Representation, Engagement, Collaboration, Social Learning, Perspective taking, Values, Prospects and Impacts.
I am asking for advice and support to make, universally available, a general method of capturing, reflecting on, developing and representing democratically, the things people care about (their Values), and what we can do about them (our Prospects). Interpreting all social human activity as an expression of shared human values.
I believe that open communication and profound, comprehensive dialog between members of the public about their values and our prospects is the most effective way to establish progressive and coherent social norms and expectations.
I believe this is true, in nearly every sphere and scale of beneficial social enterprise.
The development of shared human values and prospects is asserted to be a natural, socially rewarding communications-based process involving the exchange of views and information alongside the use of knowledge, skills and experience, the formation of individual friendships, trusting relationships and shared interest groups. Groups aligning personal, professional and collective motivations in this way are best placed to realise the high (human) value prospects they share.
I am proposing, that we build open access crowd sourcing web applications which prioritise and promote human values by placing them at the heart of a generalised form of impact assessment. That we facilitate empathetic public awareness and engagement by registering the values important to all interested individuals. Intentionally matching individual and collective actions to a democratic representation of values in a way that enhances awareness of others.
The proposed application is intended to nurture ‘Social learning’, to make it meaningful and rewarding to participate optionally in the self-organised generation of cultural capital such as trust/respect, shared vocabulary, understanding and goals.
All individuals with web access would be invited in a social and sociable process to define and register the things they care about, and to join together to express the values they share through collective enterprise. The communications style is intended to be inclusive and consultative, inviting and respectfully representing diverse values and world views.
Simpler and more profound Value expression; New opportunities, expectations and responsibilities.
By intentional design we can analyse and optimise our potentials more profoundly, for free and in advance of need. We can host a useful, affordable, widely accessible process from which human value maximisation is an emergent characteristic.
We have the opportunity to be represented, to know and act in proportion to what most people care about the most, to know who we affect and how. To identify and communicate with individuals and groups whose actions matter most to us.
Any platform offering new opportunities also curates new expectations;
That the values of a majority of affected individuals can be proportionately reflected in pending public prospects. That our way of life and future plans can and will be actively developed through dialog as additional understandings arise and expert consensus changes. That we may simply and clearly associate certain lifestyles, activities or projects with certain values. That we can know and query the values, impacts and thinking of our representatives and all who affect us. Conversely that we can routinely expect to analyse and adjust our own lifestyles, activities and projects in the light of their impacts and the values they are perceived to express.
Social engagement often involves an exchange, in this case influence over the way our society projects the values and prospects that we care about the most, means participating in a process that (by design) involves us in mutual collaborative education, personal transformation and reaching out for new scientific, technical and empathetic understandings.
A pluralistic and holistic voluntary social initiative also comprises useful intermediary outcomes.
To a large extent, in a voluntary social application, the means must also be ends.
On one level the outcome from the proposed Value and Prospect process is a public reference work, ranking and relating them. On another level a fundamental objective is to engage contributors in a compelling dialog, so engendering a social dynamic.
In recognition of the critical importance of social relationships, the process design encourages individuals to recognise contributions and ideas with public endorsement, trust or reputation enhancement. These elements link or relate individuals, preparing cohesive community sub groups to ‘spin out’ initiatives – another essential outcome.
One key characteristic of an effective community though is that it mobilises people’s capacity to change through emotional engagement. Love, trust, respect, interaction, awareness-of and shared-experiences-with others; these are all powerful catalysts for behavioural change, which are themselves but also result in, additional levels of essential outcomes…
The proposal requires a database and hybrid WIKI like application, designed to manage the expression, storage, comparison, ranking and development of the full range of participants value criteria, and in a separate interface a similarly structured dialog-based process for the analysis of participants prospective actions or scenarios.
If you are unfamiliar with the principles and characteristics of Wikis, open-source projects and self-organising ‘net based organisations then it is strongly recommended that you view this presentation by Jimmy Wales – the founder of WIKIpedia
In crude outline, the proposal could be likened to a combination of two customised WIKIs. One for Values/Decision criteria and another for Project/Policy Development. Notably we need to adapt and extend civil infrastructure on the web generally e.g., regarding Ranking, Endorsement, Reputation, Trust, Identity and Activity/Impact Classification.
The proposed Value and Prospect processes differ from WIKIs in that they emphasise the creation of cultural capital (shared values, understanding, infectious enthusiasm and trust) as well as a constant stream of collaborative group projects. At an unsophisticated level of analysis, WIKIpedia appears as an information server with many readers. This contrasts with the Value/Prospect dialog where people who just read (although desirable and very welcome) are incentivised to participate. As well as providing a useful standalone reference work, the proposed system is an active agent for collective value expression, constituting an idea factory or ‘launch pad’ for value informed material projects, social movements or understandings.
