/XMR/ general weekly book club - WEEK 1
As promised, this week we read chapters 1-3 of the book "The Sovereign Individual" by Sir William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson. The book is an unconventional study of society, human action, and technology and has a quite startling prediction for the future, one of radical change that we haven't since seen centuries or even millennia.
Also, I'm sorry for the multiple part post, I already cut down much of the stuff I wrote because the book is packed.
Now a brief description of the chapters:
>Chapter 1: The transition of the year 2000 and the fourth stage of human society
>The coming of the year 2000 has haunted the Western imagination for the past thousand years. Ever since the world failed to end at the turn of the first millennium after Christ, theologians, evangelists, poets, seers, and now, even computer programmers have looked to the end of this decade with an expectation that it would bring something momentous.
The book's first chapter discusses a coming 4th stage of social organization: informational societies. The age of the nation-state will end. They predict that this change will happen almost everywhere at once, within one's lifetime, equally. The individuals who are escaping this collapsing system are referred to as "sovereign individuals", gods by the past's standards. Single individuals will now posses the same power as the largest armies if not more, and the ruling class won't take this lightly at first. This transformation will also bring the end of nations as we know it, states will rather serve as companies having to bargain with their customers, the sovereign individuals. Companies will become virtual, "jobs" will become tasks, not positions to "have". Social safety nets will seize to function. Politics will overheat and eventually drastically downscale. Taxation will be impossible to enforce on a mass scale.
The State will fight back to maintain their revenue, one of the thing the author points to is by printing money. But surprisingly they point to the emergence of "cybermoney" as the defense. The "cybereconomy" will be attempted to be suppressed by totalitarian means. The state of multiple overlapping systems of laws will re-emerge from after a millennia long break.
>Chapter 2: Megapolitical transformations in historic perspective
>In the new millennium, economic and political life will no longer be organized on a gigantic scale under the domination of the nation-state as it was during the modern centuries. The civilization that brought you world war, the assembly line, social security, income tax, deodorant, and the toaster oven is dying.
The second chapter in turn serves mainly as an introduction to the study of "megapolics" and this is where the book's genius comes from. Rather than to try to make vague predictions based on thousands of uncontrollable statistics, the authors assert that what defines a society's structure is the organization of violence. What are the risks and rewards of employing the violence, and how well does it scale. Every time a significant shift in megapolitical factors happened, society had to reorganize itself. The book also makes the case that technology will be dominating more and more, and will be the only factor that really matters now.
>Chapter 3: East of Eden the Agricultural Revolution and the sophistication of violence
>Understanding the Agricultural Revolution is a first step toward understanding the Information Revolution. The introduction of tilling and harvesting provides a paradigm example of how an apparently simple shift in the character of work can radically alter the organization of society. This chapter in turn goes to apply the theory laid down in the previous and shows how the Agricultural Revolution, the collapse of Rome, and the Feudal Revolution of the year 1000 had all played out. The explanation is in detail and explains the structure and inner workings of the societies before and after.
Questions:
1. How large is the cybereconomy is in the current year of 2023? Both in terms of people and capital. The authors predict that the population will be in the magnitudes of millions by 2025, is that still realistic?
2. Chapter 2 introduced the concept of "The Taboo on Foresight" and said that every social order must make thinking about its end a taboo. So to challenge that, how do you think Monero will end? And what will take its place? Keep in mind this doesn't have to happen in two weeks.
3. What are your thoughts on "megapolitics"? Genius, retarded, or "meh" and why? Can it be applied to Monero's governance?
4. An interesting angle I found myself taking is the monopoly (or the lack thereof) on information, as they always had some sort of place in the mentioned megapolitical changes. Though more related to how they are brought forward. Does the manner in which information is created, copied, and stored affects the enforcement and projection of violence?
Any extra thoughts on the book are obviously appreciated.
Also this is the first week we're doing this, so any problems with the overall structure should be pointed out now.
