| 28 Oct 2018 |
 mhpanda | yalda: Hi Yalda. I just wanted to address your comments on letting the governance structure "evolve". For the purposes of SD, especially for the near future, this is fine. However, over the long term, evolution has proven itself far from ideal, naturally evolving organisms tend toward self-destruction far more often than they tend to succeed. Most nations have gone through a large number of governments and revolutions because they have tried to follow "evolving" trends. The US, OTOH, has survived this long because it did not rely on evolution for its structure of governance. Yes, it was a new system, but that system was founded on a collection of principles that had been discussed and developed over a period of centuries before. Specifically, these discussions centred on the failures of previous governments. | 11:19:38 |
| mhpanda | SD is essentially a "grass roots" movement. To succeed, we are going to have to establish a significant community. This community is going to need a form of civil governance, or it will tend to collapse, as more people join who have diverse objectives and priorities. It will be necessary to plan out a system of mechanisms that corrects the failures of current and past systems. That is what I am trying to address here. Of course, some evolutional flexibility will be necessary, because structures that are too rigid tend to break. I am just saying that we can not rely on an unplanned structure to simply come together, if we mean to endure as a successful community. | 11:25:07 |
| mhpanda | neutronstar: From how I understand what you have written, I tend to agree... although it might help if you could provide some examples of what you mean. From my perspective, this could be addressed by how we define "crimes". Given my initial assumption of individual sovereignty, there can be no "crime" except for an action that violates the prinicple of equivalent sovereignty. Sovereignty is expressed through the capacity of making choices. The available choices MUST NOT be limited. Thus, a crime would incur if you deny another individual the possibility of a choice that you yourself enjoy. Under such conditions, government could only legislate against "crimes" that involve someone depriving another person of such a choice. | 11:37:36 |
| mhpanda | "Regulation" is a separate issue. Governance has the power to provide benefits that constituents might not otherwise be able to provide for themselves. It is reasonable for governance to regulate the use of such benefits, applied equally to all, without exception. But such regulation would only apply to what the governance specifically provides. It would NOT apply to other constituents providing the same benefits, under different conditions. Failure to follow a regulation would not be a crime, and the only "punishment" permissible would be suspension of access to the benefits in question (although the benefit could be provided from another source, which governance would not have the authority to regulate... only to intervene if the terms of provision violate individual sovereignty). | 11:43:33 |
| mhpanda | I believe strongly that civil enforcement/justice should be founded upon restitution/reparation, rather than punishment. It might be necessary to restrain violent offenders (or, at least, segregate them from triggers and/or targets of their violent tendacies). However, this should not be an option for non-violent infractions. "Penalties" should be restricted to undoing whatever harm they caused, or making some other amends if the harm is irreversible. | 11:50:29 |
 neutronstar | Let's take alcohol as an example. Some people just freaks out when they get even small amounts of it. I would prefer a system where they would be unable to get hold of it rather than keep punishing them for all the assaults they would commit. | 13:09:12 |
| mhpanda | neutronstar: Sorry, this is something I could not support, for a couple reasons. First, preventing access would be a violation of individual sovereignty. Second, prohibition has proven to be countreproductive, inducing greater extremes of violence, and greater costs. Third, I rather like alcohol, on occasion, especially for cooking. There are other methods to avoid the costs of substance abuse. Education of adverse effects is one of the most effective methods. Offering counselling and support services to abusers is also helpful. It is also reasonable to regulate the workplace environment, as well as the environment in other social centres... these would be regulations such as stating that certain environments/activities are off limits to those under the influence of a substance. Another approach would be to limit, rather than prohibit, access... for example, the community does not have to provide access to the substance (and can refuse to do so), even if it can not prohibit access. It would also be permissible to require additional compensations/restitutions/reparations for offenses conducted under the influence, and/or longer durations of loss of priviledges for regulation non-compliance where substance influence/abuse is involved. It would even be permissible to restrict use of substances to private areas, or to designated facilities. | 15:00:06 |
