Often we feel thankful or grateful for something yet we do not take the time to express it. More and more and more I strongly feel that we should. If we feel grateful about things we should express that gratitude.
There is a saying “The meek shall inherit the Earth” which comes from the Beatitudes, one section of the gospels which possibly goes back to the Urquell.
What if this really were the case? Not just idealistically or symbollically, but in real, concrete reality? What do I mean by this? I have this idea…
All the precedent for this already exists and in fact is highly familiar to most of us. What this really is then is just putting of the pieces together:
1. Its not just good, its important to express gratitude. People who create and produce things (be they abstract things like love or positive energy), as well as those who create material things, need to be thanked. If anyone is afraid to actually thank someone for something they are grateful for, possibly out of some misguided fear of imposing on a person or out of shyness or whatever, that is sad. Its also kind of dishonorable actually.
If a person is not willing to thank a person and express gratitude, is it really right for them then to enjoy the benefits of that person’s creations?
2. All the stuff that is available now – look at how much there is. Free movies. Free music. Free books. Free information about… just about everything that exists. There is all this free stuff. People share it. People download it, transfer it, transmit it, etc.
I know a while back some founders of The Pirate Bay were working on some kind of merit system where people can make donations to artists or producers of works that they download.
3. Reputation. Reputation. Reputation. Reputation is that sad, bastard-child, unrecognized by so many yet so, so very essential for everyone to do things we expect to be able to do – such as conduct commerce online – and should be able to do – such as participate and shape our government.
Its important to also have anonymity. Its great to have throw-away accounts for frivolous things that one does not want the hassle of having tied to their main identites. There is no need to invoke the full need for safety, precaution, and protection accorded a main ID for small chitchat-type interactions or transactions.
But for serious matters we need identity and we benefit from it being as strong as possible. (Thank you NSA/US Government for the grandiose fuckover in this department.) Part of identity involves reputation. Its where eBay has classically fucked-up for so very long. eBay is probably the closest thing people are familiar with though with respect to the concept of reputation and how significant it can be.
Credit card companies also have entire departments dedicated to reputation and identity, although the fruits of their activites are hidden from view. People conduct transactions all the time via various methods, and each person or entity has a risk rating which is sort of like a reputation. Various transaction types are also according different levels of risk (e.g. if it is an online transaction, whether a phone number is provided, whether a security PIN is provided, etc.).
But its possible to go orders of magnitude beyond eBay’s serious problems with identity and reputation (which leads to a ridiculous amount of their transactions being essentially fraudulent), and the credit card companies reputation systems are essentially private and limited to their own private use.
4. Putting this all together, what if gratitude were tied to reputation, and how we provide and acquire? What if the meek really were to inherit the Earth? What if when people show gratitude it increases their reputation? What if this were not just a nice idea, but the essential way that, from this point on, enlightened humans chose to conduct their processes of provision and acquisition (of art, materials, services, etc.)?
5. In this system, those who are lame, who fail to show gratitude ever – it shows. It shows by what they lack in their reputation which anyone who considers engaging with them has a right to be aware of. This is how the meek can inherit the Earth. By a new system, based on things we already do, but recognizing them more clearly and amplifying them.
6. This is clearly not something for some greedy people to think they can corner a niche in and capitalize on it. This is an Open Source idea and is about a system that will be fully open, just as the protocols we use for things like http and e-mail transmission are. This is because it will be the system which is part of the core collective information logos for humans.
Discussion:
I imagine everyone having something like “donate” and “give” buttons. Everything we provide or acquire can be tied to the donation system. The donation system links to the Open Source Identity/Reputation system – possibly a distributed Identity/Reputation system similar to way BitCoin is a distributed system.
Some people “get” it – they are people who always feel a need to show gratitude for things, and this system will make sense for them. For such people then, this system becomes the way in which they can provide and acquire things in the world. Because there is an indentity/reputation system which can track how giving people are, people who have better conscience’s, who give more – and further: who simply think about others more and different, creative ways to benefit their communities and the world – obtain higher and higher reputations, making them bulwarks of a new type of society.
People who do not “get” it, who want to take but not give, will be left out because their reputations will never rise to a level where they can fully access the community of those who share. No one needs to block them – its simply that they will not have been able to reach that level and hence enjoy the full benefits of participating in the community (conducting commerce, etc.).
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I thought of this idea recently because I subscribe to this really cool calendar for important astronomical/celestial dates called AstroCal. This calendar allows a person to know the exact time, in their own local time, of dates like major moon phases, solstices and equinoxes, etc. I enjoy the calendar so much that I recently thought that I should thank the creator. In addition to thanking him I decided to submit a small donation to him. I don’t think his site even advertised for a donation yet I thought, how could I not?
Even though my donation was small I thought, if a lot of people gave this, it would amount to a considerable amount of money for a person working on a cool project like this and making it available openly.
Other, similar recent things have been when I sometimes just decide to write someone or a company and thank them for something they do or make. Today I thanked a company that makes the most amazing organic curry powder which I love. I thought: How could I not thank them!? I really enjoy this curry powder every time I use it. The amount of value it adds to my life is substantial among all the things which I interact with in some way every day, to such an extent that it would be wrong not to express some gratitude.
