The Leave Alliance: Sharing Knowledge

Rare Pearls are not found on the shore but in the depths of the ocean.

I was curious what the latest EU opinions discussed in the public forum might sound like, so watched the BBC's Question Time 3rd March 2016, last night. There were it seemed a little more actually serious questions about the EU this time around, in particular one about Democracy which unfortunately the presenter David Dimblebee decided did not have enough of a "discussion hook" in it to dwell on and moved onto taking more questions, understandably.

But this is a serious problem that is not recognized for what it is: FLEXCIT: Changing the Political Reality. Like seeing a clam shell and not knowing that inside it is a Pearl. Another notable comment was from the audience (most of the interesting things actually come from the crowd given enough of a chance to sample a large number and sift the productive ideas from the rest):-

"We Don't Know Enough?" 

In a previous blog this was pointed out back in other BBC productions on the question of the EURO or Europe: Decrypting: What is Babel-17? Interestingly, there was an extremely emotional lady who was aghast at the suffering of migrants in tents that took up a lot of time and due to the heightened emotional pitch even when the correct procedure provided by Dominic Raab was given it was largely not acknowledged or consolidated in those present that arguments had been advanced.

So we see that people often confuse themselves via tracking multiple different reactions, discussions and so forth in these debates. Bear this in mind for QT then multiply it up: Remember most of what the public rely on for the facts, as per the questioner is from the legacy-news media. They in turn provide information or forums such as BBC's Question time for large group sizes as was discussed previously: When to Attend/Hold Meetings. The type of communication possible is inevitably going to be of a qualitative difference.

There's a couple of things to say about this in summary:-

• Organizational barriers to productive communication at scale
• Lack of practice of actually doing this!!

When we come back to that question of democracy, Representative Democracy in the UK could be summed up by Martin Amis' quote about marriages paraphrased for our representative democracy:-

“After a while, representative democracy is a sibling relationship--marked by occasional, and rather regrettable, episodes of incest.”

Our "occasional, and rather regrettable, episodes of incest" is the attitude I've been trying to find to describe the ubiquitous response of the Establishment Class to our infrequent representative democracy holding actual elections that matter: "Get It Out Of The Way!" unlike the periodic 5 years of musical chairs between party machines involved in their own private and regrettable bouts of incest aka The Westminster/SW1 Bubble Effect.

This brings us onto the other side of the problem. The end point is effective communication at scale to people BEFORE they vote and with time to think and consider for themselves and indeed talk with each other!

I've been blogging since the Autumn and pass the 90 posts mark. If I have learnt something, it's that working out how to learn and know more about this issue in order to increase public information works like this:-

 How can we improve democracy? By making better decision-making

 We have several levels:-

1. Logistical collection of information
2. Semantic ordering of information
3. Organizing of information into knowledge systems
4. Contextual Memory Recall of communicative knowledge to decisions

 

1. Research of Information Base

 Seeing the results of this echoed today for example in BBC Question Time...

Quoting Dr. RAE North at the invaluable resource of EUReferendum.com If you were a scientific researcher looking for a fossil or "missing link" aka Transitional Fossil this is the sort of "find" that you might be frothing at the mouth at!! Here we have the example of a major political party and how in it's inception it was built with some ideologies. Somewhere the imperative during it's "evolution" to acquire power to effect ideology is transitioned to acquire power to acquire more power... to eventually effect "something". Here is the evolutionary branch in what we now see in the Party System in our Westminster. It does seem that the Conservative Party's great success under Thatcher is also a useful comparison of a confluence of influences occassionally providing a stronger more effective government?

There's a lot of personal opinions about Donald Trump at the moment. Most reactions are to distance themselves from him and publicly denounce him. This is a short-sighted reaction: What is this? Trump is medium of  populism which suggests people want alternatives to the Establishment governments, and will pick that which makes itself visibly available irrespective of it's quality.

