Glossary of Essential Terms for Civilization Engineering
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Administration of Physical Force: applying or threatening to apply physical force (violence) to a person who has coerced; a retaliatory action only; distinct from Coercion which is the initiation of physical force or fraud.
American Revolution: the idea that the individual is Sovereign and does not need to be governed (controlled/compelled/ruled) but rather protected-only from Coercion by an agency known as Government. This idea can be read into the Declaration of Independence (1776) but is not the only possible reading of that document and is contradicted by the institutionalized slavery initially built into the US Constitution and the compulsion still obtaining under the Constitution. The Sovereignty of the Individual idea is in contradistinction to the Judeo-Christian concept that the individual does need to be governed in order to have a civilization that works. The American Revolution Party will bring about the completion of the American Revolution and build a civilization based on the Sovereignty of the Individual.
Ancien Regime: the parasitic class in France at the time of the French Revolution (1789–1799), living strictly off the plunder extracted from the rest of society. It was comprised of Clergy and Aristocrats which together represented about 2% of the population and owned 50% of the land. Individuals of this class suffered deeply from the Thomas Jefferson Syndrome and could only be removed by death. The modern version of this class is embodied in the politicians, bureaucrats, university professors, teachers, firemen, policemen, welfare recipients, subsidized farmers, subsidized bankers, government contractors, protected industries, protected unions, subsidized Non-Government Organizations, Social Security recipients and many others. All of these groups are presently living on plunder, suffer from the Thomas Jefferson Syndrome and will not readily give up their parasitic position. It is going to get very ugly. Be prepared.
Axiom: a statement of truth that defeats any attempt to show it is not so by implicitly and necessarily assuming the truth of the axiom in the attempt; stronger than a Postulate and hence the ultimate goal of Philosophy. No axiom has yet been announced in any of the three Domains of Knowledge.
Bounded System: a system that possesses all elements of its Glue in "proper working order" and hence capable of performing all its characteristic functions. A system becomes unbounded, and will not perform at least one of its characteristic functions, when just even one of its Glue components is missing.
Civilization Engineering: the application of the postulates of Intentional Science on a societal (civilization) level.
Civilization: the Emergent Property of the correct juxtaposition of Community and Government which remains stable and durable when Freedom and Justice obtain.
Clearinghouse: an agency that records and protects ideas as property (primary property by Galambos’ system of classification); an idea and wisdom factory; a profit-seeking agency that passes knowledge to the next generation and hence replaces the functions currently performed in part by tax-supported universities; a Glue component of a stable, durableCivilization; the brainchild of Andrew Galambos with substantial modifications by Dennis Riness.
Commons: that part of a physical/geographical community shared and owned by all residents of the community.
Community: any two or more individuals interacting; a Game; one of the Glue components of a stable, durable Civilization; almost all communities need to be Triangulated.
Corporate Bodies: fictional, legal entities treated, for legal and/or communication purposes, as if it were single individual; use with caution as Corporate Bodies are not sovereign, intentional individuals even though in many contexts they are treated as such to the confusion of all; all Corporate Bodies are Communities.
Deus ex Machina: originally a piece of stagecraft used by the Greeks to represent the supernatural, particularly as an active agent in human affairs; the mistaken concept that there is some agency beyond the Double Zero Line Diagram that will assist humans in building a civilization.
Domains of Knowledge: there are three, main Domains of Knowledge or science. They are the Physical Sciences; the Biological Sciences and the Intentional Sciences.
Double Zero Line Diagram: a mnemonic developed by Smith to remind us to keep our focus on what is real in our systems-building and not drag in things which are hypothesized to exist outside of human interactions between each other and/or the physical universe; the symbol to remind us that all human interactions can be reduced to either a one-on-one interaction or a one-on-the-universe. See Deus ex Machina as an example of creating something in our thinking that purports to exist outside of the Double Zero Line Diagram.
Emergent Property: the property of a system that is not predictable by an examination of its Glue components in isolation; what Buckminster Fuller called Synergetics; the nemesis of all reductionists since Emergent Properties are not logically predictable from an examination of the Glue components in isolation.
