The “Teflon” Argument: Open-Source Government Can Launch a New Scientific Age by Facilitating International Cooperation on Open-Source Science Projects
The potential uses for open-source collaborations are limited only by human creativity and ingenuity.
In other words, Open-Source Intelligence is open-ended! No one can possibly predict the upward limits of benefits that can come from it. Clearly governance is just one use for collaborative networks of Applied, Collaborative Open-Source Human Intelligence.
Open-source governance should be thought of as the key to opening the door to all of the other open-source possibilities: medical research, education, basic science, and solving other technological problems: advancing science by sharing every new piece of the puzzle with other researchers. It could lead to major discoveries.
The Best Argument for Open-Source Government:
A vote for open-source governance is a vote for international collaboration in specific science projects: like cures for cancer and making solar energy cheap and efficient. The discoveries that can come from these kinds of research projects could be astounding. It's truly the next frontier in science. No one knows how far it can take us. Open-source governance will open the door to these possilbities. And that's the best possible argument that can be made for open-source government.
Perhaps the best way to express it is in the following slogans:
Cure cancer! Vote for open-source governance!
Transcend the solar energy barrier! Vote for open-source governance!
Cure Alzheimer's! Vote for open-source governance!
In other words, if open-source governance is promoted as the vanguard for the promotion of all sorts of Open-Source Intelligence—–and all the unforeseeable and potentially miraculous discoveries that can come from that—–then it changes the whole pitch. Advocates for open-source governance are no longer angry rebels trying to bring down established institutions, but visionaries trying to clear the way for the next phase of scientific advancement, which in turn could de-escalate many of the conflicts that lead nations to fight other nations, commonly known as high-stakes distributional issues, energy needs being chief among them. From this perspective, opponents of open-source governance will look like dinosaurs who are woefully behind the times and ignorantly blocking scientific advancement.
Clear the way for world peace! Vote for open-source governance!
Hyperbole? Anyone who thinks so, doesn't understand that the possibilities we see on the horizon for Open-Source Science are like the first steps of a child. And those possibilities are amazing enough to approach the realms of what many scientists would consider virtually miraculous. Possibly even a cure for cancer. Who knows what lies beyond the possibilities we can actually envision? We'll never know unless we go! And it's past time to take the first step.
Perhaps the best way to get people on the open-source governance bandwagon is to pitch all the other possibilities inherent in applied open-source intelligence. Tell them to support open-source governance if they want to open the door to those other possibilities.
Then it would be a simple matter of making a list of the potential technological breakthroughs that can come from such collaboration. Each possibility then becomes an argument for open-source government. A campaign promise, if you will. And they are the safest kind of campaign promises one could make—–much safer than the average campaign promise politicians make. And perhaps the best slogan of all:
A vote against open-source governance is a vote against the future of humanity!
And it may actually be true. Demand for oil is starting to exceed production capacities. If we don't solve that technological problem we face a bleak future: dark cities, wars over oil, skyrocketing prices for everything, and who knows what else? A new scientific age may be our only hope.
Even the Victorians at the dawning of the 20th century had dreams for science that bordered on the miraculous. Their dreams even exceeded ours in many ways. Promoting the scientific possibilities of open-source intelligence would be a way to encourage people to dare to dream again. When was the last time you recall the average citizen dreaming of a brighter future? Not in this decade, certainly. And that's a pity.
This would be an awfully hard campaign for politicians to argue against. Talk about a teflon argument!
Phi Beta Iota: This is more or less what we have been saying since 1988. Our newest contributing editor is still in rational mode, not yet integrating that these arguments are known full well, and rejected precisely because they would reduce government size by 50% while eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. Eradicating corruption is the hard part.
See Also:
David Isenberg: UNESCO Global Open Access Portal