But one thing the “system” that we live under does, in addition to overt things, is it suppresses things like our need to express gratitude. It allows us to not. Under the “system” its ok to not express gratitude or, when there is some encouragement to do so, it is typically for superficial, sythetic reasons tied to strategic marketing or something like that.
The system I want to create would not directly challenge that system. It would simply supercede it. If people don’t want to wake up, if they want to go on replicating the same old broken, destructive paradigms then they can. But for those who are ready, there is another way available. That way integrates things we already feel and know but do not coherently practice because of the disintegrating influences of our needs for “survival” under a broken, oppressive, highly destructive paradigm.
Its up to us to create the paradigm we want and just surpass the old one.
I use the term “collective information logos” (CIL) because I’ve written many times in the past about “personal information logos” (PIL), another topic I feel strongly about. In fact, the two – collective and personal information logos – are very strongly interrelated. Freedom in one vastly influences freedom in the other, and restriction in one vastly influences restriction in the other.
Personal information logos is like the macrocosm in the microcosm, the acting locally part of the big equation. It consists of essential ways to organize, transmit, and archive information at the personal level.
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CARIT: Create. Archive. Reference/Index. Transmit.
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CIL/PIL are not esoteric concepts but practical systems. They are extensions of/organizations of ourselves inasmuch as we are beings which CARIT information.
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What is reputation in the real world? That is the guide for the reputation/identity system. For example, some good person who is honest and fair runs a business. Through the running of their business and the provision of materials, services, or other to a community that person benefits the community. In addition, because that person is fair, they do not gouge the community with pricing, even when the demand would allow it. This would really enhance reputation.
From this basic idea it can already be seen how the system of reputation/identity benefits those who are truly good. In the broken “system” benefit is not tied to goodness, it is tied to activites which make “profit”. The whole point of the new system is to value what profit really is. The system is geared towards the same ideas which are becoming more and more prevalent about values that are added by things like our environment, which formally have been taken for granted thus enabling false methods to take hold.
So, carrying this further, this new system in fact also fits in with new ways of viewing Earth and other intangible things so that they are truly valued. Other intangible things are for example the expressing of gratitude and the benefit that it creates from those who receive it. It is more than just money. There are aspects of our human being which are very real and very crucial for us to live fulfilled lives which are completely overlooked under the dominant, dysfunctional system.
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It may seem complicated how such a system can be implemented, but just remember how simple it really is when good is rewarded and valued as it really should be. From that point of view there really are no technical difficulties. All of this is an extension of how we already are. We already conduct ourselves being aware of such values even if they are not acknowledge or expressed, because they are in inherent part of who we are and who we need to be.
When people are doing things which benefit others it is pretty clear how the community feels about it. It becomes just a matter of seeing to it that such feelings are channeled into reputation/identity system, that they have a way of being registered.
It also may take time for the system to develop and become strong. Its more important to let it start pure and simple and let it develop clearly and naturally than to worry about its implementation and broad application. As long as there are those who are creating benefit and who are valued, then the system will be able to develop and extend out from these people to encompass broader and broader circles.
I was thinking earlier about two example businesses. One is an organic farm. The other is an eco-friendly bed and breakfast. The farmer needs to purchase supplies for the farm. Because this farmer is providing a lot of value to the community and provides organic food to a community at a reasonable price relative to his/her costs, they will have a good reputation. The same can be true for the bed and breakfast. Because both of these people are “good” they can both benefit each other. The bed and breakfast may need good organic food, and the farmer may want to spend a vacation at the bed and breakfast. They are in a perfect situation to benefit from each other, and deserve to benefit each other because of their high values.
This is like the circle of those with high value who benefit each other. What keeps everything going is their gratitude for each other – a totally different paradigm than that of making “profit”. It is more than just a set of values, it is a practical, real-world implementation of gratitude and the way the meek can truly inherit the Earth.
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Now let’s say there is some other person with a business and they are not of the same mindset to benefit their community or to express gratitude. That person will not have reached the same level as the previous two people, hence their ability to conduct commerce with them may be limited or even prevented.
Each person can decide where they want to set their levels, how pure they want to be for the types of transactions they engage in.
Some people will just want to set their level(s) to the highest and leave it at that. Others might be willing to varying extents to interact with lower levels under certain terms. The incentive is always to strive for higher levels where there is more privilege and more benefit, as well as more gratitude.
It is actually possible to embody principles of Buddha’s teaching into this. For example, the concept of non-attachment goes very well with setting a high-level. There may be multiple sources which provide something – a material thing, or something like art – but only some of them will come from sources at the highest levels. Now a person can make a choice – not just based on crude desire, on sense-gratification – they can choose according to what really is of benefit for all beings.
Its easy to do this with the new system by simple choosing the highest levels. Even if there’s something someone might want that is not at the highest levels, they can make a sacrifice for the sake of benefiting others to forgo lower things and endure occasional discomfort or deprivation with the satisfaction of knowing it is for the benefit of other beings.
Hence, this system can actually lead to the cultivation of mudita in society, quite the opposite of the current, destructive system.
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In this system one actually earns credit or reward by choosing to acquire a more expensive thing when that choice is beneficial to others.
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