( Eight minute read)
Nature relies on cooperation and interconnection, not just competition, and in a very real sense, cooperation and interconnection are higher forces. They make the larger systems of nature go. Rivers and oceans and rain don’t compete — they just flow.
Sure, nature’s full of predators, but they’re nothing like the ones in our civilization.
There is no such thing in nature as an antisocial being. Not one. Every single being in creation exists in community. Even predators, yes, like sharks.
We are living in a profoundly, desperately, terribly unnatural way – WITH TECHNOLOGY FOR THE FEW.
We don’t live in a way that allows hope for the billions and trillions and quadrillions of creatures that are at the hands of Extinction. We don’t live in a way that allows us relationships with them — or with each other. We don’t live in a way which allows us hope for much of anything. We’re just trapped in our little bubbles of hyper atomized individualism — and we confuse wanting survival for ourselves with “hope.”
Real hope comes from “believing” in something larger than the self.
The idea that we’re above everything else precludes the possibility of hope, because it leaves us isolated and alienated from everything else. You can hardly have hope when you’ve already presumed you’re the reason everything exists — all that’s left is to face the consequences of your hubris.
Our consciousness isn’t quite ready to think in that way yet.
Is this Extinction? Yes. Will human beings survive? Yes. Enough of them, certainly, to continue the project of civilization. But that project now has to change. Not just materially, but morally, ethically, spiritually, mentally. We’re not just a market.
We don’t even have enough, currently, to survive on, which, of course, is why living standards are now plummeting worldwide, and global progress is going into reverse.
Why?
Because AI Fairness will get worse before it will get better incredibly antisocial way.
Beyond the problem of material impoverishment — which itself is a consequence of a lack of trust — lies the rupture of social bonds.
Living in the shadow of the industrial age has conditioned us to have a mental model of life that’s basically a market. And so when our industrial economy begins to go haywire — prices rise, we can’t buy stuff, we can’t earn enough money to make ends meet — panic sets in.
Happiness comes from relationships. And relationships come from community.
There is nothing — and I mean this — more important or valuable than those things.
There’s a purpose — plenty of people are against dirty energy. But there’s not often public goods or spaces, or investment. Where are such people to gather? Well, usually, only at marches, once in a while. How are they to connect? How are they to speak to one another. Forge lasting relationships? There’s little investment of course because even when “good” billionaires think of “investing,” what they mean is in material systems, like clean energy, like windmills or what not, that will still profit them. Rarely if ever does anyone say, hey, we need to invest in community.
So can we live in a way that honours all the above a little better?
That’s the question. When we do, there will be hope. Until we do, there won’t.
SO HERE IS A HAIR BRAIN IDEA THAT MIGHT WORK TO REBUILD COMMUNITY.
REGISTER YOUR VILLAGE OR TOWN AS A LIMITED COMPANY.
Every villager is a director with one share.
All entering the village become a share holder and director. All departing must sell their share back to the company.
To set up a private limited company in the UK, you will need to appoint a minimum of one company director. There is no statutory limit to the number of directors that can be appointed at any one time or throughout the life of a company unless certain restrictions are stated in the articles of association. The same person can be a director and shareholder of a company.
Your responsibility for the company’s debt is capped at the number of shares you own in that company.
Working through your own limited company is the most tax-efficient option.
Anything that is solely classed as a business cost can be claimed back on expenses.
As the shareholder, you cannot be held personally liable for the debts of a limited company, meaning your personal assets are not at risk.
You keep complete control of your financial affairs, meaning you do not have to risk your money with any third party administrator or umbrella company.
Operating as a limited company often gives suppliers and customers confidence is more financially rewarding, with more opportunities for tax planning purchasing power.
As a limited company, the name is protected by law, and no one else is allowed to use it.
You have to file your accounts at Companies House each year, which will be on public record. You will also have to file accounts, company tax, and Corporation Tax calculations with HMRC every year.
As a limited company, you typically pay yourself a small salary, so you incur as little personal tax as possible.
The majority of your income will come in the form of dividends. These are taxed at a lower rate, which means you’re able to maximise your take-home pay. In addition to the tax benefits, paying the majority of your income through dividends means that you’re able to pay less National Insurance contributions (NICs) as these do not apply to dividend payments.
