The nuance for the correct picture for this subject was actually quite challenging: I did not want just a perspective of the entire global earth planet: The whole picture or "bigger picture" which because it's so common a phrase turns people off immediately. I did want a perspective that suggested something physically demonstrable in being "bigger" than the European Union. But that was merely stating the obvious. Finally I chose the above picture irrespective that the actual satellite shown is not a classic "Earth Observation Satellite" itself. The image however fits the focus of this blog: An Orbital Perspective:-
A higher perspective in both space and time.
Is a dynamic or changing picture.
Is driven by "big data" at this scale.
An Earth-Centric basis to the human processes of "Globalization".
A-Train group of Earth Observation Satellites ~ Reference: NASA wiki
"Other environmental satellites can assist environmental monitoring
by detecting changes in the Earth's vegetation, atmospheric trace gas
content, sea state, ocean colour, and ice fields. By monitoring
vegetation changes over time, droughts can be monitored by comparing the
current vegetation state to its long term average."
"Scenes on the surface of Earth can be very still, which is not true when one is orbiting the planet. A snowy winter scene might impress us with its quiet stillness, even though the ground we are standing on is rotating at 1,000 mph, while Earth rotates around the sun at 67,000 mph, while our solar system rotates with the rest of the Milky Way galaxy at 515,000 mph, and the galaxy is hurtling outward at 1.4 million mph. All that motion is outside of our awareness. But when I gazed at Earth from space, there was no escaping the fact that I was traveling across the surface at five miles per second—17,500 mph. The lighting, colors, and the motion of the scene were constantly changing. And when my brain was able to extrapolate the curvature of Earth, I was filled with the certainty that I was witnessing a planet hanging in the blackness of space. Earth became my ever-present travel companion. This is the overview effect, which makes possible the orbital perspective."
Colours: White (North), Yellow (South), Green (East to West) and surrounding Blue (Oceans and Seas) with some more White (Clouds) and surrounding Black (Space)
"The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface.
It refers to the experience of seeing first hand the reality of the
Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile
ball of life, "hanging in the void", shielded and nourished by a
paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish, the
conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to
create a planetary society with the united will to protect this "pale blue dot" becomes both obvious and imperative."
That's a long preamble, but the observation of how we consider ourselves and our place on this planet, in the case of the UK, is highly relevant to our future politics. One of the most damaging inherent conditions of EU membership was the waste of political attention on a small sub-set of this larger perspective. If you reread the description by the astronaut above, the relative comparison of different speeds are highlighted. There's a national speed for the UK (and regional), a broader speed at the EU level and then another speed at the global level - of change. This is I think a good description of "globalization" in human processes, including but not exclusvely: Politics.
"Phase five comprises a coherent programme to define our wider global trading relations. This comprises eight separate initiatives. The withdrawal settlement has now receded, having served its purpose as the launch pad. The way is now open for the UK to break out of the EU cul-de-sac and rejoin the world.
Sixth, and finally, we embark on a series of domestic reforms, by introducing elements of direct democracy and the other changes embodied in The Harrogate Agenda – the immediate aim being to prevent ever again a situation where our Parliament hands over our powers to an alien entity without the permission of the people."
You can determine from the recorded reactions of those who are categorized as
experiencing "The Overview Effect" that it's quite a powerful context from which to then start using and viewing things through, including politics. Indeed nations are already party to "Global Top Tables" which produce legislation at a Global level, at an EU level and again at the national level and eventually at the local level.
Brexit: "A Global Dawn"
It's for this reason I've chosen to end this blog and launch a new blog/website with this combination in mind: Connecting Local Real (or direct) Democracy to the Global Environmental challenges and changes that are already being developed in tandem with other globalization processes. To look at the first two of The Harrogate Agenda demands specifically through this context:-
"The
peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland comprise the
ultimate authority of their nations and are the source of all political
power. That fact shall be recognised by the Crown and the Governments of
our nations, and our Parliaments and Assemblies;"
"The
foundation of our democracy shall be the counties (or other local units
as may be defined), which shall become constitutional bodies exercising
under the control of their peoples all powers of legislation, taxation
and administration not specifically granted by the people to the
national government;"
One of the challenges ahead will indeed be reinterpreting Sovereignty within the context sparingly outlined, here. The final blog on this site will be, the below which I'll carry over to a new blog/website subsequently:-
Layers of Popularity: Is that Democracy or something else?I think this picture explains the nature of progression of this referendum succinctly
Above is a synthesis of the complete discussion of the subject of this blog. It's an illustration of the low quality arguments and why they appear so much more visible. Starting back to front almost with a conclusion and then proceeding to explain. Let's describe the above:-
Left-Hand Side Columns: X-axis Knowledge 0-5 dominates the debate
If we presume that in the absence of knowledge people resort to what they believe to be "true" or most applicable to them this is based on emotion or personal bias ("what matters to me").
