Complements to the Liberal theory of power

Note: this is only a draft, with pieces of ideas thrown here that can be revised later.

Membership of some network

We can imagine for example a network whose existence is not publicly declared, where only the registered members have the ability to invite other people to become members, which are of course free to refuse.

The one who invites a new member ensures to the network that his guest is honest, will respect the secrecy of the existence of the network and all his commitments made with the network, and is wise enough to invite in the network only people having these same qualities. Thus, if a member did not respect his engagement (this concerns mainly the payment of his debts), the member who invited him to the network will be held to fill it in his place.

It will be welcome that for the same member several members bring their guarantee through this same formality to recognize his honesty, thus sharing this responsibility. This will also help to prevent the problem described below. The virtual identity of a member of the network does not need to contain information on its official identity, but the use of nicknames or pseudonyms is authorized. This because the official identity would have only little practical utility for the network, and may be dangerous. The correspondence between the virtual identity of a member and its real person thus will consist of: ,p> His login allowing the member to interact with the Network in an identified way
His email which makes it possible for the Network to contact him
Last but important point on the base of which it will be possible to rebuild a justice without the force of Law, making possible for members of the Network in the normal operations to behave like with known people: the data of the virtual identity of the the other members of the Network who know him in the real life, trusted him and can find him in the event of any problem.

The membership is lost by resignation, or in the event of rupture by disavowal of the chains of declarations resulting from the great mass of the other members who guarantee his honesty, if a charge is carried against him by another member. If these chains of declarations disappear simply without charge (for example by death), one will try to recover these members by rebuilding other relations in the place of those lost by organizing meetings. If these meetings are not conclusive as clearly as one could hope, the membership will be lost.

The Internet server

The network is based on an Internet server (or maybe several independent servers in the future) being used for the exchanges of information. The data are are not open to the public but backup copies will be kept for safety reasons by some members especially recognized for their honesty by the network. Information circulating between the members will be primarily of three types (the same ones as the Internet): Web pages, forums and messages for another member. Each member can make a site of one or more pages. Or a paragraph, or even a line integrated into a list on a collective page presenting his offer or demand of service (somehow like a forum but not presented in chronological order for a long-term offer). For example it can be the offer of lodging a visitor for a given price in a room of one's home, an offer of private lessons, sharing seats in cars etc. With each page (Web or message of forum) published on the site of the network and each message sent through it to a particular member, is associated a code (possibly invisible except if it is an email message) allowing whoever reads it (respectively the recipient) to address to its author, a message, a payment of thanks or a complaint. A desirable function also is the self-censorship in a forum, where the author of a message can censor his own message when it is not valid anymore (for example when his request was satisfied). It is then possible for one who visits the forum to choose the option to see all messages (displaying the indication of which ones are self-sensored) or the option to see only the messages still valid.

Internal Payments

A thanks is a payment of a certain amount (maybe small) of internal currency. A payment can take place if need be in two steps: one pre-payment followed by a validation of payment. A pre-payment consists in virtually blocking a certain amont of money which is thus put between the two individuals, with the property that none of them can take it without the agreement of the other.
Thus, if somebody orders the delivery of a certain object, he carries out first a pre-payment of the agreed price. Then, when he receives it and sees that it is indeed what he wanted and that it is functional, he validates his payment. Else, he claims a refunding, which the salesman has no interest to refuse as he cannot receive this payment anyway. If somebody does not fill his duty to let the amount to the other, or maybe even if one realizes afterwards that there is a problem and that there was something dishonest in this market, there will be the possibility to complain.

One can imagine for example that in a forum somebody puts a question and promises a certain price to anyone who will give a certain information. Then if somebody gives a good answer there is a consensual obligation to pay the promised sum, which will be possible even if the appearance of the answer is anonymous due to the fact that the server contains a code associated with the answer which makes it possible to address the payment towards its author. For that, one can even maybe conceive a function to block the sum with the forum without defined recipient, while waiting for an answer...

Each member commits himself to honour the virtual payments which he will have carried out in the Network, by not leaving his account initially at zero to go down below a certain negative threshold, and by discharging his possible debt before any resignation. This minimum will have been decided and registered in agreement with the one or the ones that engaged themselves in declaring their trust to him, who are obliged thus to honour this debt in his place if he did not respect its engagement (they take a bigger risk if they allow him to go far down: it is like lending him more money).

Discussions: consensus by forums

It is the principal means which will determine the evolution and development of the network in practice. A civilization being a system of an extreme complexity, it would be illusory to claim to define in advance all the procedures by which it will function. Contributions and exchanges of multiple ideas, contributions, opinions, experiments, critics, remarks, suggestions or dreams of developments of new structures by many members will be thus necessary.

There will also be forums "ideas boxes" in which people can express and exchange their ideas on whatever problems (in particular their needs for information) with which they are confronted in their everyday life, and for which one can conceive that some new structure of information or other form of collective organization can bring new answers.

