Re: virus: Virian council and process

Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Thu, 24 Jun 1999 19:36:26 -0400

Hi,

Sodom <sodom@ma.ultranet.com> writes:
<<
These problems are definitely real - I agree it is not an easy thing to do. What we are really talking about is participation I think.If we are going to "vote" on things, then suppose we have a group like the Snow Leopard collective, with users registrting individualy, a group could skew the vote a particular way. What we need is an "outer circle" in which everyone who has been here for a little while can watch the newcomers and decide weather they have some major issue that would exclude them. Maybe exclusion is better than inclusion as a system - and all the oldsters will not have to deal with the issue.
>>

yuk! I find an exclusionary system far more distastful than an inclusionary system -- mostly because that's exactly how to stagnate an organization. We *need* new blood, new ideas, new members and new view-points all the time. As I see it, the main points in having a heirarchy are

(1) uses memetic knowledge -- brings in and motivates new 'Virians' to achieve their own enlightenment. It is a "status" symbol, and people persue even meaningless status symbols (e.g. Richards recent example of 'air miles').

(2) Allows us to coordinate activities to advance/develop/evolve the church. Eventually the inner circle might come to have some real (temporal) power, like when Virus has a building and a budget; but for now, a chair at the round table would primarily be about 'authority memes' and 'our responsibilities as memetic vectors'. The members of the inner circle would, between them, constitute the primairy memetic substrate on which Virus will evolve. (as it does already, of course, we'd just be formalizing it -- and gaining the benefits of a conscious awareness of our responsibility) An interesting long term goal for such an inner circle would be to plan a get-together. Imagine all of the inner circle Virians meeting in one place to talk for a few days! Think of what could be done!

James Veverka <headbands@webtv.net> writes: <<
Like Wade, this hierarchy thing makes me uncomfortable. Although I not
been on the list for long, I would suggest that a "virian council" should be modeled after a scientific, rather than religious paradigm.
>>

Could you be more precise? How do typical scientific councils operate?

ERiC