{"id":2793,"date":"2019-12-10T15:29:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T14:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=2793"},"modified":"2019-12-11T00:31:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T23:31:48","slug":"chapter-three-getting-lectured-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avbp.net\/?p=2793","title":{"rendered":"Common Man Chapter Three – Getting lectured at"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here follows an excerpt from a coming novel with the working title \u201cCommon man\u201d which is a novel about a journalist who sets out to come up with an alternative form of world governance. The novel is a product of imagestreaming, a technique of invention and creativity developed in the 80s by Dr. Win Wenger. For more information about imagestreaming, and about other imagestreamed novels and stories, visit this link<\/a>. If you\u2019d like to be kept up to date as new chapters get published, sign up using the form in the right-hand column. More chapters are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I asked to return to the centre of global\nCommons governance I sat down to take stock. My last visit gave me sense of\nforeboding that something was wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two things stuck with me: The first was the concept of the world as a library of molecules. Organisations check the molecules out, use them to provide essential services and then put them back. This is a basic commons pattern \u2013 originally villager grazed their animals on the common land, all sharing and managing the resource equally. Today, some neighbourhoods have developed tool libraries with things like drills, lawnmowers, snowblowers etc. To extend the concept to molecules feels right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other thing that is with me is the idea emerging\nof moral direction where decisions are rooted in the legacy of the past,\nlooking forward to providing a legacy for coming generations taking into\naccount the limited choices ahead which are predicated by the current\nsituation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of using the imagestream technique I had a feeling I have been too cavalier with the insights. There is so much theory to learn about governance and I have hardly the first clue; I maybe should have done more homework on the verification side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was floundering. How did it all hang together? Law, policy, how are decisions enacted? And what about sovereignty? In my request I\u2019d asked to get some gaps filled in. Anyway, it probably explains the brusque reception I got when I arrived at the terminus in my Imagestream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou really don\u2019t get it do you?\u201d said the facilitator\nas he came up to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously not but I am open to try and understand least.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go through this one more time.\u201d He said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started explaining that if I had written the notes\nup, I would have realized something. Now I come back and will not be seeing\nanything particularly new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t really get to scold myself for not doing the homework on what Federalism is. It’s probably because I don\u2019t like the EU – a misuse in my opinion of a state running states – that I have recoiled from looking into what a federal approach to governance actually is. And of course I don\u2019t live in the US where everything is \u201cthe Feds\u201d here \u201cFederal Reserve\u201d there. The connection between economics and federal government eludes me and I have ignored it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaking his head almost in disbelief, I hear the\nfacilitator say;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow you have convinced me, you REALLY don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ngo through the glass doors to the private jet waiting on the tarmac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\nare late,\u201d says the pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again\nanother signal that I interpret to mean if I had done my homework I would have\ngot the impetus to come back earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ntake off, I sit in silence \u2013 we both do – I\u2019m not sure if I am sulking or just\nworn out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mustapha greets us on landing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood to see you I; need positive people around me,\u201d I\nsay glancing furtively at the facilitator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mustapha smiles politely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all three pause on the steps of the centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOk I am ready, brief me.\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get another talking to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook: we are putting energy into you and we want\nsomething out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK.OK,\u201d I say: \u201cI will spread the knowledge. Write\narticles, post blogs. I will spread what I have learned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd you really have to understand how Federal works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will look it up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou had better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need to learn more. They both say in different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mustapha explains that they think the best thing for\nme is to go to one of the university classes. The center provides training for\na wide range of functions, including facilitator training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 We walk through\nthe entrance and to the right they guide me into a lecture hall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sit with them both at the back, the lecturer who is just about to start, nods at my hosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I like hearing this stuff,” says Mustapha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the whiteboard, the lecturer draws the number 148.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the Dunbar number and the backbone of all we\ndo here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Fortunately for me I am familiar with the Dunbar number. Anthropologist Dunbar, studying chimp brain sizes and sizes of their communities came up with the idea. There is a maximum number of people -148 – with whom we can maintain stable social relationships. In these an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lecturer explains that you can have 148 countries\nin the commons government, each with maximum 148 counties, each with maximum\n148 municipalities each with maximum 148 voting districts and a voting district\nis maximum 148 voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the representatives can have a good\nunderstanding of whom they represent. And at global level they are only 4\ndegrees, or levels, away from each human on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cYou need to float that NOW! \u201c whispers the\nfacilitator, Mustapha agrees with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBetween two countries \u2013\nissues are bilateral. Between three \u2013 trilateral and between all unilateral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lecturer turns to the\naudience and asks; \u201cWhat things are Global and need to be put into this system\nwe are developing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answers come:<\/p>\n\n\n\n