Netocracy

[gumOnShoe]

This may or may not be an idea I just stole from a book. Ok it is, feel free to go read Daemon & Freedom, a two parter on a unique vision of humanities future. It's entirely speculative, but it is interesting, plus full of blood and guts and stereotypical archetype bad ass military men & hackers. Enough on the source, here's the idea:

Decentralize Society through several means:

1) A global encrypted network that allows members to talk to one another, share any information immediately, have access to resources owned by the network, and in general form communities based on basic plans for structures that are categorized by use.

Some details on the network. It uses a heads up display for communication. Basically you see you're world around you but you can put up nav points or notes wherever you like. The camera built in to the glasses can read your hand movements and uses them as input to control a virtual computer screen directly in front of you. The glasses function similarly to cell phones.

The role of an individual in the network is like the role of a member of an MMORPG. You are a user. You can level up by doing basic activities that benefit your community. Every time you do something to help the members of your community you get credits (a money like substance). And you get more access to more of the network.

Users who get powerful enough can create new objectives for society, obtain resources, or acquire access to the defense grid (a set of drones that cars were converted from).

This is a problem because these people are human and greedy. The system accounts for this with a rating system. Every person in the world can rate anyone they've interacted with. If you are rated low enough and have enough power the system takes away your levels and perhaps even your money until you can show you've reformed.

Each person has a class (elves, orcs, etc), only in this case its fabricators (people who have access to 3d printers & can assemble), horticulturalist (farmer), technicians (mechanic), journalists (people who rove the lands and report to a gigantic news forum, where people can up or downvote stories). Etc.

The Journalists are particularly interesting because the news travels locally, so anyone in the net near by has the immediate chance to upvote it because they get a notice it happened. So, you couldn't easily go around taking advantage of people when it could end up out on the net just from the movement of someone's pupils.

Ownership changes a bit. Its not communism because people can own things, but the economy is structured differently around sustainability. An action gets you more points if its sustainable, and those points can get you a nicer house, nicer clothes, or whatever. Instead of having massive lines of transit (transcontinental, highways), the focus is to make each community as self reliant as possible. They should generate enough renewable energy for themselves, grow enough food, mine what they need and move on. Trade could be done through the net for resources that were needed, but weren't around.

That's the basics of it though. Its not really communism. Its not really democracy. Its not really Capatilsim. Its a little bit of all of it. Each member is responsible for rating those around him, for constantly voting in real time about what they want to happen in society. Each member is given access to the digital libraries free of cost so that they may better themselves. People still do what they want to do. They pick their role when they join. Its a meritocracy. There is incentive to do good work. There is a way to enforce a social contract.

Its weird I know, bu that was the proposition made by the book. Feel free to break it down. I'm curious as to what people think.

[LoliTastic]

At 8/19/10 04:50 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

My inner nerd says that that is fucking awesome. But i could really see where it could go wrong seems like it was made to make us feel safe. Although i do like the approach it takes. Im kinda all for it

[SteveGuzzi]

At 8/19/10 04:50 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Feel free to break it down. I'm curious as to what people think.

Sounds interesting, but since all technology is susceptible to tampering I wonder just how many chapters deal with people hacking the global brain uplink network or whatever.

[LordZeebmork]

ohoho yeah i think we've all seen how well voting works on newgrounds, or really any other site with a voting system

[poxpower]

Obvious exploit: gang up, upvote one guy to use the defense grid and GO TO TOWN and share the spoils!

Weeeee

And the entire system is based on figuring out if an action is beneficial/sustainable or not when opinion is very much involved in this matter and the implementation of something "sustainable" would require eventual sacrifices like limiting the number of children or the level of consumption of certain things.

Sacrifices which people could just ignore by ganging up and taking over a large part of the system to the detriment of others.

Plus, who decides on the rules of the system?
I mean you're basically describing a dictatorship where everyone has to play this game that has been decided upon by some group of dudes somewhere at some time who reserved to themselves 100% of the power in this matter.

If the rules are unchangeable, then it's a dictatorship. If the rules can be changed by anyone who levels up enough, then it's easy to corrupt.

*idea ruined*
*bonus round*

My take on this is that it's useless to try and predict future technologies. When humans predict the future, they do two things:

1. Imagine how current technology could be applied better to solve problems
2. Circumvent the limitations of those technologies by ignoring them and assuming it'll be made to work eventually.