Top Left-Hand Side Row: Y-axis Popularity 10-5: We see that with a leader figurehead our PM holds the most prestige and drives at least 50% of the polling attitudes and all the political infrastructure beneath his office.
Second to him is Boris Johnson, and this is reflected in the Personality Contest that has taken over the Referendum.
Right-Hand Columns: X-axis: I've only added Dr. RAE North. I could have added Andrew Duff floating around a similar area, but wanted to highlight the disparity visually more strikingly so with a single face.
The various ratios are indicative, a general feel, a general impression of the speakers and their coherence and consistency of their arguments vs how regularly they draw attraction from mass media channels of communication.
There was an interesting and I think accurate observation in City AM by Louisa Bojesen:-
"Then an important point was made. Democracy only works when you have a society of smart people. Think about it. [...] Some might argue that, if you can’t have an “intelligent democracy”,
then you would be better off with a kind of “benevolent dictator”
system."
Now looking at the reaction of a system of government that believes democracy does not work:-
Phillips quotes the Communist party-controlled Global Times: “The rise
of a racist in the US political area worries the whole world… He has
even been called another Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler by some
western media... Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections, a
heavy lesson for western democracy.” Phillips writes, “Trump, or
‘Chuanpu' as they call him in China, has been a gift to Communist party
spin doctors paid to convince the country’s 1.4bn citizens that rule of
the people is a sure path to chaos and destruction.”
Before progressing, retrospectively there's some themes that repeat here: We looked at the absence of intelligence in How To Vote: A Simple Guide to Decision-Making; which as part of a long-standing goal of this blog attempted to provide a simplification for conducive decision-making for the voter. This was off the basis of previous work: Discrīmen: Arguments have their own reasons where the idea of reduction in knowledge per level of dissemination/distribution to more and more people is a natural process of democracy decision-making but still a workable framework for improving national decision-making and I believe do-able/achievable. Then to come back to Democracy directly: Dêmos + Kratos = A Community That Communicates Productively here we looked at a similar theme to this blog but also provided details of successful democracy in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The assertion here was that the quality of communication is possibly correlated positively with democracy and by implication a more intelligent decision-making process; achieved.
Uniting Nations - Out Of Touch: "You're outta touch; I'm outta touch!"
Our older forms of social organization are our family and then tribal forms which probably existed many times longer than all the subsequent forms of human organization put together. thus when dealing with people, the LOCAL SCALE of Democracy is all important.
"To that effect,
our aim must be to invert the entire structure of the British state. Instead of
the top-down systems, we need to start locally and create structures built from
the bottom-up. [...]
What we are
proposing is nothing short of revolution. The fundamental building blocks of
our democracy should become independent local units which owe their existence
to the people who live within their boundaries. Instead of being statutory
bodies – i.e., defined by statute, from which they derive their powers, under
the control of central government – they become constitutional entities. Their
existence, powers and revenue-raising capabilities are defined by the people
via the medium of constitutions, approved by local referendums.
These local
authorities – which could be counties, cities or the former county boroughs –
become independent legislatures is their own right. Whereas local authorities
were once permitted to make by-laws, defined and permitted by central
government, true local government makes its own laws in its own name. Each
district makes all the laws for matters exclusive to its area, using powers
defined by its own constitution, applicable within its own boundary.
Some might think
that local authorities are too small to become legislatures, but size is not an
issue. Few people for instance, realise that Iceland, with a population of 313,000,
boasts fewer people than the London Borough of Croydon (363,000) and very
substantially less than the Metropolitan District of Bradford (501,000).
