The following is an advertisement for a meeting of the Consensus, in London, on Saturday May 4th 2013. The Consensus is a political organization affiliated with Zero State, bringing futurist values and an emphasis on technology to the question of radical political change. For example, a key concern of ours is working to build a network of like-minded activists, who will in turn create technological platforms which would allow people to coordinate politically without going through established channels subject to censorship and corruption.
Although there will unfortunately not be an online component to this meeting, we would encourage anyone interested in these issues to get in touch to discuss how you might get involved. The Consensus is seeking collaborative partners world-wide this summer, and we will endeavor to both include online elements in future meetings and set up groups in other countries, pursuing similar goals.
Finally, in addition to taking a look at the advert below, we would encourage you to watch this video in which Rick Falkvinge (founder of the Swedish Pirate Party) explains the likelihood of seeing significant political change in our lifetimes:
FUTURISM AS POLICY: What should futurists want from political change?
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Saturday, May 4, 2013
1:00 PM to
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1 Queen Square, WC1N 3AR, London (map)
Upstairs at the Queen’s Larder pub: https://plus.google.com/117174982657506848384/about?gl=uk&hl=en - The Consensus (http://cdfp.org) recently held a meeting to discuss how futurist values and ideas should inform UK politics. The meeting was very successful, with lots of vigorous and creative discussion. It soon became clear that specific policies are less important to futurists than promoting a new technological infrastructure than can circumvent corruption and censorship, giving people a voice independent of vested interests and the powers-that-be.We came to the conclusion that futurists want to begin with principles, creating a movement around a few key values that unite different organizations, and which can give rise to specific organizations within the movement, such as political parties and think tanks. We have decided to spend this summer building that (as yet nameless) movement from first principles and building a network of like-minded people in London and around the world.The principles we have adopted as our starting point are those of theZero State futurist community, which will form part of this new, larger movement, and which can be found at http://doctrinezero.com. Over time, these principles will evolve to reflect the fact that they are not just those of ZS, but of the movement as a whole.On Saturday May 4th we will again be meeting upstairs at the Queen’s Larder, to discuss the following three questions – will hope you will come along and join the conversation!1. What are futurist principles?How can and should such general futurist principles inform the principles of the international Consensus of Democratic Futurist Parties (CDFP)?
2. What are futurist policies?
Consensus UK has a draft manifesto (http://zerostate.net/documents/Consensus_Manifesto_V1-01.pdf) of national policies that need to be considered in terms of our principles. Are these principles and policies compatible? What compatible futurist policies should be in that manifesto, which aren’t?
3. What technologies will help us build our futurist network?
By the end of this summer we will have created a movement based upon futurist principles, having national policies compatible with those principles, and with a network of working groups helping to build the new democratic technological infrastructure that we need. We will use this network to support all groups aligned with our principles, such as Pirate Party UK. How should we begin? What technologies do we need to start using now? What problems can we begin working on now, and how can we find like-minded people who will help us solve them?
There will be no charge to attend, but attendees will be encouraged to join or donate to the Consensus, helping us to hold advertised meetings in larger venues.
October 5, 2014 at 7:35 pm
archived comments:
Talking of policy I wonder what the publishing policy is at Transhumanity.net?
Since Hank retired from this venture I’ve been unsure how to submit articles for publication, for example I emailed a submission on the 23rd of April but I’ve heard nothing yet whereas Hank always responded promptly.
I fully respect your right to reject submissions but surely you should let the person know if an article has been rejected?
So, what is the situation?
Regards SU
By Singularity Utopia on Apr 27, 2013 at 12:33am
The situation is that our system has not worked out as well as we had hoped. We have an editor for each day who is supposed to take the submissions from transhumanity.net.submissions@gmail.com and place them in a TNet wiki to be queued for publication. Upon publication by a day editor the editor should inform the author that the article is online. However, there have been gaps in coverage.
As a result, I am going to change the system and am going to handle the submissions myself rather than have it distributed across the editorial group.
Upon each submission I will immediately acknowledge receipt by TNet, queue the article and wait for it to be either rejected or published by a day editor, whereupon I will email the author with the news.
By Dirk Bruere on Apr 27, 2013 at 5:29am
Ah, I have now discovered this: http://transhumanity.net/articles/entry/arguments-against-mind-uploading but currently it is more or less blank, so it seems it has been published but there is some type of technical glitch?
By Singularity Utopia on Apr 27, 2013 at 7:12am
Hi – its been loaded into the system for publication at a later date. What you are seeing is a weid “feature” of the s/w
By Dirk Bruere on Apr 27, 2013 at 9:30am
OK, thanks.
By Singularity Utopia on Apr 27, 2013 at 9:48am
There is so much to be demanded (he who does not demand is not heard).
First our politics ought to start at the hub: we demand coercion be opposed. We demand an end to military conscription and registration everywhere—advances in ‘defense’ do not mean drones and killer satellites, etc. will replace soldiers, sailors, airmen. Second, we demand a “defense tax”: if warmongers insist on having their way, then they must pay for ‘defense’; and since they will not do so, a tax would IMO be necessary.
The rest of a program can be figured out. Left libertarians, Fabian socialists, left-anarchists, and so forth can hash out workable programs—however the exact basis of power in as many nations as possible has to be clearly understood before anything substantial can be done. The world belongs to those possessing wealth and power.. they can always buy people out.
Yet we have room to maneuver, in the vernacular it is termed ‘slack’ (as in “cut me some slack, bro’ “). We can utilize our slack to eventually outfox oligarchs.
By Alan Brooks on Apr 29, 2013 at 5:36pm