| neutronstar | I'm not talking about the 99.9% of people for which your suggestions would work, but rather those one out of thousands that simply can't help themselves. For some cases there could be medicine that might help, but that is probably even more invasive since it would require monitoring that you actually take the drugs. The alternative to let people get hurt or keep imprison the offenders with the argument that we otherwise would violate their personal sovereignty is something I don't see as the better alternative. | 15:37:43 |
| 29 Oct 2018 |
| mhpanda | neutronstar: Unilateral forced prohibition is still not an option, IMHO. However, presumably, violent acts against others (or other incidents that might result in harm) would themselves be violations of the sovereignty of those harmed. under such circumstances, there are a few options that could be presented: 1) The abuser willingly submits to a "prohibition" programme (this actually falls into my counselling and support services proposal); 2) consentual detention when under the effects of a substance, when intending to use a substance, and/or when exposure to a substance is likely; 3) should the individual refuse to submit to consentual restrictions, the individual may be formally expelled from the community (constituents will have full right to interact with the individual, but the individual will no longer have the benefit of community privileges)... this is an extension of the sovereign right of others NOT to associate with certain individuals (again, this does not prevent individual constituents from consentual association). Presumably, if the member values association with the constituency, that member would consent to certain restrictions and limitations, knowing that doing so would best prevent any non-consentual infraction, while affording continued access to other benefits and liberties. Option 3 would be a final resort. | 14:17:49 |
| neutronstar | The kind of people I've met that has a hard time dealing with alcohol would most likely accept any programme that they think might help them. Those programs didn't help in the long run, they simply cannot stay away from drugs without help. A community that would not help in such circumstance, eg by making it hard or impossible for those individuals to get alcohol, is in my view a failed community. How to make sure those individuals cannot access alcohol is however an interesting problem, which we might not have a good answer to. But I think the community should do its best, and not avoid having to deal with it because of sovereignty. I think it would be a sad thing if expelling people would be preferred rather than enforce restrictions.
Sovereignty is a great thing which we could strive for as much as possible, but my point is that there are limits even to sovereignty. But if you need to intrude on someone's sovereignty it should be done only where needed. In my case by limit the access to a drug that would otherwise be freely accessible. The alternative would be to restrict the access to everyone just because some cannot handle it, or imprison or otherwise punish people when they commit crimes because they could not handle the drug. Either way we still intrude on someone's sovereignty. | 21:49:44 |
| 30 Oct 2018 |
| mhpanda | neutronstar: If these people would accept ANY programme that they think might help them, then they would presumably accept a programme that involves a voluntary prohibition. That would be acceptable. In this way, it is not the community that is saying, unilaterally, that they will not be permitted access (which is how I interpreted the original suggestion). It is also permissible for the community to enforce restrictions to the extent necessary to preserve the sovereign determination of others, but ONLY to that extent (this might also have been a misunderstanding on my part... I originally interpreted your proposal to mean that in order to avoid the abuses provoked in some members, you were proposing prohibition to all members). Protection of sovereign determination is the | 11:05:22 |
| mhpanda | Sorry... Protection of sovereign determination is the central concern. The constituency may invoke actions to protect their sovereign determination; however, they may not take unilateral action that deprives another of sovereign determination because of the abuses of others (which was the point I was trying to make). The individuals who tend toward abuse may then willingly submit to limitations in order to maintain their constituency; however, they must always be permitted the option of leaving the constituency, rather than submit to unilateral penatlies or prohibitions. This is a true social contract, which all participants must accept willingly, and which any participant may withdraw from at any time. | 11:14:28 |
| mhpanda | Again, the important point is that the individual must agree to any prohibitions. I put this in the context of a support programme because it can be difficult to prevent access to some without preventing access to others. A support programme has access to several mechanisms, and should favour the least restrictive mechanisms that demonstrate effectiveness. | 11:22:23 |
