Building Communities 1 of 3
Modern Developments
The three parts cover a large picture in about an hour's read. To start with a community to national picture, there is the Complete Intro, and one can expand from there into part 2, and then part 1 (here).
I believe that a society may be made strong by being made of strong communities. This is the first time on this site for rendering a commuity-based approach to political organization and action. This paper is in three parts: 1) modern developments coinciding with our current political distress, 2) common causes and structures to gather upon, and 3) how to locally form communities, and build from there to creating a national assembly. This is all in the name of claiming and responding to collectively perceived government injustices.
The whole of the proposed architecture is given a detailed rendering and explanation, with all attempts to remain universal, fair, and democratic, and with all due respect to parliamentary principles.
I. Modern Developments
The Mental and the Physical: Two Sides of Us
Would you like to know what happened to us in the modern world? I will put it in the terms of the following pair of things. The left side of the brain is the one that gives us conscious thinking, whereas the right side is without thought; it is experiential. There is much intelligence on the right; it includes our instincts, intuitions, and impulses. It is regarded as the creative, artistic side. This physical side includes feelings (which doctors like to call real), and the left gives us the more detached and imaginary thinking mind. Daniel Kahneman goes more in depth on these two systems in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow (with more info at the link).
In related discussion, I've been introduced to a unique and exceptional book that not only puts matters in terms of left and right brain; it takes the position that we are drifting too much to the left in our modern age, and too little to the right. I have been thinking this for some time. This is a 1,500-page book by Iain McGilchrist, called The Matter With Things. As one can see at the link, this book has been well and highly received. I am happy and impressed to see that it also includes a 181-page bibliography.
From the Wiki link above: “McGilchrist argues that the Western world has "oscillated" between predominantly left-brain and predominantly right-brain function through history, with some periods of relative balance. During certain periods such as the Renaissance, there was a movement toward the right, whereas since the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment – with exceptions such as the Romantic movement – it has become increasingly left-brain dominant, and in light of this, McGilchrist is concerned about the many cultural and global crises that we now face.”
From his review of McGilchrist's book entitled Know Your Left from Your Right..., author Jonathan Gaisman restates, “Western civilisation is in a predicament exemplified by alienation, environmental despoliation, the atrophy of value, the sterility of contemporary art, the increasing prevalence of rectilinear, bureaucratised thinking and the triumph of procedure over substance. “...
Quoting McGuilchrist from The Matter With Things, ..."[Y]ou could say, to sum up a vastly complex matter in a phrase, that the brain's left hemisphere is designed to help us ap-prehend – and thus manipulate – the world; the right hemisphere to com-prehend it – see it all for what it is."… ..."The right hemisphere has a better appreciation of itself and the left, than the left has of the right. Both approaches are necessary and complementary, but the left hemisphere's operation should not dominate the right. It makes 'a good servant, but a very poor master.' "…
We experience our reality directly, on the right side of our brains. We may operate well, in ways beyond what we consciously know. If this sounds incredible, just imagine a squirrel doing it. There is the extent to which any animal operates, and may not also consciously know what it is doing. Now we move on to modern developments, as they explode on the left.
Body and Earth
Our modern world brings with it a 5.7-trillion-dollar chemical industry, and I am concerned about its effects upon my body and the earth. Across our environment, we are adding toxic fracking wastewater, hexavalent chromium, fluorosilicic acid, and PFAS “forever chemicals” (and here) to our bodies, water, and earth. Our government has stopped studying wifi radiation, in spite of strong evidence in support of it's adverse effects. I would normally also expect our regulatory agencies to protect us, but with them, my physical world appears to be increasingly unsafe (examples: FDA, EPA, CDC, FCC, USDA).
I see a growing list of reasons for concern with unsustainable large-scale agricultural practices, such as with GMO farming, and fish farms. I am concerned about losing agricultural land and water to sustained modern practices, and I am worried about the adverse health effects of eating GMOs.
We appear to have administered to our world and ourselves a man-made COVID (and here), and to have subjected ourselves to a variety of medically fraudulent measures (and here). We have been faced with state-mandated hazardous EUA mRNA vaccines for COVID (and here and here and here). This all seems crazy to me.
Following the implementation of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, our standard schedule increased 8-fold. Vaccinated Vs Unvaccinated studies, or more in-depth, show substantially elevated health risks in more than a dozen categories among the vaccinated.
For our depression, modern medicine includes an industry of failures in psychiatric meds, which are also now ranking among leading causes of death Our modern food adds to the list of chemical additives to our bodies and blood, contributing to a potential biochemical conflagration, or ”pandemic of idiopathic multimorbidity”.