Ergonomics of the Mind®: the body of thought describing the learning process and how to facilitate it. It reduces to three principles that must be present for learning to occur: the subject must be Bounded, Grounded and taken to Fluency. See The Study Cycle for a full exposition on this website.
Externalities: unintentional interferences caused by humans living in close proximity; to the recipient they may feel like Coercion but they lack the intent to coerce by the perpetrator; the domain of concern for a Community manager when the manager is doing his job properly i.e. creating the ambience of the Community and reducing Externalities to a minimum.
Federalism: the practice of agreeing to some restrictions on one’s freedoms/options in any Community setting; a partial surrendering of one’s options to mitigate Externalities, without surrendering one’s Sovereignty; historically the concept has been misapplied to Corporate Bodies trading off which body (state or federal) will govern (control) the citizen. Traditionally the concept of Federalism is based on The Worst Idea in History.
Freedom: the societal condition when all interactions are voluntary; one of the Glue components of a stable, durable Civilization; a product brought into existence through entrepreneurial action and thus unnatural and not found in Nature; indestructible once locked in.
Game: a Community; any activity between two or more individuals involving a goal, barriers and freedoms; a highly integrative concept bringing together every component and dynamic of human interaction and thus one of L. Ron Hubbard’s massive contributions to enlightened thought; a Game is generally in need of Triangulation with a Government for the protection of all concerned.
Glue: the essential components of a system and their proper juxtaposition. The test of a Glue component is that its removal from the system causes the system to lose at least one of its defining characteristics and/or functions. See also Bounded System.
Government: an agency that provides protective services including but not limited to the Administration of Physical Force when done on a voluntary, subscriptive, fee-for-service basis; a Government does not govern (compel/coerce/rule) its customers, only protects them; one of the Glue components of a stable, durable Civilization; most efficiently and effectively deployed using a novel application of the insurance mechanism, the brainchild of Smith; a profit-seeking enterprise whose products are Freedom and Justice.
Intention: a defining characteristic of living matter which is not found in inanimate matter; a primordial phenomenon that is the final source of all human action; most importantly Intention is the phenomenon that lies at the base of the ability to overcome the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) which is what all living systems do. Unresolved is the question of whether Intention is a phenomenon independent of matter (Idealism) or an Emergent Property of matter (Reductionism).
Intentional Science, First Postulate: all men/women live to Pursue Happiness; this always manifests as an attempt to move upward on one’s Value Hierarchy. Simplified one could better say: all men/women live to move up on their Value Hierarchy with every Intentional Act they perform.
Intentional Science, Second Postulate: all men/women live to pursue Justice.
Intentional Science, Third Postulate: Voluntary Interaction is unstoppable.
Intentional Science: the Domain of Knowledge concerned with human action and interaction based on those properties of human nature that are reducible to the sole phenomenon of Intention. All of Civilization Engineering is based on the Intentional Sciences.
Invisible Hand: the idea developed by Adam Smith that when people are allowed to pursue their own interests in the open marketplace, things just get better all around for everyone, as if an invisible hand were working to guide every member of the marketplace to a synergetic whole not envisioned by any of the participants. What Adam Smith was on to is the phenomenon that Voluntary Interaction not only satisfies the two people engaged in the interaction (a plus-plus transaction), but that it creates an Emergent Property or, in this case, a benevolent condition in the economy as a whole that no one anticipated. A deeper look at this phenomenon takes one into the spiritual side of Money. This will be dealt with at a later date. In the meanwhile, read Ayn Rand’s thoughts on the deeper meaning of money in the speech by Francisco d’Anconia in her novel Atlas Shrugged.
The Back of the Invisible Hand is this same process in reverse— everything goes to hell under a system based on Coercion. A message from the dawn of creation (God if you like) for us to get to symbiosis in all things— i.e. Freedom.