But we look at both ends here: Research and Communication and at both ends we see that democracy is not served effectively as a system: The result is that perpetual comment: "We don't know enough to vote."

Fascinatingly enough, during the aforementioned BBC Question Time, what did people spend a lot of time on the panel and audience discussing? Was it the subject of democracy? No. It was the personality of:-

 I don't blame nor condemn Trump: He's astute enough to know "all publicity is good publicity" for the Business of Being The Top Trump in the deck. The key is the word "publicity" - You!

 

2. Semantic Ordering (understanding) of Information

Understanding oceans of information: We need honest experts who can find the subtlest of pearls

As said there is much to learn and a lot can be learnt. But there's many examples of when you think you know something only for the wind to be taken out of your sails at an oversight, some new fact that is simple yet essential that you should have understood even when you do read and find the expert quality sources!

On the right handside EU Referendum: a Duff deal is an overview of Andrew Duff's scrutiny of David Cameron's deal. Time and again he's been helpful in explaining the workings of the EU, but he demonstrates something so many others like Hugo Dixon don't: He knows enough to have the right context and tacit knowledge around the explicit statements of what things are. Many people talk about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, but few talk about Andrew Duff. Yet they say they want to know about Brexit and the EU and how to vote in the Referendum?

I have to kick myself, I'm sure I may have come across, probably several times, what Dr. RAE North explains in  EU Referendum: the anti-democratic Union: I ordered it somewhere did not attribute it's full context or significance ie repercussions (frequency, magnitude, structure etc) and likely forgot about it despite reading around the subject including Robert Oulds useful book! Here it is a pearl worth knowing!:-

Just reading "ever closer union" in the Treaty Rules is a good indication of what the EU is. But there's more pearls to be found if you dive for them!

 

3. Unity of Understanding with Context

Supranationalism is ordered in The Great Deception; FLEXCIT: The Market Solution provides the other concept in details via policy contexts through eg Regulations: Intergovernmentalism

All the above is intended to inform our decision-making for x1 day The day we have our say: The People's Referendum. We have almost all the pieces to know how we will vote, to quote a Kent MP's view on this:-

 

4. Communicating from a knowledge basis to people

"During the next few months, as the referendum grows ever closer, we will be bombarded by propaganda and conflicting "facts". Many will be confused and will still find it difficult to make up their mind.

To those people I would simply say is this; ignore all the complicated arguments because the the only decision you have to make is a simple one.

Do you want the laws of our land to be drafted by elected representatives who sit in a European Parliament that reflects also the views of 27 other countries> If the answer to that question is yes, then you should vote to remain.

Or, do you prefer to have the laws of our land drafted by representatives who you elect to Westminster that reflects the views only of the countries that make up the United Kingdom?

If that is your position, then vote leave. That is what I will be doing." 

~ Gordon Henderson; Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP; kentnews Week ending February 28, 2016.

It's not perfect but I think there is merit in focusing on communication that is useful to the voter, focusing on the inherent distance of democracy (even if Westminster is still distant!) involved and pointing out the inherent ambiguity and conflict of different views of x27 diverse nations (some of whom are in the pipeline for ever closer union integration of the Eurozone in the next Treaty).

 Fossilizing "Representative Democracy" driven by: Prestige, Authority, Personalities, Partisan Party Machines and Money

Looking at the present Leave Campaigns I can't help think they look like both The Establishment Parties and Populist Parties in an unhappy marriage mainly due to the barren lack of democracy as attempted to discuss here.

A more directly Real Democracy organization connecting 1-4 in sharing knowledge to people:-

 The Leave Alliance

Knowledge-driven, Real Democracy inspired: A learning campaign for people: A Pearl of an opportunity

Back to Basics: Babel-18

Successful Communication: How?

In the previous blog Decrypting: What is Babel-17?, the lack of successful communication was pointed out with historic reference to the EURO debate and comparing it to today's EU debate and indeed seeing the "low drone" on BBC Question Time concerning The Norway Option, again and again and again, that substitutes thinking and communicating successfully, so successfully it's believed by so many to be "the real thing".