From 2002 to 2022, the US quadrupled from under $200 Billion a year in pharmaceuticals to over $800 Billion. Prescription drugs are now the leading cause of death. In the same period, total health care spending tripled, from $1.5 to $4.5 Trillion. I want to quote a book on this, from the Cambridge University Press, from 1988, entitled, "Worse than the disease: Pitfalls of medical progress":
..." we now know that medicine's contribution to the health of the population as a whole is really rather small in comparison to the role of social and environmental conditions. Analyzing trends in morbidity and mortality over the past three centuries, Thomas McKeown has shown that for most diseases, the introduction of effective medical procedures had little if any detectable effect on death rates, whose downward course seemed to be governed primarily by improvements in nutrition, living standards, and personal behaviors such as reproduction. McKeown contends, therefore, that Western medicine's preoccupation with technological and therapeutic intervention is misguided, and that more attention should be given to the effects of social and economic circumstances, which he predicts will be the dominant determinants of health in the future as well. "...
Altogether, I'd say the modern age is a time of the body and earth getting worse, and this is costing us a great deal.
Science and Knowledge
STEM, or “science, technology, engineering and maths” has exploded in modern times, adding great knowledge on the left side of the brain, and giving us I think much material wealth, but I think this advancement has been new, and it has been accompanied by some things we should stop with. It is in the modern age that more and more of us dedicate ourselves to STEM departments, and I think with some sacrifice to other things, such as community and politics (and sometimes family and friends). I've been in STEM. If I didn't think that American politics were very bad, then I suppose I wouldn't see a reason to extend a deeper interest.
I think a problem for us being dedicated to acquiring knowledge or advancement comes with losing public awareness. We have evidence today showing that our more educated people have a higher trust and faith in mainstream media, and I think this makes us more politically misinformed as a group. I think many Americans more often trust the system (re: covid vaccines), without as much knowledge of the capture of the system by private interests.
Science appears to be politically absent. Perhaps it has no forest, because it is so entirely made of trees. Here's another item to note: AI reveals huge amounts of fraud in medical research. Also see James Corbett's [four] Crisis' of Science (30 mins). I think the big money and the politicians, who have caused most of our problems, are operating right over science's head. From the Body and Earth section, our world appears to be turning into a disaster, so these two developments would seem to agree. It appears that as long as we are in our labs, we are not in our world.
Herein… The democratic method is centuries old, it includes constitutional writing and parliamentary procedure, and to deal with today's political problems, it is being used. I had no parliamentary procedure in my upbringing, but for community and political purposes, today I find it both apt and keen.
For many, I think time spent acquiring knowledge has risen, and much of this time is spent on the Internet. I find countless youtube channels today, for example, which I would call informative. Like STEM, this is generally left-brain development. Another way to do this is to consume alternative news. The approach herein is especially for those of us today who spend much time acquiring knowledge, and who would like to direct more time to experience and participation, i.e. on the other side of the brain.
Technology and Online
I think our first more significantly modern society coincided with TV. By the late 1950s, most Americans had picked up the technology. I think there was the matter of everyone being mainstreamed into national TV networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS). I think this does not come so much to serve local or state infrastructure, as it does national. (If you get the chance, check out two films on the impact of TV; from 1959, A Face In the Crowd, and from 1976, Network.)
We went mainstream. I think the national political parade regarding each other's representatives is not within each other's sphere. I think we are legally arranged more locally to ourselves, and that this is where we may focus our energies, and "kick the bums out" in our own jurisdictions. It's like we live in a reorganized society; not by our communities, or even by our jurisdictions, but by our industries.
There is a burgeoning of modern, new types of communities. 343 million Americans today have access to the Internet, and we have 315 million social media users. We also have smart phones, providing access to the whole online world, and where 90% of us have one. In our most recent times, there has been an alarming rate of downward sociological trends – mostly with younger people. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been following this closely for many years now; here is a link to: giving a talk, with some figures (and some Q&A), which are directly associating depression, lonliness, and anxiety disorders with the use of smart phones and social media platforms (also see here).
Today we have a company called Replika, which provides online AI companions, and currently reports 2,000,000 customers. At the link, they also report having partially branched into a separate company called Blush, for the more romantic and sexual brand of relations online with AIs. Conversely, there is therapy today using AIs, for people to learn how to be social.
There is study today to show that we report our offline (in-person) relationships as significantly higher in quality than our relationships online. This adds to reasons for the actions proposed herein; they involve more offline activity. There is the uniqueness of ourselves locally. Art and creativity are now used in therapy for the treatment of lonliness; these things are on the right side of the brain, which adds support to saying that we need more time there.
Local, Community, Democracy, and Politics
Old Democracy
Let us go back to the period of the American colonies from 1772 to 1791, for examples of good, old-fashioned ways of doing things. From the first town hall in Massachusetts, in 1772, to the continental congress of 1774, to the American Confederation, to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, every step in this process was democratically conducted. From the start.
I think that the American colonists had very strong communities. In 1791, of 3.9 million people, 94,000 were urban, and the rest lived in smaller towns. 90% of the population lived on farms. There were no corporations, and owners and workers tended to be local. There was no telecommunications technology of any kind. It seems to me they didn't have much choice but to interact more directly. I think they were well-situated when it came to a need to create democratic town halls, and when they repeated this across the land, they created a national assembly. They then solved their political problems.
Natural Democracy
Democracy happens in a group. We care about what each other thinks and feels, when we decide what the group is going to do. There is scientific observation of democracy in animals which appears to include all the sorts of mechanical considerations we have to politically contend with. For any group decision, there is what is of greatest benefit, including those who benefit more, those less, and how many of each in the overall picture. In some cases, helping others helps one's self or group.