As a limited company, you could also be eligible for the following venture capital schemes:
- Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) – A scheme to help you raise funds for your business by granting investors tax relief on shares they buy in your company. To be eligible, you must receive investment within seven years of your first commercial sale. Eligible investments are capped at £5 million per year.
- Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) – A scheme to help you raise funds for your business by granting investors tax relief on shares they buy in your company. This scheme is for companies that have just started, or yet to start trading, and is capped at £150,000
- IT CAN BE incorporate online in less than ten minutes.
- Every village has an accountant living in it.
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Community is the most vital investment we can make right about now, for the sake of democracy.
Why is democracy dying?
Well, the standard answer goes like this — oh wait, there isn’t one.
A good answer goes like this: democracy’s dying because of stagnation and inequality.
At the median incomes have been stagnant, even in the rich world, for decades leaving middle and working classes unable to pay the bills, falling into debt crises.
There’s an even truer answer.
What does inequality and impoverishment do?
It rips the heart out of community. How so? Well, life becomes like Squid Game. A brutal, desperate battle for survival.
You see it played out every single day — lose your job, lose you home, healthcare, credit, savings, bang, you’re homeless, and on the way to being dead.
People are rivals for scarce resources, adversaries for bread and money, and that’s the good part — the rest turn, quickly, into scapegoats, hated and feared sub humans, blamed for your woes. Welcome to Trumpism, to Brexit, to Putinism, to Modi’s India, to Xi’s China.
We are now living in the twilight of an economic age — the industrial age.
“The Information Age” if you really like — information was just used to coordinate industrialization, shifting jobs and manufacturing to China, offering credit and debt to Westerners, and so forth. In this twilight, inequality and impoverishment are ripping community to absolute shreds, because just finding a way to survive, to make ends meet, this bitter struggle for mere self-preservation, is becoming paramount.
At the root of it is our economy’s inability share the gains in anything even remotely resembling a fair, decent, humane, honest manner.
If we can’t distribute the gains of our economies in fair and honest and decent ways — its going to be lights out.
We are the ones who have the real work to do. We have to mature and grow the consciousness of humanity, and merge it with the great, beating heart of life. To build the material and physical systems which allow all beings to flourish. The social and political ones which enable democracy to survive. The mental systems which place peace and nonviolence as the truest and greatest of values. The spiritual project of love continues at our hands.
Given the economic environment we are heading into for 2023 we will see the collapse of many a business, with the merger of some of the biggest internet players platforms.
Why?
Because any platform that cannot handle what is called under structure data of machine learning is going to become prevalent as private date revert to private as disinformation becomes one of the biggest threats to freedom of expression with the Current wars and the erosion of democracy elections, leading to organisations making up their own definitions and censoring anything that falls within, leading to an alternative internet, with governance layers.
The full impact of AI acting thought discriminating algorithms ways is not known, but it is becoming obvious that harmful biases lurk in there targeting and use, from healthcare to insurances claims, whether one get six year for a crime or medal.
Generative Ai is a wild west show with no way of monitoring its effects.
- Generative AI is a sub-field of machine learning that involves generating new data or content based on a given set of input data. This can include generating text, images, code, or any other type of data.
If you are a seller, you have to be on Amazon, otherwise no one will find your stuff and that means they won’t buy it. This is called a monopsony, the obscure inverse of monopoly, where a buyer has power over sellers.
Historically, we understood that businesses couldn’t be trusted to be on both sides of a transaction. The “structural separation” doctrine is one of the vital pieces of policy we’ve lost over 40 years of antitrust neglect. It says that important platforms can’t compete with their users.
Governments are becoming weak, unable to look after their people with to many pressures and conflicting interests driven by short term social media demands. Humanity is being asked to change, for the first time in its history. To mature and grow, and bring forth something like the Age of Existence.
Transferring your village into a legal recognized Limited Company would obviously require new contracts with service companies, and professional personnel, like doctors, dentists, teachers, police etc.
A smart technology program could examine and could work out all the pit falls.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin
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