#Subsidiarity
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boy, but i do love watching companies burn because of their own greed, callousness, disassociation from reality, and short-sighted decisions. It's delicious.
#blizzard#wizards of the coast#anycolor#nijisanji#magic the gathering#dungeons and dragons#pathfinder#corporate greed#corporations#distributism#subsidiarity#pinkerton#ogl#warcraft reforged#vtuber memes#vtuber#selen tatsuki#dokibird#disney#unity#unity engine#hasbro#activision blizzard
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The Collective Intelligence Institute
History is written by the winners, which is why Luddite is a slur meaning “technophobe” and not a badge of honor meaning, “Person who goes beyond asking what technology does, to asking who it does it for and who it does it to.”
https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/full-stack-luddites/#subsidiarity
Luddites weren’t anti-machine activists, they were pro-worker advocates, who believed that the spoils of automation shouldn’t automatically be allocated to the bosses who skimmed the profits from their labor and spent them on machines that put them out of a job. There is no empirical right answer about who should benefit from automation, only social contestation, which includes all the things that desperate people whose access to food, shelter and comfort are threatened might do, such as smashing looms and torching factories.
The question of who should benefit from automation is always urgent, and it’s also always up for grabs. Automation can deepen and reinforce unfair arrangements, or it can upend them. No one came off a mountain with two stone tablets reading “Thy machines shall condemn labor to the scrapheap of the history while capital amasses more wealth and power.” We get to choose.
Capital’s greatest weapon in this battle is inevitabilism, sometimes called “capitalist realism,” summed up with Frederic Jameson’s famous quote “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (often misattributed to Žižek). A simpler formulation can be found in the doctrine of Margaret Thatcher: “There Is No Alternative,” or even Dante’s “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
Hope — alternatives — lies in reviving our structural imagination, thinking through other ways of managing our collective future. Last May, Wired published a brilliant article that did just that, by Divya Siddarth, Danielle Allen and E. Glen Weyl:
https://www.wired.com/story/web3-blockchain-decentralization-governance/
That article, “The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question,” set forth a taxonomy of decentralization, exploring ways that power could be distributed, checked, and shared. It went beyond blockchains and hyperspeculative, Ponzi-prone “mechanism design,” prompting me to subtitle my analysis “Not all who decentralize are bros”:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/12/crypto-means-cryptography/#p2p-rides-again
That article was just one installment in a long, ongoing project by the authors. Now, Siddarth has teamed up with Saffron Huang to launch the Collective Intelligence project, “an incubator for new governance models for transformative technology.”
https://cip.org/whitepaper
The Collective Intelligence Project’s research focus is “collective intelligence capabilities: decision-making technologies, processes, and institutions that expand a group’s capacity to construct and cooperate towards shared goals.” That is, asking more than how automation works, but who it should work for.
Collective Intelligence institutions include “markets…nation-state democracy…global governance institutions and transnational corporations, standards-setting organizations and judicial courts, the decision structures of universities, startups, and nonprofits.” All of these institutions let two or more people collaborate, which is to say, it lets us do superhuman things — things that transcend the limitations of the lone individual.
Our institutions are failing us. Confidence in democracy is in decline, and democratic states have failed to coordinate to solve urgent crises, like the climate emergency. Markets are also failing us, “flatten[ing] complex values in favor of over-optimizing for cost, profit, or share price.”
Neither traditional voting systems nor speculative markets are up to the task of steering our emerging, transformative technologies — neither machine learning, nor bioengineering, nor labor automation. Hence the mission of CIP: “Humans created our current CI systems to help achieve collective goals. We can remake them.”
The plan to do this is in two phases:
Value elicitation: “ways to develop scalable processes for surfacing and combining group beliefs, goals, values, and preferences.” Think of tools like Pol.is, which Taiwan uses to identify ideas that have the broadest consensus, not just the most active engagement.
Remake technology institutions: “technology development beyond the existing options of non-profit, VC-funded startup, or academic project.” Practically, that’s developing tools and models for “decentralized governance and metagovernance, internet standards-setting,” and consortia.
The founders pose this as a solution to “The Transformative Technology Trilemma” — that is, the supposed need to trade off between participation, progress and safety.
This trilemma usually yields one of three unsatisfactory outcomes:
Capitalist Acceleration: “Sacrificing safety for progress while maintaining basic participation.” Think of private-sector geoengineering, CRISPR experimentation, or deployment of machine learning tools. AKA “bro shit.”
Authoritarian Technocracy: “Sacrificing participation for progress while maintaining basic safety.” Think of the vulnerable world hypothesis weirdos who advocate for universal, total surveillance to prevent “runaway AI,” or, of course, the Chinese technocratic system.
