Thorbjoern Points For Discussion - RichardAlexanderGreen/WorldGovGame GitHub Wiki

Proposed assumptions for an effort to bootstrap out of the quagmire:

Systems studies and models are developed in response to some challenge, problem, vision for a better state of the world (even if just to a perceived inadequacy of understanding of 'the system'), notwithstanding protestations (Imperatives?) of impartial abstinence from problem solving or advocacy of particular 'solutions'. Better to fess up to them so they can be examined and discussed? I will refer to those ideas as ‘plans’ for simplicity.
A common human tendency to is to make and carry out plans in the pursuit of ‘life, liberty and happiness’ – widely regarded and proclaimed as a human ‘right’ (even as it is equally widely denied to many). Plans tend to get in each other’s way, resulting in conflict. **A mutual respect for each others’ plans (rights) would imply the following attitudes: **
‘My plan’ conflicting with ‘your plan’ becomes ‘our plan’. It must be modified and/or discussed until acceptable to both / all parties. Imposition (by coercion) of one party’s plan over others’ concerns will generate and continue conflict and arguably does not improve ‘our plan’ nor even the imposing/victorious party’s plan.
All plans involve engaging in actions incurring costs (spending resources, efforts, inconveniences) in order to gain benefits (profits, desirable states, experiences, enjoyments) based on assumptions about the efficacy of actions resulting in the expected outcomes.
Since plans involve future events, actions and their consequences, all the assumptions mentioned are necessarily expectations fraught with probability estimates regarding:
a) the causal links between action and outcomes;
b) the adequacy and constancy of desirability judgments of outcomes; (in the future, we may not really want what we are so fervently aiming for today);
c) assumptions about the presence of current and future conditions under which the causal-instrumental action-outcome links will hold;
d) the difficulty of adequately anticipating the complex interaction of many conditions, action aspects, outcomes and changing information as well as attitudes: the challenge ST calls ‘understanding the respective system’ and its behavior.
It is mainly this aspect ST efforts aim at tackling with the development, study, analysis and simulation of system models.
Sources of disagreement (conflict) about the acceptability of plans include:

uncertainty and disagreements about the points 5a through d;
perceived differences in distribution of expected benefits, as well as costs, among affected parties.

