I have been thinking about why people socialise within a EC framework.

There seem to be a few basic reasons that people group together. Although the expression of these reasons morphs with each system until ultimately they have totally different meanings.

It all starts off with the need for genetic replication, which starts out at AN as sexual desire. By the time BO evolves this has resulted in several expressions that increase the chance of successful genetic replication. These are the need for group organisation, celebration of being alive, and distribution of resources.

With BO, group organisation happens in several ways, firstly though the emotion of love, and also through the unconscious hierarchy that is expressed through the elders from the ancestors. Celebration is expressed in group rituals, feasts and by keeping the knowledge of the ancestors alive. Resources are either consumed on the spot or grouped together and divided via a pecking order proscribed by the elders.

This jump from AN to BO is huge and is probably, really many smaller systems that have become lost in time.

With CP, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the strongest. Celebration is through feasting and debauchery. Resources are claimed by whoever is strong enough to claim them, but they can only claim what they can hold at that time.

With DQ, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the ultimate truth – a truth that evolves over many generations as beliefs are codified. These abstract set of rules are expressed as concrete absolute rules. Celebration becomes highly proscribed and ritualised by the rules of group organisiation. Resources are distributed via the laws.

With ER, group organisation is through an elected body of competing representatives. These representatives argue amongst each other to define an ever changing set of laws that everyone is governed by. Celebration is through individual expression of wealth. Distribution of resources is through trading. Everyone in the ER group competes to convert poorly valued resources into highly valued resources and to barter these for other resources that they need – In its more advanced expression this becomes the free market economy.

It is interesting that trade can not exist until ER because this requires both the understanding that others are individuals and also that they have something of value that can be traded. Yet trade has been around for a long time, showing that ER in at least this form has been around for a long time. This is good example of the values systems being abstractions of a deeper truth that has not yet been described… but I am getting off topic.

FS is a bit of a guess as we have not yet reached this as a society and so speculation and extrapolation is needed. Group organisation is via a peer based evolving set of laws, where everyone in the society has the opportunity to discuss and change the rules. This could be achieved via a net based voting system, where individuals represent themselves rather than an elected representative. The expression of celebration is diverse but has a common theme of acceptance and openness – a party where atheists and those of faith can gather together to express their shared humanity, be it a heartfelt touching ceremony or a knees up bender. Distribution of resources is via a peer based network of needs, with basic living requirements provided for all without question, and other resources divided up as peers deem. E.G. a scientist with a good reputation would have greater access to resources than a freshly qualified one.

GT as a society norm is so far off that any speculation is really guesswork and can only be expressed in the abstract. Group organisation will be via an evolving set of algorithmic processes that second guess the needs of those in the society before they are even thought of. Celebration will be through individual expression of creativity and knowledge. Resources are fairly allocated algorithmically, removing the need for people to spend time organising them. These algorithms will evolve out of the structures that the FS society creates.

Notice that by the time GT comes around, the original reason for society coming together is no longer applicable. The group has become all inclusive and automatic, giving no one a genetic advantage over anyone else. Clearly there is another vector at work here as well as genetic. I speculate that as the value systems advance they make genetic evolution redundant.

The quantum field allowed atoms to emerge, which in turn allowed molecules to emerge, which in turn allowed basic life to emerge, which in turn allowed DNA to emerge. DNA allowed self concious intelligence to emerge though the systems Clare Graves uncovered.

Clare Graves proposed that AN to FS represented a first tier of human values development and GT the beginning of the next tier. I do not think that there is strong evidence for this, but I do think that there is evidence for a new expression of life emerging on top of the intelligence that evolved out of DNA. There will be further development, such as HU, IV etc, but these will begin to become secondary to a new system that emerges out of the self aware intelligence that has emerged as our values have developed. What this will be I do not know, but I agree with Graves that it will have a lot to do with existential reality.

The difference between how I interpret the data and Graves is that Graves sees the second tier as a continuation of the first. I see it as evolving out of and on top of the first. The first continues in addition to this new emergent phenomena. Just as molecules continued to take on novel forms once cellular life formed.

