economically-distorting, The USI is purely a transfer (from taxpayers to all-citizens) whose administration cost (per the investment) is negligible and, rather than being wasteful, continues circulating notwithstanding leakage on imports yet, even there, with business-booming, both exports and import-replacement increases
- “The rich shouldn’t get it” – the all-eclipsing efficiency benefits dictate they must receive it; meanwhile, perversely, this is the default position of most of the Empowered who are most tasked to assist the Disempowered
- “You’ve got to have a go to get a go” – first & foremost and without snobbery-based judgementalism, “every citizen should get a go” and the floor should be a Subsistence-Income not the precariousness of food-insecurity, shelter-lessness, ostracization, isolation and an intemperate unsafe ‘bed’ of grass.
[Even in Australia – a country that prides itself on being egalitarian – snobbery, which is unity’s & civilisation’s killer, is SIS-infrastructuralised, normalised and rampant even in the social-services.]
Antidote: ‘Love thy neighbour’ – i.e. in a modern non-subsistence-farming society, every citizen needs (and, therefore, should receive, directly & efficiently):
- A Subsistence-Income, which, after 260+ years of potential post-subsistence productivity gains, if not for the inefficiency of SIS’s own existence, would be ‘pocket change’
- The Agency of Choice/Opportunity to, neither being gifted nor railroaded, self-enter the labour-market and, via merit, self-gain paid-work at the market-rate including when their labour is worth less than the UMHoW rate (in Australia, currently, with the annual revisitation July 1, $23.23).
…
April 5, 2024
Hello
This letter begins with a consideration of philosophy vis-à-vis our SEE-in challenges.
‘The Love of Wisdom’
Philosophy – ‘the love of wisdom’ – is much-maligned as impractical; yet, it’s the path to the source of issues.
Accordingly, while it’s one thing to sideline and ridicule philosophy when all is well, how can this be advisable when we’re facing a culminating self-created perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro[international/natural] (SEE-in) catastrophes?
Regarding our SEE-in catastrophes, they may be represented as:
- Socio- Disempowerment
- Econo- Inefficiency
- International-Enviro- Authoritarianism
- Natural-Enviro- Unsustainability.
And, regarding our tools of Science, Human-Organisation & Technology (SHOT), we are ignoring Human-Organisation (specifically Coopetism), thinking S&T will be our salvation – i.e. respectively, more jobs, more productivity, more weapons and more renewables.
However, as we become increasingly S&T super-empowered, if we don’t optimise our Human-Organisation, S&T will increasingly backfire – for example, Authoritarians can also make and use increasingly powerful weapons (as, simultaneously, they point at our SIS-induced social-problems).
Given our self-inflicted SEE-in challenges and our lopsided SHOT response, isn’t it likely what seemed to have worked up to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992-published The End of History and the Last Man – i.e. Liberal Democracy & so-called ‘free markets’ [with SIS, the labour-market isn’t free] – is no longer enough, which means we need to step-up?
And, not to be provocative for its own sake; however, if we shun philosophising/analysing our way to the source of the issue then why, on any God-given- or secular-basis, should we expect our ‘civilisations’ to survive and, on the contrary, why shouldn’t we expect ourselves & our descendants to suffer horribly and the ‘human-project’ to ‘end in tears’?
Returning to philosophy, arguably, religion is central to all 5 of its branches:
- Epistemology (knowledge & truth)
- Metaphysics (reality & being)
- Logic (argumentation & reason)
- Axiology (aesthetics & ethics)
- Political philosophy (the state & government).
And, regarding the international-Enviro-, with wars prevalent globally, which, in the West, are beginning to touch us locally, while not to imply it’s religion’s fault, religious-extremism (particularly religious-Authoritarianism) is, especially in the Middle East and Africa, at the forefront.
Accordingly, this article is the 1st of 3 ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ letters:
- 5.3 – To Atheists, Agnostics & Supernaturalists
- 5.4 – To Universal Liberal Democracies (incl. Israel)
- 5.5 – To the Global Ummah (esp. in the Middle East)
Regarding this letter, it asks: ‘Is there reason for respect between Atheists, Agnostics & Supernaturalists?’
The West’s Most Inherent Internal Division
What is the West’s most inherent internal division – Left/Right or conservative/progressive or … ?
In terms of the Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural] (SEE-in) ‘Big Picture’, most disagreements devolve to the Socio- of citizen-Empowerment/Disempowerment.
That is, our problems whether Econo- (such as unemployment & inflation) or international-Enviro- (such as Authoritarian aggression) or natural-Enviro- (such as rainforest destruction) mostly generate distress because they cause (or could cause) problems for people.
Yet, though often overlooked, there is broad agreement on most citizen-Empowerment policies.
That is, since the Industrial Revolution, via evolution (i.e. with no overarching governance-narrative), most Western countries have gained 4 of the 5 (Coopetism) citizen-Empowering infrastructures of:
- Universal Rule of Personal & Property Coopetition Law
- Universal Subsistence Income (USI) [not yet]
- Universal Liberal Democracy
- Universal Education
- Universal Healthcare
This is heartening – i.e. we’re absolutely so close.
Returning to “What is the West’s most inherent division?”, perhaps it relates to its citizens’ ‘views on the supernatural’.
Views on the Supernatural
Broadly, views on the spiritual consist of:
- Atheistic
- Agnostic
- Supernaturalistic (a congregation of sub-beliefs).
In the West, whereas just a couple of generations ago, Christianity was dominant, these days, clashes over ‘rights’ and, even more recently, ‘the deconstruction of power-structures’ (such as ‘white-privilege’ and ‘defunding police’) are increasingly generating intellectual and social enclaves, especially around schooling.
So, given a society requires a commonality, how can the differences be reconciled?
