Volt, the pan-European political party is shaping up their political program. I am a member of Volt and recently voted for the inclusion of the statement below.
I wouldn’t say so.
Seems like it’s just promoting more data-driven policies, and expanding economic growth to include more than just GDP.
And after we finish trasitioning to RBE, politics become incompatible, so we will delete those parties (including those advocating for transition) and replace them with computers.
I have seen the first political statement meant to autodestruct politics of the current system as we know it (gradually reduce the prevalence of current in-the-box policitics until it becomes abandoned). Normally, political statements will enforce the status quo, not advocate for holistic indicators, and promote making decisions based on preserving political power and the free market system.
That’s proposing a transition towards an RBE then, right?
I wouldn’t use those words. I think outgrow is a more correct term. I don’t think we should talk about destroying democracy. We can of course outgrow it by an open-source society, where everyone can contribute their say with the scientific method. Which is a participatory democracy.
TVP failed to get traction in part due to being too picky, they were only happy if it 100% matched their vision and because of that alienated many allies. At least, that’s what I heard from people who left TVP. And I’m not talking about crazy ideas. I also met Jacque Fresco and he presented his TVP there in nl. But before he started to do his talk, he bashed everyone that went before him for not seeing his/the bigger picture. But they all had great ideas about recycling and renewable energy, all pieces of the puzzle. But it had to be Jacque’s way.
I think we should learn from that. I agree that we shouldn’t become too easy, but we shouldn’t be too critical either. Like Volt here, they are proposing something on an EU level. TZM/TVP has never gotten to that point. We should support their journey.
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A RBE will not destroy democracy, but rather, it will make an informed participatory democracy.
Traditional political parties are often associated with opinion, and we would not use them in an RBE in the current free-market form. Rather, we will use experts before inviting the general public to vote, along with consideration notes to ensure that the public is informed about what outcomes will a decision have.
This alternate way of making decisions will result in abandonment of decision-making processes based on free markets and uninformed politics.
In Programming, it is very difficult to make all software completely match the Venus Project’s strict standards, but it should be helpful and respect basic ethical standards.
In Architecture, the building process and final result should also be determined by cultural factors, and not just design everything like Jacques’.
Being picky is not the appropriate way of change.
It is simply wrong to bash everyone before TVP for not seeing the bigger picture (Systemic change is required). Even people before Fresco have seen that the current system is problematic.
For example, G. I. Gurdjieff recognized that destructive behavior is not part of human nature (Allegory of Kundabuffer), and that decisions are often made based on opinions that are not informed enough (Allegory of Man as Machine). Those characteristics can be found in the current system, and change is required.
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No, just giving more weight to studies in this area.
It’s not a transition, just as much as a political party advocating for more social measures is not proposing communism.
Unless they are actually communist.
Weight to more studies with the goal to implement a different policy in the way we conduct economics and decision-making. You really don’t see this as a positive development? People in position of actually making a relevant change speak up and use our language. The great part about Volt is that they also have a chapter structure. So if TZM chapters connect with the local Volt chapter, they may help shape up the direction towards an RBE.
I think it’s great and if we help them to promote this direction we will actually get somewhere. Not sure what other angles we have. Of course we have the chapters promoting this train of thought in their local area. But those are not all that active anymore.
Sure, just as i consider the presence of Pirate Parties and Greens(which are, btw, part of the same group in the European Parliament, Greens/EFA) to be a positive development.
But Volt’s main goal is European federalism, not technocratic rule.
As i said earlier, it’s the error of those Marxists seeing center-left politics grow more popular from time to time, and thinking that means the proletarian revolution is coming next.
Look at this:
Entryism - Wikipedia
The only place where that has worked is in a small far-right party in Portugal.
And given the massive imbalance in members and activity between Volt and TZM, and the fact that a lot of our members are in Europe, you’d just end up uneventfully absorbed by Volt, and end up as members in milquetoast European party politics, and their battles with other, bigger parties.
If that’s something you think we should do, sure thing, but if we take that path, we should do it officially.