I am involved in setting up our local transition town. I became involved because I thought it might be a good way to make a difference and meet people. 6 months later, I am still hopeful, but much of the time is spent wasted in bluster trying to sort out DQ-ER issues rather than ER-FS issues. It has really brought home for me just how hard it is to work in a genuinely FS way when the mainstream is oriented much more towards ER. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about whether we should call ourselves Transition Town Hebden Bridge or Transition Calderdale Valley. As a compromise we are currently calling ourselves Transition Hebden Bridge. This is a really good example of DQ at work rather than FS. Community at DQ is based on divisions and hierarchy, it is all about who you belong to. Community at FS is all about knowing people and as a result every person has their own community of the people they know. For some who come to the transition town meetings, they know more people throughout the Calderdale valley and so they see it as Transition Calderdale valley, for others, they mostly know people in Hebden Bridge so they see it as Transition Town Hebden Bridge. The point is that at FS, it is different for everyone and that is fine. It is more than fine. It is desired. I am not saying that a name doesn’t have importance. It is important to DQ, and many operate from DQ and need DQ structure and it is important that people forming an FS community/society include this, but it is not so important that a big issue should be made of it. It is important that the group discussing and deciding on the name understand this issue.

The whole point of the the transition town movement is to respond to global warming and peak oil. These are two meta problems have been caused by ER values though a disregard for the resource and waste stream and can only effectively be responded to through a move to FS values, which have evolved to deal with the shortcomings of ER values. The transition town movement will thus only be successful if it can embrace FS in an open way.

It might be better if the transition movement moved away from town based nomenclature. At first, this seems counter intuitive to me because using the town name allows people to reclaim their identity and it allows people to locate their town easily, this greatly aids the movement by making it seem to be spreading very quickly as more and more towns turn up on the transition town list.  On reflection though, I think these are appealing to DQ and ER values and are working with DQ-ER psychology not FS and as a result are encouraging a DQ-ER system rather than a FS one. FS spreads virally through grass roots word of mouth, it does not rely on trendy names (ER) or membership (DQ). The group still needs to appeal to ER and FS mindsets, but the way in which it does this should encourage movement to FS organisation. I am not sure how to practically realise this. A part of this would be to organise the website list via a postcode search so that the nearest transition group can be found without relying on boundaried names.

There are other things that give me cause for concern, such as the identity of the transition town movement being fixed in a set of rules rather than being a flexible evolving peer group discussed and edited identity.  Membership requiring filling in a form that is decided on privately rather than openly by a peer group of interested people. There are also many good things about the transition town movement, it encourages grass roots networking and the organisational methods described in the handbook lean strongly towards FS. The website is even based on a wiki. Only time will tell if the movement can resist the urge towards codification and top down organisation.

(See spiral dynamics introduction to understand DQ, ER, FS terminology.)

With world markets dropping like a stone, crucial resources such as oil depleting and pollution in the form of global warming threatening our very habitat, I still have hope. Why?

Strangely, five years ago, when nearly everyone else was partying, I was afraid. I strongly suspected the credit crisis was coming, I was investigating peak oil and was raised to be concerned about our environment. I was a doomer.

Today I am optimistic. I do have concerns and things could certainly go down the pan, we have a long struggle ahead of us. Now that the problems are largely being recognised I feel a sense of relief and am able to focus on what needs doing more clearly.

Perhaps I just like to be contrary, but there is reason to my madness. As anyone who has followed this blog will notice I find Graves’ E-C theory fascinating. It is popularly known as Spiral Dynamics and deals with how humans value their lives and the world. Although his theory predicts some reasons to fear, my reading of the current situation is hopeful. Here is why.

Graves studied how people value the world and how that impacts on their behaviour, I have written about it elsewhere on the site, so will not go into a lot of detail here. It is complicated to sum up the whole theory in a sentence without oversimplifying, but essentially the way humans value the world is evolving.

For the last few hundred years a values system known as ER (orange) has been growing in strength as more people embrace its ideology. This system is characterised by an ‘express self’ attitude, where we put our selves and our own needs first. Yet it is a system that does so through planning rather than immediate gratification. It is a rational, thought out value system, but one that is reductionist and tends to have tunnel vision. For all ER’s ability to create an economy that can produce unparalleled wealth and freedom it is useless at seeing the side effects of its externalisations. It does not equate the waste or resource streams into its economic model because equating them is not in its foundational interests. As a result we have major economic crashes, depleting resources and an eco system that is becoming unfit for civilisation as we know it. This value system has brought us many great things from democracy through to the scientific method, it is not that the system is bad, just that it has had its day. It is time to develop a new way of valuing the world that takes on board the best that ER offers us, yet also has inherent appropriate responses to the problems it has caused.