The information needed to formulate plans and make reasonably reliable estimates about their consequences is distributed in the population of affected parties. This applies to all forms of information, including factual-instrumental information about actions leading to consequences, factual information about conditions under which instrumental claims are assumed to hold, deontic (ought-) information about aims, goals, principles, objectives to be pursued by plans, or concerns and fears to be alleviated, as well as the probability, plausibility, and relevance (weight of importance) judgments attached to each information item.
The process of assembling that information must be one of wide participation by all affected parties – not only to elicit ‘initial’ information and judgments, but also for the purpose of forming, revising, modifying the judgments that will be the basis of decisions and agreements. The process should be open to all forms of contributions in all media. Contributions in different languages and discipline jargon will have to be ‘translated’ into a commonly understood language (or languages).
The planning discourse must be initiated by the party initiating the plan (in its first version), offering all needed details for meaningful discussion.
While discourse contributions must be accepted and stored in their original (‘verbatim’) form for reference, their core message must be ‘translated’ into a format conducive to
a) convenient overview by all participants
b) supporting meaningful discussion, and
c) meaningful, systematic and transparent evaluation.
Requirement a) appears to be best met by maps and diagrams (topic, issue and argument maps), system diagrams.) Requirements b) and c) call for some text formatting to achieve standardization, brevity and conciseness.
The roles of systems modeling within the argumentative discourse as well as the role and representation of argument (differences of assessment as to validity and relevance) within system model assumptions require study, reassessment and mutual alignment. (Currently, systems models do not show such controversial differences of opinions nor their underlying arguments, inappropriately giving the impression that they are successfully representing true system features, while arguments in planning debates focus on single causal and instrumental links, ignoring the collective conditions of all factors, variables and relationships of the entire system that really are the conditions under which relationship claims can be assumed to hold.)
An effective platform for the required discourse, integrating its various functions into one program, is needed but remains to be developed. Its main functions can currently be carried out with different existing technology and software programs, (sufficient for small scale experiments and demo projects) but they are not yet effectively connected to support the discourse for larger scale projects.
To meet the principle that decisions regarding collective plans be based on the merit of contributions and arguments to the discussion (expressing the information and concerns of all affected parties) methods and programs for measuring that merit must be developed, tested, and demonstrated. (Current methods relying on majority voting in various forms do not meet that expectation.)
Effective participation and comfortable use of the tools in such a planning / policy-making platform will require an introductory process of information, demonstration, training and practicing for all prospective participants. Arguably, this will also require a corresponding cooperative planning ethic. The process of educating people to acquire these skills and attitudes calls for new forms of instruction. The development of interactive games using modern IT tools may be the best means for rapid spreading of this kind of information and skills.
There will undoubtedly be resistance, opposition, and obstacles to the successful development and acceptance of such tools. They will have to be clearly identified, acknowledged and dealt with in a cooperative, constructive, noncoercive manner, that is, through discourse. Examples of such obstacles include the role of power in decision-making.
**Among expected obstacles, the issue of control of power is paramount. ** The rationale for powerful agencies is related to enforcement of agreements, rules, laws, inasmuch as such enforcement consists of application or threat of force: violence. To be effective, ‘enforcement’ agencies must be more powerful than any would-be violator; but that power inevitably makes them susceptible to temptations of power abuse and corruption – because there is no larger power to constrain them. Traditional forms of power control, mostly limited to government institutions, are reaching their limits of effectiveness, and are not adequately applied to private (and criminal) enterprises who have succeeded in gaining control over governments in many areas.
The control of power issue is critical at the international and global level, where conflict resolution by force is becoming so dangerous as to threaten not only the losing but also the victorious parties and humanity as a whole, and the use of sanctions in the form of threat of violence requiring a supremely powerful enforcement entity is justly feared, for the reasons cited.
To ensure that all parties will adhere to agreements reached through such a process, sanctions are needed to discourage, prevent and respond to violations. If sanctions in the form of force or threat of force are to be avoided (because of reasons stated in item 16 above) new forms of sanctions will have to be developed. The aim must be to replace current practice of coercive sanctions that have to be ‘enforced’ by enforcement agencies, by alternative sanction forms that are ‘automatically’ triggered by the very attempt at violating an agreement or rule. This concept seems to be ignored – as ‘unrealistic’? -- in discussions of related problems, but there are precedents for solutions at small scale, and available technological means for their application at larger scale. The issue needs more study, innovative effort, development and discussion.
The question of a needed system of ‘sustainability’ ethics should be discussed as one of the agenda items of the proposed overall discourse. I feel that its precepts will coincide with principles of the proposed ‘planning ethics’ itself, needed for constructive involvement with the planning and policy-making framework sketched out above.
The issue whether a religious basis for such an ethical code is needed, can be sidestepped for now: humanity may eventually arrive at resolution of differences between various religious beliefs, but it is feasible and imperative to agree upon a (partial) code of behavior for conflict resolution and planning/policy-making processes to meet global challenges to survival, that does not depend on religious tenets. Considering the question of ethics as a design issue may defuse the controversy: we are at a stage in evolution where we may consciously overcome animal drives or genetic dispositions, to decide to live up to a design of our own, of who and what kind of civilization we want to be.

These items are offered for discussion, as some first and urgent tasks – ‘priming the pump’ -- for concerted efforts about major concerns facing humanity.The numbering as individual issues aims at facilitating their detailed discussion as separate tasks; their presentation as a set is based on two main views. First, that these assumptions are interrelated in ways not usually discussed. And secondly: tentative solutions for some items on the list -- e.g. the argumentative approach to planning and argument evaluation – can provide unexpectedly helpful solutions for other challenges – such as control of power, or development of non-coercive sanctions. (More details on work supporting these assumptions are available.) These connections suggest that the entire list of issues should be investigated as an interconnected system of societal arrangements.