I appreciate your view, you seem to be also following these developments, but just evaluates them differently I guess.
There is no reason to make it official. We’re a grassroots movement. Chapters are independent, there is no central control. In TZM NL we have 2 active Volt members. It’s very interesting to have this connection and to see how they overlap with our train of thought. We’re not a political party, but they are and can explore that angle.
I see Volt as the only political party that matches for a transitional path towards an RBE. I’ve put some more examples below, this is from their Electoral Moonshot Programme where members can now vote for to make it official. It really matters who has the political control. We will really notice it. In TZM it’s often minimized, but Brexit and Trump are 2 great examples of how things can go down the drain. We shouldn’t discard the policical arena. Sure, it moves slow and is bureaucratic. But TZM isn’t really effective either and especially in recent years, lacks real Activism.
They hit the right spots regarding: localization, strategic_access, open-source, digital_feedback and automation. In no particular order:
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Then bring it up in the TZM meetings, and if there’s a broad majority, let’s merge into Volt.
Please don’t read this as a negative rant 
I know it’s a sensitive subject (for some). I’ll just summarize my point here briefly. 
Those Discord meetings tend to be very long, unstructured and to me personally it seems like the energy spend in those meetings is lost once the meeting is over. Things that have been discussed are documented superficially in Nextcloud (details are missing), of which the links are only posted in a Discord thread which are out of sight and out of mind once people talk about different subjects. The whole directory structure in Nextcloud is also not visible or indexed by search engines. People cannot interact with it afterwards, unless they know where to look. And since people are not telepathic… 
That way of working doesn’t build up a momentum, there is also no follow up on the talking points most of the time, which is also hard in such a work environment. Also, if you’re not in the meeting right there and then, then you don’t count, which is not an inclusive design. Momentum has to be rebuild every time as well. The same accounts for the chat. All the energy spent in there is lost once it’s out of sight.
I have limited time to spend on TZM and I prefer to spend it in such a way that a momentum can be build up and people can join in whenever they want and can. Which can also be a year from now in this thread. And not all chapters are in that Discord, which also seems to create a false understanding of the movement’s activities. It’s of course hard to get everyone onboard on a single platform. Therefore federation is important, by using open standards and open source software. That’s the attempt of this forum, with an automated central view of a decentralized movement in Reports and the chapters map. There is more, as documented in the quick start.
This thread for example can be found in search engines, exposing our reach and effect (it’s also automatically spread on socials). This is not the case with Discord. It’s a black hole and once people stop spending energy on it, it will be lost in time. Which is a terrible waste and method of working in my opinion.
Anyway, I already tried to make this point a few years ago in Discord and people didn’t agree. Which is fine of course, people should enjoy the method they work with. I’m just underscoring why I won’t participate in those methods.
So if people want to build up this momentum with Volt, then chapters can do so independently by meeting with their local Volt chapter. A merge is not necessary, we can just work together on the things we agree on. This thread already contains all the points of making such a move. So spending time and energy on that again is just not efficient. If people have questions or feedback, then it’s best to keep that discussion here. If we fragment that over a chat or voice meeting that’s out of sight and out of mind in no time and that’s not great either for consistency and focusing the energy and attention.
Anyway, I hope you understand this point of view. Again, this is not an attack. Just my evaluation of how Discord is used in TZM and how I think we could do better. But I’m afraid it will be seen as some kind of personal attack (as it has been in the past), so I’ll apologize in advance if that’s the case
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Why not make a thread on this forum explicitly presenting an official plan on behalf of TZM Netherlands, as a way for TZM to hitch onto Volt’s activity, and continue it’s activism?
That plan has already set in motion, but it’s nothing more than monitor our emails (since we’re Volt members) and attend the local meetings when our schedule allows it. The meetings from Volt are pretty local. Our goal will be to tune in on their goals and see if we can poke in some more systemic thinking. But I guess we will learn more from them at this point 
Volt activity is high at the moment because we will have elections soon in nl. But for sure we will share our progress and experience in Reports as soon as we have some developments to share 