RC JOURNAL: Splits

NOTE; The post below is a fairly sloppy. I have a terrible cold and my head feels like it is ensconced in cotton. However, it's close enough to the mark that I'll let it stand.

What happens when a state become hollow and the global market takes control? People find ways to get by. How? They fall back on primary loyalties -- groups and organizations that will help them survive. Those that cling to individualism quickly find themselves outmaneuvered, cornered and fleeced. In the modern context, three major categories of primary loyalties (filled to the brim with many superempowered individuals) will emerge within a hollow state. They are:

• Government/corporate loyalties. Becomes highly corrupt. Only small group and/or strong leaders get benefits (concentrated wealth). Control over police/military power to ensure wealth/survival. Globally networked.
  
• Street loyalties. To family, neighborhood, gang, church, etc. A large segment turns to crime/smuggling. Another segment focuses on protection fees generated by militias. Violent open source warfare. Systems disruption to coerce the hollow state and its corporate allies. Globally networked.
  
• Community loyalty (resilient communities). This is the newest segment and still in its infancy. Very democratic and egalitarian. Focus on local production of everything from food to energy to products. Collective action for group survival at the local level. Globally networked.

NOTE: Mass protest to force governmental response? Mass protest is very unlikely to create any meaningful improvement since there isn't a functional state left to influence.

Comments

[Zumalacárregui]

A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan

Militia Operates a Parallel Government

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903980_pf.html

Some excerpts:

"The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage"

""We are definitely not winning the information war, and we have to reverse that," said Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief spokesman for NATO forces here."

[XON]

The thing that continues to bother/discourage me about RC is that it seems to require a significant initial investment; or in other words, there are high entry barriers before it is viable. Your first category is a mere transmogrification of the nature of the stationary bandits; and will occur almost by fiat. The second is the most likely to self-generate, merely as opposition to the first.

RC's, on the other hand, require organizing. They are also caught on the horns of a dilemma in that they require material loyalty in the form of contributed resources in order to provide benefits, while at the same time, their untested nature will contribute to very high levels of skepticism as to its ability to actually provide benefits.

I absolutely love the idea, but I see it failing in the face of either inertial integration into gov/corp loyalties, or the initial, clear economic (writ large) advantages of street loyalties.

[Duncan Kinder]

"Those that cling to individualism quickly find themselves outmaneuvered, cornered and fleeced."

Assuming that their strategy is not to be Holy Fools, Zen monks, hermits in caves or the like.

"The thing that continues to bother/discourage me about RC is that it seems to require a significant initial investment; or in other words, there are high entry barriers before it is viable"

We need to develop a strategy on how to get to thar from here.

I propose information theory as a guidepost.

Essentially, the less probable an item is, the more information it contains. Our daily life is filled with many mini-black swans which we typically filter out. An unusual cloud, a strange noise, etc. By becoming sensitive to such items we can fine a useful path ( analogy - tracking animals in the wilderness.)

Perhaps those who are gifted in detecting such items could establish themselves as later-day bards, alerting their fellows to opportunities that actually do lie about them.

[Duncan Kinder]

To follow through on my earlier post about the potential for the emergence of a bardic culture, there actually are strong and well recognized similarities between the Anglo Saxon verse of Beowulf and the like, on the one hand and hip hop / rap music, on the other.

For example, Derek Attridge, in _Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction_ states at p 90:

"Like Old English Verse, rap lyrics are written to be performed to an accompaniment that emphasizes the metrical structure of the verse. The two forms have essentially te same metrical structure: lines with four stressed beats (falling naturally into two half-lines of two beats eachJ), separated by other syllables that may vary in number and may include other stressed syllables. The strong beat of the accompaniment coincides with the stressed beats of the verse, and the rapper organizes the rhythms of the intervening syllables to provide variety and surprise. A major difference between the two traditions is that Old English verse uses alliteration and allows frequent run on lines, while rap uses rhymen and prefers end-stopping (bringing it closer to the tradition of four-beat stress verse, to which it is also linked by its tendency to fall into quadruple rhythms)."
http://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Rhythm-Introduction-Derek-Attridge/dp/0521423694/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223402130&sr=8-1

BTW: The four-beat stress verse mentioned above is basically ballads.

[Duncan Kinder]

For those seeking information about how bardic societies once operated, the scholarly journal, Oral Tradition, is a gold mine. Delve.
http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues

[Duncan Kinder]

For another view of bards, consider the Amazon.com list, "Early Welsh Bards."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-Welsh-Bards/lm/R10WFD76A5WTVR/ref=cm_lmt_dtpa_f_2_rdssss0?pf_rd_p=253462201&pf_rd_s=listmania-center&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0837722136&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1B2Q556VVGR93QJA9C9V

[lewy14]

John, I can agree that RCs can produce nearly everything necessary - but - there are many necessary things that are beyond them.

E.g., semiconductors, telecommunications, and the other infrastructure that will allow the RCs to become globally networked and engage in open source collaboration.

Undersea cables. Satellites. Datacenters.

It can't all scale down and distribute.

Without some critical mass of this global infrastructure, we're back to about the 18th/19th century very quickly.

The government / corporate "estate" is going to have to keep this going - right? Who else will?

Rome fell not when the city was sacked, but when the aqueducts failed.

Call me a heretic but I'm rooting for the nation states and global corporations to survive in some form, however hollow.

Or we'll all end up drinking from the Tiber, as it were.

Have you given a thought as to just what has to survive in terms of global infrastructure, which will make RCs meaningfully different from medieval manors? And how best to preserve it?

Maybe one way is to view RCs as a fractal concept, implementing resiliency (and commanding loyalty) across scale.