Justice: the condition when the rules are the same for all players of a Game; a value held very high in everyone’s Value Hierarchy; one of the Glue components of a stable, durable civilization, encompassed in the Second Postulate of Intentional Science, thus recognizing the existence of a natural phenomenon or primordial force in Nature which strives to achieve this condition of equality at all times; the desire for Justice is natural and occurs automatically in Nature, the fulfillment of Justice is done through entrepreneurial action; the temporary absence of Justice in any given Game/Community creates a dynamic between old Game and new Game that eventually plays out to either a new Game being established or the old Game being reestablished, with the rules the same for all players in either case; shades of Hegel, possibly what he was looking at when he formulated his philosophy.
Social Justice misconstrues Justice to mean the outcome of the game is the same for all players. This not the same as saying the rules are the same for all players.
Measured Exchange©: an application of the First Postulate of Intentional Science in the workplace. Employees working on Measured Exchange get paid according to production, not the time spent on the job. See Articles page for expanded discussion.
Money: the third mode of exchange in the Riness System of Classification of Exchange modes; electronic exchange with no commodity backing— such as gold— of the monetary unit, thus a technical, highly evolved and specialized form of Community when done correctly; a Glue component of a stable, durable civilization.
Money-Neutral Economy: an economy that has a proper monetary system in place that renders all price changes an accurate indication of a change in supply and demand as opposed to price changes brought on by a manipulation of the money supply.
Philosophy: the attempt to find the Glue of everything; those principles, Postulates and Axioms which extend over all three Domains of Knowledge; philosophy may always remain an unbounded subject— the ultimate Glue of everything not being found— thus remaining the arena wherein the big questions are asked and once answered a particular subject moves out of philosophy and becomes a stand-alone subject/science.
Postulate: a statement of truth that is always found to be true experientially, but is of such a character that the possibility persists that an exception may one day turn up and thus invalidate the postulate; not as strong a statement of truth as an Axiom.
Pursuit of Happiness: the primordial thrust toward one’s idea of a better condition, manifesting as the pursuit of one’s subjective values, the higher in one’s Value Hierarchy the better.
Self-Governing: a contradiction-in-terms when governing is understood to mean control or compulsion and not protection of the individual; a derivative of The Worst Idea in History.
Smith: an alias assigned to protect the privacy of a genius who has made great contributions to Civilization Engineering but wishes to remain a recluse.
Sovereignty of the Individual: the condition wherein every individual is in control of his/her life and all aspects of it, and not subject to unwanted external control or compulsion by others.
Sovereignty: the final say in human affairs; when the sovereign says "No" it stays “No.” Anyone can propose an interaction with any one else but if the party proposed to says “No” and it stays “No” then the party possesses Sovereignty.
The Golden Rule: the Golden Rule is correct in principle but grossly understates the brutality and intransigence of the phenomenon of Justice and should be reworded to read: Do carefully unto others because they will— eventually— do likewise unto you.
The One Commandment: Stop Coercing!; this commandment replaces all prior morality systems and is the only moral precept one needs to build a civilization that will not self-destruct; run, do not walk, from anyone who advocates coercion as you would from a medical doctor who does not wash his hands.
The Worst Idea In History: the idea that a stable, durable Civilization can be built only by institutionalizing Coercion (governing/compelling/ruling people); the core premise of the Judeo-Christian world view and Communism in all their guises.
Theorem: a stable, durable Civilization can be built only upon the Sovereignty of the Individual; the proper connection between the condition of the individual and the condition of the Civilization, showing that they survive or fall together.
Thomas Jefferson Syndrome: the vulnerability of even the finest, most well-intended and otherwise respectable people to rationalize and maintain the gain in their affairs at the expense of others when the gain is based on Coercion; the acceptance of plunder as one’s right; an insidious condition that eventually destroys its possessor.
Triangulation: the Civilization Engineering practice of juxtapositioning a Community (game maker), a Government (game keeper) and a player such that all are protected from Coercion and Justiceprevails; the separation of the Community (game maker) and Government (game keeper) functions.
Value Hierarchy: the hierarchical arrangement of one’s internal, subjective values with the highest value at the top progressing downward to the lowest; the framework for understanding the First Postulate of Intentional Science.
Voluntary Interaction: an interaction when both parties to the interaction experience an upward move in their respective Value Hierarchies; a plus-plus transaction; symbiosis; opposed to Coercion.