Zemerge Project

Let us ponder and inspect the idea of a socio-economic paradigm shift, and plot a social direction with the help of social cybernation. Democracy, a loaded word that has lots of connotations and ideologies associated with, but what does it really mean? and more importantly what does it manifest in our current society? The ideological purpose of democracy is for everyone to participate – for the governing power to derive from the people, unfortunately when we inspect today’s culture and the governing institutions this ideological premise is questioned. Take the various democracy governments around the globe today – they exist as entities operated by groups of individuals the people elect to power. The government needs to balance its budget, grow it’s GDP, uphold a framework of rules and laws of the land, and compete in the world marketplace in order to satisfy it’s interests. It’s interests you would assume be to serve its citizens collective needs and foster a healthy environment that creates incentives and motivates individuals to contribute towards the betterment of the social collective. That is the theory behind what our current monetary paradigm system is trying to achieve, if you satisfy your own needs and desires by earning income then you are contributing to the betterment of society as a whole – this is the staple and structure of today’s mentality – it is why we have jobs, why we have personal property, it is what the culture promotes, and what we don’t question but assume is the golden rule of how society is to function.

Although this mentality or framework has some positive aspects – it will change, not because of some prediction or that a larger growing enlightenment into looking at alternatives that in theory work better, but because simply put – our current paradigm is not sustainable. The current monetary paradigm is heading in a crash course of self destruction by its unintended side effects on so many levels. The mechanism of unrelentless blind consumption driven profit, and the constant incentives to become greedy and abusive to one another, become the influencing factors that apply to nearly every decision any individual in power has to make which results in cancerous effects on society. No longer can our idealistic democracy driven government serve its citizens when its lifeline and existence is threatened by the continuing requirement for sustaining exponential consumption with no regard to nature’s limits, no regard to the wellness of its citizens, no regard to solving problems that disrupt the generation of profit. This monetary paradigm is the greatest threat our species has ever contended against, and will be viewed by future generations as the greatest obstacle we had to overcome in order to progress and mature as a species.

So what about this socio-economic paradigm shift – what sort of alternative are we talking about here? and would we even know if it’s even feasible and sustainable? As a computer scientist I look at this problem from an informational systems theory approach, there exists an infinite solution space of frameworks that tackles the issue at hand, a framework is a series or rules and standards at which we can organize our society. Our society is a massive collection of rules and standards either assumed and inferred from the past or planned out and enforced by law. This collection of rules and standards dictates how we interact with each other, how we create incentives for each other, how we distribute resources and influential power between ourselves, and in the end dictate how we experience our existence on this rock. So shouldn’t we collectively prioritize that the most influential aspect of our existence and the long term sustainability of our species is forever improving and optimizing this set of rules and standards, but in our current society does the average person even contemplate this? or do we assume this is the way things are so be it – I’m just an individual playing out my life in the current set or rules and standards and that’s the way it is. Each of us varying by degree likes to pass the responsibility of our actions or our in-actions onto others or the collective – I was just following orders, no one told me this would happen, this wasn’t my job, or simply I don’t care about that, seems to be the popular approach. We wont be able grow out of our past until we realize that the responsibility lies within each one of us, each one of us is able to make a difference and collectively we can learn from each other to become sustainable and accomplish amazing technological progression.

Once we have taken on the responsibility role the question now becomes how do we devise a new set of rules and standards to create a framework that works? I’ve been always fascinated how nature works, and how low level simplicity results in emergent complexity. Life is no exception, and if we look for inspirations in processes that have worked in nature for billions of years then we should pay attention. The solution as it turns out may be quite simple, treat social frameworks as living organisms, with the rules and standards becoming the DNA of the frameworks. Simulate these frameworks using super computers for their fitness level, or their scorecard of what works and what doesn’t, in addition of what we prefer from alternatives. We then apply genetic algorithms on this population of frameworks and witness scientific democratic evolution in action. Social rules and standards that are inefficient, irrelevant, corrupt in nature, and any other destructive aspects of society will fade out and perish as they will have the effect of lowering the fitness score of frameworks, while the holistic, cooperative, and synergistic rules and standards will continue to prevail and evolve. Would this approach be considered a centralized planned economy? I think not, I would call it self-governance with tools to give communities a series of evidence based decisions and would be completely bottom-up decentralized driven from the continues feedback of all individuals to form the fitness landscape where these frameworks will evolve in.

This social cybernation project would continue to advance as the resolution and accuracy of framework simulation would continue to improve – it will be one of the greatest endeavours humanity has ever undertaken but the rewards will be ever lasting and will enable the continuous progression of the human species.

The Zemerge Project (a Zeitgeist Movement inspired Project)