Shared Stagnation: “Sacrificing progress for participation while maintaining basic safety.” A drive for local control above transnational coordination, unwarranted skepticism of useful technologies (AKA “What the Luddites are unfairly accused of”).
The Institute’s goal is to chart a fourth path, which seeks out the best parts of all three outcomes, while leaving behind their flaws. This includes deliberative democracy tools like sortition and assemblies, backed by transparent machine learning tools that help surface broadly held views from within a community, not just the views held by the loudest participants.
This dovetails into creating new tech development institutions to replace the default, venture-backed startup for “societally-consequential, infrastructural projects,” including public benefit companies, focused research organizations, perpetual purpose trusts, co-ops, etc.
It’s a view I find compelling, personally, enough so that I have joined the organization as a volunteer advisor.
This vision resembles the watershed groups in Ruthanna Emrys’s spectacular “Half-Built Garden,” which was one of the most inspiring novels I read last year (a far better source of stfnal inspo than the technocratic fantasies of the “Golden Age”):
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers
And it revives the long-dormant, utterly necessary spirit of the Luddites, which you can learn a lot more about in Brian Merchant’s forthcoming, magesterial “Blood In the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”:
https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/
This week (Feb 8–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’ll be in Brisbane tomorrow (Feb 8), and then we’re doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next are Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!
[Image ID: An old Ace Double paperback. The cover illustration has been replaced with an 18th century illustration depicting a giant Ned Ludd leading an army of Luddites who have just torched a factory. The cover text reads: 'The Luddites. Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal.']
#pluralistic#ai#artificial intelligence#b-corps#collective intelligence#full-stack luddism#full-stack luddites#governance#luddism#ml#sortition#subsidiarity
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Okay, not to pit two brothers in Christ against each other, but a real win on C.S. Lewis's part here:
He would give money to beggars over the objection of his great friend Tolkien. 'Jack,' Tolkien would say, 'he's only going to drink it up,' and Lewis would answer, 'well, Tollers, that's exactly what I was going to do with it.'
(James Como also says C.S. Lewis gave away about 70% of his annual income)
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You can comment at the link through April 3.
#government#bureaucracy#DOE#let's go brandon#human rights#civil rights#common good#solidarity#subsidiarity#hall monitors#bill of rights
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Fratelli Tutti - Dialogue and Friendship in Society
Our Mission
CAPP-Canada is a national chapter of the Fondazione Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice, a Vatican-based lay-run foundation established by Pope John Paul II in 1993, with the primary mission of promoting a deeper knowledge and application of Catholic Social Doctrine among lay Catholics.
In other words, CAPP-Canada seeks to help lay Catholic leaders in Canada form their conscience in…
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#CAPP Canada#Catholic#Catholic Social Teaching#Catholicism#Centessimus Annus#Centessimus Annus Pro Pontifice#Common Good#Conservative#Dialogue#Encounter#Fratelli Tutti#Friendship#Human Dignity#Imago Dei#Liberal#Philosophy#Politics & Society#Pope Francis#Social Friendship#Solidarity#Subsidiarity#Vatican#Virtue
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In this episode of The Catholic Bookworm, Kiki Latimer and her son, Dan Latimer, interview Ian Wilders and Joan Kingsland on their book Being the Boss: The Power of Subsidiarity for Getting Things Done (Sept. 29, 2023)
Ian is a visionary CEO known for advocating subsidiarity in the workplace. In his book, he shares practical insights and real-world examples of how this concept drives innovation, collaboration, and success. By promoting autonomy and recognizing individual talents, Ian offers a blueprint for transforming traditional structures into dynamic workplaces. Through his thought-provoking ideas, he invites leaders to unlock their teams’ full potential, helping the business owner or manager address such questions as these:
What does subsidiarity mean and how does it relate to management and decision-making in your company?
How do you align decision-making with authority in your organization?
How do you introduce the concept of subsidiarity to new employees?
What role does mission and authority play in implementing subsidiarity within your company?
How do you promote and foster trust, autonomy, and transparency within your organization?
Can you provide examples of how your financial management system aligns with the principles of subsidiarity?
As a business leader or manager, what responsibilities do you have in fostering and maintaining a culture of subsidiarity within your organization?
How do you assess and measure the success of subsidiarity within your organization?