Historically the future has been pretty unpredictable in terms of technologies. That's not to say that something like the Matrix is impossible, for example, but more like new technologies would probably make it "stupid".

Like how in the 19th century they would invent "automatons" that were shitty machines that worked on steam power and were made out of wood and iron which you could use to cut your hair or wash your clothes. Today we could make those, but why? We have something so much better which they couldn't possibly have foreseen us having.

...

Yeah I'm bored.
I need to... work on something

[satanbrain]

everything is hack/crashable. idea ruined. but even if it's not, if everyone hates you, you'll never succeed, you need to convince people to love so they won't vote for you. Unfair.

[QuantumPenguin]

At 8/19/10 10:25 PM, poxpower wrote: Historically the future has been...

Made me giggle.

[gumOnShoe]

At 8/19/10 10:07 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote:

At 8/19/10 04:50 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Feel free to break it down. I'm curious as to what people think.

Sounds interesting, but since all technology is susceptible to tampering I wonder just how many chapters deal with people hacking the global brain uplink network or whatever.

Very few of them, and those that do, do it incorrectly, but yeah that's all plot device. The story revolves around how the network comes into being. Sobol, a man diagnosed with terminal cancer creates the system and then kills everyone with triggered events who helped create it when he dies by having his creation read internet news and set a series of events into motion. He owned several MMORPGs in the story and "knew" how to do it.

The system supposedly relied on bio uplinks. Identity theft in one part of the book, literally involved cutting people up for their parts. But overall the system was massively distributable and put in place by IT people who were made in offer in the original MMORPG. It suck out disgruntled users to spread like a virus by using humans instead something e-mail. The system itself set up the initial goals for its members, killing thousands of people who it viewed as a threat or taking over their companies/organizations.

In the end the system was hackable, but it was meant to be hackable. After it had control of resources it began recruiting the people necessary to build such a civilization as described above. Those places became embroiled in a civil war with corporate interests. The corporation found ways to hack into the system and create new objects and goals, but the system had rogue bots that were very much like an organism's white blood cells that looked for anomalous behavior.

Ultimately, the power of the system was put into those hands who wanted it the most, but there was always a balance available to the people. If there was a benevolent dictator, that was fine if the people accepted them, but there could also be a ruling council, or straight democracy. The system was malleable on purpose.

As to how hackable a system really is. That depends on the system. Most systems use code that just isn't "hackable." A majority of exploits involve inserting data into databases that aren't secure. You'd be surprised how many systems are changeable (and why) and how many aren't. When you really think about it, its probably very difficult to hack most programs. Its not very often that the code itself is corrupted, and that's why normally hackers rely on the people themselves that use the system. Phishing, install this for me please, you're infected buy this product, etc.

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As for the up voting problem. I have a feeling it wouldn't work the same as the internet does now way if you incorporated the average citizen and they were fully aware that their vote would actually impact their life. Would there be gangs? Yes. But they probably wouldn't be very sustainable in world where everyone can film everyday life and stream their surroundings to the net. Plus as something becomes a threat, the people who care can still down vote it. Speculation, sure. Things would still happen, sure. But, probably not malicious things on a global scale.

One other feature of the system, was a meter that determined whether the system power was being held completely by one person or spread out over the community. The system always tried to balance itself towards the center. That gauge was always available to the populace.

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As for whether this is future technology, we have most of the technology right now. The basics of the tech exists now. HUD glasses already exist. Some research would need to go into compressing it and making a translucent surface that can become opaque. Cell networks already exist for streaming the data. A fibreoptic compass could be installed into the frame of the glasses, along with a gyroscope to tell which way you are looking. The lenses could be calibrated to project 3d images. The system could be loaded with topographical maps from satellite images so that the system is aware of the basic boundaries. For other places, 3d scanners now exist (I used to work on them), that can scan a room in under a minus and load its structure up to a database. And as for the rest its mostly software.

The one thing in the book that it did rely on was the fMRI justice system. They system could use it and determine based on the level brain activity as to whether or not you recognize an idea. Like looking for a harmonized frequency in your brain. You say, Kansas, there's not much response if you've never been there. You say, New York, there's more from your visit to there. Home town brings on all sorts of stuff. Basically it was set up as a machine that could be a lie detector. This was the imaginary piece of technology based on some truth that is the least plausible but most integral to society.