Introducing Jan Huston, a theorist of revolutions from University of Hawaii

panoramix

Jan Huston is a unique futures scientist, whom I already notified by email about our Feathercoin efforts. Here, I would like to introduce two of his exceptional works:

One can note that the titles of both papers end with a question mark. This is not a coincidence. Jan Huston does not offer answers. He offers a terminological framework and stimulation for thinking. It is up to us to provide answers with real actions.

In the first paper from 1992, he explores five major classes of complex systems: Astrophysical, biological, psychoneurobiological, sociopolitical and technological. It is well known that evolution of complex systems often proceeds as a sequence of punctuated equilibria: Quasi-stable states that transit to other quasi-stable states by sudden events, termed catastrophes. Therefore puncutated equilibria â€" quasi-stable states interrupted by catastrophes.

Here, the word “catastrophe” is understood not in the sense of “something bad”, but rather as “something sudden”, a sudden large change in system behavior. In the psychoneurobiological system, a “catastrophe” can be negative (going mad), but also positive (spiritual awakening). Same can be said about sociopolitical catastrophes, popularly known as political revolutions. Like psychoneurobiological changes, also polotical revolutions can have nature of either madness, or that of spiritual awakening. Without attempting to fully exegete or paraphrase Huston’s first memorable paper, enough said that Huston is a theorist of systems “revolutions” in the general sense.

In his second paper, Huston is much more concrete. He attempts to capture the existing global sociopolitical system in an evolving system metaphor. He describes 5 evolutionary stages (historical and present) of our sociopolitical system:

Emergence â€" Oral horizontal governance
Development â€" Written hierarchical governance
Maturity â€" Printed legal governance
Destabilization â€" Electronic relative governance

It is not hard to guess that nowadays, we are in the stage 4. Huston then introduces the metaphor of

Criticality â€" The Vulture Culture

and

Supercriticality â€" The Virtual Culture

Instead of rewording, I will quote:

"The core sociopolitical dilemma in the era of online networks appears to be whether the existing vulture

culture or an emerging virtual culture will dominate. Online communication and information network flows

go in all directions simultaneously. These flows create virtual organizations with a distributed collective

intelligence that threatens to undermine the rationale for the limit the openness in today’s political prioritizing
processes. Consequently, an epic struggle is underway that will add incredible complexity to our system

and likely push it into supercriticality. The organizing principle for this era remains to be seen, but the

struggle itself places our collective future up for grabs in a way never before experienced."

I can recommend this second Huston’s paper for reading to everyone in Feathercoin community. Everyone must
find his or her own understanding of the paper, which is to be read multiple times. To me, the paper paper is
basically an attempt for a blueprint of how to choose a future with as many as possible options still open to
humanity â€" something that Huston termed maximizing evolvability already in his first paper.

Let me now skip to page 42 of the second paper, chapter “Actions”. The text of the paper here is pure gold, pure
value, there are no less valuable passages to be omitted. But if I should emphasize something, it would be the final
part of the chapter, the summary of needed actions:

Operationally, a para-organization must reflect action research aimed at practical and concrete alternatives, solutions,

and actions. Initially, it must act as a non-threatening but viable comparative or alternative to republican systems.

Then, if empirically demonstrated to be more capable of directing our evolution and maximizing our evolvability, it

should seek to become a genuine competitor. In a rough sequence, the challenges associated with a para-organizational

effort include

Capturing sufficient talent, resources, and information to initiate a transformative culture aimed at consciously, systematically, and collectively directing our evolution toward a higher-level system.
Develop an intuitively desirable, open alternative parallel political prioritizing process that provides personal and collective ownership in a higher-level system and its audacious goals.
Attractively present a parallel prioritizing process, its activities, and its goals to the public at large to begin building trust in a para-organization and the integrity of its efforts.
Develop systematic error management with a defensive early warning system for policies and decisions that generate abnormal or unexpected responses.
Empirically demonstrate the viability, practicality, and reliability of a parallel political prioritizing process as a more open and genuinely democratic approach to regulating behavior.
Develop a para-organization into an alternative futures “think-tank” that experiments with many novel high leverage actions and innovations to evolve toward a higher-level system better and faster.
Expect it will take time and patience to develop trust and a successful track record as an alternative parallel political prioritizing process and to quell the voices of naysayers.
Find ways for politicians, government officials, and special interests to feel obligated to participate in a parallel political process.
Empirically demonstrate that a distributed collective mind in a parallel political prioritizing process produces policies and decisions that are both qualitatively superior to those of republican systems and benefit all people without any loss of existing liberties or freedoms.

I took the liberty to emphasize the items 4. and 8. in Huston’s checklist, to make everyone here understand why we need to manage the abnormal process of creation of unlimited numbers of blockchains, and why we should get the cops involved.

To conclude, I would say that to everyone in our community, it should be already clear and empirically demonstrated that alternatives to the extant republican systems are possible. So this is one more incentive for you to actually read the damn Huston’s paper.

mirrax

great post