| mhpanda | I would like to point out that many programmes don't work because they don'thave the resources required to work. Modern culture is too focused (IMHO) on punishment, including incarceration, rather than on providing necessary resources to programmes. Also, modern society is not conducive for the requirements of such programmes. Different organisational structures and paradigms are too strict. You have fixed hours that you have to be at work. You have fixed locations that you have to work from. There is no contingency to allow for the supportive environment required for programmes to work. In other words, programmes don't work because you don't have 24/7/365 access/availability to the supporting structure. Programmes DO tend to work when this constant support network is available in practice. This includes peer-group accompaniment, peer leadership access and accompaniment, and professional access and accompaniment. | 11:33:30 |
| mhpanda | Consentual prohibition is an option, for those who feel that other efforts do not work, or have not worked, for them. However, this should never be our default response to abuse; nor should prohibition ever be enforced unilaterally. | 11:37:23 |
| neutronstar | mhpanda: I agree, and I think the last part is particularly important to stress. But while it would be possible to make more programs to succeed, and less need for them if life wasn't so filled with strict rules you must follow, the drug addict most likely still need help. In a flexible and caring society the addict will seek and accept help in a much higher degree which means that voluntarily giving up part of your sovereignty should work. This however means the society need to have a way of enforcing this since the addict sought help because he/she cannot control themselves. In current societies I think this will be hard since there are so many expectations of what should always be allowed and what should always be forbidden, that the concept of things being forbidden for some people will be a challenge. | 12:48:15 |
| mhpanda | neutronstar: Yes. This would be done by the individual enrolling in a programme that has the means to locally block access, along the lines of volunteer admission to a "halfway house". The programme could begin with a full-time residency (again, voluntary). This would phase in "leaves"; first under supervised accompaniment, then peer accompaniment, and eventual short & long term unaccompanied leaves. Society itself won't have authority to enforce the prohibition, but a specific programme could enforce it locally through signed consent. The role of society would be in collectively providing for the resources the programme requires in order to enforce this consentual prohibition (that is, maintaining facilities where the individual can stay indefinitely at no cost, while still being offered opportunities to engage socially, professionally, and as a part of the community; providing supervision; providing certified counselling; providing medical consultation, as necessary; etc). | 16:14:46 |
| 4 Nov 2018 |
 Patrick Donovan | thoughts on a single tax applied as personal income tax and prohibiting any other forms of taxation? | 02:54:51 |
| 6 Nov 2018 |
| mhpanda | Likewise, in coordinating activities with external agents, there is a direct exchange of resources/services. | 14:35:53 |
| mhpanda | paurd: In terms of the structure I am promoting, and from the precendent set by SD to date, "taxation" really doesn't have any meaning nor sense. Taxation is a means for government to attain resources when the constituency establish a means of living external to that government. Although divisions within a government will "charge" each other for their services, they do not tend to tax one another. Even the idea of taxing civil service workers in modern government is the product of an extension of external capitalism applied internally for the sake of consistency. Here, the government is attaining resources directly from the constituency itself. Compensation is preferably through internal services, as well as access to a portion of those collective resources for individual use. It makes no sense to provide access to those resources/services and then withdraw them in the name of "taxation". | 14:36:08 |
| mhpanda | Sorry, there was a problem with my connection, and the two previous messages were inversed. | 14:36:47 |
| 16 Nov 2018 |
|  grouchofractal joined the room. | 20:06:50 |
| 26 Nov 2018 |
| Patrick Donovan | isn't there a word for when you start seeing something everywhere after thinking about that thing? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/ | 15:40:49 |
| 6 Dec 2018 |
| Patrick Donovan | thoughts on the pan-human federation? https://aeon.co/essays/we-urgently-need-a-legal-framework-for-space-colonisation | 02:58:21 |
 pete.b | oh my that's a long post | 03:35:03 |
| pete.b | welp for anyone reading it, note that the author gets some details about the outer space treaty wrong. but that' not the main point anyway | 03:41:59 |
| Patrick Donovan | "long read" indeed | 03:51:33 |
| Patrick Donovan | and bummer about the treaty; what'd they miss? | 03:54:54 |
| pete.b | i thought the phrase "space can be explored and used only for peaceful purposes" was misleading. the real phrase is "carry out activities... in accordance with international law... in the interest of maintaining international peace." conventional weapons are technically allowed in space, and have been used in space. only weapons of mass destruction are banned. not saying i endorse even conventional weapons though... | 05:44:19 |
| pete.b | the author also asks "If NASA were to install a habitat on Mars, would it de facto lay claim to a portion of Mars, merely by physically occupying it?" i'm pretty sure the answer is no, but the author's use of "de facto" clouds the issue | 05:46:13 |