For all its flaws the ER system has many benefits over the previous dominant value system, DQ (blue). DQ is an absolutist, dualistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic value system in which it is believed everyone has their place. This was a world of caste systems, an absolute belief in how life works that is handed down from superiors without question. DQ is still around today, it is still a strong value system that many embrace whole heartedly, there are even more primitive value systems around to a lesser effect. The world is a complex place.

It is important to stress that these are systems in people, not people in systems. A person is not in the DQ system. DQ is a system that is operating in a person, often at the same time as other value systems. People are complex.

If we have overshot our resources to such an extent that the ER system is no longer viable then it is very likely that the dominant system will descend back towards DQ. There is a very good historical example of this happening before. 1930s Germany. ER science with DQ values is not a pretty sight. As I said, I am not without my concerns.

However, I have hope, and it is with reason.

Over the last 100 years a new value system has been evolving in response to the shortcomings of ER. It is known as FS (Green). FS takes Newtonian physics and relativises it. FS takes a colonial anthropological perspective and pluralizes it. FS takes modern art and post-modernises it. FS takes the scientific method that ER created and runs with it, transforming it into a multiperspictival tool. Rather than looking for a single formula that explains all existence, it conceptualises a formula to its environment. Someone with FS values cares about the environment beyond their back yard, they care about peoples happiness and ability to live life to the full regardless of their cultural origins. FS inherently develops economies that care about the resource and waste streams and it is capable of doing so without abandoning all the benefits that the ER economy brought about.

FS is a ’sacrifice self’ value system as was DQ. However the sacrifice is not to an omnipotent dictator or creator, but to the equality of all. DQ develops a strong sense of community but where everyone outside of that community is an evil ‘other’. Everyone with FS values appreciates community, but that community is different for every person, it extends to everyone that touches that persons life, no matter how far away that person is or how culturally different they are. A purely FS system of government would be inherently anarchistic, but not in the sense of the barbaric CP value system, it is a peaceful, peer reviewed, consensual seeking anarchism. It is democracy as it truly could be, with everyone having a say.

FS brings its own problems, it can take a long time to find consensus, but solutions to these will be found, in fact they are already on the horizon. Lets not race ahead, ER loves to get to the top of the pile and when ER looks at the system after FS (GT) it sees something it wants to be, but it can

This is a 3AM idea. (what is a 3AM idea? )

I actually woke up at around 2 last night. Worst night I have had in ages, but the ideas didn’t really start until 3 or so, which inspired the name for the 3AM category.

It started on the usual theme. Civilisation has come to an end. My immediate family is the only one left (me, wife and two kids). Started wondering what life would be like from a Spiral Dynamics, values perspective.

Essentially I decided that the life conditions would be an-BO. (Will try and remember to link all these terms up when I have the Spiral Dynamics intro written). This would mean that the mind conditions of our kids and subsequent generations would be severely limited. (assuming meet enough other survivors to tribe up and genetic variability is wide enough to survive.

In my semi lucid state I started planning ways that information could be encoded for them that would enable a swift transition up the values systems and enabling civilisation to restore itself.

By about 5AM I had moved on to DQ and ER.

By 6, I was thinking up to GT and how the same technique could work between ER and GT even though society is essentially centred somewhere between dq-ER and ER-fs at the moment.

By 7, I was planning a foundation in my head that would be setting up an international values treasure hunt for survivors should civilization collapse. The foundation would also be working in the present to promote civilisation to express all the systems in healthy expressions and also to help move the centre of gravity above ER (ER is crap at seeing the waste stream of society – need to write a post on that!).

And all this whilst half asleep.

For each stage of values development new knowledge would be hidden in the world in ways that it would not be obtainable with out some of the technology just before it. The treasure would be in the form of technological knowledge and information, but also warnings about the problems society faces when it has the values that develop with that particular technology ability. It would not be a precise process – but perhaps it could be close enough. Each ‘treasure’ would be in a form that would be hard for that values system to destroy completely. Each survival system would not concentrate on just one survival system but a cross section. E.G. BO to DQ.

