James Burke - Balanced Anarchy

This short clip comprises the main point of James Burke's excellent series- the day the universe changed.

Against a backdrop of a buddhist monastary, high in the himalayas, James Burke envisions a utopic future. Stopping just short of presaging the singularity, communities like digg and /. are quite obviously foretold.

I'm quite surprised that this hasn't been heavily sampled for electronic music.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• medidation
• monk
• mountains
• himalaya
• james
• burke
• history
• microchip
• future

[yonaetc]

responsible anarchy is what I call it. self directed leadership (you lead yourself), through self directed study, work under your own control and contribution from your talents for the benefit of yourself and all others. I quote Hilliel : "If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? To be for yourself and all others as yourself is responsible anarchy. Doing onto others as you would others do onto you is auto-morality. We are all connected.

[DJsunkid]

@yonaetc (cont'd) murderers, the war criminals, the rapists, etc. I find it hard to accept a worldview that says that we need to depend on murderers to follow a kind of moral code that we have dreamt up.

The second problem I see is more of a technicality, but still needs philosophical attention. I have done some studying of the difficulties with designing AI and the idea of machine coding human morality. In your quote you said: "To be for yourself and all others as yourself" and

[DJsunkid]

@yonaetc (cont'd) "Doing onto others as you would others do onto you". The are both clever re-wordings of the "golden rule" ie: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The golden rule turns up in all the mjor religions, and is generally considered to be one of the most basic tenants of morality. The problem is that it is tremendously flawed. Say my favourite colour is blue. Your favourite colour might be red. Now suppose I give you a birthday present. Because my favourite

[DJsunkid]

@yonaetc (cont'd) colour is blue and the Golden Rule says to do unto you as I would have you do unto me, does that mean that it is best to give you a blue sweater, because that is what I would have wanted?

Obviously, this is a very simple example about a very trivial difference, but unfortunately that trivial difference multiplies up as issues and differences become more and more important. It isn't so easy to reconcile the differences between people as just saying "We are all connected."

[DJsunkid]

@yonaetc Am I so connected to the person that broke into my apartment last year? Am I so connected to somebody that just molested his daughter? Am I so connected to somebody who HATES or even kills people because of the colour of their skin, or the clothes they wear, or the country where they were born? Am I so connected to them that I can believe that their moral code is as acceptable as mine?

I like the idea of responsible anarchy, but the fact that real evil does exist in this world

[DJsunkid]

@yonaetc (cont'd) makes it very hard for me to take it seriously as a feasible model for human civilization. As long as those evil people can hurt ANYBODY, as long as any person can violate another person, widespread, sustained anarchy on anything but a very small scale is a recipe for disaster and heartbreak.

[PennnSmith]

Thinking is not patriotic.

[UKSazzy67]

God! He's so right! This is what we have created with the Internet, a form of balanced Anarchy, where everyone is allowed to voice their own opinion and there is no belief system which is right or wrong. He had a very accurate prediction of the future. Now we can all be educated electronically.

[leavesofliberty]

@DJsunkid machine coding morality would be full of fail. all logical systems using numbers fall into contradiction or incompleteness thanks to the mad genius Godel (umlaut over the 'o') from the Austrian Circle. morality cannot be derived through emperical research. what is needed is to understand economics and spontaneous order from authors such as Hayek.

[Mtaalas]

@UKSazzy67 The problem is, that there's going to be stuff that is objectively true and objectively false and your preferred world view doesn't change those things. So to everyone in the comments saying that "every belief system is equal" I say: no it's not. Since atoms are there, will you believe in them or not and the earth goes around the sun did you belief in it or not. It's more like we have an open forum to discuss these hypotheses and those that are correct are preserved and strengthen.

[CaptainHeskett]

however the answer is not found by regulating peoples lives. Anarchist don't have a clearly defined answer for every little "what if", instead they operate out of a belief that a system of trial and error will ultimately find the best way for every aspect of society. Trial and error isn't popular to people who want answers which our "experts" are happy to provide. But look in any area of life be it successful people, businesses, or products and see that they got their by trial and error!

[CaptainHeskett]

First of all consider the fact that even today, with more intrusion and surveillance by an out-of-proportionally large body of police and other "protectors" rape and murder happen regularly. To go a step further, consider the most highly regulated environment in existence, prisons. Every aspect of a prisoners life is monitored, strict rules are enforced and yet it it the most violent, disgusting place imaginable. There are no easy answers to solving violence and you are right to be concerned....

[brightphoebus]

Awesome. James Burke is awesome. Loved the series, love this clip. Holy!

[Concreteowl]

@shovelcharge Mindful religion might be. Science isn't good, it's just there. Reason, Logic and rationalism can all be applied to pretty horrifying ends.Even ethical scientists can make discoveries which can be used to do very nasty things. Buddhism in theory is a all about being mindful but that doesn't stop some people who claim to be Buddhists doing pretty nasty things either. That doesn't invalidate any of them just as Religion doesn't invalidate itself because of some of gits using it.

[blumpkin757]

People should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people..

[Ishkur23]

The problem with a post-democratic system of balanced anarchy is it's still subject to the same problem that Plato warned about: Namely, the Tyranny of Stupid Majorities. Society is too complex and too technically sophisticated to grant everyone a voice and a vote in all matters. We have representatives of qualified experts making decisions for us because most people are simply too unqualified and too unskilled to make those decisions themselves. That is why we have social hierarchies.

[wisdomtrek]

Invariably what it distill's to is a question of YOU! Having said that YOU in monopolistic fashion, to the EXCLUSION of other's is anathema to the greater consciousness of the universe. YOU as in a Buddhist monk. Harm nothing or no one as you yourself wish not to be harmed by others. "If you are not for YOU THEN WHO ARE YOU FOR?" Silly question! It's ALL about YOU and ME and the myriad other life forms that co-create this world.

[xxxJimiGxxx]

Gore porn for Amazonian teenagers. Hoorah.