Being the Boss: The Power of Subsidiarity for Getting Things Done | En Route Books and Media
#beingtheboss#catholicsocialjustice#danlatimer#ianwilders#joankingsland#kikilatimer#socialjustice#subsidiarity#thepowerofsubsidiarity
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That foul smell in the closet
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i don’t honestly think a country as big as America should exist
#is subsidiarity possible with the state conjoined by the federal?#eh i’ll revisit it#also the feds reading this - stop it i don’t mean i hate America im just an economics major#catholic#2022
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why do insurance companies have so many tiny subsidiaries? T_T
#my therapist's first reaction to me was that she didn't think she was in network with the one I signed up with#BUT I CHECKED WHEN I SIGNED UP AND THEY SAID SHE WAS#and it IS a subsidiarity of a company she is in network with#sooooooo.. we'll see when my policy changes in march lololololol#genuinely feel like I'm hanging on by a thread lmfao if it's wrong idk if I can fix it#idk if I have the mental willpower#to the void
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Ciudad de México. Activistas demandaron ayer al gobierno federal que México secunde y declare a favor de la demanda de Sudáfrica ante la Corte Internacional de Justicia en contra de Israel, al que acusa de acciones genocidas en Gaza.
Como parte de la Acción Global por Palestina, alrededor de 400 integrantes de organizaciones agrupadas en la Plataforma Común por Palestina, así como activistas y ciudadanos, realizaron mítines y protestas en la Ciudad de México.
Por la tarde se concentraron frente a la embajada de Estados Unidos, donde exigieron un alto a los ataques contra la población gazatí y demandaron que la administración de Joe Biden deje de apoyar al gobierno de Israel, luego de lo cual marcharon hacia la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE).
La Plataforma Común por Palestina difundió un comunicado en el que demandó que el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador presione al gobierno de Estados Unidos y le exija votar a favor de mandatar el cese al fuego en Gaza.
En el texto, solicitan que López Obrador convenza a Biden de que deje de subsidiar al ejército israelí y demandan que los millones de dólares de los contribuyentes utilizados para asesinar a niños sean donados sin condicionamientos a los países de América que expulsan a inmigrantes.
Los activistas insistieron en que México apoye la demanda interpuesta por Sudáfrica. No basta la última declaración de México en la sesión de la ONU a favor de los procesos judiciales en contra del gobierno de Israel, señala el documento.
Pedimos a organizaciones de todo el mundo y a gobiernos que apoyan a la población civil palestina que realicen mítines y publicaciones que presionen al gobierno de Estados Unidos para que vote por el cese al fuego y deje de patrocinar el genocidio por parte del ejército de Israel, instaron las organizaciones, que también manifestaron su rechazo a las intervenciones militares estadunidenses en Haití y Yemen.
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A Faction Paradox film was discussed by Lawrence Miles and a representative of a Warner Brothers subsidiarity in 2003. The representative had obtained an early copy of Political Animals from Image Comics and expressed interest in obtaining the rights to consider a film adaptation of the story. However, Miles had learned just earlier that day that the comic's third issue had been cancelled, and the representative lost interest after Miles described the story as "Amadeus with monsters".
Never forget that we almost got a Faction Paradox movie. It would have probably sucked, true, but then we could have said that the reason it sucked was that the Great Houses had sent Chris Cwej to sabotage the movie.
#faction paradox#faction Hollywood#chris cwej#doctor who#dweu#war in heaven#the enemy#Lawrence Miles#political animals#the great Houses#great houses
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Citing their past as a Norwegian territory as well as frustration with British governance is nothing new for the Orcadian island group who, in fact, are now doing so “for the third time in half a century” according to Yahoo! Life. Last week, Orkney Island Councillors voted to explore not only “alternative forms of governance” but also options of “greater subsidiarity and autonomy” and “Nordic connections”. In 2020, a ‘similar motion’ was passed by Orkney’s neighbour, the Shetland Islands, who were also part of the same Norse kingdom historically.[...]
other complaints from Orcadians including ‘underfunding’ from Britain have left many sympathising with this latest motion. Orkney Councillor Owen Tierney said: “I have been a councillor now for 11 years and I have seen it all. It has been disappointment after disappointment”.[...]
The BBC News reported that Orkney will explore the concept of becoming Norwegian territory again for the first time since 1472. Stockan said: “We were part of the Norse kingdom for much longer than we were part of the United Kingdom. On the street in Orkney, people come up and say to me when are we going to pay back the dowry? When are we going back to Norway?[...]
Indeed, the Orkney Islands were under Norwegian rule for over 600 years while Orkney by extension to Scotland and its entry to Great Britain has been part of that arrangement for just over 300 years. Orkney’s Nordic heritage, which stretches back over 1,000 years, started in the eighth century when the islands saw an influx of Viking raiders. By 875, Orkney was annexed by Norwegian King Harald Fairhair and the island along with Shetland became an earldom.