BO - DQ : A series of tablets, mass produced out of very hard material that does not erode under the elements and is hard to destroy with any pre DQ technology and is not materially valuable. Some of these would be embedded in mountain sides, outcrops etc. Especially in places that are geologically stable. The plates starts with a single paragraph intro in modern language, explaining their purpose. The first thing on the tablets would be an oral story in BO language, in simplified phonetic language where all the letters are easily discernible from each other. The story includes guidance from the ancestors to remaster the written language on the tablets should it be forgotten, that this is the task the ancestors have set them. It also tells the story of the fall of the ancestors from godhood and a stark warning about the cause of failure, e.g. ‘The gods did not understand the importance of their shit. They did not care what they did with it or where they put it and in punishment they fell from godhood.’

Second would be a set of instructions for maintaining knowledge of the written knowledge which would be in two sections. The first instruction is to tell the story, that this is the job of the elder, but the skill is taught to all. The story would also include some clever help to aid that – not sure what at the moment. The second set of instructions would include instructions for teaching the written language, written with a DQ overview, but using BO and CP nouns and language structure. Essentially something along the lines of setting up a tradition, that every child has to master the letters and be able to duplicate the tablets. That everyone’s reproduction of the tablets should be kept and buried with them (extra backups). To write the reproductions on material that lasts a long time. EG. etch on bone. The ancestors have charged everyone with this task. The third section on the tablets would essentially be a language guide to help understand the meaning of words. A minimum number of words are used to communicate the learning. A very simplified language, but understandable to someone today. Only elders have to reproduce this section, incentivising it to a privileged position.

The fourth section of the tablets would be written to talk to CP. Not sure how to do this. It is probably the hardest part. It would start off with another oral story, saying how the reader will know that their tribe has reached CP (population density + rebellion from BO. It will warn of the benefits of this and warn of the dangers in a constructive way. CP does not exactly take instruction, so this is a challenge. Further instructions and extra language definitions. Skills to encourage development to DQ, e.g. agriculture – communicated simply.

The sixth section would be in basic DQ language. And warn of DQ dangers and benefits, plus provide safe DQ technological information. It would use absolutist language such as commandments with promises to the promised land if the instructions are followed. It would include a global map with spots marked on it that contain another set of tablets. These tablets are only obtainable with advanced DQ technology. E.g. buried at least 50 meters deep through difficult to excavate material. With large markers on top, such as pyramids. These new tablets are also stored in places that are not quite so hard to access, but also not marked on the map, such as deep in caves, high up mountains etc.

The advanced DQ tablets contain basic ER information (safe technology) and stark warnings in DQ-ER language about the failings of the past and an understanding of the values needed to progress. They also include further instructions for accessing an even more advanced set of tablets of which only a few would be made. These would be buried very deep and be hard to reach. Eg 500 meters deep and would contain advanced technical knowledge and interpretation of all values as we now understand them. And it would wish the new civilisation better luck in moving forwards than we had.

The idea of this plan is that if society does collapse, it has a hand up from the point it collapsed to.

All the above would only be one branch of the Foundations purpose. It would also be promoting the healthy use of value systems and development to sustainable values in our current civilisation. I am not presuming that we will collapse, just putting in a multi level interlinked safety net in case we do. We need to shore advanced values up in ways that that are based in life conditions and mind conditions.

Relatively, I do not think this would cost all that much… a few hundred million at a guess. Convincing people we need it would be another issue. If civilisation does start going down the spout, there would probably be some wealthy financiers steeping forward. The challenge would be to design the templates before that.

It is now 09:40. I have been writing since 07:30.
Reminder: this is a middle of the night idea. There are bound to be some crazy elements, but I wanted to get it down in case there is a gem at the core. It is important to stress I am not a doomer, I just like covering all the possibilities. I hope we make through the peak resources/Ignored waste stream issues that is facing civilisation at the moment, but you never know. Best take a raincoat if there is a chance of rain, especially on a cold day.

Time to let it rest a bit and see if it breeds in my mind.