Daniel Dennett: Language allows us to "share knowledge and expertise" (rapidly)

In the above Daniel Dennett makes the telling observation that our language provides a high quality exchange of communication of ideas which can lead to a more rapid progress in solving problems and hence increasing knowledge.

There has been enormous "EXCLUSION" of people and experts from EU Debate. This has increased "OMISSION" of large areas of ideas from the debate. What we see & hear is "Babel-17".

Likewise the opposite holds, the omission of ideas will reduce the flow of ideas and increase in knowledge that is required to solve current problems collectively. An example of this is Exclusion from debate eg:-

Monbiot Grandstands At Environmental Committee, But Expert Witness Is Banned

This exclusion often goes in tandem with omission, though of course not always because knowledge and information depend on the total current state of knowledge (assuming it is all equally accessible!) which itself sits upon more unknowns than knowns and equally reflected in the number of people who have expert knowledge to those that do not.

An example of how this exclusion works and how it applies to our failing democracy:-

EU Referendum: democracy is broken

David Cameron "shares false ideas" to the Nation without challenge: There's no exchange of ideas only dictatorship of delivery of "dictated ideas".

It might considered that in choosing examples such as Dr. North that I too am excluding ideas that I don't like? Well I'm not I can look for the clearest ideas about the EU from it's most intelligent and honest proponents such as Andrew Duff:-

• ‘Facilitating Coexistence’: the endgame for Brexit 
• If not ‘ever closer union’, what next for Europe?

Andrew Duff is an expert on the EU and the EU Treaties and it's very easy to spot his consistency because he refers directly to the written words in the EU Treaties themselves to support his advocacy of the purpose of the European Union Political Project. In coming to my decision about my ideas about the European Union I am attempting to understand the other position that exists within the minds of these people. I'm sharing their ideas to come up with more ideas and in my case alternative ideas I find to be stronger.

Let's take an example of this. Stephen Pinker calls the problem of language communication the transition between:-

A Web of Ideas:-

 A String of Words:-

So we might hold a conversation about EU Membership and start it off with: "I'm Pro-EU because by being an EU Member it helps "achieving a cleaner and greener Britain."

I have a lot of sympathy for this sub-argument by itself and you'd assume that "Green Groups" must therefore be in full support of the EU? For example:-

Beavers in Scotland: A report to Scottish Government

"Assessing the need for beaver reintroduction has a legal basis, in particular the ‘Habitats Directive’. This requires EU Member States to study the desirability of reintroducing certain species, such as Eurasian beaver. The potential for beaver reintroduction to contribute to the aims of the ‘2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity’ (related to Natura 2000) is a further consideration"

 Looking at,

p.194 "Appendix 2: Summary  of Applicable Legislation" ((not exhaustive but most reflective):-

• Habitats Directive
• Fisheries and Salmond Act
• Pests and Disease and Control Directive
• Animal Welfare Act
• Countryside Act
• Nature Conservation Act
• European Zoo Directive
• Water Framework Directive
• Floods Directive
• Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive

 Etc!
So even taking a highly specific case we easily get bogged down in the vast string of words required to describe the argument just for Beavers!

But this comes back to the above about "Exclusion and Omission". It seems like Monbiot's idea of planting trees in upland areas is a good idea. It certainly appeals to me and contributes to biodiversity and "Re-Wilding Brtain". But what if his evidence and ideas are not good enough given another set of ideas and research by another expert who was excluded and hence who's ideas were omitted? Well, it could have been a chance to refine those ideas. Maybe planting trees may help in some situations. Maybe in combination reintroduction of dam-building Beavers "could" also help much more effectively in slowing down the water flow?