The role of the computer programmers will be to seek to generally satisfy the requests of the members and the consensus which emerges from it, by creating the adequate information structures to make this system the most effective possible.

One or more of the unmoderated forums in the Network, will be devoted to this exchange of ideas with the programmers in charge of the system. As in the other forums, the functions of payment and complaint will function, making it possible for these technicians to be paid, and also for the people to prevent the abuses.

If a dissatisfaction against people in charge emerged forming a consensus, one would seek to replace them by other people chosen by this consensus.

Scission or not scission

If a consensus could not be found among the members on the main features to program for the evolution of the informational structures of the network, but that two or several distinct tendencies have emerged, a scission in several distinct networks could be planned; everyone is free then to adhere to one or the other of these networks.

Indeed, it is here an inevitable phenomenon at the very base of the creation of the network, which develops by the free adhesion of its members: By adhering, they choose to undertake relations which are not any more the rough result of the influences of the dominant system, but which correspond to a new logic out of these influences. It is the sum of the individual choices to take part in such or such system of information exchange which finally determines the collective choice of the system in force. This guarantees the impossibility for a group of individuals to turn away the system durably: it is sufficient that some others decide to build a new system independent of the one in place, and to invite people to join it, so that finally the preceding system disappears simply by the fact that people do not use it any more.

We will see now why this mechanism of scission, although seemingly contradictory with the previous one, is finally only one manner of defining it more precisely, and this for two different and complementary reasons.

1) Correction and anticipation of the results
The discussion is a process of construction, development and fecundation, but that does not specify in which direction it will go, nor if its way is good or bad. A bad way probably brings to dissensions and polemic, that the discussion may not manage to solve. The scission, then, provides a door of exit to an insoluble dissension and makes it possible to take a decision between the good and the bad ways. Thus, if the large mass moves in a bad direction but a small group of people becomes aware of it and manages to define a better direction, even if they do not manage to convince the mass by discussion, they can thus try out it, and, by their the new results or the new services they offer, they can extend their influence, develop by the adhesion of other members to their methods. This way, they gradually succeed in having their new idea win by the test of the facts in spite of the initial dialectical opposition which ends up dying out.
Finally, this forces the interlocutors in the forums to take into account the possibility of a scission and its consequences and to reason in these terms, in order to anticipate what cannot be avoided (with the help of an "experiment of thought"). This way, the result is obtained or the problem is solved as often as possible without passing through all the cost and the disturbances of the effective realization of such a scenario.

2) Acceptation of diversity
Here other manner One could say that this second way for the scission to be a way of specifying the discussion, is a well-known thing even if everyone forgot it. It lies at the very origin of the Internet and of its name: Inter-net.
Initially, there were computer networks. Then came the Internet, which is the Network of all networks, in the form of a protocol (language of communication between computers) which made it possible for a network to communicate with another network. It makes it possible to do it in full safety, where each network can control itself its own means without worrying about the way in which the other networks are managed.
Similarly, it will be normal and healthy for the advance of the projects in many areas of the network, that multiple projects of organization and structuring of the data are conceived and tested, so that this Network is built not only on the exchanges of ideas and arguments, but also on the fact that these diverse ideas and arguments have been really tested.
This is why it will be also necessary to work to the construction of a global network which will be compatible with the projects of particular networks, by defining a language and minimal conditions necessary so that these various networks can work together. For example, vis-a-vis the threat of a scission, to avoid most of the difficulties which a concrete scission implies, one could study the possibility of operating a "virtual" scission on the same network. For this, optional modules would be added to make it possible for each one to work as if he were in that of these new versions of the network which he chooses, without breaking the relations with those who make another choice for any activity unrelated with this option.

Moreover, one can notice that a such processes and structures of scission and network of networks can be useful as a means to help the network be stable and resistant, by decentralizing information and the means of rebuilding a network. This way, even if some members were arrested and a part of the network blocked, the network could be rebuilt itself immediately on new bases.

However, this does not mean to systematically accept exchanges with any network, because of the moral principles and simply of the need for protecting oneself. Thus, the network will seek to block any relationship to the Maffias and other networks of dishonest persons, which in any case did not await for the statement of theses ideas to be organized advantageously in networks.
The problem is that it will be very difficult to define the distinction between the good and the bad networks. Many discussions and experiments will be undoubtedly necessary to about arrive there, and various types of relations between networks could be considered. For example, what to think of the file exchange networks which break the copyright ? In general, those who "are injured" the most and make them lawsuits are not really more honest since they are in fact large companies who monopolize most of the "royalties" on the works produced by others, by more than doubtful commercial techniques !

Also, one can notice that the terrorists of the Al Qaïda network are right in their own eyes, since they fight against the imperial power of the United States whose economic and military abuses against the rest of the world are manifest. This is why there will be no coherent general concept of honesty on which one can be based as long as the current political régime will maintain its oppression on the world.

Another question arises: we have just presented the phenomenon of evolution like an inevitable force of nature, which already in theory completely determines the future of the system. However, we had begun this talk with the concern of building a system as fair as possible. However surprising that can appear, there is here no contradiction (the proof has not yet been written...).

