I thought of a idea for a Far Side like cartoon where God announces that he is giving a seminar on Evolution, the huge scary dinosaur says "Evolution, not interested, my fundamentals are sound", and the meek, cowering lemur like prosimian with big wide eyes says "What time is that going to be?"
I have been having some new ideas that have gotten me thinking and I was wondering if you have time to give me feedback. I think I will never be content simply writing, as I feel an urgency to get things moving now.
I was reading Obama's "Dreams of My Father" and came to the section on community organizing. His goal was to find an issue to organize around, and it almost didn't matter what it was as long as it brought people together. Then I was watching Bill Moyer's Journal with Donna Smith of the California Nursing Association about how Single Payer is not even being considered in the new health initiative. It is off the table from the beginning. Which is an outrage and a clear indication of the corrupting influence of undemocratic capital in our political system. Then I applied Incorporated Democracy to the issue and instead of fighting the corporate line I came up with an entrepreneurial idea of creating a 'Policorp" insurance company for the people of Nevada County. A $500 a month premium would generate $600 Million dollars to support the two county Hospitals, plus property tax dollars, medicare funds, workers comp dollars, and more funding sources. You could then eliminate every cost associated with billing and insurance and allow the hospital to treat any resident of the county free of charge. The hospital would then have a huge incentive to invest in preventative care. Also, some mechanism would need to be put in place to pass the costs on to those patients that refuse to stop smoking, drinking in excess, or over eating after every measure had been applied to help them correct their unhealthy behavior. Also, as end of life care accounts for up to 70 percent of health care costs, some kind of community consensus would need to be reached on how much we we spend on the last year or two of each of our lives (for instance the hip replacement for Obama's terminally ill Grandmother). Obviously big heady issues for a community to try and reach a decision on, but exciting in what is possible.
I then see creating a "Return to Common Sense" journal that is used to communicate and mobilize the community. And, if a community consensus did form and the existing Board of Supervisors and the elected Hospital Boards did not fully support its implementation, then a recall election could be done to move things forward rapidly. I see having a weekly meeting of an "Evolutionary Council" at Shinneyboo Creek to formulate information and strategy and a small monthly dues structure to aggregate capital and pay expenses. The dues could be covered by selling say 10 copies of the Return to Common Sense a month for those who can't come up with the dues. Then a version of a Network Marketing structure could be created not only to rapidly expand the base but also to serve as a method of aggregating judgment through a series of democratically structured organizational cells that make decisions and then pass them up series of levels to one large corporate governing body.
Writing "The Next American Evolution" seems so distant from making real change. I wonder if I could effect more immediate benefit by applying the concepts to the critical problems facing my community. I am reading "Harnessing Complexity" about science surrounding the concepts and mechanisms of Complex Adaptive Structures and I am excited by the possibilities of the application of this thinking. I am wondering if this type of organizing could give me practical experience that would inform and shape the writing I do later.
Thanks for your time. Your thoughts are appreciated.
With Hope and Determination,
Michael Rogers
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
May 9, 2009
Mr. Axelrod,
I am writing because I have come across your work in my research into the Evolution of Cooperation. I am specifically looking at applying "high-tech" scientific theory to economic organizational structures. I am developing an organizational model called a "policorp" -- a hybrid structure that combines three social "engines" into one systemically coherent organizational structure -- the economic might of the corporate, the cooperative sophistication of the democratic political, and the focus on a communities' social needs of the non-profit sector.
I am wondering what the applicability of agent based modeling could be to my work?
I believe world society is in desperate need of a "good design" for how we organized economically -- one that is far more sophisticated than the current dominant, feudally inspired, corporate model. The multiple crisises on Wall Street demonstrates to me the failure of our current corporate model to incorporate sufficiently high-tech judgment aggregation and to understand the impacts of Condorcet's Jury Theorem. As well as the social dangers that have arisen from a naive system based on the hope that business leaders will do what is right. I am reminded of the story of the scorpion and the frog, whom he convinces to carry him across the river, were the scorpion stings the frog midstream killing them both with the excuse "I couldn't help myself, it is my nature." The "genius" of American Democracy was that, unlike socialism and communism, we assumed leaders "nature" would be to become greed and corrupt and we built a system design to insure that no one could become King and that the government would always remain "of the people, by the people, and for the people". I am convinced that there is now an evolutionary imperative that we apply that thought to the design of new incorporations of the hopes and dreams of our people.