Who knows. The exchange of ideas has been deprived of exploring and refining ideas which are inadequate by themselves. On the purely conservation side of reintroducing Beavers, I went to a talk at The Royal Zoological Society and the evidence was overwhelmingly that they are a net positive for biodiversity and habitat enrichment albeit not without some minor knock-on negative implications in specific areas.

The EU has taken on "totemic" significance in UK Politics: Beyond real democracy

I think if there's one argument that is most important against the EU membership it's this exclusion and omission and hence reduction of ideas. We have EFTA/EEA nations that have proven to be more prosperous than EZ/EEA nations suffering under the EUROZONE Crisis; yet our Prime Minister lies about "The Norway Option" repeatedly and deigns not to mention the EURO and our previous suggestion of membership of this at all.

Coming back to improving our communication again from Stephen Pinker:-

We have to find the means of establishing a shared focus of joint attention before productive communication of ideas is promoted; or else the quality of our communication is improved - in simple language!! It seems to me this is very important where we are talking and using strings of words to convey our ideas.

If it's possible to build up that "intellectual architecture" of a "web of ideas" to organize our thoughts and allow us to relate our arguments to an overall structure I think this will help reduce the detrimental tendencies of our politicians on both sides of the EU debate to exclude and omit ideas that expand the argument and increase knowledge and understanding subsequently.

 Web Of Ideas rejecting major arguments that are "Pro-EU". LHS: The arguments are generic and not exclusive to the EU. Middle: Political Union IS exclusive to EU Membership which I reject. The other major headline reasons I also reject and can use "headline" arguments to deal with economically and hence communicate effectively.

In the above digression on Beavers I was supportive of x1 Pro-EU idea except I believe it's not necessarily dependent on "Political Union" and may even be improved if we remove "political union". Yet I was bogged down in vast detail on a side of a side of a sub-specialist argument of a string of words!

Looking at my summary of ideas above to visualize ideas, the one "tick" is for Single Market access. Knowing The full EFTA/EEA aka "The Norway Option" argument for this I am very happy with this. Yet too many Pro-Brexit / Anti-EU supporters fail to appreciate this argument as per:-

The time has come to ignore the Leave campaigns

"For most European observers and officials this just won’t happen. No country has full access to the single market without making a contribution to the EU budget and accepting the four freedoms – and no such exception would be made for Britain. Campaigners assume that on Britain leaving, the EU’s remaining 27 members would be intent on helping. This is paradoxical given that the same people campaign to leave on the basis of these states’ unwillingness to accede to British demands for reform."

I read this before then seeing it on Pete North's blog site. Irrespective that the author Jacek Rostowski is correct here, what he's done is single out x1 argument from a set of flawed ideas supported by the major Leave Campaigns.

In doing so he's able to limit and reduce (ie omit and exclude ideas) the Pro-Brexit argument and then speak via "authority" on the sanctioned ideas aka more Babel-17:-

"I have seen for myself, at more than 60 meetings of finance ministers, the influence Britain has when in the room. Decisions to deepen the single market, cut the EU budget (unfortunately), reduce the legislative burden and increase competitiveness have all been taken in response to British voices. Over 40 years of membership, the UK has negotiated advantages for itself on a vast range of issues, especially financial services. This influence would be immediately relinquished at the point of a leave vote, as remaining members would position themselves to “divvy up” the British cake."

It's a great shame this grand speaker does not clear up both sides of the argument for everybody.

I have, On the one side The Fundamental Law of the EU and 40 years of trends of our membership to compare and contrast with the other side you have The Market Solution.

Each is a web of ideas. What we need is more open and more effective communication on each for lots of different people to share these ideas. But there is a qualitative choice:-

• Pro-EU: Listen to Leaders: You will get minor change in service of the present conditions.
• Pro-Brexit: Listen to Experts: You will eventually get major changes in service of the future conditions; but you will not likely be able to recognize it: It is for many/most "unknown unknowns". But these are just the kind of changes that equate to the sharing and increase of real knowledge.