Theory

The preceding mechanisms seem to determine the evolution of the Network completely. However, without calling them into question, we will notice that they are still unsatisfactory. Indeed, that do they say?
The first criterion says that a choice of network is bad if it makes scandal and raises against it the polemic among its own members, and that it is good if people express their satisfaction there.
The second says that a choice is bad if it leads its members to separate and create their own independent network from it, bringing the collapse of that which exists; and that a choice is good if its members maintain their participation there.

But there is a question: Is there in the two procedures of evolution which we presented (Discussion and Scission) really something new, or weren't they already working for a long time? Indeed, the freedom of expression has been existing for a long time. People are free to exchange their points of view with their family, their friends, their neighbors, to make political conferences and discussion meetings, and to print newspapers. They are free to form associations and new political parties which, if they manage to convince the population, obtain the power. People are free to emigrate to the countries whose political régime is best convenient to them. Then, which problem is there still in it ? Cryptographers know well that a procedure of checking of a code or a result (for example an electronic signature) is not worth a procedure to producu the code which will pass successfully the test of this checking. It is well-known among biologists that the darwinian process of evolution of the species, which ensures the multiplication of the best genes and the disappearance of the worse by natural selection, requires million years and a still larger number of lives of individuals to operate significant evolutions bringing to species really new and more powerful than those which existed before. On the other hand the innovation of the technologies invented by the men, thus the production of more resistant varieties of plants by genetic engineering, is much faster. Blaise Pascal has written his skepticism vis-a-vis movements of protest and of revolution, which, even if they are right to say that the power in place is unjust, will remain according to him unable to build instead a righter order, once they will have reversed it. And one observes indeed in the history of humanity the large number of times where the men made a revolution by denouncing rightly the injustice of the world in which they lived, and by doing this, only succeeded in installing another injustice, or even a still worse injustice. Just think of the Bolshevik Revolution which established the Soviet empire. Think of the implosion of this empire which replaced it by a space where thrives the Maffia, and where many countries are not raised yet economically. Just think of the successive French revolutions of th past which had so much difficulty to stop on a stable mode. Finally these Revolutions have seemed to have stopped for approximately a century to the more stable mode of the Republic, which allows public debates, the plurality of opinions and the freedom of vote. But it is noted that this stable mode to which we came is finally a mode where all the speeches and all information on those who rule us speak only about scandals of embezzlements, corruption, denunciation, and vote of opposition against the policy of the worst.

It comes out from all that that, without removing anything in the value of the principles of discussion and scission, nor to dispute their exclusive capacity to decide between what is right and what is not, what will be established and what will be abandoned, they can miss according to the fields something essential: they are not themselves the source of the major innovations, those which would be finally readily accepted by the population and able to solve the problems to which the scandals and instabilities testify. The question of stability is the equation to be solved. But there remains the problem to formulate an effective solution making it possible to produce a stable system.
But, justice is much more than the absence of injustice (for example one can eliminate the injustice by a dissolution of the responsibilities, but that does not induce an advance of justice). Freedom is much more than the absence of constraint. Honesty is more than the absence of will to harm. Work is much more than the absence of idleness. The truth is much more than the absence of error. Good works are more than one absence of fault. For the things to be better, it is not enough to destroy what does not work, it is also necessary to build something new.

A stable system is something else than the disappearance of the last unstable system which preceded it. But that is not yet sufficient. Because true stability is still more than an absence of instabilities. Indeed, there are two ways of putting an end to instabilities, one good and one bad. An instability being the expression of a problem, there are two ways to get rid of it: one can solve the problem, or one can bury it.
Indeed, it is very easy to bury a problem. For that, it is enough to insulate it, and not to build the support and the language which would enable it to be expressed. This language is not just a matter of literary expression: it is also concretely a whole social and informational structure which would allow, in a way as flexible as possible, to express them, to transmit them, to analyze them, to reveal the meaning and the possible justification, to manage them and to return proposals for adapted solutions. These mechanisms must also be such as, if an individual complains wrongly against the others even with sincerity, they provide in return to this individual the experimental demonstration of his error, which will lead him to withdraw his complaint if he seriously accepts to examine the problem.

The examples of wrong solutions in the current world are numerous. For example this poor right to vote to choose between two or three candidates who are proposed to us to rule the country, pretexts to saying that the decisions of the government would be in conformity with the popular will. For example demonstrations of street, expression of a dissatisfaction with no means of checking the justification of it, and that the journalists and the politicians are free to reinterpret in their own way. For example the right to strike was easily justified by true examples of unjust exploitations of the employees by employers, but by its superficial character it just shifts the problem: as an instrument of constraint unequally distributed in the population according to the professions (without speaking about the unemployed) without relationship with the accuracy of its use, it often allowed in France for example privileged civils servant working in public transport, to take the country as an hostage to still obtain larger privileges.


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