On a related note, professor of archaeology David Wengrow reports thousands of years of man living in relatively egalitarian societies, when without royalty or great inequality. This is contrary to estimating all of our history as having royalty in it. Perhaps if we know what is going on with our shared structure, life will be more equitable for us (for example, without outright public thievery).
The mention of archeology can lead us into Peter Gray, a professor and practitioner in developmental psychology and related areas, who wrote about how our children are experiencing a decline in play and a rise in mental health problems, from the 1950s to the present day (or as an article, or video). Gray has observed hunter-gatherers of our day. He has noticed their children being in charge of their playing, and he has reported the adults saying, "play is how the children learn to be adults". We have more recent evidence to show that overprotecting our children today is causing a variety of mental problems, and part of this comes from parents constantly supervising their kids (such as with smart phones).
Hunter-gatherers generally don't differentiate between work and play. In schools, our push-down curriculum gives us an example of driving kids hard on the left side of the brain with academic, classroom time, with adverse effects (see link). Now think of work as something that splits out to the left brain, and play to the right, where work comes with planning to achieve a goal in mind, and where play is what neuroscience calls "automatic", which is to lead on the right. We build plans in the thinking mind, and I think our modern age has us swimming in these new developments.
There is something I find important to say about us. I have referenced democracy in animals, and in archeological history, and I would like to mention human democracy as something which can occur all the way back to the biological. I think this depth of democracy is local to the individual, and may be of the highest quality. As we will see in the bylegal districting, localization is given high value.
Modern Developments
We live in a world full of places for many plans, and civilizations, beyond those of hunter-gatherers. IQ is a measure of a set of left-brain functions, and it is now taken as a scientific fact that when people move from anywhere in the world to the modern world and have kids, their IQs go up. This is called the Flynn Effect. In the modern world, I also think people stop sometimes, and ask themselves what they are doing, among all of its various trappings.
In the modern world, what comes to fall on the left-brain side includes all of the knowledge and structure on paper that we have gained. By way of the knowledge, we have gained great material capabilities and wealth. The other thing about what comes to us on the left side of the brain is that it comes from thought alone, and these things can turn out to be ridiculous in the real world. This can extend into including rules for how we physically operate, and how we arrange our world. I think we are having modern problems, because we have added some things that we should get rid of. This is a need to separate the wheat from the chaff. I have to say, in the approach used herein, I think our modern telecommunications technology will stand to well-serve our data and communications needs, once we get past its platforms for sadness and addiction.
I should give my reasons for this left-right organization of things. This is hoped to well-facilitate a high-level view of modern developments, to include common political grievances, and to point out that I think this response to those grievances may contribute to our health. This approach applies community-level action, interaction, and in politics it gives us democracy, and to each of us place and purpose. Coinciding with whatever we may think, in politics we vote for our physical wellbeing and results. Using contrived (and modified and compromised) structures, we may be marginalized or disenfrachised. Using democracy, we are present and involved.
When I drive across-country, every town I see seems to have the same commercial outlets and franchises, but I think people are unique. According to the US Senate, the lion's share of new US patents come from small businesses. Schools are supposed to be local, but they have been drawn into compliance with a wrongful Western wokeness in public education, which leads me to ask how this is happening locally, or by what tentacles. Across the modern landscape, they are corporate.
In terms of modern structures (on paper) today, we find that our colleges are not run by faculty or staff; they are run by college administrations. Broadcast print and media isn't run by journalists and reporters; it's run by owners and editors. Private interests are running medical education and journals. We've experienced a world of corporate media consolidation, down to 5 parent owners from 50, in the past 50 years. To include a high structure; the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), functions as a consolidated and guiding Washington, D.C. think tank. Our monetary system isn't run by the government; it's run by private bankers. When my Secretary of State is publicly speaking, I find he's doing so at the WEF.
I didn't vote for the WEF, or the CFR. I also don't support the WHO, WEF, and their subsidiaries waging their contrived, global pandemic administration upon us all. I saw a 0.05% (for people < 70) COVID mortality rate posted at the WHO in March, 2020, before they took it down, and I listened to early frontline doctors say the same thing. Dr. Anthony Fauci said "flu-like" mortality on Feb. 28, in the NEJM. That is not a pandemic. In our shared structure, the case counts and death counts were faked.
Our politicians are arranged in support of this. These offices are paid for by billions of dollars a year in corporate lobbying, by way of expanded First Amendment rights for corporations. Since 2006, we have been experiencing our lowest congressional approval ratings on record (at about 20%). We have to live with government policies strongly shown to not represent us, and a lack of policies which do. To me, this also translates into lacking integrity as a society, and constantly facing violations of conscience, from the political leaders and their agendas that bear down upon us, while using our money to do it. I think with these private, special interests, it is like we are at war with ourselves, and these burdens give us common cause.
This completes part 1. Make sure to free-subscribe and like. part 2
Note: All of part 2 has been moved from here to part 2.