The Leaders are good at excluding it seems to me. Whereas the experts are good at identifying what ideas are omitted: And hence changing the entire nature of the argument - if they are allowed to be included - in our communication of ideas or "democracy".

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

A scene from The Big Lebowski (swearing)

"All the world's a stage,"

"And all the men and women merely players;"
"They have their exits and their entrances,"
"And one man in his time plays many parts,"

The quote above is from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by 'Jacques' in Act II Scene VII. The speech compares "the world to a stage and life to a play." The above video clip is from The Coen Brother's comedy The Big Lebowski and the title quote from Oscar Wilde who suggests the poor quality of the play (life) is not the script (As You Like It) or the stage (world) but often lies with the cast (people/players).

The film scene above is in my opinion very high comedy value despite the colourful language: Please watch it and enjoy. And if I'm honest it's the benchmark of the the vast majority of the "eurosceptic" and "Pro-EU" arguments and their (lack of) quality, their personality-driven behaviour, which drives miscommunication (arguing at cross-purposes) and general incoherence of meaning and purpose. In Pattern Recognition we looked at the "short-circuiting" effect "prestige" has on the progression of arguments after having looked at this very effect first brought up highlighting the emerging "Tory Strategy" (as part of a larger general pattern in politics itself) concerning the Referendum in The Goldfinch and the Gilded Cage and then exemplied or indeed personified in David Cameron in Big Ben: The Four-Faced Liar. Recently other "playes" in this political cast were considered and how their roles were shaped by the preceding along with the Media's input (see previously "I've Been Expecting You...") such as the role that UKIP has assumed in this political comedy over the EU, in OMG !!!! Parakeet invasion once again you could say personified in Nigel Farage.

  

Heath: EEC membership for "The Greater Good"

We know that the origins of the EU when Edward Heath signed the UK via The European Communities Act (1972) was by acting with full knowledge whatever his ideology or intentions, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous quote:-

"It is a lie wrapped in a falsehood inside a Great Deception"

Christopher Booker sets the record straight concerning Boris Johnson's account of Winston Churchill in "The Churchill Factor": Where Boris gets Winston Churchill wrong :-

Why does Johnson try to pretend, against all the evidence, that Churchill might have wanted Britain to join in with Monnet’s supranational project? Why, in quoting Churchill’s Albert Hall speech in 1947, does he omit the crucial passage in which Churchill made clear that, while supporting Europe’s political integration, he saw no direct part in it for Britain, with its “Empire and Commonwealth”? This was a position he had eloquently stated as far back as 1930, when there was first serious talk about creating a “United States of Europe”. Johnson even betrays his ignorance by suggesting that Churchill was first to coin this already familiar phrase. 

Accordingly, Dr. RAE North picks this up further: Booker: Boris tells it wrong

Johnson, for instance, quotes from the Parliamentary debate of 27 June 1950, on the Schuman Plan, but he omits any the key part of it which demonstrates, without the slightest hint of ambiguity, that Churchill was opposed to the plan. 

It is simply darkening counsel to pretend … that by participating in the discussion, under the safeguards and reservations I have read, we could have been committed against our will to anything of this nature. I would add, to make my answer quite clear to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that if he asked me, "Would you agree to a supranational authority which has the power to tell Great Britain not to cut any more coal or make any more steel, but to grow tomatoes instead?" I should say, without hesitation, the answer is "no". But why not be there to give the answer?

And from The Churchill Society:

"We have our own dream and our own task."
"We are with Europe, but not of it."
"We are linked but not combined."
"We are interested and associated but not absorbed."

 Here's an example of a man who played his part in the play to great general acclaim, and yet there are people who would due to this pervert his "performance" as something they would prefer it to be - not what it actually was.

 But the actual question is how many "players" are "well-cast" in this EU play?