Perhaps, the only possible commonality is respect – i.e. within reason, mutual-respect by each for each of the others’ views.
However, is there reasoning for each of the 3 groups to respect the others’ views?
We begin by considering evidence for God.
Evidence for God
Putting personal-enlightenment and relatively minor miracles aside (i.e. with respect, there’s evidence the mind can be confused), there are 3 main evidential ‘mystery’ arguments for God:
- The human-mind (its complexity & its consciousness) [uncompelling]
- The Universe’s complexity [uncompelling]
- Existence per se [compelling].
The Human-Mind: Its Complexity & Its Consciousness
Regarding the human-mind’s complexity being evidence for God, whereas once it stood supreme, haven’t computers, algorithms and AI challenged its impressiveness?
And, regarding human-consciousness, while, as yet, this isn’t usually part of the school curriculum, logically, doesn’t it emerge out of a centralised-Self that’s a body-movement-influencer and, therefore, indirectly, a pleasure-pain-influencer?
That is (in brief), The Self contextualises:
- Tactile/touch-spawned pleasure-pain
- Reflex body-movement
- The commonality-precipitated-recall of pleasure-pain-forged concurrent-stimuli-containing-memories
- Comparisons of present with related past pleasure-pain-associated events
- The construction of a touch body-surface-map
- Non-touch senses (such as sight and hearing).
Besides, some other animals are also conscious and consciousness appears to have evolved more than once.
Thus, the human-mind’s complexity including its consciousness isn’t mystery enough to prove there’s a God.
The Universe’s Complexity
Regarding The Universe’s complexity, we have a causal theory beginning with The Big Bang, which leads to physics then, via gravity, to the fusion and dispersion inherent to stars, then, via gravity again, the formation of asteroids and planets, to chemistry (including macro-molecules) to, on Earth, abiogenesis (i.e. the point from non-life to life), which via biology, leads to complex-life.
That is, following The Big Bang, the causality leads, via physics (i.e. first wave-forces then also particle-forces), to the presence of electrons and quarks (which formed into matter predominantly tri-quark neutrons & protons) then, via stars to non-hydrogen elements, then, on Earth, via chemistry, to nucleotides (including RNA/DNA/ATP), which, via growth-and-decay and their interaction (including mutual manufacture) with proteins and lipids (fats), manifested, at least once, as abiogenesis in which repetition became reproduction such that there is biology and, lastly, through evolution to, for instance, us.
And, regarding answering the question, ‘How did the causality start?’, perhaps there is no start – for instance, perhaps, there’s a continuous process of Big Bang expansions and, gravitationally-forced, Big Implosions or Big Crunches.
Also, perhaps there are many such Big Bang-induced Universes and as they expand some of them approach one another (then meet and merge) such that they gravitationally pull on each other (through whatever is the space (perhaps suction) between these Universes), which may explain, along with the weakening of a Universe’s gravitational-pull on its outer reaches as it decentralises, why The Universe’s expansion is accelerating.
[Apologies to experts in this field for this amateur’s musings.]
Thus, conceptually, the causality from The Big Bang to the Human-Mind, also doesn’t appear to require a God.
Accordingly, while previously both the human-mind and The Universe’s complexity were mysterious, in modernity, neither provide convincing evidence for the supernatural, which means atheistic views deserve respect; however, isn’t ‘existence’ still a mystery?
The Existence Enigma: An Agnostic’s Argument for God
While the human-mind appears exceptional at deciphering cause-and-effect, it has little explanation as to the existence of forces (such as gravitation’s mass).
That is, how did the foundational-force, which includes The Universe, come to exist or, alternatively, has it always existed? And, if the latter, how has it always existed without being made?
And, if it’s beyond us to explain this then perhaps that’s due to the presence of a supernatural (or supra-Universe) force, which, perhaps, has something resembling a morality-motivated personality.
Other evidence includes the existence of the metaphysical or ‘the subjective reality problem’ – i.e. while one may objectively accept the causal theories of The Big Bang and evolution and, even, the subjective experience of observing life’s spectrum (including other humans), how is it one’s self:
- Exists?
- Exists within (and as) the consciousness of a Homo Sapiens creature born out of The Big Bang and evolution?
That is, each of us may be able to accept the existence of Homo Sapiens but how do we each explain being encased-in/synonymous-as one of them?
While some atheists ridicule the idea of God as ‘the man in the sky’, to the author, no story seems more ludicrous than our ‘existence per se’ and yet, apparently, that’s reality.
Thus, from a scientific point of view, a creator-God remains a valid hypothesis.
Accordingly, while faith is one path to supernatural belief (particularly, a specific supernatural belief), the absence of a full secular explanation (with no inkling there will ever be one) is another.
Conclusion
Science’s structure consists of: ‘existence’ & ‘causality’.
While atheists can rightly point to ever-increasing secular scientific understanding of ‘causalities’, supernaturalists can point to persistent ‘existence’ anomalies; meanwhile, agnostics can point to a lack of conclusive evidence on both counts.
That is, both atheists and supernaturalists can neither prove their own view nor disprove the other’s views.
This societal-commonality means there’s reason for all to be both humble regarding their own views and respectful of most other views, which, in turn, is an argument, not only for live-and-let-live tolerance, but also to conduct a good-faith search for a definitive spiritual-and-secular ‘ethical-commonality’.
Amongst other things, a definitive ethical-commonality between supernaturalists, atheists and agnostics is crucial for defining ‘religious-extremism’.
Accordingly, the next ‘Love thy Neighbour as thyself’ letter will consider a broad ethical-commonality, which simultaneously defines (and, therefore, excludes) religious-extremism.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
The Citizens’ Dividend Organisation (CDO)