Yet Iceland is a
sovereign nation. It has its own government, its own parliament, its own laws,
its police and even its own fishing policy and navy to enforce it. Despite its
small size, the country does tolerably well, with a GDP of $12.57 billion
(146th in the world) and a GDP per capita of $38,500, the 24th highest in the
global league (higher than the UK’s $36,600, the 33rd highest). It also has its own local government, with 59
local municipalities.
In Norway, which
has approximately five million inhabitants, there are 428 municipalities and 19
county authorities. More than half the municipalities have less than 5,000
inhabitants and only 14 have more than 50,000. The largest municipality is
Oslo, which is also a county. It has approximately 620,000 inhabitants. But the
smallest municipality is Utsira with 209 inhabitants.[...]
In some respects,
this also solves some of problems we have with MPs. One might expect seats to
be apportioned on a county basis, with approximately one per 120,000 head of
population. This ratio gives a House of Commons roughly the same size as it is
at present. The boundaries would be fixed.
As population varied, so would the number of MPs, keeping constituencies
wholly within the bounds of specific local authority areas.
The reckoning
should be, incidentally, based on population rather than electorate. Our MPs
should be representing the interests of all of their constituents, not just
those who can vote.
However, some
might argue that, with a reduced workload, fewer MPs would be needed, with a
ratio of perhaps 200,000 or more for each representative, possibly stretching
to one per 500,000 head of population. Where the United States House of
Representatives manages to make do with 435 voting members, our House of
Commons might be able to reduce itself to less than 300, saving expense. We
might expect numbers in the House of Lords to be proportionately reduced – with
perhaps only a hundred or so working members needed.
"According to the 2010 census, 91.51% of the population was Han Chinese, and 8.49% were minorities."
What we have it appears to me is the transition of Tribal to Institutional/ Centralized Governance which is then dealing with Globalization and Market Forces acting on such institutions. Many people think the solution to this is "The Blob Solution": To increase the size of the units of these institutions to counter-act global forces. I don't think this is a very good solution for the future, it takes power away from people and that usually ends up badly for people. Secondly we can look at the effects of the "Blob Solution" today in the UK and indeed in the EU. Firstly our UK Referendum:-
Readers can feel "relief" that the result the Legacy News-Media promotes and supports is as banal as they thought it was; and how fortunate to have the Legacy-News Media point it out!
Is it irony or hypocrisy or both? Either way this result is exactly mirrored in the above graph I've provided. The problem is "loss of knowledge" the greater the mass of people the message is communicated to from a Centralized source. Here the Blob Effect exerts it's effects to the detriment of increasing knowledge and making intelligent democratic decision-making. So China may find this supports their own system of governance. But it does in the sense of the scale of people they have to govern and the "homogeneity" of those people (91% self-identifying Han).
Legacy News-Media Visualized Accurately: This is really the source of news you're being provided with!!! (packet of BLANK photocopy paper)
"Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greeks city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.
The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century
by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many
cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history,as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization."
For whatever reasons, Greece, perhaps it's network of surrounding cultures fed into an increase culturally shared and synthesized knowledge as well as it's own forms of cultural transmission and education? I think this is the measure of success that is worth looking at more than territory size or number of people within a grouping system. If we look at the history of the European Union in The Great Deception (I recently reread it) it shows a lot of attempts to make a big group unit at the same time as not acknowledging a changing world nor the negatives of politicians power mongering more power between themselves as we've seen so often with the outcomes of the European Union. Instead I think the increase in Local Democracy via:-
Curiously I came up with a similar model of understanding to explain the differences between the Middle East and the Western Civilization and where Western Civilization might need to be focusing attention while being overly distracted by the Middle East's transition problems (their problems don't necessarily match our problems: See transitions T->I/M vs I/M->N): a dire shortage of alternative models.
At the same time as the explosion at Globalization, this leaves the present institutions simply failing people and resorting to reversals to Tribalism or else attempting to make democracy work at ever larger groups/blobs of people: The European Union ie Institutional Hierarchies further away from Local Democracy ie Family and Local Ties in touch with their personal experience and relationships.