The freeriders in complex non-governmental systems are increasingly becoming the leaders of those organizations and they are creating a barrier to cooperation where there is no benefit of cooperation to all of the myriad of cooperators who have built those very organizations, including staff, from upper management to entry level, and increasingly the investors who have funded them.
Just as the success of the American Founders was rooted in their love of good government, as opposed to most revolutions which were based more in a dislike of government, I am a unrepentant capitalist who believes that capitalism is in desperate need of "re-tooling". I have attached some writings that can give you an idea on the direction of my work. I have multiple goals including: inspiring the building of a Policorp on the Western Slope of the High Sierra; writing of a book called The Next American Evolution -- Incorporated Democracy and a Return to Common Sense; and the development of the Global Institute for Capital Evolution (GlobalICE) to support the Scientific, intellectual, and policy underpinnings of this economic evolution at my 160 acre resort near Lake Tahoe, California.
I am writing to see if you have any interest in discussing these issues further with me to help in the research I need move forward in a manner firmly based in the best scientific thinking, or secondarily whether there is a graduate student (or Northern California based program) who might be interested in consulting on our project in conjunction with their educational pursuits, or thirdly if you could be so kind as to point me in a direction to educate myself further, with the understanding that I am not scientifically trained.
We are willing to pursue grants to support any assistance you might see fit to provide. If you have made it this far, I thank you for your time and consideration.
With Hope and Determination,
Michael Rogers
I am writing because I have come across your work in my research into the Evolution of Cooperation. I am specifically looking at applying "high-tech" scientific theory to economic organizational structures. I am developing an organizational model called a "policorp" -- a hybrid structure that combines three social "engines" into one systemically coherent organizational structure -- the economic might of the corporate, the cooperative sophistication of the democratic political, and the focus on a communities' social needs of the non-profit sector.
I am wondering what the applicability of agent based modeling could be to my work?
I believe world society is in desperate need of a "good design" for how we organized economically -- one that is far more sophisticated than the current dominant, feudally inspired, corporate model. The multiple crisises on Wall Street demonstrates to me the failure of our current corporate model to incorporate sufficiently high-tech judgment aggregation and to understand the impacts of Condorcet's Jury Theorem. As well as the social dangers that have arisen from a naive system based on the hope that business leaders will do what is right. I am reminded of the story of the scorpion and the frog, whom he convinces to carry him across the river, were the scorpion stings the frog midstream killing them both with the excuse "I couldn't help myself, it is my nature." The "genius" of American Democracy was that, unlike socialism and communism, we assumed leaders "nature" would be to become greed and corrupt and we built a system design to insure that no one could become King and that the government would always remain "of the people, by the people, and for the people". I am convinced that there is now an evolutionary imperative that we apply that thought to the design of new incorporations of the hopes and dreams of our people.
The freeriders in complex non-governmental systems are increasingly becoming the leaders of those organizations and they are creating a barrier to cooperation where there is no benefit of cooperation to all of the myriad of cooperators who have built those very organizations, including staff, from upper management to entry level, and increasingly the investors who have funded them.
Just as the success of the American Founders was rooted in their love of good government, as opposed to most revolutions which were based more in a dislike of government, I am a unrepentant capitalist who believes that capitalism is in desperate need of "re-tooling". I have attached some writings that can give you an idea on the direction of my work. I have multiple goals including: inspiring the building of a Policorp on the Western Slope of the High Sierra; writing of a book called The Next American Evolution -- Incorporated Democracy and a Return to Common Sense; and the development of the Global Institute for Capital Evolution (GlobalICE) to support the Scientific, intellectual, and policy underpinnings of this economic evolution at my 160 acre resort near Lake Tahoe, California.
I am writing to see if you have any interest in discussing these issues further with me to help in the research I need move forward in a manner firmly based in the best scientific thinking, or secondarily whether there is a graduate student (or Northern California based program) who might be interested in consulting on our project in conjunction with their educational pursuits, or thirdly if you could be so kind as to point me in a direction to educate myself further, with the understanding that I am not scientifically trained.
We are willing to pursue grants to support any assistance you might see fit to provide. If you have made it this far, I thank you for your time and consideration.
With Hope and Determination,
Michael Rogers
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