The Value/Prospect application is intended to be independent and optional, to assist and to coexist comfortably besides existing organisational frameworks. Nevertheless, it is potentially profoundly transformative. Providing a progressive, accessible measure of value that is as easy to use as money value, but more meaningful. Augmenting business and administrative processes by highlighting the biggest issues and most viable solutions. Providing an accessible concrete index for the lost opportunity costs (in human value terms) of current and planned, government and personal activity. Re-establishing the expectation that all enterprise is (and always was) social. Rebalancing the relationships between social status, material consumption and caregiving, between material and emotional productivity, waged and unwaged ‘employment’. Redefining ‘value creation’. Clarifying the human cost of crime and anti-social enterprise. By ‘anti-social enterprise’ I mean activitities such as the promotion of consumption in preference to investment, or the powerful synergies evident in ‘industrio-military’ complexes which exercise political power and warp the news and public agenda to promote their world views and products.
Statement of Purpose (‘Why implement this Initiative?’)
There are no effective commercial, governmental, intergovernmental or humanitarian organisations which intentionally support the cooperative development and expression of civilisational, societal or human values on the web using Social Learning.
There is a general requirement to develop the techniques, institutions and functionality that would support open, self-organising, democratic civilisational infrastructure and services online e.g. secure identity, information, trust and reputation systems.
There is a specific requirement to demonstrate a platform from which value informed social and cultural capital emerges spontaneously/naturally, and to facilitate the following intermediary outcomes (any one of which would justify this work): –
- Better shared, more clearly understood and more representative Human Values.
- Improved Collaboration and Empathy.
- Good Prospects.
- Meetings of hearts and minds.
- Relationships of trust and respect that are based on accessible evidence and experience.
- Open public engagement in the definition and assessment of collaborative projects and impacts.
- Enhanced understanding of the values of others and conversely…
- Recognition from others for contributions aligned to collective values.
Shaping/Supporting assertions (explanation)
Below I have listed a series of high-level assertions (‘claims’), supporting this proposal. These illustrate the sort of diverse sustaining assertions that would be recorded within the proposed application to support a ‘Prospect’.
The assertions are not a logically coherent set of ‘founding assumptions’ representing a ‘single’ or ‘true’ picture upon which the proposal stands or falls. The spirit of the proposed pluralistic and collaborative decision support environment requires that supporters and the public rank the assertions for how compelling they personally find them…contributing supporting assertions from their own frame of reference or knowledge domain.
It is the aggregate rank of all such supporting assertions and the corresponding emergence of a core of committed and willing supporters that would initiate the progression to prospect development and implementation. We do not all have to think the same way, indeed we would be weaker as a species and culture if we did and would likely have already become extinct.
Note: It is the fact that these supporting opinions are not initially sanitised or rationalised to remove or reduce prejudice and bias that opens the originator to learning through prospect taking. In principle the application emphasises feelings, which may or may not be supported or justified in terms of logic. Whilst we must respect the expression of opinion couched in terms of logic, feelings and opinions are significant indicators of compelling behaviours. Whether they are logically justified or not they must be recognised and taken into account.
Shaping/Supporting assertions (List)
1.0.0
The Value and Prospect related contributions of many interested individuals can be openly and systematically collated, recorded and amended in a voluntary, socially rewarding, self-organising, web-based process.
2.0.0
That it is a systematic requirement to give visibility to Social Value impact during Prospect assessment, if you wish these values to be efficiently expressed during Prospect design, selection and implementation.
3.0.0
That human behaviour is the most significant and flexible factor in most civil systems, – for instance, in energy and resource use, the prosecution of wars and of general principles.
4.0.0
That the response rate of social and political systems (to stress) can be improved by lowering the barriers to participation, increasing engagement and mobilising behavioural adaptation.
5.0.0
That radical change within a democratic framework requires profound public engagement.
6.0.0
That a systematic web-based process for the respectful representation of individuals value dialogs (especially where these are opposed) is a foundational requirement for the evolution of cultural movements, that can mobilise whole societies (or the global population).
7.0.0
That systems in general and decision support systems in particular which do not sustain cultural learning, alienate and disempower the public. That in comparison to the proposal, all current civic and private sector decision making alienates and disempowers more.
8.0.0
That self-organised distributed systems are becoming more practical, and have an increasing role to play.
9.0.0
That internet processing, storage and communications cost reductions represent a revolutionary opportunity. That a not for profit, open-source application can provide tools that result in higher human value activity.
10.0.0
That it is our duty to prepare and deploy decision support systems (based on shared human values) capable of radical and rapid (but proportionate) responses. That we should do so in advance of need and that we should not be surprised that this is the same as providing a fertile environment for healthy social and cultural development.
11.0.0
That none of the supporting software technologies are new, just as none of the energy conversion choices available for the next 20 or so years for policy planning are new. That global and intergenerational resource justice depends far more on social organisation & individual behaviours than on new science and technology.
12.0.0
That the failure to provide infrastructure on the web to further the development of civic society is an absolute dereliction of our duty to foster value informed cultural development. Web souls have no persistent identity, no way of finding or attesting for a trusted collaborator, no recognised means of registering their opinions feelings or the intensity of their beliefs. Web souls are lost, disenfranchised and disengaged.
What a waste!
13.0.0
That commercial collaborative project promotion will establish norms and expectations which do not include close integration of human values/social learning unless a public-spirited initiative establishes a better way.
If you have read this far – Thank you!
Please consider reading the next section, describing the practical design features, processes, and interface styles which this project aims to show can be effective in facilitating Social Learning, Prospect Development, and Impact Analysis within the framework of shared human values.