Looked at via this particular model or perspective, it seems to me to connect a lot of different things that otherwise appear disparate:-
I think it's probably better for anyone interested to read the above articles then start to think in context to the above model how they all are connected; for example "understanding the troubles that afflict the Middle East" may actually improve Foreign Policy along with greater democratic input into our policies by our people. Suffice to say for the purposes of this blog a simple and honest conclusion:-
The result of this referendum does not matter either way. The process of knowledge dissemination via the various channels which will be an indication or measure of the quality of communication via mass media and now electronically see Dr. RAE North's comments EU Referendum: positives and negatives:-
"Interestingly, at the Dawlish meeting,
back in September 2014, we predicted that the opposition would be
majoring on the idea that leaving the EU would be a "leap in the dark".
Here we are now, with the Prime Minister pushing precisely that as a
slogan and the "Stronger In" campaign sending out leaflets with that
emblazoned on the front.
Countering this meme will be our positive contribution to the campaign,
funded largely by the generous contributions of our readers, which are
still coming in via the direct route. Nonetheless, we still need
additional funds to get the message out, and to support our blogging
effort.
Our current plans take account of the Scottish experience where much of
the campaigning took place on the internet. The battle was largely out
of sight of the legacy media – which made the usual mistake of believing
that it was dominating the debate"
this is changing the nature of how we communicate ideas and make decision-making at a political level. The quality of communication is a very strong measure of the underlying deficiencies or deficits in democracy: How open it is, how transparent (not behind closed-doors) and how diverse the ideas input into decision-making are. In answer to the question by Louisa Bojesen above: I'd prefer to live in a politically much more local system such as Norway, Iceland or Switzerland than China: The Blob Solution just increases the exertion of political weight over those below. When we see figures such as Trump or Johnson on our televisions and newspapers, all that's proving is:-
Lakshmi: Goddess of Wealth, Fortune and Prosperity
In Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (1) we brought up the subject of "Prosperity" and it's central place in the argument: Our financial health in the UK and as part of the "ailing EU". But we also expanded the real meaning of prosperity above and around and underpinning it's more material and visible manifestations of Wealth or Fortune (Our "modern high priest's" favourite words: Confidence vs Uncertainty). We also looked at it's central role in "Good Governance", much maligned by Nigel Lawson's joining of the ERM and Gordon Brown's almost economic re-enactment of King John: We need a form of Magna Carta for our Money Supply: See Positive Money. Finally we considered our attitudes and their implications on the running and ruining of our economies:-
Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) of a devalued Government
It's no surprise to see and hear so much of our arguments on EU Membership are crystallized exactly in the same way, hence. They operate under especially in the Westminster-Media Bubble according to a Supply-Demand Basis of our Relationship with the EU. So long as the EU appeared to be a "force for good" eg increasing peace as per winning the Nobel Peace prize and that was itself built from "prosperity":-
The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union (EU) "for over six decades [having] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe" by a unanimous decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The decision highlighted the reconciliation of France and Germany, stating that "over a seventy-year period, Germany and France had fought three wars. Today war between Germany and France is unthinkable. This shows how, through well-aimed efforts and by building up mutual confidence, historical enemies can become close partners." The decision also highlighted the EU's contribution to the "introduction of democracy" in Greece, Spain and Portugal, the advancing of democracy and human rights in Turkey, the strengthening of democracy in Eastern Europe following the Revolutions of 1989 and overcoming of "the division between East and West" and ethnically based national conflicts, and finally the EU's contribution to the "process of reconciliation in the Balkans."