Nick Clegg: When "image" is more attractive than "substance"

I can't help but think the very primitive role of "Captain EURO" was played by Nick Clegg in our actual national discussion of our membership to the Supranational European Union. Dr. RAE North That debate: a victory against a weak opponent mentions his weak performance where it was mostly agreed he lost to Farage in terms of the "argument" and indeed this seems to have been backed up in part by the poor General Election under Nick Clegg as well as EU Elections the Liberal Democrat Party suffered. His quality of contribution is further discussed in EU politics: he really is that ignorant.

There is very little value in Nick Clegg's contribution, for several reasons: The argument is no longer dominated by the "orthodoxy of Pro-EU" membership and a side-show to British Politics since "New Labour". As above Cameron's new orthdoxy of "EUrosceptic Reform" has now become "the latest fashion". His arguments built on lies and deception could only assert the negative of the opposite of EU Membership not the positive of EU membership via FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). This behaviour in our arguments was what started my own scepticism as per How do you become a "eurosceptic"? 

When masquerading arguments replaces the real thing

There it was pointed out, that without honesty, transparency and trust in our arguments we are effectively unable to argue coherently on either side of the argument. Again Christopher Booker writes, Our political scene is weirder than I can ever remember . Even on the "Pro-Brexit" side of the debate, the clear professionals on this topic such as Daniel Hannan sounds very convincing but when their actual arguments are looked at in closer detail, Dr. RAE North writes: EU exit: stretching the debate

"Danny Champion of the Anglosphere"

Wearily, that is where Mr Hannan is stuck, in a decade-long groove that has not advanced an iota - even down to his arrogance in claiming to represent "most British Eurosceptics".

Of all the issues, though, the one that has progressed least is the question of regulation. Mr Hannan believes that having to deal with less regulation (the nine percent that he asserts) is better than the situation we encounter within the EU. But what he and others don't seem to realise is that there can be no difference in the amount of regulation we apply, in or out of the EU - in the short term, at least. 

Invariably the above arguments end up becoming each proponents' own personal fiefdom: The arguments become identified with the personality of the proponent or "player" too much. So it is a honestly welcome contribution to the arguments when one of the cast knows what their role is and plays it honestly in this "play": Enter Right Of Stage: Andrew Duff :-

 Andrew Duff: One Last Hurrah For Chivalry!!

Andrew Duff, former Liberal Democrat MEP and "Pro-Federalist" for the EU, who also contributed to "Fundamental Law of the European Union, published jointly by the Spinelli Group and the Bertelsmann Stiftung" and has written in the capacity as per: On Governing Europe and written before on The case for an Associate Membership of the European Union (2013) and then more recently Coping with the British: here’s how (September 2015) and again Cameron’s bid for irreversible guarantee means constitutional chaos (October 2015). A summary of which is provided my Mr. Brexit (so there's no need to review the content here and our purpose concerning the quality of arguments besides (see blogroll: Vote To Leave The EU) Andrew Duff... the best ally Brexiteers have in the fight against Cameron 

Looking at the title you could be forgiven if you are a "eurosceptic" for reacting in a petty manner and crowing triumphantly that here at last the "EU has dropped the ball" and now we can tell the world and win. I don't see it this way. As a "Brexiteer" (or even "Flexiteer"!) I read the title in this way:-

"Here is a player who knows their lines, knows their role, is experienced on stage and hence plays their part with some talent and dignity."

There are big problems in the world (the stage) in Europe and the UK, with our Money Supply, with debt/deficit, with democracy, our system of governance, with the EUROZONE and with the democratic deficit of the EU itself. Brexit is our focus, but it bears remembering that the entire cast all contribute one way or another in the quality of our arguments on all sides of the debate. Failing to accept this is effectively failing to learn from the mistakes of the good intentions of the people who decided to create the EU in the first place and circumvent effective arguments in the open, honestly put forwards for people to freely choose from.

In the case of Andrew Duff, I disagree with his vision of Europe, but when it comes to: "The world is a stage", at least he's doing his bit to ensure it's well cast.

Thank you.