In previous posts, I’ve outlined a societal design that avoids the cycle of empire, solves the problems of modernity including dysgenics, and provides massive K-selective pressure.
What remains unelaborated is how to move from our current society to the proposed model.
Recently I read the first portion of “Blood Brotherhood”, by the author of “The Way of Men,” Jack Donovan. For a long time, I’ve meditated on the various factors behind the failure of the previous iterations of the Neanderhall. This line from a recent review of “American Sniper” on Return of Kings struck me as relevant:
The real Chris Kyle said that war was “fun.” I know what he means. It is not really the act of killing, nor even the action per se, it is belonging to a group of your absolute best friends combined with having a clear mission in life all while testing yourself to the limit. That is what keeps men going back. That is why men such as Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle will leave the comforts of home and hearth to fight and risk everything on the field of battle.
I read the review after I’d come up with my solution, so it reinforced rather than inspired the idea.
The last source of inspiration was my own Cyborganize journaling practice. Using ConnectedText, Emacs Org-Mode, TapLog and LibreOffice Calc, I keep a meticulous journal that is accurate to the minute for time spent at home.
The utility of a daily journal is doubtful, for several reasons. Daily entries pile up and are forgotten, because the info density is too low to be worth rereading. Lack of quantitative measurements prevents useful comparisons across time. Poor general info management causes extraneous thoughts to clog the journal, reducing its effectiveness at its primary job.
The purpose of a journal is, of course, to force objectivity, perspective, and quantitative awareness on a non-quantitative hominid with lossy memory designed to operate by emotion and optimized for an environment that no longer exists.
My journal solves the above problems and fully achieves its objective. The rest of Cyborganize bleeds away nonrelevant information, leaving the journal lean and focused. Flexible Org-Mode checklists ensure adherence to a complex and evolving process. The most important innovation, however, is the nested review structure.
Over a week, daily entries pile up in an Emacs scratch file. These are then polished and transferred in batch on Saturday, for the weekly review. Relevant quantitative data is extracted and entered into spreadsheets. This includes performance ratings, detailed timesheets, and biological indicators such as Circadian rhythm. The text is summarized to a 7 day review entry and stored in ConnectedText, along with the linked daily reviews.
When two weeks of data are accumulated, this triggers a 14 day review, then a 28 day review, then 56 day, etc.
I currently have two months of data logged in this journal schema, and the strategic insight generated is profound. The framework has transformed journaling from a thankless chore to a core strategic activity, with indispensable performance and morale benefits.
Many of the thought-interrupt loops that plague deepsockets are self-evaluative. The unaided human mind cannot accurately comprehend itself, instead relying on wildly inaccurate and shifting emotional subjectivity. The journal demolishes this malfunction.
I’m fortunate to have a father sympatico in character, worldview and personality, so I can share my unredacted journal with him. The result is perfect accountability, transparency and intimacy. That is not something I’ve previously experienced, and it is as good as it sounds.
I will eventually publish my journaling method on cyborganize.org, when it receives its update. I assume few people will have the necessary focus and conscientiousness to adopt it, and those will be deepsockets.
Which brings me to my point. Previously, intimacy ~ 1/distance^2. Now, intimacy is no longer distance-dependent. For living ghosts, this is a weapon. Tribes no longer require proximity.
Here, then, is the progression I imagine:
First, we need some vetted and curated community where face pics are visible to members. From there, intimacy progresses from stranger to acquaintance to friend, via posts, emails, Skype, etc. We’ve already seen this happen on the Neanderhall.
This generates enough trust for the occasional two friends to try Bit Brotherhood – the first of four stages I envision:
1. Bit brother
2. Blood brother
3. Skull brother
4. Steel brother
“Bit” brother refers to what is shared – bits and bytes, in this case passworded archives of journal files. Gradually trust builds until journal sharing is unredacted and complete.
The next stage is blood brotherhood. I envision this requiring a physical meeting. Donovan talks about many forms of blood brotherhood, but the cowboy and Indian way seems best to me – slash the palm, bind the hands, and swear the oath: to kill and die for each other. Perhaps walk between bisected animals also, Old Testament style. The blood bond primary over kin, wife and offspring.
The next stage is Skull Brotherhood. It closely mimics the criminal gang or combat platoon. It requires several blood bonded men, up to some small-tribe limit, say 12.
It is named “skull” because, like many gangs, the rule is “blood in, blood out.” You kill to get in, and are killed if you attempt to leave. This is appropriate for a group with some sort of economic turf, possibly extralegal. Once you grow past a handful, you need a different recruitment method than blood brotherhood, which doesn’t scale well. I suppose some lesser trial or entrance barrier than murder might work, but I prefer to keep the blood theme, personally. Also, with increased scale, betrayal is a larger risk, meriting an explicit punishment.
The last stage is Steel Brotherhood. In this stage, the gang controls a small slice of territory, and the full social schema previously described applies. Children become an issue, and the 50% male casualty rate is applied to prevent dysgenics.
This is of course all completely insane, and is presented for entertainment purposes only. Everyone knows that incorruptible nested platoons of men cannot take over the world. Oprah wouldn’t allow it. Think positive!