Deaths of mass immigrants flooding into Europe (highest since WW2)
War with Russia over Ukraine geopolitics
Famine of austerity, food-banks and mass unemployment (EZ particularly)
Pestilence in our politics/politicians and our civilization's decay in thinking
The reactions to these clear observations are superficial: People en masse have been told the doctrine of the EU as above and now all they can see is the above negative outcomes. As we explored in Strange Trails, a conceptual understanding of our predicament (Dr. RAE North's "3-Legged Stool" of Problem-Solution-Outcome or our emotional adaptation of this in the above blog to: "Cage - Cage Door - Beyond The Cage" is what is needed, a full "intellectual architecture". Instead due to our conditioned way of thinking we revert to type and try to reuse old ways of thinking: Our Demand-Supply Relationship is adhered to:-
Dominic Cummings vs Will Straw: The Prestige of fake prosperity arguments
Here we arrive in the middle of the message to convey in this blog. You wish to see if you can identify the pattern up to this point before preceding, as per Pattern Recognition? The effect of the above "reverting to type" is effectively:-
A New Demand-Supply Relationship between the UK and the EU
Understanding it in this way may help save people the waste of their valuable time, attention and energy, wading through the seas of lies and crossing the "mountains of madness" and in the future the mass reconditioning from the "great campaigns of confusion". We know this is the be-all-end-all of David Cameron's Reform-Renegotiation-Referendum mishmash Middle Way Fallacy as per Big Ben: The Four-Faced Liar and laying claim to arguments from authority: There is not a day that goes by when City AM invariably as conduit to the IMF voices yet another:-
And yet the IMF as part of the Troika are working such wonderful magic in the EU/EURO
Because the EU requires a New Treaty for the Monetary and Fiscal Union of the Eurozone members, this opens the door to the above New Deal/Reform as above and hence dire warning as above combined with "promises of riches" in our New Association Membership" Relationship thrashed out by endless arguments from the likes of the above 2 players and the sage wisdom of The Undiplomats: Right-wing populists and their foreign policies castigating anyone who is not "adult, sensible or reasonable" in accepting the new Demand-Supply Relationship paradigm being offered above:-
The Centre for European Reform (CER) (0 decoy) is a think-tank devoted to making the
European Union work better and strengthening its role in the world. The
CER is pro-European but not uncritical. We regard European integration
as largely beneficial but recognise that in many respects the Union does
not work well. We also think that the EU should take on more
responsibilities globally, on issues ranging from climate change to
security. The CER aims to promote an open, outward-looking and effective
European Union.
We've heard all this before, from British Influence (1st decoy) then from Open Europe (2nd decoy) and then Business For Britain (3rd decoy)(this site may be hacked) and now Business For Elliott's Vote Leave - Take Control(4th decoy) until we come to the final decoy: David Cameron & EU (5th & Final Decoy) with all the preceding along with CER "conditioning" people towards this end New Deal:-
QUACK!! QUACK!! If they all quack like ducks...
The assertion is not unnecessarily long here. It's a complex web we have to loop back again to remind ourselves of in Argumentum Ad Infinitum building that case and hence building this case. The next stage will be to demonstrate that now Cameron's Reform/Middle-Way is an EU Norm with other non-EZ nations as per The Cameron Contagion: Britain spreads referendum fever across the EU
However to rephrase a proverb, we're already going down a road and it's to Damascus not Mecca, O Pilgrim! The "Economic Reform" framing of the debate and it started a while back:-
The IEA Coincidence: A "rational" Min-Max Economic Relationship
You can see the monumental efforts taken in order to frame the debate as Pro-EU (red) vs Anti-EU (violet) = Demand-Supply New Relationship (Green). The EU can't supply enough confidence to the UK and the UK's demands via it's own comparative confidence have risen. But as pointed out previously, this is an inferior position on prosperity; it's also an elitist argument that simply drives the people to "vote the right way" for those in charge and will bore people and hence effectively disenfranchise them, "politics as usual" leading to "business as usual" and we can guess where that will lead to again. A prime example of what prosperity "We The People" might like to reconceptualize:-
An insightful comment at EUReferendum.com
There's any number of examples of this real form of prosperity underpinning the raw material of peoples' everyday realities and experiences:-
I believe we have a couple of examples of real people in strong contexts where their views are simply the logic of the clear benefits that demanding a democratic CHOICE inputing their experiences and their views towards a positive solution that affects THEM can lead to. That in my opinion is the essence of Prosperity and it's aided by real democracy. As we explained in Our Government: "Ifs, Buts, Maybes" they're not part of the solution towards greater prosperity, they're prolonging the problems towards a more inclusive and prosperous outcome.
Effectively people have to start trusting their own decision-making for their own lives, more than our politicians, otherwise they'll end up wasting yet more of our valuable time, our valuable attention and our valuable energy: The real roots of our prosperity.