Undiscovered Scotland: “Saint Magnus Erlendsson, Earl of Orkney, sometimes known as Magnus the Martyr, was Earl of Orkney from 1106 to about 1117.” [...]
“The islands were used as security for the future wife of King James III of Scotland, Margaret of Denmark.”
Remnants of Orkney’s Norse heritage can still be felt by way of their language. Historically, the “sixth Scandinavian language” known as Norn was spoken by Orcadians and those in Shetland and Caithness as it evolved from Old Norse. Sadly, the last native speaker died in 1850, however the Scots language of Orkney features Norn motifs and place names still have Nordic hints scattered throughout.[...]
It is not the first time that the Orkney Council has passed such motions but the key difference of this one is that it mandates the exploration of reviving “Nordic connections”. This means that Orkney could even pursue a connection to other countries like Denmark or Iceland.
11 Jul 23
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All the self-governance of a DAO, and all the decentralization of web3
It's telling to me that the Fediverse—which provides all the self-governance of a DAO, and all the decentralization of web3—has no interest from the VC bootlicker class.
It reveals a lot about how a plausible technological benefit evolves into a grift. web3 nonsense was never about new paradigms. It was about constructing bags and conscripting bag holders. The proof is right here. Those guys are now chasing AI, instead of viable expressions of the goals they claimed to be so invested in.
#fediverse#not all who decentralize are bros#subsidiarity#web3#grifters#dao#bootlickers considered harmful
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Trusting the Poor to Make Their Own Decisions
A wealthy woman once visited the twentieth century activist Dorothy Day and pulled a large diamond ring off her finger. She handed it to Dorothy and asked her to use it for good. Dorothy dropped it into her pocket.
Later that day, a homeless woman knocked on the door at Dorothy's Catholic Worker house, begging for money. Dorothy calmly reached into her pocket and gave her the diamond ring.
Dorothy's friends were appalled. Later, while alone, they asked Dorothy if it would not have been better to sell the ring and use the money to rent a room for the beggar woman. Or perhaps they should have invested the money in a bank for her.
Dorothy replied, "She can do that with the ring if she wants to. She can see it and go on vacation if she wants, or she can just wear it on her finger and enjoy it if that's what she wants. Do you think God created diamonds only for the rich?"
Dorothy's response exhibits not just one, but two key principles of Catholic social teaching. Not only did she lavishly take an option for the poor by gifting the diamond ring, she also embraced the principle of subsidiarity, which says that decisions should be made at the lowest level possible. In this case, the lady receiving the ring should decide how to use it - not Dorothy, not her friends, and not the state.
- Brandon Vogt (Saints and Social Justice: A Guide to Changing the World, page 91). Bolded emphases added.
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la zona del AMBA que conforma a capital federal y em conurbano tiene el 37% de la población DEL PAÍS por eso se puede dar el gusto de subsidiar el transporte si sos un boludo de otra provincia festejando que desde hoy la persona obrera en buenos aires se va a recagar de hambre solo x tener que laburar no solo sos un hijo de mil puta como si aca vivir no saliera el triple que en cualquier otro lado sino que encima sos un cogido cegado por el odio y el fanatismo porque a vos el servicio poronga que tenes tambien te lo van a aumentar. no se puede ser tan culo roto que ves que te pegan y tu respuesta no es atajar el golpe o correrte pero pedir que le peguen al otro. cogidos mentales.
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So i get my healthcare thru medicaid. Well, not thru medicaid ofc, it’s just insurance, you can’t just force doctors into slavery or anything. But I am on medicaid insurance.
Though obviously that’s administered thru the state, right, so it’s not just medicaid as such but California’s particular incarnation of it, MediCal. Bc like, states are the laboratories of democracy yk?
So I get my insurance thru the state. But ofc it wouldn’t be feasible to have like, an actual nationalised state insurer. Think how many ppl that would be! With such diverse needs! No, ofc it’s gotta be administered on a local county level! Whence my alameda agency for handling it
Well, not all of it ofc. Division of labour makes the world go round! What do you want, vertical integration? No, the county agency only handles my appeals and grievances, they’re a coordinator not an insurance provider. The claims themselves go thru another org freed up to just focus on best serving them!
I sure am lucky to be blessed with this kind of subsidiarity in something as vital as my healthcare. Can you imagine if the federal government were to get its hands all over this stuff? It would be a kafkaesque nightmare! That’s the beauty of bringing the private sector and local government into the mix, cuts out all that bureaucratic fat big government types love so much. Simple economics, really!
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