RE: Furthering the Utopia Discussion, version 2.0
Thanks for such a great summary of the discussions we had!
One possible direction is to discuss our individual visions of such community. Mine is quite simple: I am looking for ways how to do what I wanna do: AI research. For that I need
- a place to live
- a place to work
- something to eat
- people, who are interested in similar things, so we can share ideas and help each other
The last one being the most important and most difficult. For the last one it's obvious that a community or a kind of organization is necessary, but for the other 3 things a community can make things easier - sharing lowers the costs. On the other hand community makes things more difficult - everybody is different, so friction will necessarily arise.
How to lower the friction? We talked about the 'ego work', but this is very general and also it's kind of individual responsibility for each member of the community. Is there something else we can do? Do you think there exists a set of rules or a way of organizing the community which will decrease the friction?
I think the 4 priorities you mentioned is are pretty on point (even though heating and air conditioning is up there for me, lol.
I kinda lump a couple together as 'to have food/water/shelter' or basic needs. I totally agree on the need for a place to work, both in having work to do as well as a physical location to do it. The final bullet point is just spot on. I would assume others would want to include something about family too, which I guess might be included in the people concept.
Now as to the 'How to lower the friction?'...I break my response a few ways...
*** Selection/Membership Requirements: The discussion of 'ego work' was basically dancing around this issue. If there are certain things necessary of a prospective member, such that there is some level of trust and shared understanding required...WHO GETS IN? This is typically a very dangerous rabbit hole to go down...
-what is the selection criteria
-who gets to make the decision (only certain members/all members/something else)
-are we comfortable that such decision makers exists (i.e. who has the right to judge)
-what happens when its deciding an existing member should be forced out, etc.. (it's bound to happen)
Now I do think that there can be some higher level characteristics we can tease out from 'ego work' such as the 'not acting on malice', being in control of greed, envy and other externally focused negative emotions, etc..
(Please help tease out this list of characteristics)
I don't want to simply read a resume, give an interview and simply hope that the decision makers radar is effective enough to sense if the person is truthful. I'm sure we've all seen resumes that were full of crap, or how about the dating scene...whew. My point is that most humans are used to painting that facade to show why they should be accepted, that really had no truth or substance to it. Because of this I would figure that who ever were to choose acceptance, would have to have enough exposure to the prospect to really get to see the REAL person.
*** Trivial Conflicts: I label these 'trivial' conflicts because they typically arise over a miscommunication, where what is meant is taken the wrong way, or a misinterpretation of an action. The only fix for these are through verbal reconciliation (i.e. talk about it.) This seems like a 'no duh' sort of statement, but when looking at current society, people are so quick to be insulted and fly off the handle, that many people won't even begin the discussion out of fear the other person becomes emotional. Simply by having certain characteristics of 'ego work' be required, I would assume it would make it easier for community members to have enough trust and understanding (and that they won't become angry or other negative emotion) to start the simple discussion of "Did you really mean it that way" or "Did you mean to do that?". While this won't solve trivial conflict, I do think they will be greatly diminished.
*** Practical Conflict: These are usually over resource allocation or mutually exclusive goals. While the main goals for this community include food/water/shelter, place to work, people, who are interested in similar things, so we can share ideas and help each other and whatever else is included, I again see a good chunk of these conflicting never even occurring, with greed (ideally) being taken out of the picture, and fundamental needs taken care of. I feel it's best for the community as a whole to decide upon how to deal with the practical conflicts.
@hr1 this is great! I'd love to see the visions of others. It's a great way to get the discussion going further by seeing what priorities, metrics, goals, etc everyone has. I can compile them together so we can keep a running list.