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After reading your article, I have the sense that Internet/software is the solvent that had fragmented the global brain into billion pieces, breaking old patterns of formation wide open. Blockchain is the glue that can help put it back together in ways that are impossible to imagine before. The medium is the message indeed.

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I once was struck by this quote: "Freedom is consciousness of necessity" and the way I interpret it was... becoming conscious of the ever present nature of incentives. They will be always there no matter how independent or detach you think you are. There is necessary things you will always need. And our only freedom comes from recognize this shackles

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I like this framing. I hope at certain point, when the incentives are naturally and properly aligned with human and nature thriving, we will feel safe to take the shackles off.

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Instead, we will be holding hands, singing kumbaya, metaphorically speaking.

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Well said!

I am still a little uncomfortable about the adversarial framing. Taking the apt analogy of the human acting like neurons, but in a global brain. The apparently sinister systems of control are but a conglomeration of organizing principles, a system of believes, developed by the best efforts of our collective forefathers and foremothers. We know better now, and we have better tools now (developed and allowed to exist, incidentally, also under the sinister control system), and so, we can do better now. That's all that is. We don't need to create enemies within our-selves.

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Can we create meaning out of competition... Hahaha introducing GAN (Generative adversarial Networks). But coming back to the theme. I see this adversarial framing as integral part of infinite/finite games (James Carse/Simon Sinek) It seems to me like this frames exist like fractals, intertwined and complementary.

For a finite game, the whole point is winning, so there is only one winner. My team or yours. It's a competition. (Sports, Politics, Wars)

For an infinite game, we will see each other again in a different situation so It's all continuing playing. Making much more sense to cooperate for long terms.

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Jun 24·edited Jun 24

What do you mean when you say "integral"? Do you mean we would always be playing both games simultaneously?

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Exactly. Thank you, Fritz, for bringing in Carse's notion of an infinite game. Perfect!

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The Grey Robes are about developing the protocols for infinite games. Others want to coerce us into playing finite games. Not only finite games, but zero- or negative-sum games they know how to win and we must lose. At what point am I permitted, as an adult, to call them adversaries? At what point is Fritz permitted to identify the corrupt in Peru without regressing into a teen?

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Are we forgetting that we are "multitudes"? I vaguely remember someone writing about holding multiple perspectives in one's mind. My perspectives of being a teen and a boy are alive and well within my psyche. But there are more, now, I hope.

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I, um, "we" would be more interested in seeing how you take on the perspective of those who manipulate, control, and subject others using money and power for the ends of more money and more power. I graduated from relativism a long time ago, so I am willing to dispense moral opprobrium. I'd love to understand why, when you take on the perspectives of those who do not have our interests at heart, you are not willing to dispense opprobrium.

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To me, recognizing the urge for opprobrium as one of many urges is different from dispensing opprobrium as a matter of course. I feel that is one of the main differences between the playing of the infinite game and the finite game. To the extent that one see no other way than dispensing opprobrium, then one is still playing the finite game.

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I understand the need to appeal to the parts of us that tend to look at the system as being corrupted and senile, and is energized by the rebellious instinct that is prevalent during our teenage years to change the world. But I think Grey Robes could offer more mature perspectives.

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I'm just a fifty-year-old adolescent, I guess.

It could be a lack of imagination or a lack of maturation, but when I speak about these people in adversarial terms, it's because a) they are adversaries, and b) a lot of people aren't even aware they exist, entrenched as they are.

Having a common enemy is an important way to maintain unity. But it might seem too sensational, at this stage, and I'm open to that. I am keen to see an alternative framing spelled out that might get more legs. If so, I'd say criticize by creating! Then we can all evaluate the approach and change accordingly.

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Hmm, that's interesting, I seem to have provoke a reaction that I didn't expect. To me, the believe that one need to have a common, external, enemy just so to maintain an internal unity is an exact duplicate of the tribal mindset that has been the source of most of our troubles.

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Jun 24·edited Jun 24Author

The idea that a common enemy maintains unity is a secondary consideration. The primary consideration is, of course, the existence of the enemy. The tribal mindset against enemies is an inborn predilection that can result in prosocial or perverse results. The question before us is whether and to what extent we should identify the existence of such an enemy, talk about its evils, and figure out how to answer it (and hopefully neuter it) so that we can present an alternative. I suppose we could just pretend it doesn't exist and keep our heads in the sand. And no doubt we can project a positive vision. But why do you consider it adult to ignore deep injustice and those who maintain its systems?

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I don't see the binary you are creating here. Are you mistaking the game for the players? Finite games sucks, we get it. There are players who are very good at that, true. Are you saying we need to make them our enemy in order to play the infinite game?

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I don't see binaries here, either. I see different degrees and kinds of evil. But let's just take the "adversarial framing" of this piece. JUST the power to determine the price of money and credit is a tool of oppression that has gone to enriching the powerful at the expense of the poor, bankroll destructive wars and democides, and allow sociopathic politicos to paper over their myriad misdeads. Currently these Central Bankers are colluding with state authorities to create CBDCs and force us to use them, where we can be censored or have our finances frozen at the touch of a button because they don't like our opinions--creating an American social credit system--a system of servitude and suppression. I am willing to say that's evil and wrong. These people are actively, consciously destroying infinite game dynamics and replacing them with negative-sum arrangements. Can you not see this? If you can, why are you unwilling to call it out?

I notice, however, that you have not responded to any of my prompts and questions in this thread. You haven't offered an alternative to moral opprobrium. You haven't taken on the perspective of our adversaries to justify their behavior to determine whether we should sit silently by while they herd us into incentive systems they control and we do not.

Come on! unleash your inner teenager! The grownups have been asleep my entire life.

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